Old-Red

I loaded it up out of interest and initially found myself disappointed it's a live service micro transaction mess instead of what could be an awesome open world single player game. In knew this going in, but my first impression of the graphics, controls, style and world were pretty good.

Then I became increasingly frustrated with how little interaction with the world there is. Nothing breaks or reacts to you at all outside of a few buttons to press or windows and vents to break. This is where we are with games now I suppose. No effort ot time spent actually making an interesting world that you can effect at all. It just feels like running about a bulletproof bouncy castle.

At its core, Marathon is essentially a casino, where the main currency is your time and the second is money and Bungie and Sony want both. It doesn't give out any actual prizes and only seeks to churn the player through game after game pushing you to give them money for nothing. This is where we are, gross.

Those of you defending this direction for Sony, enjoy your kiddie casino bulletproof bouncy castles, it's all you're going to get if you keep supporting and encouraging this direction. I wanted to give it a chance, but amazingly it was even worse than I thought it would be.

I've been playing through hitman and midnight walk recently, both excellent games in PSVR2. It's definitely niche, but I've enjoyed collecting the physical copies and now actually have a complete collection, with a few new ones coming here and there. I figured this will be an amazing curiosity in years to come, so I've picked up a spare headset. The quality of the kit and once you have some comfort elements added, it's a really special experience.

Personally, I think it's the best possible thing that could have happened. It might actually make a difference. I hope it continues. People kept trying to justify these stupid GaaS nobody wanted, saying they can co-exist alongside the games we actually want and here we are with exactly what many of us tried to warn everyone of. Sony aren't interested in making good games anymore, because games like Demon's Souls eat into the potential profit and engagement they can get from live service trash. They simply want as much of your money for as little effort as possible, preferably though the psychological manipulation of children. Take em' down I say, until they realise they need us more than we need them.

The journalists on sites like this should also be going in hard on them unless they want to spend the rest of their careers writing about skins or season passes for three or four games.

I think they underestimated this decision, it shows how out of touch they are. Maybe it's the straw that broke the camel's back, because it seems like the whole fan base has finally turned on them on social media. It will be really interesting to see if/how they react.

looks over at spoils from 30 years of collecting...Holy s**t, I was right.

Yeah, I'm done with Sony, they're gone. To profit off, buy, mismanage and then shut down a studio in this way shows exactly where their head is at. I won't be buying any more of their hardware going forward. It started with the closure of all the talented Japanese studios they had and it's just got worse. They clearly have no interest in providing games that are actually good value or fun anymore. Even Nintendo are on the slide. It makes me really sad to see what has happened to the leaders of the industry. Man, am I glad I kept all my games and consoles. Good riddance.

I haven't played a ps+ game since Final Fantasy 7 Remake whenever that was. If they raise the price again just to pay online (in my case) I'm done. It really feels like Sony are trying to push my away at this point. Don't they make enough money already? I thought they just announced record profits. Next they'll be trying to paywall charging my controllers.

I really must be in a minority, with my spending on new games this generation down to a fraction of what it was on PS4. Most of my money goes on eBay retro and secondhand purchases now. Are people really spending £70 on games at the same rate they were before? Have people really been suckered into the expensive subs? How do they have time to play all those games? I'm so out of touch now 😂

I think from my view and quite a few others in the same situation as me, we see it as the last generation of physical media and thus the last one we will stick with Sony and PlayStation as a platform holder.

I have no digital library on my PS account, so don't feel trapped in their ecosystem. The longer this generation lasts and the longer games are optimised for the PS5, the better it is for me. It also gives me a nice long tail to collect from with PS5 games oddly being quite good for playing from the disc.

I'm tired of edging forward with specs and expensive upgrades, with constant re-releases of games over generations.

A big shift is coming and the owners/contributors of this site, Pure Xbox (and to a lesser extent) Nintendolife would do well to prepare for an industry more focused on individual releases instead of platforms. I like these sites and the communities and hope they can adjust and thrive.

Isn't this just a pay to win game with the dial notched up to 11? Selling fomo loot that can also be lost on a run seems like a pretty heinous manipulation of people susceptable to this kind of abuse to me. I can only imagine what's going on under the hood to capture and keep whales hooked in this kind of game. Am I missing something?

I think there's also a big decision about physical media to make too. The longer it takes the more likely it is the PS6 will be digital only.

At this point they might as well go for it, so I and many others can move over to Steam.

