IllusiveMan

@Boxmonkey Just saying, here they gave Marathon around 3 weeks to get sorted out and got a 9/10, yet they gave Crimson Desert (which that takes upwards 100 hours to be fully experienced) a 6/10 in less than a week.

Would be lying if I said those double standards ain’t disappointing.

Wow just tested it on the Pro and it doesn’t struggle in performance in some areas as before and less stamina for flying it’s such a game changer, I just traversed almost double of what I could before.

I think this is the time to jump in for most of who were waiting for patches, also read that PS5 base on performance mode uses FS3 and looks much better.

@ThatOtherNewGuy Times have changed, many people can justify that expense because a phone nowadays carries your whole life also it’s not a yearly expense and most can get it financed. Consoles now have a very specific use case, play games, in previous generations many people could justify getting a console because aside from games they could play their DVDs, Blu-Ray and initial iterations of streaming apps.

Nowadays it’s a box to play games, but if you want to actually play new games you must add $70 for each to the $650 price of the console, and if want to play online add a yearly $80 price to it (bound to go up), that expense isn’t justified for many people in a world where they can play Fortnite on their already owned phone for free.

@get2sammyb I frankly can’t feel for them, they still have an extremely profitable business, they’ve even said this has already been their most financially successful platform, they might not be able to keep hardware prices from rising but the way they also are squeezing us is infuriating all to keep their profit margins where shareholders want it (as most companies nowadays), yet they wouldn’t have a problem with margins if they hadn’t invested and lost billions in a proved failed strategy in live-service games, so in a way it also feels we’re paying for the company’s mistakes and failures.

I also think there should be a discussion on how many gamers (but specifically younger ones) are being entirely priced out from console/traditional gaming, I simply don’t think it’s sustainable to keep squeezing the same audience over and over, would be interesting to have an article regarding that, it’s such a grim outlook for every console gamer.

With this price hike I don’t think PS5 will reach PS4’s sales even with GTA 6 boost, and most worryingly PS6 is well on its way to be the most difficult console launch ever for Sony, somehow the ‘third console curse’ continues.

@DartLOD For me, @get2sammyb, and several other people it’s outrageous, it’s unprecedented and they literally lied just last month when they said they would look into other ways to not increase the console price, keep doing backflips to try to justify the big corporation…

@DartLOD You don’t think a $100/$150 price hike in the sixth year of a console is outrageous?

@get2sammyb Problem is they will focus on milking us dry, probably there’s yet another PS+ price increase coming soon. What a grim outlook…

@carlos82 I’d say we’re not heading into it, we are already living through a crash, this might be lethal for the entire console market.

@Fiendish-Beaver It really depends on your tolerance for performance hiccups, with a VRR display it’s barely noticeable most of the time but I personally experienced a boss fight at ~15 FPS on PS5 Pro, it was basically unplayable but I forced my way through it, otherwise I’d say it’s a solid experience but will definitely get much better, I’m already too deep into it to wait for patches but if you haven’t started it may be worth to wait a couple of weeks.

This is easily a 150+ hours completion game, I already made my peace that I’m not gonna get the platinum or 100% it lol

@DennisReynolds Yeah it seems to be, I don’t get why the pressure of pumping out a very superficial review in a week if there was no deadline or embargo and worse scoring a game you have not fully experienced, just take the time to fully experience it and do point out specific performance issues instead of trying to do some damage control now, because frankly it’s only missing optimization, the structure of the game is impressively solid to be completely ignored because of FPS hiccups that will be patched (and agreed should’ve been already at launch).

I’m always wary of a blue check looking for some engagement, it makes little sense with Sony having many deals for the console and even launching a cheaper Japanese-exclusive console, I just can’t see them bumping up the price by that much, at most I’d expect another $50 increase, however in the not-so remote possibility this is accurate it’d be huge blow for this generation, perhaps letal for the entire console market.

I don’t understand why critics are being way too harsh on this game, sure it really could’ve used a couple extra months of development and they should have delayed it until it was ready for all platforms, but this isn’t a Cyberpunk situation nor is the only game that’s launched poorly optimized, even masterpieces such as The Witcher 3 and Baldur’s Gate 3 have launched notoriously broken specially towards the endgame, and yet most outlets reviewed both games with a 10/10, including this very site.

And no, I’m not saying Crimson Desert is a 10/10, as much as in enjoying the game it definitely isn’t, but it’s also nowhere near to be a 6/10, there’s definitely some blatant double standards here, another example is Dragon’s Dogma which was also broken at launch, it’s not nowhere near as fun and yet you gave it a 9/10.

