wildcat_kickz

If these folks want PC ports of PlayStation games, they probably should have bought the ones that are already out...

I'll be there for Crazy Taxi.

@themightyant Unions are a double-edged sword. They do offer incredibly powerful protections for their members via the power of collective bargaining, especially against companies that take every opportunity to maximize their profits through taking advantage of their workforce, but like any organization, unions are susceptible to corruption and the misuse of their power. I've seen situations where unions just want their member dues without offering anything really beneficial, but I've also seen it the other way around, where they really come through for their people.

@viktorcode Except Bungie has been in the live-service business for over a decade, so I highly doubt they're being forced to do anything, nor are they hopping on current trends. After the $40 game (which is very reasonable), the only other stuff you can spend money on are cosmetics. There are no maps, weapons, or abilities locked behind season passes or microtransactions. If there is a way to do live-service, you'd think this would be what people want.

Because of this, the only thing I can surmise that you're upset with is that Marathon is a multiplayer game and not single player. And Bungie has been doing MP games for a long time.

@Northern_munkey don’t mind me just lurking in the comments 👀

@somnambulance I think it traces back to Twitter and the engagement economy. Engagement is now monetized. Hate drives engagement. So influencers and streamers peddle in it. Tons of people just regurgitate what they hear from their chosen influencers as if it was their own spontaneous thought and, after a while, they brainwash themselves into believing everything sucks and it's cool to hate on everything.

@HRdepartment Because people come across as selfish children when they say, "I don't like it, therefore, no one should enjoy it." There are still plenty of single-player games. Like it or not, multiplayer games are what make most of the money in the games industry.

@GamingGod Unfortunately, no. The PvP is baked into the cake.

@Logonogo I honestly don't understand what's been happening recently. Tons of gamers are actively rooting for games to fail, which is so wild and some seriously degenerate behavior. The same thing happened to Highguard.

@DennisReynolds @GamingGod There's a toggle when you're about to start matchmaking called "crew fill." If you toggle it off, you'll be placed in matches with other solo players. One thing to note: much like ARC when it first launched, there is no duos queue, so if you're in a team of two and you don't fill your team, you will be placed in matches against teams of three.

@dskatter Review embargos are all by developer/publisher request. Almost every game has one.

As for reviews-in-progress, see any live-service game, like Call of Duty, Battlefield, etc. They all need time to evaluate the live context of a multiplayer game.

@dskatter This is an incredibly common practice for live-service games - not really sure what you're on about.

Absolutely loving this game. Amazing and unique art style. Top tier gunplay. Super weird lore.

Getting destroyed by kitted up players over and over can be a bit of a drag, but it's one of those games that demands "just one more match."

It depends on the game and how it's used. Art direction is more important than RTX, but if RTX is used properly, it can really elevate a game and make it feel more immersive. RTX reflections and shadows don't do much for me, but RTX GI can make a huge difference.

@GirlVersusGame I wanted to like Legion so badly. The premise for the world is so cool, but the execution was so bad. I love the idea of being a resistance guerilla fighter in a Fascistic London, but the "play as anyone" mechanic just totally backfired.

@RoomWithaMoose I agree that good-faith analysis has its value and, in principle, I have nothing against armchair quarterbacking. I do it, too.

I'm not accusing you of this at all, but my main frustration was the constant comparing of concurrents from one game to another. I know it's basically the only data point we have to go on, but without knowing what their internal targets are, it's quite impossible to determine what a "success" is for a game.

Marathon seems to be settling at around 70-80k Steam concurrents on a weekend, which, to me, seems pretty healthy for such a demanding game. Between updates, Helldivers 2 usually hovers at something lower and that game is a smash hit. I know I'm basically doing what I just said I hate, but I'm just using this example to illustrate that I don't really think Steam concurrents, devoid of context, have much to show.

Regarding people not understanding causation and correlation, this is unfortunately a massive problem across society as a whole. Critical thinking seems to be at an all time low. I'm not sure where you're located (your name references Moose, so I'm guessing North America?), but as an American, it's incredibly disturbing how flat out stupid, intellectually lazy, cruel, and gullible everyone in my country seems to be right now.

Paris is probably the most realistic map they've ever created for AC. The city feels large, dense, dirty, and chaotic.

Those collectibles, though. Sweet Jesus, there are too many.

I think facial animations should get a shout-out, too. Origins was probably the last time I felt any effort was put into making characters feel alive when they speak, but Unity does a great job of it - probably better than Origins, if I'm being honest.

I don't know why Sony would invest anything in preventing the next Xbox from running PC versions of Sony games. Not only would Microsoft not gain financially from the transactions, Sony is moving away from PC versions of their single-player games, anyway. All it would do is make Sony look even pettier.

