It shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone at this point, sadly. Ubisoft has been increasingly spiralling the drain in recent years, and it's no longer a question of if they collapse but when.
@MrPeanutbutterz It's pretty solid. The ups and downs with the game these days are more centered around performance isdues or bugs that inevitably sneak in with the updates, but the weapon balancing is much less aggressive than the first year - where they tended to nerf the meta weapons hard before, they focus entirely on improving underperforming weapons now to bring them up to par. As such the changes end up feeling much less... aggressive? than before, and generally make the game more fun to drop back into to test out new things that you might have overlooked before. The weapon customisation that they added a year ago is also pretty fun to play around with, even though some weapons benefit from it much more than others in the current state.
There's also a lot of variety now in the Warbonds to accommodate for all sorts of different playstyles (although I do wish they'd offer more free stratagems outside of them, those seem to have dropped off entirely at this point.)
The Censor sounds pretty interesting (and probably a bit more viable as a suppressed with how detection works in the game - one shot one kill should be much more effective than automatics) and the pistol offering a single target gas effect could have an interesting niche in open-sidearm loadouts - at least if it can reliably prick medium enemies, fleshmobs etc at a reasonable range. Will be interesting to see where the damage and Armor Pen falls on the C4 pack - if it can deal with most heavies with a single satchel (and only takes up the backpack slot) it could make for an interesting swap for Thermites, Dynamite or even the Ultimatum as a close-range Anti-Tank option.
A bit of a novelty/aesthetic warbond for most people, definitely (and even for stealth players, arguably the plasma weapons are still the best option as they're naturally silent to fire with loud impact explosions that can distract) but hey - I like novelty warbonds if the kit looks nice or offers something different.
The game, if it had existed in a vacuum, absolutely didn't deserve the hate.
The game as it did exist, surrounded by fabricated hype and false promises, absolutely did.
It's a shame - if not for the executive misteps by EA that led to a lot of the issues around the game, or the promises to improve it that were ultimately abandoned, the game may have been remembered much more fondly. For its flaws, and even as a stark warning that the Bioware of old had ceased to be, the core movement and gunplay was so fun and fluid - and could have been the centre of something so much better if clearer heads had prevailed either before or after launch.
The delisting of the original is honestly the part that doesn't sit right with me.
For one, the Director's Cut is PS5 only, so the only way to play the game on the console that it launched on - PS4 - or in its original composition from this point forward is to buy a physical copy. That's far from ideal.
Second... a game that would quite regularly be on sale for less than a tenner will now only be available at a significantly higher price for the foreseeable future, with that base price at 'new' of £45 - and no doubt with far less generous discounts once it starts hitting the sales in a few months.
It was known seven months ago that the game had some GenAI placeholder textures in the game at launch, which Sandfall subsequently patched out.
A Sandfall rep either lied or made an unintentionally inaccurate statement, sure. But where was the due diligence of the award organisers themselves in all of this in monitoring their own rules? The game's development using GenAI in some capacity is far from the shocking revelation they're making it out to be.
Feels like a waste of time, frankly. The vocal minority that are so up in arms about it are also so fervent in their anti-AI mindset that they won't be swayed by anything he has to say. Or they'll be the sort to stubbornly grandstand now, but still buy the game down the line if and when it's a critical success.
Either way, Larian are better off just getting on with things, and Swen being more mindful of what (and how) he says in future interviews.
@Korgon (#30) Your points here lean into my personal issues with it being nominated as an indie title, personally.
If it were nothing more than a budgetary partnership, if Kepler had only provided Sandfall with money and resources to make the most out if their team... yeah, honestly, I think I would consider it indie, if tentatively. There'd be financial help there, but no direct publisher involvement beyond the usual standard of these partnerships.
My issues with the 'indie' classification with E33 is that the assistance went far beyond budgetary. Kepler helped them with finances and marketing as you'd generally expect from a indie-publisher partnership. The industry connections for high-profile VA talent bring it close to the edge. But what undoubtedly pushes it over for me is the amount of support studios that Kepler drafted in to help with the project. Money is money, but Kepler went beyond that and applied considerable influence and manpower from their own reserves. A small team at Sandfall itself, supplemented by hundreds of additional, publisher-drafted development staff over the course of the project after they took on the role as publisher.
That is hands-down the biggest sticking point for me in why I accept Sandfall as an indie studio, but simply can't consider E33 to be an indie game - because, from my perspective, it was by no means an independent project by the time it had concluded development.
I was half-watching TGAs at the time as I was talking with someone alongside it, but caught the 'demo out now' with an 'ooooh, nice' - I'd been hoping we'd get to try it as it sounds interesting but I want to know how it feels in practice.
Then I spent a confused while the next morning trying to find the demo on PSN, for a multiplatform title that Sony have been pretty proudly advertising since its reveal. Thinking that it if it's not in the demos section, surely it must be one of the awkward 'technically beta' ones that you find in the submenu for a game's store page, because they DEFINITELY just announced a demo on stage.
...Then the disappointing google search of, 'Oh, we don't get to try it until an unspecified point in the near future... awesome. That's swell.' I get it, Capcom are hyper-conscious of PC users post-Wilds and want to head off any performance concerns as early as possible, but, still - bummer.
@Hi569 By the end that's the crux of it yeah, 4-character boss fights in either solo or with other players, along with wave battles and other mission types. Small arena stuff.
That's led up to by the campaign, which is presented as a light single-player Action RPG that has you following the story through a bunch of levels and hub areas with the standard faire of collectibles, side quest and high-threat 'you'll probably have to come back to fight this later' challenge bosses. You can do a few coop missions on the side between missions in the campaign, iirc, but the bulk of it doesn't open up until the story (mostly) wraps up.
It's definitely worth a try if you want some light ARPG-meets-hack-and-slash action that can challenge you pretty well when it wants to but doesn't keep the heat on constantly. Cut through basic enemies, need more thought for bosses, etc.
With all the will and motivation in the world, there's still no guarantee that the Disney or EA overlords won't drop it in an instant if it doesn't come together exactly as they want it and/or they find something else that feels like a better cash cow.