@get2sammyb "Speaking personally from the editor of a website’s perspective, this is kind of a nightmare haha."

At least you're honest about it, but with the price of everything and the fact that it's the quality of game design that needs to improve, not graphics, it makes perfect sense to hold off a new generation. The point of diminishing returns is real and needs to be acknowledged.

Gross, I would have probably supported them after enjoying Returnal, but now I'll just wait until I can get it for cheap second hand. I wonder if it's really worth it for them.

People can smell a cynical cash grab designed by committee, and this is that.

I understand the sentiment, but actually putting something so subjective into practice would be open to abuse on so many levels.

My main problem with reviews is that reviewers and journalists in the industry generally get their games for free. Not to mention publishers throwing in events and freebies (which I understand is not so common anymore). Not only has this made journos readily jump on the digital future train, it also means that they'll never really understand the monetary (and rising) cost of playing games, outside of buying the occasional game themselves.

I've often wondered what a system where reviewers have to pay for the games and then lose access to it if they want their money back would do to the reviewing landscape.

Still, I can't think of a better system and I like reading reviews and content from sites like this, so it's best to just let it lie and develop a gauge of different reviewers and sites tendencies and tastes.

With the PS6 probably going all in on digital distribution, why not wait longer?

I think the next gen will be the biggest shift the industry has seen since the crash. It makes a lot of sense to see where things are heading while allowing prices to stabilise and dev time to reduce.

It would also do them well to consider a customer base without my generation propping them up, as we tire out and decide where to go if there aren't physical copies to collect anymore. I know for sure I'm going to Steam if I have to go digital.

The scale of the accolades this game has received kind of makes me like it less haha. I enjoyed it, but the fact that you could never really beat a boss the first time because there's no way of knowing how to parry them without practice rubbed me up the wrong way. It's a fine game though, and I hope it leads to more experimentation in the industry.

I do think it's sad that Nintendo games outside of Zelda aren't really considered for GOTY. Thinking as objectively as you can, Donkey Kong Bananza is a far superior video game overall, especially regarding mechanics and gameplay.

I would love for it to be great, but Bethesda have really lost their way. They haven't made a great game in 14 years, so it's amazing how much clout they do have considering how little quality they've put out in the past decade.

I've actually just picked up an OG Xbox with a copy of Morrowind, so I'm looking forward to seeing why it's so highly regarded.

@8bitOG I do this with most friends, but the Playstation buddies are reluctant.

@EVIL-C Ha, I didn't realise that, maybe I should let the sub go then. I did need it to play Monster Hunter online, so I guess that game cost me £130 essentially.

It's actually quite manipulative that they call it essential, basically suggesting that you must pay them £70 a year by proxy.

Anyway, I actually think it is a good deal overall if you don't have much money to spend on games and aren't some kind of physical collecting freak like I am. I do wish there was a basic online option though, that cost £10-20 a year for online play.

And yet I didn't play a single one of them. To be fair, I do usually play at least 2 or 3 games from PS+ a year to justify the sub, but I've not played my playstation much this year. All this makes me realise is there's too many games, not enough time, they're not even close to worth the prices they're charging and I'm paying the best part of £100 a year to occasionally talk to a few friends in chat while we play different games. If anything it's made me feel a bit stupid for buying Alan Wake 2 for full price and not getting round to playing it. Online play should be free, I'm more than happy to give up the library of unplayed PS+ games.

As others have pointed out, this game with a steering wheel, pedals, gear stick and PSVR2 is unbelievable. I'm not really a petrol head, but the thrill and immersion I've experienced in this game is unmatched.

This looks fun. I've just got the PSVR2 out, as I tend to do on holiday breaks and I'm playing The Midnight Walk and Hitman. I'm still blown away by how good the headset and controllers are. I hope we still get a few more games for it on PS5.

The most important point for me is a whether Sony offer a physical option or not. If they force us to go digital only I'm far more likely to build a digital library on Steam than Playstation.

I think Sony are a bit concerned and they should be. I also think putting their exclusives on PC was a bit mistake. With no physical options or exclusive 1st party games they've willingly whittled down all selling points they had from my perspective.

This is where I'm going once there's no physical option from Playstation. Games on PS5 have actually been quite good for running from the disc.

But if I have to buy digital only, Steam is where it's at. I'm lucky I haven't built up a massive playstation digital library outside of the subscription, which I'm happy to let go.

