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@DonJorginho 3 times in a few years when they had 1600 staff at the time. This is still a very limited occurance that is carried out by employees who cannot have their actions monitored by higher ups 24/7. Making out like Bungee are actively promoting it is just incorrect.

Its one single ex-employee who passed off others work as his own, and in response the company straight away accepted fault, apologised and looks to be doing the right thing.

It not good, but the company can't be knocked for how they have handled it. Unfortunately I bet it happens all the time at most places but is either missed or just not reported on.

@SMJ Things like what? One of the Devs all but confirmed Avowed would be coming to PS in a Deepdive. So why would they not put an article up that the game has a roadmap and will release as a more complete edition for anyone who might be intersted.

I notice you don't leave the same sort of replies on PX when they are posting about FF7 a game which is not confirmed, but will likely arrive there one day. Or is it one rule for one..?

@Dislecksier I get what you mean as we did struggle to get to grips with the rules originally, and ended up playing some wrong as its very overwhelming. Whilst the Game version will make the rules simpler I am not sure if it will make understanding al of them easier as you will never see them, if that makes sense.

For general play however it should make it a bit easier. Also there is a pretty good app you can get for a phone which helps manage aspects of the rules when playing the boardgame.

@GirlVersusGame no worries, as to a point I missed in my original message the game is set around the city of gloomhaven. At the start you have 1 area out side of the city to visit. As you progress however you can discover up to about 120 areas outside of the city and maybe 30 in the city.

These areas vary from caves, open hills, sewers, buildings and each mission has a written story intro like an old fashioned dungeon adventure. There are also around 30 enemy types with normal and elite enemies for lots of variety.

Edit: one other fun thing is that even tho you are a party, you are not really a party all working towards the same goal. Each character gets a mission goal and they can actually work against the other at times to reflect it being a group who are together by circumstance rather than a friendly group of D&D characters

@ItsAlwaysSunnyyy having had a quick look through the list a part of it would be that there are character specific trophies but you are not guaranteed to unlock all characters as the game was designed so you never discover everything. I think I'm my board game play through we maybe had 5 characters which we never unlocked. And we didn't use all the ones we unlocked either, and some we retired very very fast.

@GirlVersusGame I have only played a bit of the PC version, but I have played all of the Boardgame.

For the environments they have recreated them all in 3d but they have retained the look and feel of the board game tiles which is laid out on a hexagonal grid. As for the play style it's all turn based where you can control a party of up to four adventures and the missions scale up per player. The actual turns are carried out by choosing cards from each characters deck which form your initiative order and two actions which you can carry out. As for the story it has a start and end point but along the way you have random events and decisions which unlock various routes and side stuff so it's very open. Also as you play characters will retire and you unlock new more advanced classes for your party.

It's fairly heavy in terms of thinking, but the console version streamlines so many rules and manages the busy work for you. So it's at least worth trying out as a plus game if you are interested in how it sounds.

They are also currently making Frosthaven into a game which was the sequel, so if you enjoy them there will be much more to play in future.

Anything else you want to know feel free to ask 🙂

Gloomhaven is a good game but very niche as it is a full fledged board game. That said it's easily 200+ hours worth of content.

@OldGamer999 It's not misleading if Sony is Publishing and funding the games as that is classes as 1st party still. It doesn't need to be made only by Sony employees to count and it hasn't for a long time.

If that is the case then lets remove all these Xbox 1st party games which have been in development before the companies where bought out, because they are not full 1st party either are they? (ofc they are, and its alll the the same sort of thing)

The constant nonsense over "Full Sony 1st party AAA PS5 no crossgen exclusives" is frankly getting ridiculous and is just a load of silly exclusions to promote console warring.

The game is good providing you stick to the main story. The setting really nailed the Cthulhu mythos and the NPC's for the most part are spot on for feeling like they belong. The Deep One Hybrids are great for looking exacty how they should and characters like the librarian help set the vibe.

Where it falls down imo is the enemies are incredibly generic for the setting and over the course of the game you fight maybe 4-5 enemy types and 2 boss types. This is less of an issue if you follow the main story investigations, but as the side quests are more combat heavy if you go for 100% the combat gets boring.

I usually prefer physical but do on occassion by digital if its in a decent sale and I am not somethin im overly fussed about having for future. However I do think Keys on Disc / cards should be banned if only for the waste factor. If you are selling the disc then use the disc.

@YeoSprings It would be interesting but I think it needs to be Disc vs Discless broken down by the specifc game and across multiple genres. If for no other reason that I bet its

A) Skewed by digital only games
B) Skewed by people who only play COD / FIFA

Would be interested to see the split when you get to other games like Elden Ring for example.

@Matroska Maybe it has to be a creature you capture, keep in a ball, then summon to glide, rather than simply mounting a flying creature.

It will likely be something like this, The patent will be hyper specific to how Pokemon works rather than just I fly on my mount.

