Sven_

The Man. The Legend. Gaming's last hope. 😁

Then again, outside of Star Citizen, there are zero "PC showcases" anyway. Which means even the Ryzen 5600/RTX3060/16GB DDR4 combo can technically still play everything. Plus, as consoles are affected too, there are speculations about the longest CrossGen period in existence once the PS6 hits. E.g. PS5 2020 tier hardware still being supposted for years to come. Bad news for tech enthusiasts, I guess. If that comes to pass, they may get a few additional bells and whistles. But games at their very core will be made with then lower end hardware still in mind. Overall, the most traditional business practice for the past decades may be cooked though. Which can be summed up like this: "Buy Ass Creed XIV! It's even prettier than the last one, promise!" I mean, it was fun for as long as it yielded net positive returns (and genuine ooohs and aaahs). But else: Good riddance. :-) Tech would naturally still advance. But it won't be the main/major selling point. And who knows, Nvidia may have long anticipated this, hence their "exit" to AI. ;) Doom, Quake & Wolfenstein: 30 years of id Tech graphics evolution 1993-2025

That's what happens to fragmented markets: There's fewer space for "one size fits all product". Same as in music and the decline of the omnipresent super star that everybody agrees on. Or as a wise dev once put it: "A game made for everyone is a game made for no one." Personally, I think that's a good thing. Whilst there's overall TOO many releases now even to keep track of, there is a game and a catalogue to build for pretty much everyone. Back in the mid 2000s to mid 2010s, that plain wasn't the case. As the increasingly fewer monolithic publishers and even physical stores dictated what got funded, made -- and eventually played... RPG devs stopped making games like Baldur's Gate 'because retailers told us no one wanted to buy them', says New Vegas and Pillars of Eternity director Josh Sawyer | PC Gamer

There's a ton of games like that. :) There are 20.000 games on Steam alone now. That is, 20.000 games released new every single year. Yeah, most of them are tiny/obscure projects. Still, I'd argue that's part of the overall issue, at least from a publisher's/studio's end. Hard to get noticed. Even harder to stand out from the rest. For everyone involed, big and small. This isn't strictly about "quality". See my personal take on "elevator pitches" above (Obsidian rarely do as good as with Grounded here, if you ask me). It's overall a pretty crowded market, similar to music. Everybody can totally pick their lane / personalized playlist... and outside of production values, indies can be fully competitive with bigger games now too. Doubly so for games that don't "overstay their welcome", as producing something with a smaller scope is more viable on lower budgets.... Meanwhile, live service could be seen as desperate corporate attempt to bypass this increasingly crowded market by trapping a player forever to a single product... That's basically the true "war" going on: It's one of an increasing number of games vs finite player time.

"Honey, I Shrunk The Kids -- The Game" is easily their most efficient elevator pitch since "A New CRPG From The Makers Of Planescape:Torment + Fallout 1+2 + Icewind Dale". The latter triggered primarily nostalgia though, whereas the former was something fresh and untapped into (as to gaming anyways). On Obsidian's own traditional genre home turf, Larian (The "definitive" D&D Simulator) and Warhorse (Dungeons WITHOUT Dragons, Medievals for REALZ) recently found a lot catchier ideas. And if the latter don't blow it, "OMG! LOTR -- but it's finally a proper single-player RPG!!!" will be huge too. IMO.

I am Andrew Ryan, and I'm here to ask you a question: Is a man not entitled to the sweat of his brow? "No!" says the quest marker, it belongs to the impatient. "No!" says the in-game GPS, it belongs to the blind. "No!" says the witcher sense, it belongs to the stupid. I rejected those answers. Instead, I chose something different. I chose the impossible. I chose... Gothic. The Gothic Remake Shows What's Wrong With Modern Games

Hey! I'm going to the Bear Pits this winter. Ya wanna come with? 😁

You're gonna need a bigger pants.

To me it's the core flaw of the game, as it makes everything completely repetetive and mindless. "Just go exactly here and do exactly this." The only real choice / mental engagement (in an Arkane game) is experimenting with your weapon loadout and abilities, in a sense. But even in that regard, it feels oft like Dishonored leftovers.

