RBMango

I'm confident this is a Fairgames rebrand. Amazing how much stink there is on this game that they need to change even the damn name.

Maybe we'll get a new look at Virtua Fighter at the State of Play? Would make sense given PlayStation is the big fighting game console these days.

@get2sammyb Yeah, the ballooning costs are absolutely a factor. I also think the new mainstream audience they've pursued and cultivated is a major double-edged sword, because it seems they will only reward PlayStation when they release the stupidly expensive and graphically lavish tentpole IP games, and are much more hesitant to try the single-player stuff outside of that camp, especially and understandably when those unknowns cost $70. I hope that PlayStation tries more weird things that cost way less to make and hit the sweet spot of the $30 to $50 range, but I don't think modern PlayStation has the internal culture to allow that to bear fruit in the long run.

@illegalmonkey I'm almost convinced there is some initiative behind the scenes at PlayStation to sanitize their AAA single-player games of any gameplay risks, quirks, experiences that might alienate people, or storytelling subtlety. Not sure if it's for cultural reasons, financial incentives, or a mixture of both, but it's very noticeable in their sequels and spiritual successors this gen, especially Horizon: Forbidden West, Spider-Man 2, and Saros.

Wow, they very rarely announce these this far in advance. It must be a chonker.

I hate to be so pessimistic this soon, but, with the way the industry is going, the chances of this endeavor working out well are very slim, in my opinion. Good luck to him though. I hope I'm proven wrong.

I need much more of this spicy form of @get2sammyb.

**** these hackers.

Exclusives are king in the console business.

Rare thing that Hermen Hulst says that doesn't make me cringe.

@get2sammyb I think Ratchet should go into some state of dormancy to give more of a spotlight to the other family friendly joints like Sly, Ape Escape, and PaRappa.

As much as I like Jak and Daxter, I'm fine with that series remaining dormant compared to things like Sly Cooper, inFamous, Motorstorm, Twisted Metal, and PlayStation Home.

Wow, that is so disappointing and lame.

@IOI Excellent summary of my own feelings as well. I think "soap opera" is an accurate way to describe Saros's story.

I think Saros's core gameplay and roguelike structure are snappier and less annoying than Returnal's, but I think Returnal is easily going to be the more memorable experience for me in the long run. None of the characters or story beats in Saros are half as interesting as Seline and her journey of being trapped in her own personal Hell. Even five years later, Returnal is still an immensely disturbing psychological horror game to me.

Also, in an effort to be accommodating to so many different people, I think Housemarque significantly compromised the intended experience of Saros. They went way overboard, in my opinion, to make the game easier for players. I like Saros as a game from a gameplay perspective, but I don't really respect it as an experience, especially when Housemarque themselves don't seem to believe in it.

Oh cool. I was really hoping this would be the case.

Disappointed it is in the Yakuza series instead of a new IP, but it still looks very promising. Easy day one for me.

The game is fun but I think Sony made a big mistake charging $70 for it. It falls woefully short in key areas that other and much cheaper roguelites excel at, especially Hades II.

Players are already shaping Marathon's story by dropping the game entirely.

Damn, Team Asobi missing in action again for these celebratory art posts. 😩

@Oram77 Agreed on both accounts. SSM have talented artists, yet they have gone with this really ugly style on multiple occasions. I don't get it.

That Venom part in MSM2 was easily my favorite part of the game, so I'd definitely be down to play a Miles Morales-length game all about that. I hope the writing isn't mediocre as hell this time.

@Gaia093 Despite the tax breaks that Haven gets from operating in Canada, you do have to wonder if part of the reason why Fairgames is still a thing is Hulst's ego being attached to it. Like you said, this is one of his original live service babies, and when I think about it in terms of simple explanations, tax breaks and ego are the simplest reasons I can think of.

I just can't believe this hasn't been canned after all this time. Either PlayStation is getting some kind of enormous tax incentive from the Canadian government to keep this going or Hermen Hulst's determination to make Fairgames happen despite all common sense is astronomical. I just don't get it. I don't get what anyone at PlayStation sees in this project.

It's been amusing to watch the usual suspects in Xbox's media orbit and cult twist themselves into Cirque du Soleil-worthy pretzels to parrot whatever their dear leaders at Xbox preach, but I agree with Sammy that it's gotten old at this point, especially on the exclusives front. I feel secondhand embarrassment watching the same people shamelessly change their stance about exclusivity based on what Spencer, Bond, Booty, Nadella, and now Sharma have said about it.

@Skinny-Pete My hope is that Sandfall set the next Clair Obscur in a completely different setting with different characters. The ideal for me would be something that looks like FF7's Midgar with a more sci-fi edge to it.

@Skinny-Pete Reality, without question. Despite having to bring on an apocalypse that wipes out all of those characters I grew to love, Maelle leaving to confront a harsh reality was a far more ideal choice, in my opinion. I get the arguments for the other choice, but that would have been a horrendous choice in the long run. Better to rip off the band-aid and get it over with.

