Ainu20

It was another excellent year for indie games, so there were always going to be some great games that had to lose out. For me personally, Silksong is my overall game of the year so I obviously agree with its placement.

It's not without its frustrations, but despite those it's a fantastic game that has some of the best movement and combat in the genre, sublime world design, incredible enemy variety, an absurd amount of secrets to discover and all time great boss design. More than worth the long wait.

@SeaDaVie Yes, but Larian is still a privately owned company and Tencent are just minority stake holders. As long as Vincke has majority ownership, he answers to no one.

@Jey887 Absolutely. And especially us gamers, as a community, seem incapable of or unwilling to give people the benefit of doubt, even those who have clearly earned it. We're talking about someone who has built up his own studio through decades of hard work, retains full indepedence and creative control and has delivered one of the most celebrated games of all time just two years ago. Yet he says one thing the community disagrees with and he's being burnt to the ground, and his entire studio with it. Our community has the emotional maturity of a toddler.

I don't agree with his take, but he has absolutely earned the right to be heard properly and to be given the benefit of doubt.

@Darylb88 It's no less of a role playing game than the games I already mentioned, the likes of FFX or Lost Odyssey, or more action oriented JRPGs like the Ys and Tales series for that matter. In the strictest sense of the term, very few JRPGs have actual role playing. It's not just the turn-based combat that makes it so similar to JRPGs, but the world building, party structure, heavy narrative focus and generally linear structure before opening up at the end.

It is technically not a JRPG, but for all intents and purposes it might as well be one. There's a much greater chance this game appeals to fans of JRPGs than to fans of Baldur's Gate or Pillars of Eternity.

A football game envisioned by the man that invented a peace trophy for the orange-in-chief, developed by an untested studio and made available on a streaming service by the company that doesn't see much value in the gaming industry. This is what dreams are made of.

@Darylb88

I find it hilarious when I see people call it a JRPG because it has turn-based action combat lol.

It might not be a JRPG by definition, but in everything but its country of origin it's essentially a textbook JRPG. It was clearly made to appeal to a very similar audience as games like, say, Lost Odyssey and Final Fantasy X.

@Drago201 Sure, that's a difference, but not a relevant one in this case. The actual cost of the project and the team size are far more relevant.

@Drago201 You're mistaking wealth for budget. Unless you mean to argue Team Cherry somehow allocated and spent $100M while making it, that was not its budget. The actual costs of development will have been higher than Hollow Knight, but not several orders of magnitude greater.

At the end of the day, the game is still 2D hand drawn by the same artist as the original, has a soundtrack made by the same composer and was developed by the same people using the experience and tools of the first game.

There's no clear-cut definition, which makes it such a difficult discussion. Instinctively, my feeling is that Clair Obscur is clearly a double A game and should never have been eligible in the indie categories. But it's hard to qualify that opinion.

Should a game be self-published to be considered indie? Technically, yes, but that would rule out games like Outer Wilds, What Remains of Edith Finch, Cult of the Lamb, Dredge and so many more. These all embody the indie spirit but would not qualify on this condition, which feels wrong. So I would change this condition to either self-published or published by a small, typical indie publisher. On that basis, it doesn't rule out Clair Obscur.

Should a game's budget and team size be limited to be considered indie? I think we can all agree the answer is a resounding yes here, or we'd have games like Baldur's Gate 3 and Cyberpunk qualifying as indie. But in that case, how limited? This is where it gets muddled again. In my opinion, having a team of around 30 full time studio employees and a budget closer to $10M than $5M is just too much. Then again, Disco Elysium reportedly had around 35 working on it full time, and Hades 2 around 25.

Which brings me to the vaguest condition of all: the aesthetic and vibe of the game. I personally like to use this "rule" to separate edge cases. Disco Elysium and Hades 2 look and feel like indie games. Clair Obscur does not. Good luck using that as an argument in a discussion though.

@Fizza I don't see those two (Sandfall Interactive reacting to AI assets and Swen Vincke's stance) as different at all. Sandfall's reaction tells me they'll be careful about not letting AI assets slip into the final product, but not necessarily that they won't use them in pre-production again. Swen Vincke's stance is exactly that: they will use it in pre-production but definitely not in the final product.

Of course, he's reacting very defensively because they're getting a hell of a backlash, something Sandfall Interactive haven't experienced. Yet. Considering they're the current gaming community darling, I'm expecting them to get their turn as well at some point in the next few years. That's what we as gamers seemingly love to do.