The prices on Playstation store are awful compared to Steam. Plus, no extra cost to play online games either. You'd have to be pretty devoted to Sony to stick with them going forward without a thriving/cheap second hand market.

This kind of thinking only shows how little respect companies like Microsoft have for video games. Video games, TV, music, short form video and cinema are all different forms of entertainment. News flash, not one of them can capture everyone's attention.

If Microsoft want eyeballs in the short form video space they got into the wrong platform.

Idiots.

All this does is show that they have no interest in making anything of worth, all they care about is market share and control.

This is like someone in the music industry complaining that they're competing with art galleries. Just stick to what you're good at, treat your customers with respect and provide good quality products at the best possible value. Trying to start a fist fight with the wind, idiots.

If Xbox made better games than Sony and Nintendo, didn't have ads on the os menu, didn't try to force konnect in my home and push things like locking games to a console to kill the secondhand market and physical games, I might have considered them over the competition.

It's embarrassing that they don't acknowledge why so few people want to invest in their ecosystem. They've only had a negative impact on the gaming industry, it's that simple.

It's baffling to me that anyone would stick up for a company that is so intent on controlling and destroying a hobby they love so much. I suppose there's probably some kind of Stockholm syndrome thing going on with people who still stand by Microsoft.

Nah, I got a 30th anniversary pro, so now I'll try and fall in the pro cycle. But Sony will have to work for my money next gen. The prices, lack of innovation and move towards digital this gen have made me very wary going forward.

If things don't improve I'll just make the switch to PC where this old whale will be sailing the high seas and building a more reliable steam library of games if there's no proper physical option anymore.

If there's no direct competition, I don't see the point in releasing the PS6 for a good few years.

The industry could really benefit from slowing down a bit and becoming more sustainable in development and affordable for customers.

It's a good game and I'm definitely enjoying it, but I think the difficulty is in a lot of the wrong places. There's way to much backtracking over long sections of the map through tedious performing sections when you die, particularly the red bouncy flower things. I can get through them, but it's not something I enjoy doing over and over very much. I wonder if the game would be much better if you could just save at the begining of each screen, or at least have 1 portable bench you can use once between main benches.

The whole subscription model is a trap designed to control what we play and how we play it.

It doesn't progress the industry in the favour of customers at all or encourage creativity from developers. The way MS has treated so many of the developers they've spent fortunes taking out of the industry and shutting down was inevitable. They're not interested in making interesting or fun games for us, they simply want to control the industry.

This is why it's important for consoles to reduce in price as a generation goes on. Adults with disposable income will prop up sales for a year or two with the younger gamers joining in as the prices drop, thus future safing the coming generations of punters as they grow up and start to have disposable income themselves.

It's also why it's important to have physical copies of games in the wild that people with less money can find down the line and latch onto franchises to help build company and brand loyalty.

It's insane that there's no cheaper option to play online. £70 a year to play online is disgusting really, especially when PC is still free to play games online. There should be an option to play online for £10 a year that doesn't include the extra games. I don't play any of the ps+ games anymore, I've got more than enough games to play already. Once a year I have to fork out an unnecessary amount of money to play games I've already paid a lot for in the way they were intended. All this does is leave a bad taste in the mouth on an annual basis, making me feel less enamored with Sony as time passes. That's not how you build a brand loyalty or a positive relationship with customers that you want to keep around for many years.

They'd do well to look at how From Software and even Square approached the souls and final fantasy progression.

Keep the core mechanics with some gradual development whilst introducing new stories and characters. If they keep going back to the same world and lore it'll become stale before the sequel even comes out.

I got a pro with the mindset that I'll wait a lot longer to jump into the PS6 generation. There's been so few genuine PS5 games this gen, being asked to buy a new console at this point seems like a slap in the face.

I'm not sure what they can do to be honest, they need to keep growing and making money, but what the industry really needs is to slow down and focus on making better games with what we have already, and on more manageable budgets.

I didn't know Bluepoint had a live service game cancelled. That would explain them falling off the face of the planet. Was this general knowledge?

Publishers and developer complain if their games don't sell well on release, whilst giving us no incentive to buy early. It's a shame for games like Death Stranding 2 and MGS3 Remake. I'll just wait until I see them cheap in a sale and play them when they're finished patching them. I'll at least try to buy them new so they get some money.

