To the New Year

 

At this, the edge of the knife dangling from the crumbling rocks of this year threatening to plunge headfirst into the next, I wanted to touch on that most hopeful of topics- what the future has in store for us- the ever curious. This year has been much lauded for what it's done for the gaming world, what has been brought and what has, hopefully, been stoked within the hearts of creatives the world over. We can only see that the example of Baldur's Gate 3 has been set, whether anyone else is brave enough to try and reach that staggeringly open-faced, highly reactive, systematically dense title is anyone's guess going forward. But at the very least there are a bevy of ambitious looking titles coming in the near future that we can be excited about, or at least to hear about? Because honestly, I just want to hear that one of the games on this list still exists- pretty please.

First off is the obvious. Yes, I am excited for the upcoming 'Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth'- which is an obvious pick being such a giant Yakuza fan as has been documented exhaustively on this here blog. But it goes a little deeper than just fandom. Every single snippet I hear about Like a Dragon 8 genuinely sounds like some of the most overly ambitious insanity this franchise has ever shot for, buy quite a crazy margin! Yakuza has always been a franchise of making due with what they had, for years most of the games didn't even have voiced side content because these games are made on a shoe-string compared to what the top of the Western AAA world are granted. But as Yakuza/Like a Dragon has made a name for itself in the west, that divide has shrunk further as SEGA has taken baby steps wading into the market and ensuring that we are, in fact, Like a Dragon fiends.

Infinite Wealth seems to be their most confident dive yet, as every aspect of what this new game is bringing to the table sounds genuinely insane. Much has already been said about it, but it cannot be overstated how over the top it is for them to just casually confirm how we're getting an Animal Crossing style resort management minigame just chucked atop the package here- one of the most elaborate sounding meta games this franchise has ever boasted, in a franchise full to the brim of meta games! And now they've even read the room and decided to thrown in a Rouge-lite dungeon which changes every time you delve into it, providing that kind of infinite challenge that AAA titles are starting to leech off of the indie game market. Infinite Wealth is looking like the biggest Yakuza game ever made, and I am hear for the cementing of their success as Japan's premier gaming export!

Elsewise- Final Fantasy has settled itself in my psyche through my inexplicable catching up on all things '7 Remake' over the past few months, which naturally means I'm ready for the coming next step on that adventure- Rebirth. (despite the growing concerns that this is going to be a 200 GB game. Not looking forward to Harddrive wiping just to play this one title.) Final Fantasy 7 Re- franchise has the potential to change the face of an absolute classic in a manner that does not set the entire fanbase aflame, and if we can follow along bright eyed for that journey, I want to be there on the cusp! The PS first release debate is a kick to the ego, as always, but I managed to avoid spoilers for the first game for several years, I'm sure the exercise will remain second nature going into this one. I just want to see what has been made of this recreation of the original game's best hours.

Oh and let us not forget the one game who is sailing on the wings of the new year ready to bring life back to an old narrative. The Remake for Persona 3, named 'Reloaded', looks absolutely fantastic- better each trailer- reviving the classic narrative of The Dark Hour and the team that come together in order to save the world and stop it. Touching on themes of arresting depression and death-like apathy, and finding connection and meaning through those that are our friends. It promises to provide a fantastic experience to those who have never had the chance to play the original, as well as grant a whole new audience to it's incredible hybrid electronic soundtrack which, unsurprisingly, is one of the best JRPG soundtracks ever made. Give it to the Persona team to know where to put the bulk-load of their efforts! 

And another game I'm looking forward to? Well, call me a dreamer and a fool and a hopeless romantic fawning over a future he will never get the chance to see- because I am low-key all of those things for expecting to see literally anything regarding Hollow Knight Silksong. I know it's a meme at this point, the game that doesn't exist being teased year after year to a hopeful public, but I've enough experience with the budding franchise to insist that to me it is more than the meme. I utterly adored the expertly interwoven dark-fantasy epic, plucked from the heart of FromSoft souls game, a narrative which collided perfectly with the slick pixel-exact platforming combat in a glorious fusion of undeniable excellence. Hollow Knight is the best platformer ever made, and the promise of a sequel is enough to get me excited out of my mind.