I'm also mixed on Deathloop. The moment to moment game and gunplay can be fun. As a package it is is really repetetive though as the real loop of the game is a tutorial that never ends. Deathloop = butchered by playtesting. :( It's one thing to take feedback on board. It's another to drop or nerf the entire core idea, as testers found it "tedious to figure a time loop puzzle out"... I mean, by the end the game even reiterates every single step so you wouldn't possibly miss it. To be fair, Arkane were under pressure to "deliver" at that point. And it WAS a rather unique idea that lay at Deathloop's core. The Redesign That Saved Deathloop Arkane : the studio that wanted to make games for smart gamers... and realized they weren't that many. 😁

I'm at the point now where you can unlock the "Thief" difficulty (I think this is what it's called). Curious also. I think that even when they add stuff to it (more mission variety would also be nice from what I've seen so far), it's naturally never gonna be a classic Thief / Dishonored replacement. The game wasn't made with that in mind. I'm sometimes thinking of the "Dunwall City Trials" DLC, which was entirelly about challenges (though singleplayer, naturally). Still playing Sir Kicksalot first now. I was expecting some Dark Messiah combat madness...... but that the stealth is this fun also I hadn't on the radar (mostly based on noise/lines of sight). Playing on medium difficulty, but without saving mid-mission. That was a tense 40 minutes and I enjoyed every minute of it. Game also has a demo btw, but this level wasn't in it, ended with climbing up a lighthouse, coming down and then throwing bombs on pirates that had spawned/landed on the beach below. 😁It's such a chaotic mess at times, it's LMAO kind of fun. Tempted to try a ghost run, or do another playthrough as a mage just making people burn. :D

Raphael Colantonio and Harvey Smith playing and talking about the making of Dishonored...... The creators of Dishonored react to their own game after 14 years | Devs Play Part 1 Each are working on new games with their new teams/studios. I'm so horny for more 0451 at this point, SHODAN could sell me her socks tbh! TL;DR: SCREW YOU BETHESDA 😒 "All I can tell you is that part of the reason why I left Bethesda was that they did not want to do the kind of games that we wanted to make," Colantonio says. He likens Arkane's approach to studios like Larian and FromSoftware: "Those are people that have been doing, over and over, the thing they know exactly how to do, until it hits super hard. So to me, that's what Arkane had to do." Colantonio wanted to keep building on what Arkane had achieved with Dishonored and Prey, but due to disappointing sales, Bethesda "decided that was not part of the strategy anymore".

For a fiver it was a no-brainer (fan of the type). Still feels a little barebones (played 4 or 5 contracts so far). It's naturally also a more challenge-type game rather than a big narrative focus (still haven't tried CoOp, have you?). Funnily, I currently enjoy the (optional) simple stealth in Sir Kicksalot more (including the skill tree for a Thief type of character). But then that also sees me hopping from level to level, rather than the same 2 maps. And there's a lot more tools... I mean anything is a weapon, including fishes. Speaking of which, no idea why there's fishes jumping all over the place when I throw a baguette into the waters. And the postman upon hitting him just picked a chair to hit back. But then that's exactly the type of sandboxy madness I luv. 😁 (One of the first things I did in KCD2 was stealing guards and the tavern maid their clothes and armor, they were guarding and serving in their underwear for days hahahahah).

Thanks gaming gods for the indies. ❤️ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ci6dTx7HJs4&t

Thick Asssss Thieves. Plus The Adventures Of Sir Kicksalot. LMAO! 🤣 POV: If developers hadn't spent the past 20 years on further exploring visual fidelity and cinematics, but physx and simulated sandbox chaos instead. The Adventures Of Sir Kicksalot - Trailer Can even be stealthed (there's three skill trees for warrior, thief, mage type of abilities, which you can also mix).

Yeah the foundations to build upon are there, hope they do (only finished a couple contracts so far). Also made me want to replay Dishonored 2 (last time was six, seven years ago IIRC). On a slightly related note, last week also saw the release of Sir Kicksalot. Sir WHO you ask? The Adventures Of Sir Kicksalot - Trailer Puzzling how Dark Messiah's madness has never caught on. But then most devs seem again more obsessed with visual fidelity (everything must look cinema-perfect!) rather than physics and the madness that inevitably ensues. :D