Basically, random guy says sky is blue. Everyone can see they've lost the plot in pursuit of an unrealistic goal. Anyone with any sense could tell you that successful live services start small and grow if they catch on or find a community.

Going in big on a bunch of gaas, try to manufacture a Zeitgeist was never going to happen. It was a fools errand from the off. Jim Ryan really did a number on Sony. The guy got away with murder, taking such a massive wage to tank the company the way he did.

"She then points to how, in the last five years, Helldivers 2, MLB The Show, Gran Turismo 7, and Destiny 2 have all started to contribute "to sales and profit in a stable manner"."

So actually, all they needed to do was make good games first, then build on them without intrusive forms of monetisation that aren't forced down the players' throats in every menu. That's some blue sky thinking right there.

Oooof, I am not comfortable scanning important personal ID to companies like this.

@UltimateOtaku91 it'll be interesting to see how you feel about game key cards when the sell on value drops and you get half the money from selling them on when shops realise collectors don't want them.

Being able to turn the overworld map music off is very much appreciated. They've committed the cardinal sin of using music with a vocal loop in a common area of a game. Any song that loops in this way becomes unbearable for me eventually.

4 of the 6 games would have traditionally been on playstation platforms anyway, so all this really shows is how aggressive, greedy and irresponsible Microsoft have been, buying up all these developers and publishers.

You could argue that they've actually just still taken a number of games away from the platform, by either blocking Playstation versions, closing talented studios or cancelling interesting projects that would have come out on multiple platforms originally.

Been using my 30th anniversary Pro console and bundle since last September and don't regret opening it at all. It's the nicest luxury tech I've ever had, they should just make loads more of the bundles, I'm sure they'd sell millions of them. The PS5 pro should have just looked like this as standard imo.

I kind of enjoyed the first game, but it took me three bites of the cherry to get through it. The game felt very repetitive, so I had to take long breaks before I was ready to go back to it each time over an 18 month period.

I'm sure the sequel will be more of the same, so I'm in no rush to play it when there's so much else to play. I'll probably just borrow it from a friend in a year or so when I'm ready to stomach another map-mopper again. I'm sure it'll sell just fine though, and I'm glad so many people are getting what they want from it. Some of my friends live for this style of open world game, and it makes their year, so I'm glad they've got this to look forward to.

I still haven't finished the first game and it's also a bit too expensive for me right now, but I do want to support this kind of thing, so I'll make sure to buy a new copy when it's down to around £40.

It's almost as if the massive price rises this generation weren't justified.

Gaming has become more about the distribution and engagement than the quality and fun of the games. It's pretty rubbish. Oddly, there's more great games to play than ever. Strange times.

@Nepp67 yeah, I can't really express the range of joy to disappointment I felt when I saw the Duskbloods reveal. I'm sure it'll be interesting, but I just can't be bothered to join that boring online loop you have to fall into with online games like this.

Conflicted with this one. I don't like to see anyone fail, especially FromSoftware, but I really don't want to see more games like this coming from the studio.

I hope I'm wrong, but I'd be lying if I didn't secretly think that Elden Ring might be their last great game. It seems to happen to so many studios once they get a massive success like ER has been. We'll see, they haven't let me down yet, but this is the first game they've released in nearly 20 years that I have no interest in. I hope they don't stray too far from what got them to where they are today.

The real story here is that it appears journos have become tired or writing X (formally Twitter) haha. Meanwhile, everyone else still just calls it Twitter.

The second game's story has always been a bit whack. Eli leaving Dina and the baby for more revenge the second time was just silly. The core mechanics and gameplay were really good, but the lengths Eli went to to ruin everything for everyone was unbelievable.

It's no coincidence that the original team rejected the stupid idea of traveling across a country full of death and danger to kill one person, putting everyone around them at risk in the first game, for Neil D to take all the credit and then fall back on the same rejected story for the sequel.

I think Sony needs to conduct an investigation into decision making and investments made over the last decade, as it seems like something very dodgy has gone on or at the very least negligent. They could've taken almost anyone from the comments section on this site and they would've helped them avoid all these incredibly naive blunders they've walked face first into.

It's a really sad state of affairs. So much time and money wasted. Anyone and their dog could tell you that successful live service games start small and grow alongside their success and player base. Throwing hundreds of millions at projects trying to manufacture a gaming zeitgeist is beyond foolish. We all know what happens to fools and their money.