@Vertere Untrue? All the evidence is clear that this generation has been terribly mismanaged since the very beginning, dozens of projects cancelled, 6+ years of development wasted at several studios, billions of dollars spent on nothing, and yet you claim they still release the same amount of games? Sorry but that’s absurd, just look at the list and compare them yourself, and it gets even worse when you consider Sony owns way more studios now than last generation and still they managed to have much better publishing deals and keep games exclusive for a long time or still remain exclusive.

By 2019 from first-party studios or second-party that were exclusives we already had:

• Killzone Shadow Fall
• Infamous Second Son & First Light
• Little Big Planet 3
• Bloodborne
• Resogun
• The Order 1886
• Until Dawn
• Tearaway Unfolded
• Gravity Rush 2
• Uncharted 4 & Lost Legacy
• Ratchet and Clank
• The Last Guardian
• Horizon Zero Dawn
• GT Sport
• Knack 1&2
• God of War
• Spider-Man
• Detroit Become Human
• Shadow of the Colossus

And I’m sure I’m missing some games, that plus Days Gone, Death Stranding and Concrete Genie from that year.
And very importantly most if not all them were PS4 exclusive.

Compared to this generation so far we have

• Spider-Man 2 & Miles Morales
• Sackboy A Big Adventure
• Demon’s Souls
• Ratchet and Clank Rift Apart
• Returnal
• GT7
• Horizon Forbidden West
• GoW Ragnarok
• Astro Bot
• Helldivers 2
• Concord

Plus Saros, Wolverine and Tokon this year, however from this list 4 of them are PS4 games, most are on PC, and only 4 are true PS5 exclusives so far (including this year’s releases), hence why the meme “PS5 has no games” was gaining traction.

How’s 19 vs 10 the same output? (Not counting Concord since it no longer exists)
Even if we consider third-party temporal exclusives such as Stellar Blade or Kena it’s still way less than any previous generation, and if you want to include PS5’s unnecessary remakes we would have to include all PS4 remasters from PS3 which are way more, and my main takeaway doing this list is what a HUGE loss Japan Studios has been, it left a giant void that Astro Bot alone just can’t fill, and I’m feeling Bluepoint’s absence will sting for a long time too.

@streetshadow First-party output has definitively dipped compared to any other PS generation even accounting published games, and it’s no wonder why with half the games that were planned are already cancelled and the studio closed, from PS Studios for all 2025 we only got Ghost of Yotei, for all 2024 we only got Astro Bot (and Concord…), for all 2023 we only got Spider-Man 2, it just pales in comparison to the PS4 generation or any other one.

Just look at the damage from Hermen Hulst’s tenure, what a depressing list, only 1 new game from PS Studios, all the other ones were just published by Sony (and outside of DS2 they had no business publishing that slop).

Literally half of this generation has been lost thanks to Hermen Hulst and Jim Ryan, 6+ years, billions of dollars, countless other resources that if invested correctly would’ve been a great PS5 generation such as PS4’s, but this has been the worst by far.

@Intr1n5ic Yup, that one, so far that’s the only true setback from the game because it was borderline unplayable, thinking about holding off advancing in the story/bosses and just explore the world, which is what I’m enjoying the most tbh.

It’s so over for every live-service game if even f***ing Fortnite isn’t sustainable enough…

Keep the patches coming, yesterday I got into a boss fight from a story mission and it ran at 15 FPS on PS5 Pro’s performance mode 💀

Nice to see this game doing a quick turnaround even on the non-believers, I’m at 15 hours already and it’s definitely the most addictive open world I’ve played since Death Stranding 2 and Tears of the Kingdom, this update has pretty much solved all issues I had as I’m already used to controls.

The thing that I’ve been liking the most is that you really can make your own way through the game very much like BOTW, TOTK or Death Stranding 1&2, for example I had a mission where I had to sneak in somewhere and the game gives you tips to buy entry for this place, but you can grab that same gear from other NPCs without having to spend anything or just sneak into that place, another mission I had to travel uphill but I wandered off and ended up arriving from the sky, stuff like this makes the journey and the whole game memorable and FUN, which is what games are all about.

Sounds like the same lame justification as the devs from Expedition 33, I don’t like it, they both should have disclosed it, but I would be lying if I said I noticed it myself, and now we’re about to hear how they’re the worst devs of all time and people stating they won’t buy the game because of it (when they really never planned to play it anyway).

@dskatter Lol sure, none of your comments have expressed a minimal interest in the actual game and there’s a quite a big difference between criticizing and hating, and no you don’t have to justify yourself, if acting like a hate mob makes you happy by all means, we’ll keep having lots of articles for you to ‘criticize the devs’…

@dskatter What did the devs did to you?
You’ve been hating on this game for months now, literally for every article there’s at least one comment from you throwing shade at the game, and sure some is justified, not showing console footage was just bizarre as it does run fine, very comparable to any other open-world on a base PS5, but now that it’s released you keep trying to hate on it now with the control scheme, and yes it’s definitely a learning curve but I’m already mostly used to it, I’ve read from the hate mob online “it’s the worst controls for running ever” while it has the same input as every GTA or RDR2, just ridiculous hyperbole to make the game seem like the worst of all time when it’s far from it.