If it ends up being developed pretty efficiently, I could see maybe mid/late 2028 as an optimistic outlook. The studio being a year old isn't that much of a factor if they've been working on the game for the bulk of that and are on the ball, and a four-year development cycle is a reasonable window. Though, again, with smooth development.
Most likely, I expect mid 2029.
If it starts pushing to 2030 or beyond... things will have probably gone less smoothly than they'd like along the way. With a high profile project and presumably a budget to match, 6+ years would be heading into development hell territory.
(Stares and smiles at Beyond Good & Evil 2, the game that is definitely still coming out eventually in a good state and not at all lost to the void)
It reminds me a lot of the approach they tried to take with RE6 of a trying to give a different experience with each set of characters - trying to give a slightly more classic feel with Leon/Helena, trying to make something between RE4/5 with Jake/Sherry, and 'let's try to make it a military shooter I guess' with Chris/Piers.
Of course it trying and failing on each count, because it didn't really change much apart from how many things you had to shoot at any given time and for how long, and whether or not you'd have any simple puzzles along the way. The core running through all of it set it up to fail - it all functionally being RE5 again with three (four with Ada) different coats of paint - and the closest any part came to hitting the mission statement was the first hour or so of the Leon campaign. It just couldn't carry those three distinct concepts on the same back. And there being so much of that re-painted sameness to play through didn't help, for three routes the campaign felt twice the length that it should have been and retrod waaaay too many events from different perspectives.
I'm actually cautiously optimistic that they've learned their lessons from that this time. They've kept saying it - Grace is scared, she's not a fighter, she's out of her depth. And with the glimpses of Leon in the trailer, they've kept him the opposite. The (now thoroughly grizzled, or at least stubbled) veteran who's not phased by a zombie anymore and shoots and cuts and kicks them just as we expect from him.
If they've actually kept a distinctive character to how the characters play and feel this time, instead of just expected the atmosphere and backdrop to do the work when every single member of the cast still plays like a one-man/woman army?
If they've actually tried it again and made it work? Hell, I'm in.
@Darylb88 I loved E33, and would argue on my side that it earned the RPG win - though KCD2 was also a fantastic experience. I wish we could see numbers for how close it was, choosing between them on the ballot wasn't easy.
I absolutely agree on the Indie/Debut Indie award, though - placing E33 into either bracket really didn't and doesn't sit right with me. They're an independent studio, yes - but is it an independent project if it's bankrolled by a publisher and other sources? I would say no, personally, with absolute certainty. With the money and support brought to the project by Kepler - the support studios, the popular VAs, Charlie freaking Cox, the high profile publicity campaign - it is a published title in practical terms.
They accomplished a lot with the game, and it's been one of my favourites for this year deserving of so many of its other wins, but it shouldn't have been placed shoulder-to-shoulder with other independent projects that were produced in a genuinely independent environment. I was on the fence with Dave the Diver's nomination previously, but... yeah.
I am at no point saying that you should dislike the things that I did. A dud to me doesn't need to be a dud to you. It can be great, fantastic, even phenomenal.
We are humans. We discuss opinions. And opinions will always exist on both sides of the divide. Not to open Pandora's Box of the outside world, but in so many matters out there, we're falling into 'us versus them' mentalities, failing to bridge the gap and just... communicate. Connected so closely by technology, yet frighteningly and increasingly divided.
So, personally, I'm going to express my opinions on my hobby as openly as I wish, positive or negative. I'm going to read and engage with and discuss the opinions of others. And of course I'll sometimes inevitably get irritated because their opinion is so, so far from my own that I can't process it, which happens to us all. All of it because that point of connection between differing perspectives is a blessing, not a curse. We're all better off when we meet in the middle, and talk over the fence.
@MFTWrecks It was a fantastic show overall, I don't see anyone contesting that.
Doesn't mean that we can't call out the duds - a lackluster 'grand reveal' for the finale, the occasional awkward joke that fell flat ("And you're not too bad yourself, dad!" total silence "So, anyway."), the bizarre '...are they... really just advertising with toilet humour?' spot for BF:REDSEC.
Showstoppers are great. The fumbles are great too, in their own form of entertainment value.
I couldn't help but laugh at the 'new breed of shooter' statement both from Geoff in his build-up and in the anticlimactic trailer itself.
A hero shooter is already a very, very defined breed. Though I suppose they did briefly put the heroes on a horse. Maybe they meant to say a new breed of horse.
I'd play a pure, faithful remake of Black Flag. It still stands as one of the best entries in AC, if mostly because it's the best version of the original combat systems before they shifted increasingly to RPG-esque bloat.
If any of the rumours of it shifting towards that new-style AC are true... nah, hard pass. I don't want to play Black Flag looking for a higher level pistol because my old one can no longer manage a successful headshot.
To the PS5? Not by any reasonable estimation - at this point in the console's life cycle, most people who want one will already have one, and it either will or won't be their preferred platform.
To PlayStation's future consoles? Possibly. For now, there's really not enough information to decide on, but the draw of being able to play from one's Steam library will very much depend on how much someone has invested in theirs - for my part, I have a large catalogue of older games from when I had a gaming rig and high-end laptop years ago, but haven't spent a penny on Steam in the years since, so there's really nothing to tempt me. The target audience seems definitely more 'PC players who already preferred Big Picture mode on the sofa, Steamdeck, etc' than anything else -and to make much of a break beyond that, price would be the defining factor.
"Nope, don't care" has always seemed to be the standard response from any UK government to petitions. If it's not an issue that results in mass media coverage and/or a national scandal, they have no interest in listening.
They're coming out that quickly? I assumed that they'd gone for an actual episodic release for the sake or spreading things out and finishing things off, as they'd done in their time as Telltale, not... just splitting up a very clearly completed game over the course of a month, purely so they can call it episodic to evoke the comparison.
If I had interest remaining in it, I'd be happy with that news even without any particular graphics or performance upgrades; the biggest point of torture for me in it not being PS5-native was it needing to double down on storage space every time it needed to download a patch.
