Weez

@Rich33 While I appreciate that's subjective, and am glad you enjoyed it, the issue for me, and pretty much everyone I've spoken to it about, wasn't so much the new cast. It's that the new cast was thoroughly unbearable and the humour didn't land.

Probably an unpopular opinion, but I'm not liking the art style. Some of the character designs are just weird, and a step back compared to the original.

@Questionable_Duck Fair point. "Currently, there's not really too much of a possibility of having 'Nioh' on Xbox platforms. " Given that Sony published them outside of Japan, I'm not sure we'll see that change.

As for the story connection, hard to say. People see 3 and assume continuity if not familiar with the franchise. I can see that impacting sales.

@Questionable_Duck It's not a timed exclusive and Team Ninja previously said Nioh games where never coming to Xbox. I'd say it's highly unlikely.

Maybe they figure the rest of the series being absent will see less adoption, unlike the Fatal Frame franchise which has launched most titles on Xbox?

@LogicStrikesAgain It has a simultaneous PC/PS launch. No mention of Xbox.

@GirlVersusGame I'd wager that attractive, even sexualised characters, aren't intended as a substitute for "real contact". Nor are they at odds with maturity. Aesthetics has implicit appeal and that's not going to change. A vocal minority just attempted to associate shame with that simple reality.

On a tangent, it's worth noting that the original cultivation theory paper that popularised the "games reinforcing misogyny" argument and prompted the moral panic bordered on academic malfeasance, has yet to be reproduced successfully and has been contradicted numerous times, with more robust studies finding the opposite. This parallels decades worth of research indicating violent videogames have no meaningful impact on aggression, but do decrease cortisol levels which are implicated in reactionary violence. Poor research was accepted without merit and became a political football. Jack Thompson all over again.

@Paleblood On the upside, looking at this comment section, performative pearl clutching as a pastime is on the decline.

@nessisonett How does nanite influence "design styles" beyond tempting developers to put more geometry on screen? Lumen is entirely optional, and the engine allows the use of no, baked or custom GI solutions. The NvRTX branch, which includes RESTIR (used in Cyberpunk's path tracing mode), is also freely available. Spoilers, it doesn't have much impact on "design styles". Only the fidelity and cost of modelling light transport.

At a stretch, one could argue that PBR and the stock ACES colour grading have influenced the look of many titles, but you'd still be making excuses for developers prioritizing "realism", and aping cinematic lighting/post techniques, over developing interesting, unique art direction. That, and the overuse of photogrammetry libraries.

Not enough explosions

Hot take if ever there was one - like faulting Doom 2016 because the gameplay involves shooting things and "Hurt me plenty" wasn't enough of a challenge.

I suggest trying mentor or master ninja, as they outright require precise positioning, move selection and UT execution.

@LogicStrikesAgain

> that it is diverse as the cause of why a product is bad, instead of the real reasons like awful writing, acting and acting etc.

There's a difference between the general notion of diversity, and the practicalities of the financially incentivised corporate pursuit of it. Diversity requirements in a company, in my experience, usually start at the behest of executives/stakeholders. Seminars and consultancy follows, always nebulous with little to no thought of context or execution. Less "lets make a different character or cast", more intersectionality. Any opposition, regardless of motivation, is dealt with harshly. This In practice lends itself to a lot of uncertainty, often resulting in the "safest" choice as to not risk offending or creating something "problematic".

The simplest example I can provide is seeing a bunch of compelling vignettes, complete with exposition and legitimately endearing character beats, scrapped because they made a female character seem "vulnerable"; Despite her being immensely capable during gameplay, it was an explicitly discouraged characterisation. The outcome? A colleague disappointed and demotivated, criticisms of an unrelatable, cold protagonist and plot points lacking motivation at launch.

> they fail to make a compelling product around their pursuit of inclusiveness

And that's my point. The corporate climate which prioritises DEI, practically, more often than not imposes substantial constraints on the design space. The social climate that enforces it impacts morale and investment within the team. Both can significantly undermine the quality of output.

> It sucks that you have to work in an environment that only focuses on representation.

It's a fairly small industry with a lot of talent shuffling about. From what I hear, it's not uncommon.

@DonJorginho Hear, hear!

@nessisonett

Diversity in itself is neither here nor there, until it becomes a development priority (where gameplay/experience/entertainment value should always come first).

> It goes without saying that no dev would want to add elements to a game unless they were a certain quality

There are explicit diversity requirements to be eligible for a number of game awards. For publicly traded companies, there are also strong financial incentives to meet DEI milestones, resulting in frequent, superficial inclusion/check listing. These range from well thought out, to obnoxiously performative (the progressive term rainbow capitalism springs to mind as an example), to at odds with the themes, tone or general tenets of good story telling/character development. In practice, these forced considerations, coupled with cultivated press outrage (this article being one of a litany of examples), means design meetings are dominated by concerns of representation and potential offense. Suddenly, entertainment isn't the primary consideration of an entertainment industry. Creatives walk on eggshells while expected to be creative. As someone working in it, that is my personal gripe; The current climate has stifled the creative process.

