Wormerine

Yeah, watched it earler today. Definitely makes me more hopeful than the trailer. Skill tree looks anemic, but we will see how it will play. I didn't analyse systems much, but I do like that they remind me of PoEs, at least on a surface level. Keeping my fingers crossed. For those who cared, it seems third person will be an option (though while they show a bit of it, it the video still mostly uses 1st person - I would guess that the 3rd person still needs some work).

Considering it allegedly started as 4 player coop one could say it is getting scaled up. Playing devils advocate, Disco Elysium had one companion and it was great. We knew since last reveal that Avowed will not allow for certain expected behaviours (like not taking on companions) so unusually small roster doesn’t surprise me. What I am waiting to hear is: „what’s the upside?”.

Ah, yeah, no, I am mostly interesting in story of Avowed. I don't hope for much gameplay wise. Yeah, Deadfire had big balancing problems. DLCs were pretty good, though, I thought.

Oh, it's the whole thing. It is not a vaporware afterall. I looks nice. I enjoyed watching the trailer. Looks like it would be unenjoyable to play (with rigid scripting and autoaim stuff).

I can't agree. I don't think Deadfire's narrative and pivotal choice was well delivered, but there was a lot of going on in there. I don't want to judge Avowed on marketing, but it just looks so generic, and descriptive. "OOoo.. this is bad", "Ooo, but this is worse". "Ooo, this is not bad at all!". Even the short text from the original teaser has so much texture and is so much evocative than anything that the two recent trailers have delivered. But maybe it is a wider trend. I thought Outer Words marketing had the same issue "You good, bad or CRAZY!", and while overall I enjoyed the game, I did find it choices rather uninteresting. Honestly, at this point I hope Avowed is as good as Outer Worlds were. I also find it odd that Avowed doesn't have a solid release date still. Apprently still 2024, but we only have 6 months to work with. Surely, you should know when the game drops by now, unless you still doubt if it will come together in time. (though I will take delay over crunching like crazy or delivering too early). But more importantly: WHERE IS SILKSONG!!!!!!!!!

Well… I can’t say I care

Avowed still looks…. Eh? It looks so…. Basic? It is as if they concluded that PoE were to complex and subtle and overcorrected by cutting all flavour out. Hopefully the game proper fares better, but so far Avowed raises more and more red flags with each reveal.

Dum, dum. Doom

Just go play Baldur’s Gate3 or a BioWare game. so many RPG companions became just dating sims, I really, really welcome RPGs with different relationships. PoE1 has my favourite cast to date, and a lot of those characters should wouldn’t be made if they were all datable.

After sitting on my wishlist for ages, I finally picked up and gave a short go to Gloomwood. And intriguing very indy stealth immersive sim, seemingly smashing Thief with Survival horror. Not very deep into it, so very first impressions, but so far it seems excellent.

Well, Firaxis (or Sid) have a philosophy of thirds when making a sequel. You identify 1/3 that you want to keep to maintain identity and not alienate the fans. You identify 1/3 you want to improve on in the sequel. You take 1/3 and try something new. Unless there was a major shift in Firaxis, I can't imagine Civ7 reimagining itself too hard (or rebooting).

Let's hope. I was one of the few who really liked the base of CivVI. What soured me on the installement were the expansins, which I didn't think added that much to the game. On one hand I feel no need for another Civ at this moment, but I am curious what will be tweaked in this one.

Three things from me: 1) Alan Wake2 DLC is out today, featuring Jesse Faden from control, dude from Quantum Break and Alan’s nb1 fan from the diner. It also reminds me that Alan Wake2 exists, which consistently slips my mind due it it being on a storefront I don’t boot up very often. 2) very Jusant-like looking climbing game. It seems to promise a bit more peril, which I am in to. While I liked Jusant, the complete lack of tension made the experience too chill for me. Maybe this will work. 3) Street Fighter6 Season2 character pass was revealed and….. meh? The offering is skits as stingy as season1, and half of the roster are guests - which as a fighting game newbie means nothing to me. I will probably be holding off pickingthis one, as I don’t immediately see anything compelling for myself. Bison should be out soonish and got a proper gameplay trailer today: Edit. Ah. And more of Deliverence2

From what I have seen it doesn’t seem terribly, but isn’t great either. Campaign not being great is a big „wait for a deep sale” for me. I still have remasters to finish anyway.

It does. The post release "Legends" mode. In GoTs PC release you don't have to have sign in to PSN account to play singleplayer, but you will to play the multiplayer mode. Yeah, I know of country limitation. It seems like Sony exects haven't fully thoughtout this "port to PC" thing, more than anything else. From what I understand that issue popped out rather recently and even PS employees weren't fully aware of remifications. They will definitely have to sort this thing out (either by expanding availability of PSN or, prefferably, use existing PC services.

That's for multiplayer though? Ghost of S single player doesn't require it.

Ragbarok on PC in September Another Sony game to my „buy at some point” wishlist

I mean... yeah?

That sounds to me about as likely as Microsoft acquiring Nintendo.

No, but some really interesting tidbits. Probably, just like the original trailers it will make sense after beating the expansion. I do like the "vibes over plot" approach of FromSoftware marketing.

They might have been looking for a replacement of St. Petersburgh Larian, which they shut down when the Russian kerfuffle started. Warsaw sounds like a decent place for a studio on a budget with a lot of talent to draw from, and it is close enough within the time zone to support their 24h development cycle. ex-CD Project folks are an obvious titles, but there are a lot of polish devs and would-be-devs out there. It also seems like CDPR folks are more than happy to leave on their own, considering the ammount of "by ex-CDPR devs" attacked to indie projects, so I wouldn't worry too much. If anything, big budget RPG competition, might made CDPR care a bit more about their employees.

Larian has opened yet another studio, this time in Warsaw Poland. https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/larians-new-polish-studio-is-a-match-made-in-heaven-for-the-baldurs-gate-3-developers-upcoming-rpgs

Yeah, and apparently there was supposed to be more Monarch. I don’t think the game has foundations strong enough to support large amounts of gameplay and it is better of when it sticks closer to early-BioWare type RPG.

Former Microsoft senior PR manager Brad Hilderbrand on recent studio shutdowns: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/bradhilderbrand_there-are-two-reasons-why-all-those-bethesda-activity-7193668143305670657-wUSw?utm_source=li_share&utm_content=feedcontent&utm_medium=g_dt_web&utm_campaign=copy Gosh, I wish the Activision-Blizzard deal would have fell through, if that means the smaller, more interesting studios will get their heads chopped.