Hell yes. Even after putting 75+ hours into the game, I'm ready for more.

As someone who plays all these games with original Japanese voices, it's a bit strange to see and hear it being acted in English. Just doesn't feel right for these games. Anyway, if it's anything like RGG, I'm definitely interested.

A proper full remake of the original is something I could see myself being interested in. I haven't touched the original since about the late 90s or early 2000s so it would be the ideal way of revisiting it.

It looks a little underwhelming compared to his previous projects, but since it's Jonathan Blow, I'm expecting it to be more than it first appears. It will be hard to top The Witness though.

Bruce Straley has earned a lot of trust from me for his work at Naughty Dog, so I'm looking forward to seeing what he's been working on. I can't say I'm a fan of such statements like "unlike any you've played before", though.

@Max_the_German Saros already has a confirmed release date on 20 March 2026.

@SegaBlueSky I've seen this "gotcha" about Expedition 33 before, but saying that it was made by a team of around 30 people is no less accurate than saying, for example, The Witcher 3 was made by a team of around 250 people. The size of the core development team has always been the main way to report on development team size, even though in that same example of The Witcher 3, over 1500 people worked on that game.

I find it bizarre that Expedition 33 attracts such discourse, when it was never a talking point before, not even for indies like Hollow Knight, which is generally said to be made by three people despite having a credits list of over 100 contributors.

I really have no idea what that point about Expedition 33's team size is supposed to highlight. All those external studios and their staff are mentioned in the credits of the game, so I don't see the issue here. Do you need to have all of them mentioned at the awards show or something? That's not an expectation we've ever placed on other games, so why now?

This comes across as looking for problems where there are none.

Like so many others, I only got into these games with Yakuza 0, and I was even a couple of years late with that. Since then, I've played a whopping 12 further games in the series, including spin-offs like the Judgement games and Ishin. Once these games get their hooks in you, there's no way out.

Those two statements back to back is pretty wild. Not a great look for them.

@brakeman90 I wouldn't class Saros as a new title. Name aside, it's basically a sequel. Still awesome though.

This doesn't give me much of a Carmageddon vibe, to be honest.

Without getting into the whole AI topic, let's just wait and see how the market evolves and whether these price hikes have a permanent effect. For the PC consumer market, it certainly isn't looking great right now, but Sony isn't just a consumer and should hopefully have some strategic and historic partnerships to fall back on. And full production on the next console is still pretty far away.

This looks nothing like the typical Studio Ghibli AI stuff I've seen so far. Not saying this doesn't look derivative in any way, but that particular accusation just comes across as lazy. Which is pretty ironic, given the nature of the accusation.

Well this comment section is going about as well as you'd expect. That aside, it's a shame that EA still holds the rights to some of the greatest IPs in video gaming. You could argue they didn't need any help either ruining those franchises or letting them rot, but whatever hope was left is surely gone now.

Who would want any of these as their PSN avatar? They're so incredibly generic and low quality. I'm not going to lose any sleep over it though, as long as they're not using them where it matters.

@Max_the_German The guidelines are mentioned right before the lists start and they even hyperlinked to GTA 6's win in 2023.

Small mistake, Hornet is obviously not a new character but she is listed as one.

For those asking about GTA 6, it is actually mentioned on the page that if a game has already won this before, it is not eligible again (which I think is great). It specifically mentions GTA 6. Anyway, Saros is a worthy pick here.

@Vermines Excellent choice, Returnal is still the best PS5 exclusive for me. Excellent choice of profile pic as well!

I'm not completely decided but I'm definitely leaning more towards a no than a yes. Ideally, we should get reviews one or more days before a game releases, to make sure that everyone can make the most informed decision possible on release day. Shadow drops are a possible strategy to circumvent this.

The cynic in me says that's more or less what Bethesda did with the Oblivion remake, to get the most out of the shadow drop hype before everything settled down and people started noticing the flaws.

Or alternatively, dear Ubisoft, if you want to see what incredible stuff you can make without AI, look no further than your own ex-employee Guillaume Broche and the supremely talented real artists he was able to find, even without a massive budget at his disposal.

Thank the universe he left that company when he did.