> Instantly jump towards questioning the motivations of the writers or use of DEI practices if there are minorities present

Calling it bigotry is reductive; People have enjoyed minority and/or female protagonists for decades. I think it's more cynicism. Poor games and films often spotlight diversity to draw attention away from an otherwise underwhelming product. It's the fault of the the executive/marketing departments, but none the less it establishes a negative correlation. So does using those characters for ham-fisted contemporary social commentary or lacklustre characterisation to speed run your quarterly social requirements checklist.

The amount of coverage and insiders trying to generate hype comes across as a little desperate tbh. I'd rather spend my time playing something enjoyable and follow up on any announcements.

Yes, and it's magnificent.

@Rich33 While I'm fond of the original voice acting, I'd be more concerned about Amy Hennig not returning.

@ShadowofSparta Why? People disagree with content. Execution can make it more or less egregious. A "woke list" is no different to all the press asides about Eve's sexualization - they indicate content.

I agree there's room for nuance, and it's up to every player to make an informed decision when buying a game, but I fail to see the issue with someone being informed of what's in it.

@MeanBeanEgg I'm not sure if comments like these are intentionally reductive or not, but it's not hard to understand.

Different people respond differently to different content. Some folks didn't like the fan service in Stellar Blade, many don't like blatant identity politics in their escapism. The prominence, execution and influence on gameplay that these elements have dictate how much of a negative they're perceived as. People weigh negatives against positives when deciding how they feel about a game.

Baldur's Gate 3 is an exceptionally well made game. Unsurprisingly it sells well, despite how a subset of its playerbase might feel about some of its content.

@GymratAmarillo I get where you're coming from, and largely agree that past a point it becomes a nuisance, but a definitive no from FromSoft would have precluded a lot of that. Either way, the PC crowd got tired of waiting, built an emulator and can already play it at 60fps. Seems like money left on the table tbh.

@Michael2008ish Sure thing, it's an opinion. It didn't entertain me, so I refunded it.

With 3 multi-plat titles and one PS exclusive under my belt, albeit in a more technical role, I'd like to think I've had a hand in creating something...

@Michael2008ish The art style. Disney-ish, as in overly saturated and noticeably stylized - not my first choice for dark fantasy...

It wasn't about rainbows, no, which is what made the tone, characterization and general dialogue choices so frustrating. They where fundamentally at odds with the story (and series), undermining any actual sense of severity. I personally found it unengaging as a result, and found myself disliking characters in a short span of time. Rook included, largely due to the bland, toothless dialogue choices, at which point I figured it wasn't for me.

@somnambulance The dialogue and characterization is rather juvenile, they did away with a lot of the gore and pushed the art style in a distinctly Disney direction while the gameplay has shifted towards accessible ARPG fair. If anything, the marketing reflects the overall design choices quite well.

I opted to pick it up on Steam instead of PS to draw my own conclusions, and unfortunately refunded it for the above reasons. Modern Bioware just isn't for me.

I'm not sure what relevance TGA has, beyond keeping a roof over Dorito Pope's head tbh. It's a relic of the past, much like E3.

With the rise of digital platforms, player based game awards make more sense. Well advertised in platform, with an extended voting period. A hard requirement that you own and have put x number of hours into the game before being eligible for voting.

Assuming the nomination pools are large, it'll aid game discovery and the ultimate winner will reflect the sentiments of the platforms users.

I don't believe further consolidation of two industries already plagued by it is a good thing.

The only incentive FromSoft has is additional capital - in a time where excessive budgets, wasteful spending and misguided publisher priorities have caused a number of closures. Leave them be, they don't need the money.

From an manga/anime perspective, Sony has made their stance on wanting to appeal to global markets clear. All too often this means homogenization. Not a big anime fan, but it would be a shame to see a distinct medium watered down.

@wildcat_kickz Best remake, while one is at it.

Please sell enough to bankroll another NG game.

@PuppetMaster I also thought Vikander did a good job as Survivor-trilogy Lara. Certainly put a lot into the role.

That said, I miss old Lara. Not everything has to be serious. Given the decline of the Indiana Jones franchise, I dare say there's room for a more playful, adventure focused film.

I can't say I see it. Her acting isn't anything to write home about, nor does she strike me as being especially physical. For the purists, she's lacking two other important qualifications.

