AgentMantis

@Max_the_German Sadly they only need one hit and they get to print money. It seems like Sony is determined to take as many bites of the apple as it takes to to find that one title that breaks through. Helldivers 2 managed to leverage itself a player base, despite a saturated market, but it's monetisation is terrible. Sadly I think it will only embolden Sony to keep chasing the live service unicorn.

Over the years it's become clear that most of SE's issues stem from their terrible upper management.

The continued run of underwhelming premium warbonds and the nerf heavy approach to balancing will kill the game long-term. It's become less fun with each poorly implemented patch.

It came out and the general feeling is it's trash. Arrowhead have nerfed pretty much every weapon into a bland samey porridge.

The whole discourse around this game is wearisome and once again it's always the minority shouting the loudest on either side

Loved the art style and story was good, though they certainly could have made more of the setting and secondary characters. The gameplay was very mid though, it relies way too much on hitting tight parry windows and doesn't really diversify beyond that for the entire game.

"A good human being" who's entire business strategy revolved around taking Saudi blood money.

@Frmknst It's reasonably priced and great fun.

10 player co-op challenge, is that the entire player base then?

Failing or succeeding in a MO ultimately doesn't matter, a good DM is prepared for both eventualities and adjusts. Two MOs later and we are trying our hand at liberating the bots homeworld again. The failure lost some medals, not exactly something that's hard to come by. I think most of the issue is the Creekers being adopted into lore while the arm chair generals who take to social media desperate to dictate how people play were made to look like idiots for taking things far too seriously.

I'm looking forward to more AAAA games that I don't actually own.

The game is so old it will need to be remade along the same lines as FFVII only with next to none of the budget or talent.

Helldivers 2 and Dragons Dogma 2

GP/PS+ devalued indie games to the point where most people simply won't pay out for them anymore. Look at all the studios that tried launching outside of subscription services and fell on their ass after "disappointing" day 1 sales. Everyone knew ahead of time this would be the case and everyone knew the gravy train wasn't going to last.

Helldivers 2 and Dragons Dogma 2

@Shigurui Genshin can only really kill Genshin. If it suddenly started phoning it in players would look for something else but it consistently drops great updates and has nearly completely avoided the power creep that kills so many gachas.

Going multi-platform won't magically solve the issue of games costing too much to make. Xbox isn't some untapped land of riches, its a smaller install base with gamers who typically aren't into Sony's narrative focused SP games, on top of that many don't step outside of Gamepass.

I honestly can't see this being anything other than a car crash and the final nail in Bioware's coffin.

Finished Like a Dragon: Ishin last night so I'm not sure. Was thinking blasting through Outer Wilds before it disappears but I've read it's really bad for people who suffer motion sickness.

With AAA game costing so much we're going to lose the quirky non-mainstream games. No one will be able to afford to to take a risk on anything other than the broadest appealing, mass market game. It'll be a bland conveyor belt of incremental variations of whatever genre is currently popular.

I'll have a go on NFS as it's been a while since I played one. I enjoyed the opening of Tales of Arise and finished the game absolutely hating it, I've never quite soured on a game like that before.

The beta was a complete dud, not even playing with my friends could make it fun. It's so bare bones I felt I'd seen everything the game had within a few hours aside from grinding for marginally better gear. It's actually impressive how Unisoft managed to mess up a game about pirates.

I remember being told Gamepass would kill Sony at the start of this gen and yet here we are

Embracer have been the worst thing to happen to gaming since Duke Nukem Forever

I played an hour of the beta and already a checklist of issues.

@Jay767 Yeah but I won't pay out for a live service game. Too many just to see it flop and close the servers within a year.

Where's the "I'll wait until it hits PS+" option!?

Atlus gonna Atlus

Genshin 4.4, maybe some MP this evening if everyone can agree on what to play

It's arguably the best Xbox exclusive. With MS publically stating they have no confidence in future sales figures of the x/s it'll be interesting to see how their first 3rd party launch goes down.

Too much on my plate as it is, I'll pick it up cheap towards the end of the year

I hope ubisoft is getting used to people not owning this.

If it was f2p I'd have a look, no one in there right mind should be paying for a live service game considering how many sink without a trace on launch and have the servers yanked in less than a year.

@Northern_munkey it's a budget bioshock. If you can look past some of the rougher edges it's worth a shot.

Way more to this than PS has reported.

I agree with limiting the insidious nature of f2p and gatcha mechanics but in Genshin's defence its one of the least predatory out there. Pretty much all content is clearable with free characters, it relies more on FOMO and waifu baiting than powercreep or pay to win mechanics.

Stripped out the sequel and went hard on live service, it's like they wanted fail.

He got out before they suggested remastering Andromeda.

Genshin, a game famously packed with waifus, most popular search is...a slime. Takes all sorts I suppose.

Stop giving this goon oxygen. He's an irrelevance in modern gaming.

Although she makes some good points, she also signed a contract to work for one of the most notoriously toxic, greedy and creatively bankrupt companies in gaming.

Starting Midnight suns. I picked up the ultimate edition in the black Friday sale on a whim.

What a goon, like he's the only person to have ever had terrible ink scrawled over their face!

As always, CEO's and shareholders win. Considering the broken state of PAYDAY 3 on launch I'm not sure reducing staff is healthy long term strategy.

Inquisition was good but it landed just as the Witcher 3 had shifted the genre forward in leaps and bounds. The lead designer himself talked about how dated it felt on release. BG3 has just done the same again.

@CJD87 gaming hasn't been niche for a long time, it makes more money than film and music combined. COD and EAFC are the nadir for the worst, most predatory business practices in the industry. A yearly recycling of content, packed to the gills with microtransactions and fine tuned to hit wallet opening dopamine responses. As for big sales, where does the money go? Is EA and Acti sharing the fortune around and funding smaller, more interesting games? No. It benefits shareholder dividends and re-enforces their belief that gamers are nothing more than wallets who'll buy any old tripe so what's the point of making something new.

With all the studios and IP they'd acquired they'd yet to release anything essential. Was there any long term vision other than buy more studios? Wouldn't surprise me if the whole thing turns out to be some elaborate money laundering or Ponzi scheme.

Final push on Sea of Stars

Even if this wasn't a pathetic attempt to play victim I wouldn't have much sympathy for the guy who suggested introducing a $1 per reload microtransaction into battlefield.

Finishing off Lost Judgement and maybe starting Sea of Stars