Did they poll a bunch of kids that are already gamers and found that 43% percent wanted in-game currency, and extrapolated that to the entire population of US kids? Or did they actually poll a representative sample? This is coming from a data collector with a clear interest (the Entertainment Software Association), I'd be very wary of these findings.

@Vyse_the_Legend At least several of those titles have never released on a PlayStation platform before, they're well outside of the scope of this discussion. This is about emulating older PlayStation titles.

I was a little surprised to see the third person action when the gameplay started, but the first game already felt like it was trying to be more cinematic than your usual metroidvania. It was a decent enough metroidvania, but not a great one in my opinion, so maybe the genre switch isn't a bad thing.

Players have had over 3.5 years of free updates and will receive another Spec 3 update free of charge next month. Still, a day not complained is a day not lived, right?

@Max_the_German Why would you feel fooled by a price cut several years down the line? That used to be the most normal thing in the world, this generation notwithstanding.

This is usually a terrible time for my backlog, I don't expect any different this year.

@Reyzore Troy Baker is already nominated for his performance as Indiana Jones. I don't know if there's precedence for nominating the same performer for two different roles in the same year, but I'd consider that a bit overkill to be honest.

I have to admit I'm a little bit disappointed that Clair Obscur is also nominated for both indie categories. Of course, technically, it's correct, but it feels unnecessary considering the game is also up for the RPG category, which it is virtually guaranteed to win. It just makes those indie categories less interesting, it's simply going to win all of them.

Nothing against the game of course, it deserves all the awards it's going to get.

I'm always interested in showcases from any of the platform holders, but I expect most studios and publishers will keep their powder dry for The Game Awards, which are just around the corner. If this happens, it'll probably be a low-key affair.

@themightyant Even Troy Baker as best performance seems unlikely to me, I think Jennifer English will almost certainly win that. He should get a nomination though.

@Fishmasterflex96 I wasn't aware I needed any consolation. I do think KCD 2 will get a nomination though, even if I haven't quite mastered the art of clairvoyance as much as you have.

It should also be noted that Krafton has pulled some seriously shady moves at Subnautica developer Unknown Worlds. They don't even need AI to come across as the bad guys.

@ShadowRJ Possibly, though we've had nominees with February releases before. Spare a thought for Indiana Jones and the Great Circle by the way, which released after the cut-off last year but is eligible for this one, despite releasing back in 2024.

@ShadowRJ I feel like KCD 2 should be somewhere in that list, possibly at the expense of Ghost of Yotei. Expedition 33 is the big favourite of course.

The indie category is the one to watch for me personally. You'd think in the year Silksong finally released there wouldn't be that much competition, but with the likes of Hades 2, Blue Prince and surprise hit Ball X Pit it's been a really strong year.

Under the current management, I feel like we're starting to see PlayStation trying to improve their standing in the home market/industry, and this fits perfectly into that strategy. It's something I've felt since that State of Play back in June where the first 20 minutes were all about Japanese studios, and then they finished it with the Marvel Tokon announcement.

I have to say I'm a big fan of this direction. The last 15 years or so, we've seen PlayStation get increasingly westernized, perhaps losing a part of its original identity in the process. I'd like to believe this is them course correcting a bit, and that we might get some of that old PlayStation weirdness back.

I would argue Naughty Dog is still Sony's flagship studio, and as such I assume he's referring to Intergalactic. But with so little to go on, who knows what he was talking about.

@LogicStrikesAgain

Sony tweeted: “A special broadcast curated for gamers in Japan and Asia”

Meanwhile western audience: I didn’t like it! 😭

This sums it up perfectly. It was entirely predictable as well.

Admittedly I don't know too much about these awards, but looking at the previous nominees, it definitely feels like there's some really specific favouritism going on.

Despite only doing this category since 2023, they've managed to nominate both Bear McCreary and Austin Wintory three times and now they've nominated both Pinar Toprak and Wilbert Roget II for the second year running for DLC on the same games they were nominated for last year (respectively Avatar and Star Wars). And they even managed to give Wilbert Roget II his third nomination in 2 years time by giving him one for Helldivers 2 as well.

I mean, come on.

@themightyant But the examples that would cost plenty to implement are not coming from SKG, that's the whole point. The "expectations" are mostly coming from those who accuse SKG of being unrealistic. If change cannot come when they are asking for the absolute minimum, i.e. any sort of playable product, then change is not going to come at all. That is unfortunately what I will take from this.