Warhorse the next RPG studio to go bananas big (unless they majorly mess the actual development up this time around). Warhorse Studios auf X: „You might have heard the rumours, it's time to reveal what we are working on. 🗺️ An open world Middle-earth RPG. ⚔️ A new Kingdom Come adventure. We’re excited to tell you more when the time is right. #WarhorseStudios #Annoucement #lotr #KingdomComeDeliverance https://t.co/Pcgf9SqW52“ / X Somebody at Obsidian HQ must be fuming now (in particular at former owner stage), what with first BG going elsewhere. And now it's Tolkien -- was it really Interplay's LOTR Book 1+2 that was the last "major" single-player RPG taking place there? Time flies by whilst you're having too many elves and dwarves and orcs anyway. :D (Tbh, I would have considered this a waste of unique selling point, what with Warhorse's "Dungeons without dragons" tagline. But as simultaneously they're also working on another KCD..) Kinda weird to think that Obisidian, who I'd considered the "last hope" personally during much of the 2000s and 2010s, are now a sort of "middle of the road" RPG-Like developer. At least in my eyes... Kinda wish they'd specialize more rather than making these "flatter" one size fits all games that seem to by trying to appeal to everyone. It wouldn't need to be Pentiments exclusively. But as once argued, a KCD (historical RPG) would have never been greenlit by Obsidian management, despite the neglected niche (niches and USPs are more important than ever in a market saturated). Josh Sawyer had been fighting for this HARD for decades -- and only could do Pentiment because it was a small-scale project. Else... not a chance. PS: This recently had me laughing -- the video and Warhorse's reaction in the comments. :D I Stalked Kingdom Come 2 NPCs for 9 Days (And Lost My Mind) PS: Anybody else gonna try Thick As Thieves today? In a better world full of Thief- and Dishonored-Likes, I'd be probably mixed. In this world and for but a fiver, however.... Dishonored 3 Hopefuls Should Try Thick As Thieves - GameSpot

Resident Indie II. Fixed cameras rarely have been more creepy beautifuuuul. #TormentedSoulsII

So, apparently DLSS 5 is the fusion of 3D graphics and Artificial intelligence (at molecular-genetic level). Artists at Obsidian: Be afraid. Be very afraid.

This just in: Starfield Remastered confirmed. And it's going to be even cheaper to produce than the Oblolololivion UE5 reskin. DLSS 5 -- it just works! 😁 https://youtu.be/dJACkKbN-Eo?si=2AuTloEFsoMDlstj&t=37

Couldn't find this in English, but: Neues RPG statt Kingdom Come 3: Bericht verrät, woran Warhorse Studios wirklich arbeitet Warhorse seem to be working on an all-new RPG -- self-funded (KCD2 must have made loads of cash given that it made its money back a day or two after launch....) One of the few new bigger budget projects to be genuinelly curious about whatever it may be. As this is so not what a decision maker / money giver at your typical studio / publisher would ever have to say:

For the record: While I didn't love The Outer Worlds (1) either, I thought there were decent things in there as well. Overall, I think it's a rather mid title by Obsidian standards though. And one seemingly scared of its own design goals as well. There is "casualization" -- Pentiment, set up as a narrative experience surely isn't a hardcore gamer's game, and that's perfectly fine! It was never conceived as such. And then there is say the aforementioned looting in TOW1 that doesn't even matter as it's this abundant. In a way, it seems Obsidian came out of their crowdfunding stage under the impression that specialization would not be worth it (after Deadfire, see the quote prior about making real money off two PoEs...). Whereas for Warhorse, Larian, Owlcat et all it was the opposite. That said, whilst there were layoffs, Obsidian never cut down solely to the crew doing Pillars 1 back then. IIRC, they were still a studio in the ~100-150 people range at that point.