Needing to clear out up to 90GB of my storage in order for the game to install even the smallest hotfix got old very, very quickly; PS4 back-compat is very much not live-service compatible on PS5, and it's honestly a bit of a shambles that it took them this long to address that.
I genuinely loved Remake, and was excited for the second, but outside of the combat Rebirth lowered my expectations for the final part into the gutter. It became clear pretty quickly, and excruciatingly so in the final chapters, that they set up the 'what you know, but not quite' premise of Remake with NO clear plan of how to continue it.
@Fakeplastictree I don't usually get motion sick with games, but this is one that made me feel a little nauseous from time to time. I feel like a lot of it came from weather and lighting effects - the heavy bloom in fog, the very sudden and intense colouration from sunset, etc. And god forbid Atsu drinking some sake without my stomach churning. Given the suite of accessibility options for other things, hopefully at some point they add options to tone down those effects, the fact that the game would sometimes make me feel sick in pursuit of its artistic vision is one of the things I personally mark it down for.
It's fun, pretty, and very cinematic. But having finally finished my Lethal run to 100% an hour ago and wrapping up the plat, it's a great game that nonetheless carries a few flaws - largely little frustrations where that cinematic aim has clashed with the feel of the gameplay, and for the most part inherited directly from GoT.
@captainsandman Part of the issue with it is that it seems many of the performance problems are coming from a memory leak. If you play for shorter sessions, you really won't notice many FPS drops unless there's a lot going on and/or you're playing in co-op. If you play for more than a few hours in one sitting, though, things start to degrade pretty quickly from that point with Performance mode eventually dropping from a fairly steady 60 to 30 FPS or lower.
@SodaPop6548 Eh, one of my friends is putting off playing it because the low FOV sets off her motion sickness. It may seem like a silly focal point from your perspective (and, honestly, I wouldn't have thought about that either) but it can be a legitimate make or break issue for some.
Hmm, in Genshin and the many clone-ish gachas that it spawned, the last 10 levels were always much less impactful an investment than an optimised weapon/relic set (or whaling a character to C6) so I can only really see this as making the final tiers of the rotating challenge battles marginally easier for those with more money than sense, but still
I don't personally see a brand revived after 20 years by people with no connection whatsoever to the origin beyond the rights and unwanted IPs that they bought as an 'it's back' scenario, but whatever.
We'll see quite quickly if the new "Acclaim" actually have anything to offer, or if they're banking almost purely on nostalgia (bought dirt-cheap).
@johncalmc I wouldn't necessarily say it was poorer for Keither's casting, his voice acting in the role was pretty good.
...Though it certainly would've been nice if he'd had more than what felt like a few minutes of voice acting across the entire length of the game. Compared to every other iteration - and even forwards to Sam Stranding - Venom may as well have been a silent protagonist for how little he actually spoke.
Sounds like unfounded speculation on his part, but frankly I wouldn't at all be surprised if it was penned for cancellation at this point. The writing was on the wall in many ways the moment Raymond jumped ship; the reports were that she left in the wake of/response to negative feedback from playtesting... but as the founder of the studio and the project, the fact that she would respond like that rather than stick around and try to address and improve on the criticism was a huge red flag. It would appear that she had very little investment and/or faith in the game and its prospects, which is never a good sign from the person who had spearheaded it in the first place.
At last, a button (presumably) to quick-retry that boss' second phase without burning through the first - maybe I can go back and try it with a non-OHKO build and actually have a chance to learn the parry timings now. xD
I wish they'd stop messing with the weapons every update, personally. Pull up what's underperforming once in a blue moon, sure, but the see-saw of buffs and debuffs is getting excessive. It reminds me of the fiasco with Helldivers 2 a few months after release - it's a PvE game, not a competitive one, it doesn't need such heavy-handed balancing. Hell, it doesn't need to be 'balanced' at all; every game before World had weapons that came out as the firm meta, but most people still just played the weapons that they liked.
Just let people have fun with your game instead of trying to convince them to use less of this attack or mode and more of that one, etc.
As I've said before, I'm all for it - I stick to PS for a mix of the console aesthetics, interface, mutual friends on the platform and attachment to my trophy list and back catalogue.
Hell, the only reason I moved to PS4 after the 360 was that I didn't like where XBox went with the first two... well, that and having had to replace said 360 several times due to RRoD, if there's one way to make sure that noone ever buys your products again it's releasing one with a major flaw that can brick it on a whim.
I'm not going to up and change console just because there are fewer permanent exclusives; if Sony want to expand into the other console markets as they've been doing with PC, even if on their end it's just for the pursuit of more profit, I'm down for it. As long as they have a sustainable business plan for it that isn't going to damage the company in the long run, for us as gamers it's a win-win. I can't see Nintendo ever fully jumping on the ship, I expect they'll stick to the occasional mobile spinoff or such, but more games exchanged between Sony and MS isn't a bad thing.
Our daily reminder that, as much as execs like Spencer would like to tell us that they're in the business for the people, these businesses will only ever truly care about one thing - keeping shareholders happy with ever-increasing profit and dividends, whatever the human cost, and marching onwards to their inevitable, eventual collapse from seeking infinite growth in a finite market.
Look, I enjoy Sony's narrative single player output - and am firmly of the "ditch the live service push and stick to what you're good at" camp - but I can still chuckle at those memes. They're not 'bad takes', they're JOKES. If you genuinely find them 'irritating' (though let's be real, you don't, you're just trying to play up drama for kicks/clicks) you need to touch grass.
Yes - though I certainly hope that Lethal Mode is in the game at launch this time. It's a great example of a risk/reward difficulty, and I wish more games would play around with settings that buff both the player and their enemies rather than simply turning the opposition into hard-hitting health sponges. I picked it up halfway through the game after coming back to it a year or so after launch and it was such a fun way to play.
8.5/10, for me. The gameplay is what keeps me hooked, I like the courier-sim side of it, building infrastructure and the improved combat mechanics... but holy hell, the story and writing is a pile of hot garbage, though I went in expecting that and at least the cutscenes look great and are well delivered by the cast.