One missing piece of information is on the Xbox side: how seamless will PC gaming integration be? How many storefronts will be available? I don't think it's a high probability, but I can see a reality where the next Xbox can play PC games, but you can't outright purchase games outside of the Xbox storefront (i.e. Steam, Epic, GOG, etc.) directly from the console.

I continue to be very interested in this game, but will need to see reviews before I commit. I do see a reality where I lose over 100 hours to this game, though.

@Fiendish-Beaver Yeah I found Premium totally not worth the money for the classic games, but now they got me with the PS Portal streaming. Sons of she-dogs!

Moira? Never heard of her!

Reminds me of Monster Energy Drink suing Ubisoft for naming a game "Gods and Monsters."

Amazon will soon sue Brazil for their low-energy, overrated rainforest.

@RoomWithaMoose Buckle up, boyo. You're about to get a lot, which isn't really fair, but I've got some pent up frustrations regarding the Marathon narrative.

BF6 had 4 dedicated studios working on it as their sole project. In addition, there were probably several support studios that aren't part of the "BF Studios" banner that contributed, as well. I'd wager there were well over 1000 devs working on BF6 at any given time, maybe over 2000, likely costing EA well over 500m to get BF6 from idea to release. I'm taking those numbers straight out of my ass, but I don't think the estimates are unreasonable.

Meanwhile, Bungie has about 800 devs in total, so you assume maybe 400-600 working to get Marathon out the door and probably a little fewer now that the game is released. Bungie has Destiny 2 to support and probably Destiny 3 in pre-production.

Yes, a game has to make enough money to justify its and the studio's existence, but I find it such a boring, low-effort argument when people say, "but look at these games with more concurrents!" Each game has their own targets to meet, completely divorced from looking over the fence at other games. As I said in another comment, Pepsi doesn't have to sell as much as Coca-Cola to be a successful business.

Marathon is a hardcore game. It does not have mass-market appeal, like BF6 or Destiny has. It demands a lot from you. I think it's much closer to Tarkov than it is to ARC. I'm sure Sony wanted a bigger game, but Marathon doesn't seem to be designed as a wide-net product and I don't think it has to be.

Maybe I'm wrong and Marathon performs so badly that Bungie gets closed, but I doubt it. I suspect that Marathon just filtered a ton of casual gamers that wanted the next Destiny. But I think word-of-mouth will drive a slow growth for Marathon and keep it sustained.

People keep pointing to concurrents on Steam for Marathon and comparing it to other games with no regard to context because people want Marathon to fail. They want the story. They want the schadenfreude. It's sick. It's lame. It's boring.

@wilky2988 Or maybe it says that Steam concurrents aren't everything and comparing Marathon to literally every other game on Steam isn't a productive use of anyone's time.

@Yor-sama @RoomWithaMoose BF1 runs circles around BF6, in my opinion. I got back into BF1 after playing BF6 for a couple months and it really is crazy how much better BF1 is. I don't even think the graphics are all that much better in BF6. Pretty crazy, considering BF1 is a decade old.

@Ambassador_Kong This site uses targeted ads. I see PA equipment, so you have only yourself to blame 😂

Once the sale to the PIF is complete, you better bet there will be many more layoffs at EA.

It's actually a little funny. If the prices dropped after logging in, this never would have been a story. Member discounts are very normal and variable pricing is normal, too - even in the same country. I work for a company that prices items differently based on if the store is in a mall or not. Higher rent = higher prices.

It just really is crazy that a price would increase after logging into your account.

I'm not interested in Sons of Sparta, but I'm totally behind the principle of smaller releases. My favorite is the middle-ground, though: the Miles Moraleses and Lost Legacies of the world. Take the tech you used for a larger game and make a smaller interstitial that can rely on the same bones and mechanics.

@Ambassador_Kong I understand what you're saying, but think it's way more complicated than that. Was the Bungie purchase a mistake? Yeah, totally. They paid a ridiculous amount and I think Bungie kinda swindled Sony. But I also don't think Sony needs Marathon to be the number one game in the world to be considered successful. It's not a realistic expectation that Marathon would "save" the Bungie acquisition and make it all worth while. Marathon was never going to be that big. My assumption is Destiny 3 is being worked on in the background and will be a larger game than Marathon ever could be.