That was my reaction to when Deadfire launched -- to nowhere near the buzz as PoE. To be fair, Eternity1, unlike Original Sin, was always big time sold on nostalgia, and eventually, that crave for the good ol' days may be fulfilled. Still, in the case of PoE, it's certainly not the "type of game" at fault -- or Owlcat wouldn't have rolled these things plus DLC plus Enhanced Editions en masse from an Eastern European CRPG factory line. :D In the case of TOW, it's not the type of game either, see Fallout New Vegas. What would have bummed me out (and kinda did) with TOW1 is that it was announced as a sort of Vegas-Like project (see the announcement trailers... "From thy builders of Vegas!"). And then was more like a baby's version of an Obsidian game, of one I've played better versions of before (not talking size, but depth). The entire industry is struggling a bit atm though. And if you ask me, the thing to notice recently has been about specilization -- of picking an experience and going all-in on it rather than watering it down so that everybody may be onboard. A game like Kingdom Come would have never seen the light of day at Bioware, Bethesda and Obsidian -- see how Josh had been hoping to make a historical game since forever, but bosses would go: "Nobody would buy that." And even FromSoft exploded by Elden Ring -- a title likewise that would have never seen the light of day at most of the old Western powerhouses of the industry, as deemed as too "inaccessible". These games were allowed to excel at what they were targeting -- and attracted added people simply by doing so, making them curious what's so "special" and "unique" about them. Warhorse have talked about how many history buffs they got onboard who aren't even hardcore gamers, for instance. As a side-effect, Warhorse are now pretty much the only top dogs on the "historical RPG" block too -- there simply is nobody around making a game like them on the scale of them, zero direct competition. Loot and combat and dwarves and elves and Pip-Boys? Dime a dozen. It's actually not just games. See also music, where there are few omnipresent superstars still left that everybody and their cat owns a record of. And rather, everyone tends to build their own streaming playlists, tailored towards them specifically. The market here too has exploded so much that everybody will eventually find something fit to their tastes. (Over 19,000 games released on Steam alone in 2025). One thing is clear though: Chasing trends with dev cycles of 4-7 years ain't gonna cut it. By that point that trend is long old hat. And everybody else chasing it as well may have already picked up what was left of all the buzz once you're finally ready to ship yourself. :D

It's certainly not an unusual length for RPG-Likes that try to be HUGE ASS 100+ hour GAMES (see Kingdom Come 2, Starfield, BG3....) As said, it's one of Obsidians own main objectives to now cut that down to three, four years. Speaking about MS' profit targets, I'm sure they're calculacting that in, but: Pricing a game, any game at 70-80 bucks whilst making it available on Game Pass isn't promoting that game. It's promoting Game Pass first and foremost. Not sure about you guys, but games at that price point have to REALLY win me over (which increasingly fewer of these risk averse big budget games desperate to cater to everyone and their pet hamster do). Else I'd rather buy 2 great indie games and a glorious Pentiment (and still have money to spare for snacks and drinks on top of it). What Raf Colantonio said. Xbox Game Pass ‘damaging’ the game industry, former Xbox dev says inXile's Clockwork Revolution is likely going to face a battle too.

Not only Feargus.... Apparently Chris Parker et all were pushing for it too. That had carried over for far longer though. Avowed wasn't supposed to just channel Obsidian's inner The Elder Scrolls -- it was supposed to do that AND be multiplayer on top of it. If dev cycles and processes wouldn't be an issue, they wouldn't be talking now about trying to shorten them to three or four years as one of the main commitments. From Bloomberg: A few successes later, Urquhart and his co-founders were in talks to sell the business to the company that had almost killed it. During the negotiations with Microsoft, Obsidian’s executives assembled a slideshow presentation for the concept that would become AVOWED, pitched as an ambitious cross between megahits The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim and Destiny that would allow players to battle monsters together in a massive fantasy world. It was an impressive if unlikely proposition. “My thought when I first saw it was, ‘I don’t think there’s a team on the planet that could execute on this,’” says Josh Sawyer, Obsidian’s studio design director. Two years later, Obsidian stripped out the multiplayer feature, and a year after that it assigned a new director to the project. By the time AVOWED came out, it had been in the works for nearly seven years. Also pretty curious how Feargus now wishes that MS would allow for risky and/or smaller projects to be made still, when it was Josh Sawyer who had to once again (see Project Eternity) battle hard with Feargus to get Pentiment off the ground. He even considered to leave had it fallen through. Credits where credits are due: Back at Interplay, when Feargus suggested to a then little known company called Bioware that they better make their next project a D&D game, he struck Gold. No less as no decent big D&D game had come out in many years before. Otherwise, he really doesn't strike me as somebody that should get too deeply involved on the creative side of things (the other founders aren't as regularly "visible" with wonky decisions, as Feargus is pretty much the public face of Obsidian, but who knows...) You know who should be in charge of all things creative? Whoever came up with the initial idea for say Grounded. Not only does that game cater to a specific niche rather than trying to be a little bit of everything for everyone: "It's ELDER SCROLLS MEETS OBSIDIAN MEETS DESTINY!" (Scope issues aside: A game made for everyone is a game made for no one). Grounded, unlike most recent Obsidian games, also has a distinct hook that nobody else on the market has: "Oh LOOK! It's Honey I Shrunk The Kids -- THE GAME!"