Between the movement changes and frontloading of vehicles and formerly mid/late-game options from before it also loses a lot of the challenge in navigating terrain - I lived on ladders and anchors in DS1, here I can count the number I've used combined on one hand - but I won't dock it points there.
Like some others I assumed they'd shut it down a looong time ago given that they killed off post-launch updates so quickly. It's a shame, honestly, that they left it in that state. Beyond the story, extremely barebones endgame, and the false-promised features from the infamous "gameplay" reveal, the game could be really fun when the combat and traversal were allowed to shine.
In an ideal world, it would have been developed properly from the outset, but if they'd actually gone ahead with their promised revamp and put the time and resources into fixing it ala NMS and Cyberpunk, it had the same potential to actually turn into something good. But instead, it's just ended up as one of the countless mass of 'nah, cut and run' games... and hey, at least EA didn't end support for it early and then rerelease it on a new platform in its unfinished, never-to-be-finished state, looking at you Wild Hearts.
You can certainly see the logic - as a runaway success that's already made orders of magnitude more for Sony/Arrowhead than they ever could have expected before launch, there's not a lot of risk in throwing it at the wall next to Gamepass and seeing if it sticks. If there's a game that they can sell well on Xbox, this is it... but if they can't, it can rest as a fairly safe test of the water.
And I'm all for Sony porting more games over there as Microsoft port more over here - exclusivity is overrated, whatever the platform. Both sides are still going to keep their headliners to themselves, or at least for with timed exclusivity, but sharing the rest and letting people access more games without needing to think about buying a second or third console... yeah. Positive.
At last, we approach the bottom of that long, slippery slope from goofy 'hey, you want bacon on your gun? go for it' weapon skins. I don't think any of us would have predicted the end result being... this, though. I haven't touched a CoD in years as it hit my personal tackiness threshold looong ago, but man, the thought of having to play with or against people in a Beavis or Butthead skin in a what was once a fairly straight-laced shooter is just... oof.
I can still quiet safely say that, despite the Welcome Hub reminding me each time I boot up that I can download it as part of PS+... I just have no impulse to. The charm of control for me was both the exploration of the Oldest House - the atmosphere and that dark satire in all the notes, letters and videos scattered around - and in the light power fantasy of the gameplay; having pseudo-superpowers but not being super enough that enemies weren't a threat. Alan Wake 2 had... serviceable gunplay at best, but really went hard on the atmosphere and character.
Firebreak doesn't really seem to tick any of those boxes, or really play to any of Remedy's strengths, it doesn't promise anything that I can really immerse myself in, so... nah.
From my memories at university of everyone on the Games Arts track complaining if they got stuck on Tree Modelling/Texturing Duty for a group project... yeah, no, I get it. It's long been the realm of 'oh please god not this' shortcuts and plugins, so of all the uses of AI in game development, this is one that is a very logical fit. Especially if your trees are simple background fillers rather than a core part of a scene.
What baffles me is how some of them are ending up front of house on the deals banner. When I glanced at the storefront last week (passing through to buy Wizard of Legend 2 and Star Trucker) I saw no less than 3 or 4 'Hentai <insert genre>' games on the front page . It should be embarrassing enough that such minimal effort slop is in the back somewhere, or when it floods the New Releases page (along with preorders which don't belong there either) why on earth are they letting it show up front and center?
Translation; there isn't any. Concord was DoA, but with everything going on with Marathon and Fairgames, lord alive, they're dying long before arrival.
Comments 177
Re: Prince of Persia Remake and 5 Other Games Cancelled by Ubisoft
It shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone at this point, sadly. Ubisoft has been increasingly spiralling the drain in recent years, and it's no longer a question of if they collapse but when.
Re: Helldivers 2 Support Continues in the Latest Warbond Drop, Out Next Week
@MrPeanutbutterz It's pretty solid. The ups and downs with the game these days are more centered around performance isdues or bugs that inevitably sneak in with the updates, but the weapon balancing is much less aggressive than the first year - where they tended to nerf the meta weapons hard before, they focus entirely on improving underperforming weapons now to bring them up to par. As such the changes end up feeling much less... aggressive? than before, and generally make the game more fun to drop back into to test out new things that you might have overlooked before. The weapon customisation that they added a year ago is also pretty fun to play around with, even though some weapons benefit from it much more than others in the current state.
There's also a lot of variety now in the Warbonds to accommodate for all sorts of different playstyles (although I do wish they'd offer more free stratagems outside of them, those seem to have dropped off entirely at this point.)
Re: Helldivers 2 Support Continues in the Latest Warbond Drop, Out Next Week
The Censor sounds pretty interesting (and probably a bit more viable as a suppressed with how detection works in the game - one shot one kill should be much more effective than automatics) and the pistol offering a single target gas effect could have an interesting niche in open-sidearm loadouts - at least if it can reliably prick medium enemies, fleshmobs etc at a reasonable range. Will be interesting to see where the damage and Armor Pen falls on the C4 pack - if it can deal with most heavies with a single satchel (and only takes up the backpack slot) it could make for an interesting swap for Thermites, Dynamite or even the Ultimatum as a close-range Anti-Tank option.
A bit of a novelty/aesthetic warbond for most people, definitely (and even for stealth players, arguably the plasma weapons are still the best option as they're naturally silent to fire with loud impact explosions that can distract) but hey - I like novelty warbonds if the kit looks nice or offers something different.
Re: Talking Point: Did ANTHEM Deserve the Hate?
The game, if it had existed in a vacuum, absolutely didn't deserve the hate.
The game as it did exist, surrounded by fabricated hype and false promises, absolutely did.
It's a shame - if not for the executive misteps by EA that led to a lot of the issues around the game, or the promises to improve it that were ultimately abandoned, the game may have been remembered much more fondly. For its flaws, and even as a stark warning that the Bioware of old had ceased to be, the core movement and gunplay was so fun and fluid - and could have been the centre of something so much better if clearer heads had prevailed either before or after launch.
Re: Mini Review: Yakuza 0 Director's Cut (PS5) - A Questionable Cash Grab of a Classic
The delisting of the original is honestly the part that doesn't sit right with me.
