Lysterao

@FuriousMachine It certainly seems like a deliberate throw back to one. I doubt it'll be exactly the same in practice, I don't think they'll have the campy bosses for your to race against for example, but otherwise, yeah

@DennisReynolds I mean, I wouldn't say that MS got all that much less backlash than Sony did, but I would say their closures were mostly more understandable (to an extent)

A) Xbox really are on the back foot, with a fraction of the install base as PlayStation. They couldn't really generate the same sales through exclusives as Sony and that hurt them. Whereas Sony are doing this while riding high.

B) As great as Arkane Austin were, 70 percent of the studio had left by the time Redfall shipped. Closing the studio sucks but seems inevitable. The Initiative, that one hurt as Perfect Dark looked great, but ultimately they'd never released a game, so there was comparatively less love for the studio from people than there was for the well established Bluepoint.

The closer closure to this one was Tango Gameworks. That one was similar levels of WTF, and absolutely got as much hate from people as this did, it's just a smaller community of people to make noise 😅 And at least they found a way to help that studio avoid closing.

Ultimately they all still sucked, and got alot of backlash, but mostly felt less surprising than this Bluepoint news

@Dragon83 Having played it, it varies by region. The first and 3rd areas are pretty bright. The 3rd especially.

The 2nd region is probably the worst, and possibly the one you saw. It's too foggy at times in a way that often kind of makes it ugly, which is strange given how pretty the other areas are.

The 4th major region is pretty dark, but in a stark volcanic way.

Overall I wouldn't call it drab other than parts of the second region. Some parts of it are genuinely stunning at times.

@Markatron84 Chances are they're at least closer to launching a game. I would bet that say Media Molecule launches a game in a year or so, and then gets shut down shortly after unless it does huge numbers. Probably the same for a few others. Haven, possibly Bend.

@theSpectre Yeah, Redfall is a weird one. Almost certainly forced on Arkane as part of Bethesdas push for more live service games to be in development so they'd have a more attractive portfolio for potential buyers, rather than because anyone on the inside thinking it was a good idea. It's also the one that it's hardest to blame MS for. As the new owners, they could have their first move be axing a studios in development game (never a great start, and would likely have been crushing for morale), or they could continue with a doomed project. Ultimately Xbox were starved for 1st party games and they chose the later.

For me Tango Gameworks was their real infuriating ***** up. Thank ***** they found a buyer for them before it was truely too late at least, but they'd quickly become one of my favourite Xbox studios, so it was a real shame.

@dskatter Sadly, the employees are confirmed as being laid off

@Balaam_ Creation Engine is also absolutely critical to the feel of Bethesda games. They can't just swap to another engine and make the games the same.

Even if they could fit alot of that reactivity and physics driven simulation of object into another engine, that engine would then just have the same issues.

Ultimately, the bugginess of Bethesda games has less to do with the Creation engine than it does to do with what they're trying to do with it.

@Dogbreath They're not competition on the Hardware front, but they are still their biggest competitor (and ironically their biggest 3rd party publisher arguably) in software.

If Sony's plan is the overly monetise their software, it may just drive people towards PC and more affordable options like Gamepass there, which despite it's increases is still very good value if you're playing lots of games (it's just you have to play more games than before to get said value).

Tl;Dr Sony may not have to worry about driving players back to Xbox in a serious sense, but they may drive them out of the Closed Ecosystem console market that PlayStation always thrived off of.

@Deadlyblack Stats indicate relatively similar play numbers for the two of them. Rivals tends to have 50% more steam players, but most of OW2s PC player base is on Battlenet anyway.

@weeniebeenie Most people won't, but as for any game there are some people who will, and it's a nice touch for them.

Largely though, it's a feature included forbdual Xbox and PC users, where you can buy it once and get it on both platforms. Then it makes more sense. My guess would be that adding PS5 to the cross save tech was trivial enough, so they did.

@Dan12836666 The only real reason I can see for an E-day delay is GTA6. I'm 100% sure they'll be ready to launch it this year, the question will be them feeling confident in the launch window. Every Gears game has launched in the Ovtober November launch window in the past, but on the other hand, none ever had to contend with GTA6.