@Fizza Indeed. In all seriousness, Esquie is maybe the most charming video game character I've encountered in ages. It speaks to how careful and skillful the writers were in their juggling of tone that they could fit a giant French balloon creature into a game this devastating at times, and it doesn't come across as condescending or immersion-breaking.

One of my all-time favorites. I still think about this game on an almost daily basis.

Nagoshi deserves way better than this.

I'll believe it when I see it.

Nothing I saw in those clips lines up with the praise being heaped on them in this article imo

I've accepted that this is more than likely never coming out at this point. The development has already been rocky, but, with the way things are in the industry currently, it's going to take a miracle or some serious management readjustments to get this out the door. It's a shame, too, because the art direction and style are so charming.

Oh ffs.... 🤦‍♂️🤦‍♂️🤦‍♂️🤦‍♂️

Someone should educate Hulst on the sunk cost fallacy.

"And like Corden himself admits, it’d be a reminder that the maths never really made sense for the model – regardless of what executives reiterated over the years."

That's a stunning and kind of funny admission coming from Corden considering he is one of Xbox's biggest unpaid PR people in the games journo cabal.

NO ****ING WAY

Best game news I've heard all week

I know Wolverine is the obvious game that will be there, but I can't wait to see more of Kena: Scars of Kosmora. I'm also hoping we finally get a glimpse at what Sony Santa Monica and Firesprite have been working on.

@THEBrew I have a weird feeling that's going to show up at Xbox's event as some attempt at a marketing power move.

As a Kingdom Hearts fan, y'all have my sympathies.

Man, seeing Bluepoint removed from that list is a bummer.

I would GLADLY take another Uncharted at this point. Lost Legacy proved this series can work without Nate.

@get2sammyb As much as I like Naughty Dog, I think the massive success they've experienced and how much they've been orbiting the Hollywood scene recently has overinflated their idea of what it means to be a "Naughty Dog game" to an almost unsustainable degree. I think Chris on Sacred Symbols put it best when he said they (and PlayStation as a whole these days) were "HBO-brained" and prioritize "making acting exercises for thespians" a little too much.

Factions 2 should have just been a mode via a free update, a la Legends or Valhalla. PlayStation's stunningly poor studio management this gen has its role in this, but I think Naughty Dog and the heads there deserve a lot of the blame too, given ND's hubris and notorious scope/feature creep. I still can't believe no one at Naughty Dog or Sony had the foresight to understand that something of this scale and financial backing needed to be massively supported and monetized before Bungie told them. Even most armchair analysts know that basic facet of reality.

Oh my god this is beyond pathetic

Not excited about this at all until the game is actually out. I've seen too many of these hyped up partnerships and acquisitions lead to nowhere to get excited about another one.

Please brother Nomura I'm starving here

Sad news indeed. I liked Wanderstop quite a bit.

So stoked to see more.

@Kierant202 If Tassi's mainly corroborating those numbers, hoo boy...

@LogicStrikesAgain In my defense, I'd have that same mindset if Fairgames was one of their typical lavishly produced single-player games and shared the exact same tone as that debut trailer.

@LogicStrikesAgain I'm not sure I saw the hatred before the first alpha test other than people saying it looked super underwhelming, which is something I agreed with. The "hate" really blew up after the plagiarism scandal, and that is something Bungie 100% deserved imo. In Marathon's case, I'm not sympathetic to Sony and Bungie also because I don't know what they were expecting with the snowball effects of years of constant mistakes, bad messaging, and misreading the room. At some point, these devs and publishers have to get way better at reading the room and realizing they can't brute force an audience to immediately clap for their latest product, especially if it's a live service. It's why I don't blame people for immediately dismissing a lot of these Sony live services. You expect bad and cynical live services from the usual suspects. But getting them from a company as storied and revered as PlayStation is understandably frustrating.

Regarding Fairgames, I do hope it fails because it looks like the worst kind of hot cynical garbage with a grotesque, pompous, and hypocritical "eat the rich" tone. It that's the tone they're going with, I absolutely do want that to fail out of sheer spite. Horizon: Hunters Gathering I'm way less spiteful of, but there are areas where one can easily smell the cynicism on that, especially with the character designs and tone that are way different from what people expect of the franchise.

@LogicStrikesAgain I agree it's not a disliked game. In any other case, something with a passionate and dedicated niche audience like this is something I would champion and consider a big success. The problem is that, at the bare minimum, I imagine Sony and Bungie have collectively spent around $200 million on Marathon, and (allegedly) 1.2 million copies with a steadily declining playerbase is just not good at all, given the cost.

I'm also not going to give Bungie the same kind of grace you are considering, given how long they've been in this business and their past behavior. If the excessive hate you're referring to is stuff like the general sentiment from disgruntled Destiny 2 players, the blowback from the proven plagiarism, and Bungie being seen as arbiters of Sony's failed live service future, then we don't see eye-to-eye on this. In fact, I'll go even further by saying that I think some people in the fanbase and gaming press are being far too forgiving and naive about Marathon and its future, given Bungie's history and Sony's enormous investments in them. I don't see the blowback it got as excessive at all.