For one, the Director's Cut is PS5 only, so the only way to play the game on the console that it launched on - PS4 - or in its original composition from this point forward is to buy a physical copy. That's far from ideal.
Second... a game that would quite regularly be on sale for less than a tenner will now only be available at a significantly higher price for the foreseeable future, with that base price at 'new' of £45 - and no doubt with far less generous discounts once it starts hitting the sales in a few months.
Re: PS5 Fave Expedition 33 Stripped of Indie Game Awards, But Not for the Reasons You May Think
It was known seven months ago that the game had some GenAI placeholder textures in the game at launch, which Sandfall subsequently patched out.
A Sandfall rep either lied or made an unintentionally inaccurate statement, sure. But where was the due diligence of the award organisers themselves in all of this in monitoring their own rules? The game's development using GenAI in some capacity is far from the shocking revelation they're making it out to be.
Once again. Known seven months ago.
Re: Embattled Divinity Dev to Host Q&A with Fans After Tough Week
Feels like a waste of time, frankly. The vocal minority that are so up in arms about it are also so fervent in their anti-AI mindset that they won't be swayed by anything he has to say. Or they'll be the sort to stubbornly grandstand now, but still buy the game down the line if and when it's a critical success.
Either way, Larian are better off just getting on with things, and Swen being more mindful of what (and how) he says in future interviews.
Re: Talking Point: With Expedition 33 Winning Best Indie Game, What Does 'Indie' Mean to You?
@Korgon (#30) Your points here lean into my personal issues with it being nominated as an indie title, personally.
If it were nothing more than a budgetary partnership, if Kepler had only provided Sandfall with money and resources to make the most out if their team... yeah, honestly, I think I would consider it indie, if tentatively. There'd be financial help there, but no direct publisher involvement beyond the usual standard of these partnerships.
My issues with the 'indie' classification with E33 is that the assistance went far beyond budgetary. Kepler helped them with finances and marketing as you'd generally expect from a indie-publisher partnership. The industry connections for high-profile VA talent bring it close to the edge. But what undoubtedly pushes it over for me is the amount of support studios that Kepler drafted in to help with the project. Money is money, but Kepler went beyond that and applied considerable influence and manpower from their own reserves. A small team at Sandfall itself, supplemented by hundreds of additional, publisher-drafted development staff over the course of the project after they took on the role as publisher.
That is hands-down the biggest sticking point for me in why I accept Sandfall as an indie studio, but simply can't consider E33 to be an indie game - because, from my perspective, it was by no means an independent project by the time it had concluded development.
Re: Pragmata Seemingly Off to a Strong Start as It's Added to Over 1 Million Wishlists Worldwide
@Acquiescence Quite.
I was half-watching TGAs at the time as I was talking with someone alongside it, but caught the 'demo out now' with an 'ooooh, nice' - I'd been hoping we'd get to try it as it sounds interesting but I want to know how it feels in practice.
Then I spent a confused while the next morning trying to find the demo on PSN, for a multiplatform title that Sony have been pretty proudly advertising since its reveal. Thinking that it if it's not in the demos section, surely it must be one of the awkward 'technically beta' ones that you find in the submenu for a game's store page, because they DEFINITELY just announced a demo on stage.
...Then the disappointing google search of, 'Oh, we don't get to try it until an unspecified point in the near future... awesome. That's swell.' I get it, Capcom are hyper-conscious of PC users post-Wilds and want to head off any performance concerns as early as possible, but, still - bummer.
Re: Poll: Are You Happy with Your PS Plus Extra, Premium Games for December 2025?
@Hi569 By the end that's the crux of it yeah, 4-character boss fights in either solo or with other players, along with wave battles and other mission types. Small arena stuff.
That's led up to by the campaign, which is presented as a light single-player Action RPG that has you following the story through a bunch of levels and hub areas with the standard faire of collectibles, side quest and high-threat 'you'll probably have to come back to fight this later' challenge bosses. You can do a few coop missions on the side between missions in the campaign, iirc, but the bulk of it doesn't open up until the story (mostly) wraps up.
It's definitely worth a try if you want some light ARPG-meets-hack-and-slash action that can challenge you pretty well when it wants to but doesn't keep the heat on constantly. Cut through basic enemies, need more thought for bosses, etc.
Re: Star Wars: Fate of the Old Republic Director Rubbishes 2030 Release Date Claims
@RBMango Also that.
With all the will and motivation in the world, there's still no guarantee that the Disney or EA overlords won't drop it in an instant if it doesn't come together exactly as they want it and/or they find something else that feels like a better cash cow.
Re: Star Wars: Fate of the Old Republic Director Rubbishes 2030 Release Date Claims
If it ends up being developed pretty efficiently, I could see maybe mid/late 2028 as an optimistic outlook. The studio being a year old isn't that much of a factor if they've been working on the game for the bulk of that and are on the ball, and a four-year development cycle is a reasonable window. Though, again, with smooth development.
Most likely, I expect mid 2029.
If it starts pushing to 2030 or beyond... things will have probably gone less smoothly than they'd like along the way. With a high profile project and presumably a budget to match, 6+ years would be heading into development hell territory.
(Stares and smiles at Beyond Good & Evil 2, the game that is definitely still coming out eventually in a good state and not at all lost to the void)
Re: 'Grace Is the Biggest Scaredy-Cat in Resident Evil History': Capcom Details How Leon's Gameplay Will Differ in Requiem
It reminds me a lot of the approach they tried to take with RE6 of a trying to give a different experience with each set of characters - trying to give a slightly more classic feel with Leon/Helena, trying to make something between RE4/5 with Jake/Sherry, and 'let's try to make it a military shooter I guess' with Chris/Piers.
Of course it trying and failing on each count, because it didn't really change much apart from how many things you had to shoot at any given time and for how long, and whether or not you'd have any simple puzzles along the way. The core running through all of it set it up to fail - it all functionally being RE5 again with three (four with Ada) different coats of paint - and the closest any part came to hitting the mission statement was the first hour or so of the Leon campaign. It just couldn't carry those three distinct concepts on the same back. And there being so much of that re-painted sameness to play through didn't help, for three routes the campaign felt twice the length that it should have been and retrod waaaay too many events from different perspectives.