The pad looks nice but I don't think I would ever bother with limited designs as I already have 2 white pads to match the console. The only one I was considering was the Astro pad but I didn't want three pads.

Can't wait to give this a go when it lands. I was slow to get into DS1 as walking simulator didn't appeal on first glance but it was so much more than I ever expected it could be.

Glad to be proved wrong about it, the game is a gem

@themightyant That was my main issue with Hogwarts Legacy. The open world stuff tripled the lenght of the game but added very little of value. Exploring the castle was very good, and Hogsmeade was interesting if not quite as good. But outside of those areas every zone was just more highlands with the same very repetative stuff to collect.

H:FW was another that really needed to learn that size isn't everything if 80% of you game is just running from one collectable to the next.

Blizzard have been bad for ages and sadly the MS buyout made them worse. I would also bet MS took one look at the Blizz cashcow books and that inspired them rolling out monetization further.

The main thing I would like to see would be better level pacing. If you went full exploration mode in the first area then you unlocked most of the cool stuff very early and then it felt like you barely levelled for the later acts as you just took the weaker abilitites.

Edit: Other than that I thought the game was pretty much great all round, the side stuff got a bit repetative but i didn't mind it so much as it was at least different from other games. Writing Haiku's stood out as being pretty unique

Visually it looks amazing but the series has just never done anything for me at all. Still it will be good to see how far they can push the hardware.

Its a shame they have got rid of him as the games were brilliant. Its just a bit awkward that Astrobot is very much a futuristic version of Sackboy, so its looks like he was cut to make room for the newer version, when both have their place imo.

More money is great for Microsoft Gaming, but its a shame that its clearly come at the cost of the consoles. Xbox as far as consoles is no longer their top priority and that is a sad fact for the fans of the hardware.

Boltgun for myself, Balatro is obviously excellent but I'm not sure I will dive in on that

I find that release price means very little now as I rarely buy day 1. Buy the game only when its on sale, you are ready to play it and there is nothing else in the queue and most games cost £30 or less. Lords of The Fallen V2 for example cost me around £15 the other day.

@SMJ Why would they talk about the cost of games compared to GP, EA Play, Ubisoft +, NO, PS+ or any subscription. They are all sub services and you are not buying a game. You have given the perfect example of Apples and Oranges.

As to justifying a sub, thats purely subjective for all subscriptions. depending on if you have interest in any of the games, how many and how long you can realistically game each week.

Weird hate here for a series that I have always enjoyed for what it is. Its silly, purile over the top humour with enjoyable gunplay that is always enjoyable to play.

I recently replayed 1 and it does get a bit repetative towards the end but they improved on that with the sequels having more biomes. Plus number 2 had a brilliant antagonist, I would place him up there as an all time great for being very memorable.

Game looks interesting but I also have so many years of games I still need to play so the delay is no issue at all. I only just got around to playing Dragon Age 2, so I was only 14 years behind with that one 😂

Next up DA: Inquisition (all this so I can play Veilguard)

@GirlVersusGame Seriously impressive work with that recreation. You come here to comment and now we all want an article showing the work in detail

I can take either turn based or action based for FF but you have to also accept that FF games are for the most part never difficult.

The pixel remasters and PS1 era games can be played using attack for most of the game, and you save magic for a few bosses. FF10 had a really good implementation of turn based with the turn tracker, but the entire game was essentially RPS for combat. FF13 despite the hatred had a great battle system, but again it was never difficult.

For Action FF15 had a fun story but the combat was shallow. FF16 was great in FF mode but annoying that it was only NG+. FF7R just feels a bit to mashy imo. Personally the best action combat in the series was SoP but not sure they would ever adopt that for a mainline title.

@Rich33 For third party I don't see it as a lack of faith in quality, but an acceptance that the sales are not going to be that high on the platform. That said I think its primarily an Xbox problem, rather than game problem, which is why we see more 3rd party games on the service day 1.

The much smaller install base for series consoles means that the sales on their platform are always going to be lower. A gaurenteed payout for it being on GP is probably a lower risk. The lower sales potential also means that Xbox can pay less for the game to be on GP than Sony could for PS+.

Even with GP being on PC they still don't really do big numbers when you compare it to Steam. Stuff like Palworld that exploded in popularity still sold on steam as PC players in general just don't go in for GP.

If this is the expected step up from GoT then we are in for a real treat here.

@FX102A Its always been weird that the collectors versions have digital codes. They should bring back the steel cases with physical for premium as they always used to look amazing compared to standard cases.

@ShogunRok appreciate that you guys are only just starting and a full review will take time, but would it be possible to get an overview of the general level of performance at for the game?

Seen a fe comments that its struggles once you leave the starting sewers and would be interesting to hear what the experts think.