@Oram77 My guess would be they'll start ramping up the hands on press previews at Not E3 along with a story trailer, and then start putting out uncut segments of gameplay around that time too.

@lazarus11 I'll eat my hat if they didn't at least ask Matt Berry to play a role in it. The question will be if he was willing/able to do so.

@HRdepartment I disagree. I do think Starfield is already a pretty great game, as was Cyberpunk at launch (as long as you weren't playing last gen).

The main difference is, Starfield is more niche. Tonally, gameplay wise, etc... it's just for a more particular group of people.

It's not the high appeal Fantasy of Skyrim, or Post Apocalypse of Fallout. It's a NASA punk, quite niche take on Sci Fi, and the Bethesda Formula doesn't quite map onto the space experience as seamlessly as their more limited open worlds in prior games.

It's going to come down to, can you live with the brief but even more frequent loading screens (understandably many can't) and that the game isn't as well geared towards letting you be morally grey/evil, at least in terms of the companions.

It's more of Bethesda for good or ill, in a more awkward than usual package but with huge possibilities and potential to those who do buy into it.

When was the last actual PlayStation Showcase? They do the SoPs about 3 times a year every year right, and they tend to have at least some presence at Keighleys Summer Games Fest and TGAs (sometimes ONL at Gameson), but when was the last time they did a proper blowout showcase?

Was it 2020 before the PS5 launch? I really can't remember at this point. Is my memory just *****. (It is, that's a fact, but is that what's going on here)

@RBMango I mean, they had to form a new team to make it. But most AAA games take 6 years to make now, that's actually the average development time.

@Vivisapprentice It's more like Project Mara was never really a full game project. From the sounds of it, Mara was more of a test platform/experimental project. Maybe they were considering spinning it out into a full game if it went well, but my personal theory is that the tech they developed for that is part of the tech Kijima is using for OD. He did always say he partnered with Xbox as they had tech crucial to OD, and we've always assumed that was their streaming tech, but I think it's also this.

I mean, if you watch the Mara teaser, then watch the OD trailer, there's something of a shared DNA with those close up face shots of mental terror.

@PuppetMaster That 60 million budget won't include Yotei's marketing budget. Which could even possibly have doubled it. That said, even in that case Yotei will either already be profitable or rapidly approaching it. Sony will be happy enough.

I think the bigger thing for them those, is that unless it goes on to sell 10s of millions of copies, it just further cements in their mind that single player games aren't where the big money is. Good money sure, 300-500 million returned on stay a 120 total budget is nothing to scoff at, but it's pretty much peanuts compared to the money that the big live service games bring in on a quarterly basis. Especially when Sony only seem to be putting out 1 game, or maybe 2, of that size a year.

If I had to guess, games like Yotei aren't really money makers in their eyes, they're "loss leaders" (emphasis on leader not loss) to make sure people keep buying PS5s. It's why they've usually clustered launches around the start and end of console generations. Mission accomplished in that case.

@Americansamurai1 Very different game from Oblivion Remake. More combat focused, certainly better in that regard. More of a set of 4 or 5 large zones that 1 large open world. More of a direct story RPG than just an open world sandbox like Oblivion. More focused, but also more static.

@LogicStrikesAgain It's more like a bit of both. Sony is making money off Xbox's game, and Xbox are selling their games on all the consoles that Sony had to make and sell at a loss (I know they got them to the point wheee they were making money on each one for a time, but with the increases in RAM costs etc... there's no way thats still true) . So it's a bit of a trade.

@dschons I wouldn't give up entirely. From my time with it, I also really enjoyed it's exploration, and world. The narrative isn't bad either, just a touch stunted in it's delivery. It's pretty clear it was supposed to be Multiplayer for a good chunk of it's development before pivoting.

@nyr2k2 Then just look up a round up of the reveals afterwards 😅

@SeaDaVie I mean. Of course both sites are biased 😅 They're self selecting communities of fans of the games that Xbox and PlayStation make respectively.

When your sample population is made of of people who actively like and seek out more of what a certain thing does, it's hardly surpring a poll taken on said population will skew in favour of the thing.