I'm actually cautiously optimistic that they've learned their lessons from that this time. They've kept saying it - Grace is scared, she's not a fighter, she's out of her depth. And with the glimpses of Leon in the trailer, they've kept him the opposite. The (now thoroughly grizzled, or at least stubbled) veteran who's not phased by a zombie anymore and shoots and cuts and kicks them just as we expect from him.
If they've actually kept a distinctive character to how the characters play and feel this time, instead of just expected the atmosphere and backdrop to do the work when every single member of the cast still plays like a one-man/woman army?
If they've actually tried it again and made it work? Hell, I'm in.
(But I'll wait for the reviews, just to be sure.)
Re: All The Game Awards 2025 Winners
@Darylb88 I loved E33, and would argue on my side that it earned the RPG win - though KCD2 was also a fantastic experience. I wish we could see numbers for how close it was, choosing between them on the ballot wasn't easy.
I absolutely agree on the Indie/Debut Indie award, though - placing E33 into either bracket really didn't and doesn't sit right with me. They're an independent studio, yes - but is it an independent project if it's bankrolled by a publisher and other sources? I would say no, personally, with absolute certainty. With the money and support brought to the project by Kepler - the support studios, the popular VAs, Charlie freaking Cox, the high profile publicity campaign - it is a published title in practical terms.
They accomplished a lot with the game, and it's been one of my favourites for this year deserving of so many of its other wins, but it shouldn't have been placed shoulder-to-shoulder with other independent projects that were produced in a genuinely independent environment. I was on the fence with Dave the Diver's nomination previously, but... yeah.
Re: Free-to-Play FPS Highguard Closes Out The Game Awards, Coming to PS5 on 26th January
@MFTWrecks It's not hate. It's opinion.
I am at no point saying that you should dislike the things that I did. A dud to me doesn't need to be a dud to you. It can be great, fantastic, even phenomenal.
We are humans. We discuss opinions. And opinions will always exist on both sides of the divide. Not to open Pandora's Box of the outside world, but in so many matters out there, we're falling into 'us versus them' mentalities, failing to bridge the gap and just... communicate. Connected so closely by technology, yet frighteningly and increasingly divided.
So, personally, I'm going to express my opinions on my hobby as openly as I wish, positive or negative. I'm going to read and engage with and discuss the opinions of others. And of course I'll sometimes inevitably get irritated because their opinion is so, so far from my own that I can't process it, which happens to us all. All of it because that point of connection between differing perspectives is a blessing, not a curse. We're all better off when we meet in the middle, and talk over the fence.
Gaming is still great for that.
Re: Free-to-Play FPS Highguard Closes Out The Game Awards, Coming to PS5 on 26th January
@MFTWrecks It was a fantastic show overall, I don't see anyone contesting that.
Doesn't mean that we can't call out the duds - a lackluster 'grand reveal' for the finale, the occasional awkward joke that fell flat ("And you're not too bad yourself, dad!" total silence "So, anyway."), the bizarre '...are they... really just advertising with toilet humour?' spot for BF:REDSEC.
Showstoppers are great. The fumbles are great too, in their own form of entertainment value.
Re: Free-to-Play FPS Highguard Closes Out The Game Awards, Coming to PS5 on 26th January
I couldn't help but laugh at the 'new breed of shooter' statement both from Geoff in his build-up and in the anticlimactic trailer itself.
A hero shooter is already a very, very defined breed. Though I suppose they did briefly put the heroes on a horse. Maybe they meant to say a new breed of horse.
Re: Assassin's Creed Black Flag Resynced Leaks in Age Rating Listing
I'd play a pure, faithful remake of Black Flag. It still stands as one of the best entries in AC, if mostly because it's the best version of the original combat systems before they shifted increasingly to RPG-esque bloat.
If any of the rumours of it shifting towards that new-style AC are true... nah, hard pass. I don't want to play Black Flag looking for a higher level pistol because my old one can no longer manage a successful headshot.
Re: Talking Point: Does PS5 Have a Sequel Problem?
Much like high-budget movies, the entire AAA games industry has a severe sequel problem, not just Sony.
Re: Poll: Does the Steam Machine Pose a Threat to PS5?
To the PS5? Not by any reasonable estimation - at this point in the console's life cycle, most people who want one will already have one, and it either will or won't be their preferred platform.
To PlayStation's future consoles? Possibly. For now, there's really not enough information to decide on, but the draw of being able to play from one's Steam library will very much depend on how much someone has invested in theirs - for my part, I have a large catalogue of older games from when I had a gaming rig and high-end laptop years ago, but haven't spent a penny on Steam in the years since, so there's really nothing to tempt me. The target audience seems definitely more 'PC players who already preferred Big Picture mode on the sofa, Steamdeck, etc' than anything else -and to make much of a break beyond that, price would be the defining factor.
Re: The UK Government Shoots Down 'Stop Killing Games' Campaign in Official Debate
"Nope, don't care" has always seemed to be the standard response from any UK government to petitions. If it's not an issue that results in mass media coverage and/or a national scandal, they have no interest in listening.
Re: Square Enix Wants 70% of Its QA and Debugging Work Done by Gen AI
"Hello human, here is an anatomically accurate image of your kind with six fingers, seven toes and a third lip."
Yes, this is technology that we should entrust QA to.
Re: Dispatch Episode 3 and 4 Out Now on PS5
They're coming out that quickly? I assumed that they'd gone for an actual episodic release for the sake or spreading things out and finishing things off, as they'd done in their time as Telltale, not... just splitting up a very clearly completed game over the course of a month, purely so they can call it episodic to evoke the comparison.
Re: Fallout 76 Finally Gets a Native PS5 Version Next Year
If I had interest remaining in it, I'd be happy with that news even without any particular graphics or performance upgrades; the biggest point of torture for me in it not being PS5-native was it needing to double down on storage space every time it needed to download a patch.
Needing to clear out up to 90GB of my storage in order for the game to install even the smallest hotfix got old very, very quickly; PS4 back-compat is very much not live-service compatible on PS5, and it's honestly a bit of a shambles that it took them this long to address that.