As I’ve said repeatedly it’s perfectly understandable if you don’t like a game and there’s lots of valid reasons for so, but why this obsession of clicking on every article of a game you long ago decided you disliked and leaving a hateful comment? Why clinging on overblown nitpicks people are having when you’re not even playing the game nor have the intention to?
Really can’t understand anyone wishing this hard for a game to fail.

@TheArt Definitely not as “easily”, I watched all those gameplays plus many previews and did hesitate once I saw the review score but I had seen enough to like and at least try out for myself, got it on physical so I could sell it if I didn’t like it but so far it’s been in line with my expectations.

@TheArt I’d rather have my own opinion than relying on a score to dictate what to try out, there’s plenty of titles I’d consider both underrated and overrated based on that score and a 78 is still a good game under any standards, again if you don’t feel like it or have other games to play that suit you better it’s perfectly fine, but trying to make others feel wrong about trying out a game “because it scored a 78” is just plain ridiculous.

@DennisReynolds Yeah it’s getting unreal to read such double standards and selective memory, almost every masterpiece game has had cuestionable performance on launch, I remember TW3 had a broken Act 3, CP2077 was blatantly unfinished, BoTW and TOTK infamously ran at 20 FPS in some areas, Baldur’s Gate 3 also had a broken Act 3 (and weird control scheme), Elden Ring I’d say still isn’t optimized lol

And I love those games, some are in my personal Top 3 of all time and I’m not saying Crimson Desert should be on that list but acting like they were perfect and had no jank, specially on launch, is a collective delusion.

@MrPeanutbutterz And what about us who don’t really care about lore or storytelling in this game?
Since the first gameplay overview it has been clear it’s not the focus of this game, what I expected from all those gameplays was a fun single-player sandbox with lots of things to do and so far it’s absolutely delivering on that.

You (and many others) seem fixated on actively hating this game, and it’s okay to dislike, to point out its weaknesses and technical issues, but what I don’t understand is to be the first ones to click on every article of some game you long ago decided to dislike, immediately drawing comparisons with aspects of other games that are not the focus in this one and some even acting like everyone who’s buying or enjoying the game is wrong.

After playing for a few hours I simply don’t understand the ongoing hate train for this game, I’m getting obsessed with exploring and already made my own way through a quest, controls are a learning curve but not even near as exaggerated as I’ve been reading online, I also read how difficult and unbearable the first puzzle was and I got through it in 3 minutes, sure it’s not perfect and might not be a GOTY but every nitpick about it has been extremely overblown to make it seem the worst game of all time and so far I’m having a good time with it and does look stunning on PS5 Pro, with PSSR 2 it looks as sharp on performance mode as it does on quality mode.

Would’ve appreciated some actual comparisons instead of sourcing from Resetera comments lol, but it’s insane how with just one update the PS5 Pro is now absolutely worth it, difference is dramatic in some games like Avatar Frontiers of Pandora or FFVII Rebirth which looks and plays straight up perfect now, if they keep tuning this the PS6 could deliver a dramatic upgrade without going crazy with specs, I’m positively impressed.

It’s literally AI slop, yet I’ve read many people praising it and dismissing it saying “if you don’t like it don’t turn it on”, problem is that most studios actively endorsing this will quickly become reliant on these AI Slop filters to have a good looking fake game rather than optimizing their work, meaning you’re left with more worse looking and poorly optimized games unless you cash out to build a PC around a 5090…

@DennisReynolds Apparently the new goalpost is that it must be a master class in storytelling to be worth it lmao

Elden Ring, BOTW and TOKT are some of the best games of all time because of their storytelling right?…
I truly don’t know what these people want, it’s easy to ignore a game you don’t want or care about but they are the first to click here to spit hate by casting doubt on such nonsense or outright lying just because, I don’t understand that behavior.

@QiaraIris Yes the same base PS5 that runs Ghost of Yotei at 1080p upscaled to 1440p in performance mode on base PS5. At least inform yourselves before spitting out nonsense.

I see this hasn’t stopped the hate mob from still rooting for this game to fail…

Now some are crying “it’s only 1080p and 30 FPS”, honey, they released their performance targets weeks ago, on base PS5 quality mode is 4K/30, balanced is 1440p/40, performance mode is 1080p/60, a compressed YouTube video isn’t representative of the game’s resolution.

Also, did you all miss the features overview trailers that came up months ago? Or the 6 hour preview several outlets got to try? Because the way some are talking it seems this video is the only gameplay they’ve released.