The point I was trying to make to @RedRiot193, who seems way more interested in dunking on Marathon than anything else, was that one game's success is not necessarily at the expense of another. Resident Evil is a massive franchise and was always going to sell gangbusters, but it's a single-player horror game. It's a totally different market. ARC Raiders is massive and Marathon will likely never sell as many copies, but I don't think it needs to. As long as Marathon makes enough money to justify its own existence, than that's fine. CS2, DOTA, Slay the Spire, PUBG, etc. are all massive in China and all have established markets. Comparing Marathon's numbers to those games when Marathon has been out for a day is pretty silly to me.

Is it possible that Marathon doesn't gain the traction it needs and does end up as a failure? Yeah, maybe. But calling it a failure now is asinine.

@RedRiot193 Dude, you're pretty insufferable. Comparing RE to Marathon is comparing apples to oranges. ARC is an apt comparison, but you seem to think that if Marathon doesn't do ARC numbers, then it's a failure. What lame reductive reasoning. Pepsi doesn't need to be as big as Coke to be a successful business. Not only that, you continue to refer to Marathon as "Concord 3," which is obviously you deliberately disrespecting it. Fine, that's your right and prerogative, but it is pretty telling at what kind of person you are. I really hope you're a better person in real life.

@RedRiot193 I'm not sure what that's supposed to prove. You'll also see player counts fluctuating with those games over the course of a day, too. Both those games have already sold millions and have been out longer. But nice attempt there.

@RedRiot193 Is there a reason you're being so mean spirited? The fall-off in player count is because it's 10AM or earlier on a workday in the largest gaming market in the world.

@get2sammyb I'm not sure if you'd think it's worth the effort, but maybe consider posting an un-scored early impressions article to give folks a general idea of PS's thoughts before all content is available. I doubt it would do anything to satiate the folks who want to see Marathon fail, but it might be valuable for the silent consumers of your content.

Edit: I know you have the server slam impressions and likely nothing has changed, but the optics of impressions on the actual release might help. Food for thought.

@RedRiot193 Are you interested in playing Marathon? Like, if Push Square came out with their review and decided it was a 9 or a 10, would you buy it? Or have you already made up your mind? If the answer is the latter, I don't really know why you're commenting on this article or have such a strong opinion about this at all.

@Northern_munkey Ahhhh good to know, thanks! Looking forward to squading up with you guys!

@LogicStrikesAgain Pretty much exactly what I was gonna say. 💪

@ButterySmooth30FPS I never played the original trilogy, but I was watching some lore videos last night. Seems really cool!

@Areus It's just so lame. They're acting like children who want more toys, but only by taking away someone else's.

As I said on the Highguard article, not liking this game is totally fine, but actively rooting for a game to flop is some serious degenerate behavior. Go touch grass.

I put a decent amount of time in over the server slam and it honestly sold me. Prox chat is a big ol thud, though. I didn't encounter a single player using it.

This game looks absolutely gorgeous. I'm not a big racing guy, but damn... even I have to admire the fidelity.

I saw they added a trial for this game to PS Premium. A part of me is morbidly curious, but I can't even bring myself do download the file package. Even that seems like too much effort for this game.

@LowDefAl Not as of a few months ago when I last played it. I still have to turn it off and back on for it not to look washed out.

@AverageGamer I'm kinda in the middle of you two. I think AC3 Remastered actually looks pretty good (aside from the weird HDR bug), but it most certainly does not look modern. Looks like a PS3 era game, but running on maxed-out PC specs.

Holy smokes! Downloading this tonight! What a completely underrated entry. The launch totally derailed this game, but with all the technical snafus ironed out, this is up there as one of the best "traditional" AC games.

@DennisReynolds Totally agree. I'm also really looking forward to how great the game will look with the Shadows' tech. I'm thinking specifically about how great the Caribbean will look with incredibly dense foliage and long draw distances out to the horizon.

I think this game would really benefit from a playable demo. Fingers crossed it has one.

@pyrrhic_victory Same studio. They're in the same universe, I believe.

Really hope this change in strategy doesn't result in Nixxes getting shut down.

@Nicekix Two things can be true at the same time. I do like Uncharted more than Horizon, but that’s beside the point. As I already said, we haven’t had an Uncharted game in 9 years, so it’s pretty understandable that people miss the franchise and want a new one.

People in the comments "hoping" that Highguard would fail and now hoping that Marathon and Hunters Gathering will fail are so lame. It makes me sick how rampant schadenfreude is right now. How miserable and bitter do you have to be in your own life that you wish it on other people, too?

I also don't think Highguard's failure has anything to do with it being live-service or free-to-play. It just didn't have an appealing aesthetic, content was light, and the gameplay felt pretty boring (at least to me). The fact that Highguard failed is not surprising, but I certainly didn't hope for it. Wildlight succeeding would have taken absolutely nothing away from anyone else.