@Rich33 Not PS5 but the performance also is sounding pretty sketchy in the steam reviews. Basically people are saying its fine in the sewers but once you leave the frame rate utterly tanks without dlss

@Cornpop76 The store is fine I think the fact that it shadow dropped at a weird time has thrown it out. Had it been available for pre order the listing would have been front and centre, but instead they have to wait for the store refresh to happen now.

@Titntin I never found the battery until after room 46 because the room it oftenappears on was one I though I was done with so kept ignoring.

It's a great game just a shame that the RNG can sometimes feel a bit to punishing

@nomither6 They are enjoyable but so have some very questionable elements that I'm glad the series dropped. Mainly the quick time events which where a nightmare when streaming 1 and 2. I had forgot exactly how much of a step up 3 was overall compared to the first two.

I have been blasting through the old GoW games this past week and am currently on GoW 3. I have also downloaded old Lords of the Fallen and picked up new Lords of the Fallen since it was cheap as chips last night.

I might also jump back on Blue Prince at some point as I know there is more to find, but not sure if I really want to go to deep with that game.

It's clearly going to be on the shop, it's modern blizz who charge ridiculous amounts for any mogs.

Easily a 10/10 game, but I did play it on PC and had zero bugs so I can't comment on the PS5 version. I could easily see it being the game of the generation for technical achievement, character development and story telling. The fact that some industry types had to lash out against Larian for seriously elevating what an RPG can be is telling enough as to how big an impact it made.

I still need to revisit it for my evil playthrough and the extra classes are a nice addition, especially Arcane Archer as that was what I played for the NWN DLCs

@Ralizah if you enjoy deep RPGs with mechanics that reward the player for clever thinking and strategy then you should love it.

@Oram77 The game was decent but I would say it was the weakest overall out of Morrowind, Oblivion and Skyrim. I would much rather they redid Morrowind as the game has a much better setting.

Its main saving grace with Shivering isles

Currently on about day 8 and it's definitely a good puzzle game, it's certainly not going to be everyone's style however simply due to the amount of more keeping you have to do outside of each session

Did 1 day last night to give it a go and the game looks fun, but it screams out that it needs at VR version. It feels entirely built for it already.

Looking forward to seeing what this season brings to the screen. Hoping we get a few more episodes like the Bill and Frank one where they spin the detail in a way that doesn't run it

@Mikey856 Is you PS5 cabled in or running on wifi like the portal? If its cabled it could just be time for a nice new shiny router.

@CutchuSlow You can go back even earlier to FFXI on the PS2 which was cross play on PS2, Windows and later XB 360

This series was always going to be devisive in the same way GOT was. Some people want real high stakes where any character can be axed at any time.

Others want The Walking Dead style where you have A, B and C tier Characters where the A tier are safe, B very rarely die and C are basically 7 episode red shirts.

@PocketHotDogs Reading the BBC review it sounds like they might have had access to the whole thing as they talk about midway episodes and the end of the season.

@Northern_munkey I'm curious as to how you know the cartridges will only have a download code on them?

If you look up Bravely Default Flying Fairy you can see the artwork for that box has an bit at the bottom of the box that shows its a game card key. Apparently only 2 games have been confirmed to be like this so far, but the general concern is that newer 3rd party titles will be more likely to use key on a card rather than optimising to get the file sizes down.

Great looking game landing on GP and PS+ day 1 its a win for all gamers. With its board game tile look for the rooms this is the game that really stood out for me at the original showcase when it was revealled.

@Perturbator I was one of those elite 0.5% ers.

As before still doesn't appeal to me as I am not one for multiplayer stuff, I do imagine the game will be popular tho.

Its not in any way a BB successor however, some serious stretching going on there just because it has the word Blood in the title and uses an asthetic that almost all FS games have used in certain areas.

@Oram77 Given how bad the original release was its great how they turned it around to a 10/10 experience. I usually prefer third person but agree this doesn't need it as its primarily a shooter for combat and for travel (bikes ftw) you can jump to 3rd person anyway.

One of a select few games where I never used fast travel as traversing the city is very solid all round.

Edit: Heresy!! Calling an old school Pen n' Paper RP a board game
Its one of the reasons I loved the game as it reminded so much of playing the orginal system from the 80's before my runner tragically died at the end of a hiest session.

Between games getting bigger and PS+ Premium, Epic, Prime Gaming and an extensive back catalogue I rarely ever buy Day 1 and at £80 it would just reinforce waiting for sales. I also only tend to play 1 game at a time on a platform, and only buy 1 or 2 games to have waiting in the wings. That way games just get cheaper or can land on sub services by the time you are ready to play them.

Given how many people wait for sales its shows how ridiculous the current trend is where we judge a games success or failure after only 7 days.

It was one day of minor inconvenience so tbh they don't owe anyone anything, and it maybe affected 8 hours of peoples actual time. Giving 5 days free is just a nice gesture, but certainly not owed. Its not really any different to losing your net for a few hours or having a power cut. Its certainly not the outrage that some are making it out to be.