Like I seriously don’t get why you want this game to fail so badly, if Sony succeeded in signing a timed exclusivity (as they did try so) you all here would be blindly praising it…

I honestly expect Hogwarts Legacy 2 and the next Mortal Kombat to be the last games from WB Games ever if the merger closes.

Paramount is going to be saddled with $80+ billion in debt and the very first thing they’ll cut are game studios that take 5 years a $200M to make games that might do well (Hogwarts Legacy) or not (Gotham Knight, Suicide Squad), I only hope those studios can be saved like Tango Gameworks or that people can quickly find jobs elsewhere.

I literally just finished it on Friday 😭

@MrPeanutbutterz Oh I do remember and it’s why I only preordered it after watching Digital Foundry’s PS5 Pro gameplay, ironically what impressed me the most wasn’t the technical side (which does looks impressive) but the game itself, the systems, interactions, openness that resembles BoTW or TOTK, that alone is worth a try for me even if performance isn’t perfect.

Again, if you don’t got the Pro and are still concerned about performance on base PS5 it’s perfectly understandable to wait and see, but this “controversy” is being overblown, I remember same thing happened with Black Myth Wukong as they only kept showing the PC version and it turned out fine, but now some people even seem to be actively rooting for this game to fail which I don’t get at all, didn’t we say we wanted more single-player games?

@MrPeanutbutterz I don’t get it, what’s the big controversy? That they haven’t shown PS5/Xbox gameplay? That they haven’t disclosed the whole game before reviews come out?

It’s not unheard of that a game that’s clearly prioritized PC isn’t promoting console gameplay, the Digital Foundry video on PS5 Pro is impressive to say the least and that alone convinced me to preorder a physical copy, if you still feel unsure about it just wait for reviews or gameplays to come out, don't let it bother you that someone else has pre-ordered it lol.

Funny how it wasn’t a problem until PS5 is the skipped platform…

Open-world fantasy game with great combat and Zelda-like exploration? Already preordered…

A particularly loud group of PC “enthusiasts” has been acting obnoxious the last few months, demanding every PS exclusives on PC after not buying them for 5+ years, crying over Switch 2 exclusives (as they can’t pirate them yet) and now today they’re crying about Crimson Desert having DRM protection (anti-piracy)…

The constant being they get mad when they need to PAY for their games, and it’s not all PC players but a very loud crowd.

In some games while standing still you can see the difference, sometimes even dramatic, but while playing, specially in fast gameplay the difference is negligible, so in my opinion priority should still be 60 FPS performance.

@Fishmasterflex96 You feeling alluded? Obviously I’m not saying every PC player is a pirate, yet that community is not small to say the least, and what a coincidence that RE: Requiem hit record sales and it has anti-piracy software!

Judging by the sales of every single-player game published by Sony on PC I heavily doubt it, as I’ve said before the PC crowd is often very loud (borderline obnoxious with this exclusives talk) but they just don’t like to pay for single-player games, specially the ones with no anti-piracy software…

@naruball It’s absolutely true, it’s not fair to compare the modern eShop to the 3DS Store from 15 years ago, nowadays they have digital games available in several storefronts other than the eShop, you can get some cheaper games from other region and redeem them no problem, plus in my region almost every single game is just cheaper on the eShop and any other storefront than the PS Store, simply because Sony doesn’t have regional pricing, charges in USD, and charges the tax separately from the game price, for example RE Requiem is $74.21 USD on the eShop and Xbox Store with taxes, $56.21 USD on Steam, and a whooping $81.2 on the PS Store, and that’s the case for every single game, as I said, by far the most expensive, abusive with this type of variable pricing, and the most restrictive of them all.

No, it’s nonsense for every angle, in fact I’d say most people with a PS5 right now the least they want to hear is “the PS6 is coming”.

Microsoft situation is a whole different story, if they weren’t announcing something about their next platform most would just assume there isn’t going to be one, still even with them constantly talking many of us still doubt it’ll actually launch as it’s at least one year and a half away and it could be killed after any quarterly meeting.

Bungie loyalists are already keeping this from becoming another Concord, from what I’ve seen I’d say it’s been a mid launch, not too great but not nearly as bad as many people thought it would, already has more legs than Highguard as the game feels solid.

I think we don’t remember enough that Concord peaked at 697 players, like there’s no game that has flopped that hard 🤣

The PS Store just keeps getting worse, it should get called out more as it’s getting borderline unacceptable, out of every digital platform holder Sony’s is by far the most expensive and abusive.

I remember in the latter years of PS4 where almost every game was cheaper on the PS Store and you could find most digital games on third-party storefronts, nowadays it’s way cheaper to find most games on disc even for years-old games, the other day I realized my physical game collection for PS5 games is already larger than PS4’s (and I don’t consider myself a purist of either format as I just buy where it’s cheaper).