Wormerine

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.

I am not surprised. This is Arkane Austin - they have done Prey and its DLC and Redfall. Prey is an acclaimed, if not particularly profitable, and Redfall is a flop, that allegiedly drove away about 70% of staff that made Prey. So it's not even the case of "abandon Refall and work on something else", as the folks who made Prey are mostly gone and you have a live service oriented studio, that clearly didn't come together very well (not aiming on judging individual devs of course - **** happens). Tango is what surprised me. Sure, it probably didn't break the bank, but they made THE game that delivered some positive buzz for XBOX. Even if it somehow a perfectly sensible move (like keeping the talented devs and putting them to work elsewere, but shutting down the studio now when the founder is gone) it is still a terrible look.

It did, but it was also caught in „screw Bethesda” train after Fallout76. I am not quite sure how much interest there will still be in Outer Worlds2.

Hades2. It's alright. More of the same so far. Like really more of the same. Improved, but in 6 hours nothing popped up which would explain why this sequel had to be made (money, obviously, but I am still willing to give Supergiant benefit of a doubt). That said, EA seems rather chunky and quite complete in many aspects, so it is not possible that more cool stuff is yet to come (or still to appear in this build). One thing was mention so far, which I am not sure what it is supposed to be - so I am looking forward to finding out. Street Fighter6 update - I decided to switch my main - while Luke, whom I have been using up until now, is supposed to be by far the strongest character currently in the game, I felt I was reaching a peak of what I was able to achieve with him. To move foward I would have to get the hang of his perfect timing charge attacks, and figure out his rush combos - which at the moment are a bit too much for me. So I switched to the good, old Ryu. I am still getting used to it (tend to miss inputs a bit more often for now), but he seems more straightforward and deliberate.

Ouch. Austin Texas being shut down is not surprising - I would mourn it as they create one of my fav game out of Arcanes output (Prey!), but allegiedly Redfall already drove most of that team away. Tango Gameworks though.... that's surprising. Hi-Fi Rush was the best thing XBOX released so far. Unless a lot of developers went after Shinji Makami when he left the studio, or something. Well, Grounded has been doing shockingly well, and Pentiment was super low budget. We will see how Avowed and Outer Worlds2 will do (not feeling great about Avowed so far...!).

I hate to be that guy, but putting a game that hasn't been releases yet (or even shown much gameplay off) on a very specific place of your "Game of all time" list might impact the perceived integrity of your globally followed BruceVC game rating system.

Terror from the Void, a total conversion mod for Phoenix Point reached 1.0. I meant to check it out for a long time - Phoenix Point was a game with a fantastic pitch, and some good ideas in the finished product, that seemed to lack polish to really deliver. I am somehow doubtful if a mod can fix game's issues, but there are some smart and insightful folks behind it. I am curious if they managed to achieve their vision. Will have to make some time for it in a near future. https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/839770/view/4176601697647254493

There also would be: casting, participating in recording sessions guiding the actors, picking the takes and creating sound files that than can be implemented (editing, post processing?). VO might also require unique tech, like voice effects changing depending on enviroment etc.

This is how I used to think as well, but I am not sure how true that is. Your logic assumes that if a game doesn't get VO, than it can invest more money into other features. I just don't think it works that way. I suspect it is more reasonable to assume that if a game won't get budget for a major or full VO, it will also be underbudgeted in other aspects as well. I can think of two instances of when RPGs got full VO post release - so I think it might be better to think of VO an extra accessibility/mass market appeal feature. I think it is less of a case make great RPG or full VO RPG, and more of creating a great RPG and spending extra money to expand your potential audience. It really comes down to how many sales one could loose without including full VO, and that's something I can only speculate about. Unfortunately, it seems that higher ups at Obsidian decided to have the cake and eat it too - spend money on full VO, but still skimp by not accomodating production schedule putting a lot of extra burden of devs. Perhaps it had an impact on the final game's quality, but even if not it seemed to come at a cost of devs wellbeing and morale. Why not take a cue from D:OS and DIsco Elysium and wait with VO post launch, if you can't fit/afford it for 1.0?