Choosing Yasuke as the protagonist for an AC game set in Japan was an odd choice in terms of player expectation. In the decade plus of fans requesting such a game, I can't say I've seen anyone ask for Yasuke (or any other non-Japanese protagonist).

Doubling down on historical accuracy as the justification when the Yasuke-samurai conjecture is disputed, and was popularised by a single western author who wrote 400+ pages based loosely on a handful of paragraphs that never stated he was a samurai, or a lord, was a terrible choice.

Characterising all opposition to said choices as racism is just willful ignorance when both "diverse" AC titles and other media featuring black samurais have, and will likely continue to succeed (on their own merits).

Studios seem to be ever increasingly incapable of accepting critiscm.

PC having the best looking and performing version of Bloodborne was not on my 2024 bingo card.

That's a point, I need to pick up the Shadows of the Damned remaster.

@themightyant Origins certainly was, and truthfully I'm still hoping for a "true" sequel to it.

While less atmospheric, apocalyptic and grotesque, qualities I missed in 2, it still maintained some of the oppressive atmosphere; Mundane hopelessness, if you will. It also had a number of legitimate gut-punches. I certainly wouldn't call In Hushed Whispers heroic fantasy. I would call the overwhelming majority of Inquisition exactly that.

My concern from the outset, with that god awful announcement trailer, has been that Veilguard will steer further in that direction - with rapid-fire whedonisms and bright flashes of color to mark the franchise's transformation into yet another generic, overly "safe" fantasy action property.

Given Bioware's trajectory as of late, the gameplay footage and writing I have seen (albeit with limited context) and that there's no reason not to wait, I'll do exactly that, is all.

@ShogunRok @ShogunRok I didn't suggest there was, only that I would hold off on purchasing it until an informed decision could be made. There needn't be conspiracy involved for press consensus to not align with my subjective taste in games. It happens all the time.

For that reason, I make a habit of following individual reviewers with similar tastes; The prestige or popularity of a publication matters little if they frequently endorse titles I don't enjoy.

@themightyant I didn't see it as "trying to be an arsehole". More, just not being entirely supplicative and endlessly accommodating.

It's a legitimate complaint, IMO. Dragon Age is an established dark fantasy franchise, not a family friendly Disney production after all.

@Oz_Who_Dat_Dare
> think perhaps that their point is - BioWare kinda made it their calling-card.

This. Coupled with the radical shift in tone and changes in gameplay, I feel some trepidation is more than justified. That's not to say it'll be bad, just that anyone not wishing to indulge in mindless consumerism can wait a day or two to confirm it's something they actually want to play.

@KeenAerondight Same, most of the reviewers I follow, for their similar tastes and generally non-sensational reviews, outright dislike the game. No harm in waiting a couple of days as to make an informed decision.

@Gaia093 This is my guess. As a new studio, they aren't subject to the corporate bloat that many established studios have, either. That does wonders for payroll.

@themightyant lol, malfunctioning before my morning coffee. Meant to say 25%, as a rough mean increase over user scores outside of the titles that saw mainstream adoption, which are largely in lockstep. Edited to correct.

My point is precisely that though. It is pretty normal. Even quite forgiving/favourable in the case of their divisive titles. That is, it's unfair to blame the press for poor adoption. The games simply failed to resonate with a sufficiently large audience to be profitable.

@gollumb82 This has always been the case. https://www.gamespot.com/gallery/best-selling-games-of-each-of-the-past-25-years-in-the-us/2900-5031/

Gameplay is the mediums defining feature, it's not surprising that people would prioritise it. Fun, exhilaration, exploration, escapism and challenge consistently rank highly in terms of gamer priorities. Games with these qualities that also have a strong narrative, world-building or characterization, with broad appeal, often become iconic. Your favourite game, Cyberpunk 2077, moved 25 million copies to date. The Witcher 3 has moved over 50. Skyrim over 60. People still long for novel games. They just have to succeed as games to break even.

@KundaliniRising333 The press has been fairly kind to their games, even the poorer ones - with scores often a good 25% higher than audience scores for their "non-mainstream" titles. It seems unfair to blame the press for niche titles not selling well.

The rise in production costs has just made the consequences of a lack of mass appeal that much more noticeable.

@Yousef- Give it time, you might just be right.

@torquex That's a (meticulously crafted) cinematic running at 30fps on a 4900/14900k, so 6+ times slower. It is likely to appeal to the virtual production crowd (much like Unreal 4 did with Rebirth, 5 years ago: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9fC20NWhx4s). This tech-demo is showcasing hundreds of dynamic, ray-traced lights on consumer hardware at 60FPS, where previously one was limited to a handful before performance plummeted.