The question is, are said players REALLY liking those games more, or are they somewhat blinding themselves to other titles out of emotional attachment? It's impossible to say really.

@Rich33 What you're describing is popularity vs critical opinion. Now, despite what the Internet may say, critical opinion is not irrelevant compared to popular opinion, however it's not more important either as both are very useful metric.

That said, Push Square are critics. They take a critical look at gaming in general, and given their more objective attempt at an opinion. This is a critics list, and so no, it's not Obvious that Ghost of Yotai should be Number 1 instead of number 3 on the list.

Far more people will have played it sure, which is a sign that Yotai is a better example of what most people WANT out of their games, but the poll isn't a particularly valid break down of what is the best action game, as very few of the respondants will have played more than 1 or 2 of the games listed.

@tangyzesty Playing Eternal Strands at the moment and really enjoying it (have sunk alot more time into it than i expected I would), though purely on the action/combat front I don't think it makes the top four. Personally for me it's Ninja Gaiden 4, that combat is just flawless, even though I've never been into that genre before.

But yeah, would be great to see Strands get some wider recognition

@HonestHick I will say though, I genuinely thought that Divinity trailer was a Diablo one once the guy started literally melting. Until now Blizzard were the only ones who'd go that graphic in a cinematic 😅 But yeah, it's basically just them and Blur at that level (who I'm guessing did the Divinity trailer)

@GamingGod Halo 1's multiplayer was pretty awesome at the time, though hasn't aged as well as say Halo 3's has.

But Halo Lan parties put Halo on the map just as much as it's campaign, some would argue even more so due to the huge word of mouth it all generated.

So it is strange seeing that part of the package absent, but personally I see why

@arto Given the full Earth map comes in around 2 Peta Bytes.... percentage wise very little is on the disk 😅

@Grumblevolcano Their first game this year was Avowed in February. They just waited to avlnnounch most of the release dates at their now yearly Developer_Direct.

Which last year included Avowed, South of Midnight, Ninja Gaiden 2/4, Clair Obscur, and Doom TDA, all of which other than NG4 came out by June. I'm not sure any of them had dates before that? Given between 2020-2023 Xbox delayed pretty much every game they announced, I can't say I blame them for holding those dates until they're pretty much almost out.

But yeah, my money is on Forza Horizon getting a March April release date reveal, to come to PS5 sometime near the end of the year, and also a release date for Clockwork Revolution? While they'll probably save Fable, Gears and Halo for their June show.

@EfYI Worth noting. That in the US Microsoft had 4 games in the top 10 best sellers.

They may have killed off any growth in their hardware sales, though frankly that was inevitable after the Xbox One disaster gutted their market share at the worst moment, but as a multiplatform Publisher they're having their cake and eating it too in terms of Gamepass and good sales.

In other news, water is wet?

In a tale as old as time, game developer finishes development for their last game after a while so they can focus on next games. Shocking.

Seriously though, this is fine. Infinite was great, but it was time to move on. Best to make sure the next one has as much attention as possible

Ninja Gaiden 4 being seriously slept on here. Best action 3rd person combat in forever! Outer Worlds 2 has been great so far though I'm not far enough in to truely judge it.

@Rich33 I think it's more a sign that their teams aren't all super technically focused.

Credit where it's due, many of their other ports HAVE performed very well on PS5, and they've adopted PS5 specific features like Dualsense controls in many cases. And the upcoming Flight Sim is adding PSVR2 support which is pretty cool.

Obsidian have just never been the most technical studio and this shows. I'd be more inclined to call this an honest screw up developing with a new tech for a new platform they're unfamilar with, rather than a deliberate effort to handicap the PS5 version.

@get2sammyb Which is a shame, because despite its campaign ending at what was clearly supposed to be the half way point of their obviously more ambitious first plans for the game, the actual gameplay of Infinite is genuinely brilliant.

If the plan IS for all future Halo mainline titles to come to PlayStation as well, then unless they're a hard reboot PS players will be missing out on important (if flawed) campaigns like Halo 5 or Infinite (assuming The MCC does get ported and brings the test)

@Foxhound Eh, we need to see how long it sits at the top of the charts first. SP games often do this briefly, then quickly tail off, while MP games just sell, and sell, and sell.