Re: Final Fantasy 7 Remake Part 3 'Will Be Loved by Everyone', Says Director
Eh.
I genuinely loved Remake, and was excited for the second, but outside of the combat Rebirth lowered my expectations for the final part into the gutter. It became clear pretty quickly, and excruciatingly so in the final chapters, that they set up the 'what you know, but not quite' premise of Remake with NO clear plan of how to continue it.
Re: Poll: What Review Score Would You Give Ghost of Yotei?
@Fakeplastictree I don't usually get motion sick with games, but this is one that made me feel a little nauseous from time to time. I feel like a lot of it came from weather and lighting effects - the heavy bloom in fog, the very sudden and intense colouration from sunset, etc. And god forbid Atsu drinking some sake without my stomach churning. Given the suite of accessibility options for other things, hopefully at some point they add options to tone down those effects, the fact that the game would sometimes make me feel sick in pursuit of its artistic vision is one of the things I personally mark it down for.
Re: Poll: What Review Score Would You Give Ghost of Yotei?
8.5
It's fun, pretty, and very cinematic. But having finally finished my Lethal run to 100% an hour ago and wrapping up the plat, it's a great game that nonetheless carries a few flaws - largely little frustrations where that cinematic aim has clashed with the feel of the gameplay, and for the most part inherited directly from GoT.
Re: Borderlands 4 (PS5) - A Chaotic Return That Shoots Straight, Even if Its Performance Stutters
@captainsandman Part of the issue with it is that it seems many of the performance problems are coming from a memory leak. If you play for shorter sessions, you really won't notice many FPS drops unless there's a lot going on and/or you're playing in co-op. If you play for more than a few hours in one sitting, though, things start to degrade pretty quickly from that point with Performance mode eventually dropping from a fairly steady 60 to 30 FPS or lower.
(Base PS5 here, for reference.)
Re: Borderlands 4 Dev 'Exploring' FOV Sliders on PS5 Following Player Feedback
@SodaPop6548 Eh, one of my friends is putting off playing it because the low FOV sets off her motion sickness. It may seem like a silly focal point from your perspective (and, honestly, I wouldn't have thought about that either) but it can be a legitimate make or break issue for some.
Re: Controversial Genshin Impact Update Allows Whales to Break the Level Cap, Here Are the Redemption Codes
Hmm, in Genshin and the many clone-ish gachas that it spawned, the last 10 levels were always much less impactful an investment than an optimised weapon/relic set (or whaling a character to C6) so I can only really see this as making the final tiers of the rotating challenge battles marginally easier for those with more money than sense, but still
Oof, not a great look.
Re: Rumour: Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines 2 Publisher Plans to Back Down from Crap DLC Decision
Paradox, walk back on DLC? Only if the sun refuses to rise in the morning.
Re: Remember Acclaim? Well, It's Back in More Than Just Pog Form
I don't personally see a brand revived after 20 years by people with no connection whatsoever to the origin beyond the rights and unwanted IPs that they bought as an 'it's back' scenario, but whatever.
We'll see quite quickly if the new "Acclaim" actually have anything to offer, or if they're banking almost purely on nostalgia (bought dirt-cheap).
Re: American and Euro Truck Simulator PS5 Leak Confirms Series Is Finally Speeding to PlayStation
Fantastic news. Star Trucker scratched the itch to an extent, but also left me thinking anew 'man, I just want console Truck Sim'.
Re: Konami 'Forgiven' for Dropping Metal Gear Solid Voice Lead in Fifth Game
@johncalmc I wouldn't necessarily say it was poorer for Keither's casting, his voice acting in the role was pretty good.
...Though it certainly would've been nice if he'd had more than what felt like a few minutes of voice acting across the entire length of the game. Compared to every other iteration - and even forwards to Sam Stranding - Venom may as well have been a silent protagonist for how little he actually spoke.
Re: Don't Believe the Speculation About PS5's Fairgames Getting Cancelled
Sounds like unfounded speculation on his part, but frankly I wouldn't at all be surprised if it was penned for cancellation at this point. The writing was on the wall in many ways the moment Raymond jumped ship; the reports were that she left in the wake of/response to negative feedback from playtesting... but as the founder of the studio and the project, the fact that she would respond like that rather than stick around and try to address and improve on the criticism was a huge red flag. It would appear that she had very little investment and/or faith in the game and its prospects, which is never a good sign from the person who had spearheaded it in the first place.
Re: Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 Patch 1.4.0 Brings Battle Retry, Better UI, Teases 'More to Come'
At last, a button (presumably) to quick-retry that boss' second phase without burning through the first - maybe I can go back and try it with a non-OHKO build and actually have a chance to learn the parry timings now. xD
Re: Monster Hunter Wilds Endgame Expansion and Weapon Balance Update Pushed Forward
I wish they'd stop messing with the weapons every update, personally. Pull up what's underperforming once in a blue moon, sure, but the see-saw of buffs and debuffs is getting excessive. It reminds me of the fiasco with Helldivers 2 a few months after release - it's a PvE game, not a competitive one, it doesn't need such heavy-handed balancing. Hell, it doesn't need to be 'balanced' at all; every game before World had weapons that came out as the firm meta, but most people still just played the weapons that they liked.
Just let people have fun with your game instead of trying to convince them to use less of this attack or mode and more of that one, etc.
Re: PS5 Fans Getting 'Really Carried Away' with Job Listing Which Implied More Exclusives Could Be Ported to Xbox, Switch
As I've said before, I'm all for it - I stick to PS for a mix of the console aesthetics, interface, mutual friends on the platform and attachment to my trophy list and back catalogue.
Hell, the only reason I moved to PS4 after the 360 was that I didn't like where XBox went with the first two... well, that and having had to replace said 360 several times due to RRoD, if there's one way to make sure that noone ever buys your products again it's releasing one with a major flaw that can brick it on a whim.