@NEStalgia It's been available via source builds for some time. As it stands, it currently requires HW raytracing support and is decoupled, superficially at least, from GI method. I've been meaning to take a look at the actual implementation, but work has had other ideas. I'm guessing it's a novel approach to importance (re)sampling - something similar to ReSTIR.

tldr; HW acceleration is concerned with speeding up the tracing - the calculation of ray-triangle intersections required to model light transport and maintaining the acceleration structures to do it at scale. This is more about minimizing the number of traces required while maximizing the relevant "information" acquired from each trace, if that makes sense.

@NEStalgia i think you're confused. Raytracing, broadly speaking, is a class of algorithms. Hardware raytracing is dedicated silicone on GPUs that accelerates the notoriously computationally intensive aspects of raytracing. Both lumen and megalights are raytracing and can exploit hardware RT. Megalights straight up requires it. Lumen has a "software RT" mode that exclusively traces against a simplified scene representation, removing the need for hardware accelerated ray-triangle intersections at the cost of quality.

@wiiware Its a supplement to, not a replacement for Lumen. Lumen is a solution for indirect illumination and reflections. Megalights handles the direct illumination and shadowing of a large numbers of lights. Same as RTXDI requires a supplementary GI solver.

Also, there are a number of UE5 titles already using lumen. Lords of the Fallen, The First Descendent, Wu Kong, etc.

@nessisonett That... seems more than a little myopic. Historically, the puritan brand of censorship was primarily pushed by the Christian right. But that hasn't been the case since the days of Jack Thompson and paranoid parents fearing that Harry Potter would turn their children into satanists.

Despite little interest in culture wars, it's hard not to notice that the majority of people pushing the "anti-woke" position a) want more attractive, even suggestive characters and b) are predominately right wing, in many cases explicitly Christian. A cursory glance at social media will confirm this.

As someone working in the industry, I can also confidently say that most "conservative" design decisions and self-censorship, at least in regards to female characters, are rooted in "tropes vs woman" style progressive paranoia and moral concern. Which tracks, considering the majority of executives and art directors in western studios, which pursue such censorship to a far greater degree than their Eastern counterparts, are left-leaning. The Eastern studios that do so, usually do so at the behest of their US offices, situated in California. Square Enix, for example, or the source of any of Capcoms inclusivity circulars. More relevant still, note that it was Sony US that amended their publishing criteria, allowing them to deny Japanese studios the use of local rating agencies and insist that they meet "western standards" - forcing all content to be approved by their California headquarters, in English no less.

@get2sammyb Thanks for the info. That's an... interesting marketing strategy.

@get2sammyb Thanks for the heads up, wasn't aware of it. Speaking of which, Lollipop Chainsaw Repop launched to absolutely no press coverage. What's up with that?

@Batesy125s Stylized aesthetic is a design choice - departing from realism/nature for effect. Lack of aesthetic speaks to visual identity and appeal, or the lack thereof. The two aren't mutually exclusive.

I have no issue with stylization, I just thought the trailer lacked visual identity, was a poor choice (in terms of execution) for the setting and had a couple of legitimately unappealing design choices.

As for the tone, if you don't think this is a juvenile take on dark fantasy (and all that implies), I'm not sure what more to say.

On the up side, the developers have since released a gameplay preview, in response to the overwhelmingly negative trailer reception, and it seems entirely different. I'll reserve judgement until the game launches - after which I can see if the poor direction was limited to a single trailer.

@Batesy125s I'm pretty sure it isn't the stylized aesthetic that people are taking exception to. It's the lack of aesthetic and infantile tone in a dark fantasy setting.

DA really doesn't need Whedonism.

The environments look excellent - really atmospheric. The characters? A disappointment.

James still looks weird and has unnatural/rigid animation. Maria's redesign looks like a generic daytime TV character, albeit with a head too large for her body. Major misstep in terms of characterization IMO. Angela is... unfortunate. The execution of the enemies seems pretty underwhelming as well. Muddy, indistinct and blandly animated. The head shake on the nurse is the only addition I actually like.

I'll wait for actual gameplay footage come release. Certainly not a day 1 buy.

I'd love to see NG return. The polish of NGB alongside the intensity of NG2 is pretty much everything I could wish for in an action game.

@JohntheRaptor A hybrid, for sure, but it doesn't quite scratch the NG itch. The pacing of combat is closer to that of a Soulslike - smaller, slower, more methodical encounters.

NG is somewhat unique. It features hyper-aggressive, highly lethal enemies. On Master Ninja, they'll punish you for standing still or blocking as readily as they will for excessive movement or careless attacks. Throw in orbs and UTs and it becomes equal parts spatial puzzle, where precise positioning, use of the environment and decisive actions are outright required, and a doom-like adrenaline rush as you cleave your way through said enemies by the dozen.