Don't get me wrong, I love SP, but I can see why the market has shifted from a logical standpoint.

@AdamNovice I mean, money hitting games for exclusives was pretty standard practice for all the platforms back then. Still is for Sony and Nintendo. It just explains why they specifically chose Rise of The Tomb Raider I suppose

@get2sammyb Fair enough 🤣 Hard to tell how big it'll be yet, small in length doesn't mean it cant be a hit, look at PT, but you did specify PlayStation that's true.

Though, let's face it give Xbox's recent track record I'd be very surprised if this doesn't come to PS either at launch or close to it! If that wasn't an almost surety at this point Pushsquare wouldn't be writing articles

I mean. His next big thing is OD. This is his second next big thing 😅

I'm almost certain this will happen. The question is, what's in the SoP? Do we get, a) just another look at Ghost of Yotei, the equivalent of having a show without really having a show given that's almost out, or b) genuine reveals like Wolverine?

@lindos I think they're also worried that FM had more direct competition on PS already from GT. As opposed to the FH series which Sony don't compete with personally.

It would be interesting to see if now that they've brought the series to PlayStation with FH5 to great success, they go back and also port over Motorsport now it has more brand recognition on the platform?

@Jackthelad93 The good thing about the Forza Horizon games, since 2 at least, is at any point you can pretty much always choose the sort of racing you want to do. If you don't like Drifting, you don't hlreally have to do those races.

It has sort of somewhat homogenised the games, as I kind of miss that FH1 sort of had a more linear sense of progression, with "boss races" and a final championship, but the later ones really allow you to avoid the bits you don't like

@Balaam_ You really won't play a game just because you can't get a platinum trophy for it? Despite the fact you'd genuinely want to play it?

Doesn't that sort of defeat the purpose of gaming being for fun?

@Questionable_Duck Ah fair enough, thought that could be the case but wasn't sure. I forget the 360 did have a surprising number of high profile Japanese exclusives all things considered.

@Jill_Sandwich Yeah, and I'm fairly sure there have been one or two others like it. There was a Spartan in a DoA game at one point, was that on PS?

This would be the first specifical Halo collaboration with a specifically PlayStation published game however. All previous examples were wither homage (see the Destiny X Halo content, which was never official) and/or on Platform "Live Service" games like Fortnite or Minecraft that are ubiquitous everywhere, as even Kratos is technically on Xbox via Fortnite.

Essentially, this is a ge urine statement of intent beyond collabing with a neutral game. Exactly what it means is unsure, but I'd confidently say we at LEAST see the upcoming Halo CE remake on PS5, possibly even at launch, and the MCC eventually.

@homelesscretin I wouldn't say the second one isn't near the firsts level of quality. In every technical sense it's a huge step up.

The gameplay are the writing though are more divisive. If you buy into what they're doing with the game you'll have a good time, up their with the first.

It's just kind of more niche, so plenty of people don't.

Played this at launch and really enjoyed it. It's certainly not for everyone, but it's more of a game than many of these comments would have you believe. Just a very linear one, other than the hidden collectibles.

I'd recommend it, but probably not at the $50 dollar asking point for most people. Maybe wait for 25/30, at which point I think it's more in line with most people's cost/benefit expectations.

@RBMango Okay, but was ever a single one of those games made any better by the fact that some other people couldn't play it? I get what you mean, but personally I'm all for a future where consoles compete as consoles, and games compete either other games.

@cainhurst94 The recent round of MS layoffs was pretty much purely to fuel MS's AI spending spree, and has almost nothing to do with the performance of their various divisions like Xbox. Regardless of whether services like GP were making money, the company was just looking to free up cash. It's honestly even more ***** that way, at least if things are losing money it is somewhat reasonable to let people go

@AdamNovice At very least too much to be allowed to be a closed ecosystemsystem platform holder.

@AdamNovice Sunset Overdrive was brilliant, but I think stuck in weird legal limbo. TECHNICALLY, Xbox still have right of first refusal to publish any sequel in the IP, so it's not one that Sony have any interest in pursuing. Plus, there's alot more money for them with insomniac working on Spiderman