I'm not going to up and change console just because there are fewer permanent exclusives; if Sony want to expand into the other console markets as they've been doing with PC, even if on their end it's just for the pursuit of more profit, I'm down for it. As long as they have a sustainable business plan for it that isn't going to damage the company in the long run, for us as gamers it's a win-win. I can't see Nintendo ever fully jumping on the ship, I expect they'll stick to the occasional mobile spinoff or such, but more games exchanged between Sony and MS isn't a bad thing.
Re: 'By Every Objective Measure, We're Thriving': Microsoft CEO Expresses Gratitude to All Those Laid Off
Oof.
Our daily reminder that, as much as execs like Spencer would like to tell us that they're in the business for the people, these businesses will only ever truly care about one thing - keeping shareholders happy with ever-increasing profit and dividends, whatever the human cost, and marching onwards to their inevitable, eventual collapse from seeking infinite growth in a finite market.
Re: Official Ghost of Yotei Popcorn Bucket Triggers Tedious Takes on PS5 Exclusives
Look, I enjoy Sony's narrative single player output - and am firmly of the "ditch the live service push and stick to what you're good at" camp - but I can still chuckle at those memes. They're not 'bad takes', they're JOKES. If you genuinely find them 'irritating' (though let's be real, you don't, you're just trying to play up drama for kicks/clicks) you need to touch grass.
Re: Poll: Are You Sold on Ghost of Yotei?
Yes - though I certainly hope that Lethal Mode is in the game at launch this time. It's a great example of a risk/reward difficulty, and I wish more games would play around with settings that buff both the player and their enemies rather than simply turning the opposition into hard-hitting health sponges. I picked it up halfway through the game after coming back to it a year or so after launch and it was such a fun way to play.
Re: More Red Dead Redemption 2 PS5 Port Speculation Emerges
Push "mistakes aren't meant to be learnt from" Square
Re: Poll: What Review Score Would You Give Death Stranding 2?
8.5/10, for me. The gameplay is what keeps me hooked, I like the courier-sim side of it, building infrastructure and the improved combat mechanics... but holy hell, the story and writing is a pile of hot garbage, though I went in expecting that and at least the cutscenes look great and are well delivered by the cast.
Between the movement changes and frontloading of vehicles and formerly mid/late-game options from before it also loses a lot of the challenge in navigating terrain - I lived on ladders and anchors in DS1, here I can count the number I've used combined on one hand - but I won't dock it points there.
Re: BioWare Flop ANTHEM Dies January 2026, Servers to Be Turned Off
Like some others I assumed they'd shut it down a looong time ago given that they killed off post-launch updates so quickly. It's a shame, honestly, that they left it in that state. Beyond the story, extremely barebones endgame, and the false-promised features from the infamous "gameplay" reveal, the game could be really fun when the combat and traversal were allowed to shine.
In an ideal world, it would have been developed properly from the outset, but if they'd actually gone ahead with their promised revamp and put the time and resources into fixing it ala NMS and Cyberpunk, it had the same potential to actually turn into something good. But instead, it's just ended up as one of the countless mass of 'nah, cut and run' games... and hey, at least EA didn't end support for it early and then rerelease it on a new platform in its unfinished, never-to-be-finished state, looking at you Wild Hearts.
Re: Reaction: Helldivers 2 on Xbox Signals Another Unexpected But Not Overly Surprising Shift in Strategy from Sony
You can certainly see the logic - as a runaway success that's already made orders of magnitude more for Sony/Arrowhead than they ever could have expected before launch, there's not a lot of risk in throwing it at the wall next to Gamepass and seeing if it sticks. If there's a game that they can sell well on Xbox, this is it... but if they can't, it can rest as a fairly safe test of the water.
And I'm all for Sony porting more games over there as Microsoft port more over here - exclusivity is overrated, whatever the platform. Both sides are still going to keep their headliners to themselves, or at least for with timed exclusivity, but sharing the rest and letting people access more games without needing to think about buying a second or third console... yeah. Positive.
Re: What the Hell Has Happened to Call of Duty?
At last, we approach the bottom of that long, slippery slope from goofy 'hey, you want bacon on your gun? go for it' weapon skins. I don't think any of us would have predicted the end result being... this, though. I haven't touched a CoD in years as it hit my personal tackiness threshold looong ago, but man, the thought of having to play with or against people in a Beavis or Butthead skin in a what was once a fairly straight-laced shooter is just... oof.
Re: Remedy 'Super-Motivated' to Improve FBC: Firebreak As It Passes 1 Million Players
I can still quiet safely say that, despite the Welcome Hub reminding me each time I boot up that I can download it as part of PS+... I just have no impulse to. The charm of control for me was both the exploration of the Oldest House - the atmosphere and that dark satire in all the notes, letters and videos scattered around - and in the light power fantasy of the gameplay; having pseudo-superpowers but not being super enough that enemies weren't a threat. Alan Wake 2 had... serviceable gunplay at best, but really went hard on the atmosphere and character.
Firebreak doesn't really seem to tick any of those boxes, or really play to any of Remedy's strengths, it doesn't promise anything that I can really immerse myself in, so... nah.
Re: Hot Shots Golf Fans Fume at Use of Generative AI in PS5 Revival
From my memories at university of everyone on the Games Arts track complaining if they got stuck on Tree Modelling/Texturing Duty for a group project... yeah, no, I get it. It's long been the realm of 'oh please god not this' shortcuts and plugins, so of all the uses of AI in game development, this is one that is a very logical fit. Especially if your trees are simple background fillers rather than a core part of a scene.
Re: PS5's AI Slop Shovelware Has Hit a New Low
What baffles me is how some of them are ending up front of house on the deals banner. When I glanced at the storefront last week (passing through to buy Wizard of Legend 2 and Star Trucker) I saw no less than 3 or 4 'Hentai <insert genre>' games on the front page . It should be embarrassing enough that such minimal effort slop is in the back somewhere, or when it floods the New Releases page (along with preorders which don't belong there either) why on earth are they letting it show up front and center?
Re: Bungie Delays Marathon Indefinitely, No New PS5, PC Release Date Given
"More time to reflect player passion."
Translation; there isn't any. Concord was DoA, but with everything going on with Marathon and Fairgames, lord alive, they're dying long before arrival.