Throw that excitement atop all the reveals we've had regarding the ways in which Hornet's adventure will differ from the Knight's, her spinning pirouettes, grappling hook Needle- the fact she can actually talk- I'm beyond giddy to get my hands on it myself. But like a vision of a ghost we can't seem to grasp anything concrete. The most we've ever managed to squeeze out of Team Cherry was a release window for sometime in 2023 which... well, we're slid right past that- haven't we? I hope this is all because they are nose-to-the-grindstone making the best possible game that they can, but at this point they've been so radio silent I'm not certain the equator hasn't opened up and swallowed the entire studio! Couldn't they just give us a screenshot or something? Let us know the thing is in some sort of production? Gah- this is driving me insane already!

And the last thing the new year has in store that I am, let's say morbidly, curious about would be the coming expansion for Starfield later in 2024. (Due for a year after the original launch.) That will be the moment to see if Bethesda are still stubbornly sticking to their guns or taking into account the very loud feedback they received about the game they made, and if they follow the right examples (Minecraft comes to mind) they may just be able to forge something a bit more interesting out of their currently barren universe. Oh, and I'm also looking forward to hearing about GTA 6 being delayed until late 2025- that's an exciting one! Okay, I should probably wrap this up before I slip into pure unadulterated sardony from which there will be no recovery.

So... does Johanthon Nolan even know what Fallout is?

 

With us moving into the new year and the upcoming Fallout show looming over us like a particularly zealous Brotherhood Paladin leering over our brand new iPhones, I think it fair to analyse exactly what it is that awaits the Fallout fanbase as perhaps their only fresh product for the next half decade. (Given Bethesda's lamentable fear of all things 'spin off'.) Fallout 5 is a far off proposition that not many people have the energy to seriously contemplate, least of all myself who fears to look more than a few weeks into the future with hope- so this TV show of questionable canonicity will have to suffice in the meantime, which means us fans our placing all of our hopes and dreams into the hands of the talented Mr Johnathon Nolan, showrunner of that Westworld show that everyone watched for a bit and then dropped off on. (Turns out I don't care about the plight of androids that look human- now please stop presenting me with that exact same 'moral quandary': every near-future sci-fi show ever made!)

Johnathon Nolan is no fresh spring chicken with no idea what he's doing, the guy seems to have nurtured talent just as his Brother has- but talent does not always translate to every task, especially for the very complicated and multifaceted job of an 'adaptation.' Even Westworld, bearing the name of a classic sci-fi movie, pretty severely veered away from the base concept to such a degree that to compare the two and call them the 'same franchise' feels genuinely laughable. Sure, that original concept absolutely did not have the legs to last as long as the show did, but I would struggle to call where the show went a 'natural evolution'. It feels a bit more like that age-old problem of a show runner who wanted to make a certain kind of show but lacked the funds and backing to mount it and so attached it to a more profitable brand. But even then- Westworld was that more profitable brand? I don't know how I feel about the man as an adapter. His team are not as shameless as the Halo team, at the very least.

Video game Adaptations have always been a minefield of cringe, typically assaulted by creatives who consider themselves intellectually superior to the original material and the fans of that material by merit of being a filmmaker- resulting in total irreverent trash that turns away franchise fans and is too stupid for fresh fans. (Like Halo.) Johnathon Nolan is no fool, he probably knew all of this very well when accepting the job to adapt Fallout and yet took the plunge anyway- why? Because he thought himself capable of handling it. But unfortunately that isn't really up to the Nolan to decide, now is it? No, we are going to break down right now whether or not Nolan knows his stuff. As card-carrying Fallout veterans (Barring a spin-off here or there I need to get around to. And I've only ever played both DLCs for Fallout 4 once. And I just learnt I never 'actually' finished Nuka World- there's a secret ending I never triggered.) And it all starts with that original announcement.

Now I have to admit, seeing Nolan sitting in that desert being handed a fresh glass of Nuka by a screen-accurate T-45 hand: that was pretty cool. And perhaps I blanked out a little on what was actually being said in order to bask in the wonder of the moment. But looking back, at that 'funny' little back and forth where he pretended not to know what the franchise even was whilst sitting on the set, (That's humour for ya!) his feedback was a little odd. "Fallout! Yes. The Post Apocalyptic- humourous, dark, bleak- brilliantly written- annoyingly playable.. video game franchise." That's the first we hear Nolan talk on the franchise and it's full of affectations and pretty surface level observations, if we're being pedantic. (And you know we're all about the pedantises here!) First off 'Post Apocalyptic'- yes, the genre- you can read a summary, good for you. No mention of the unique aspect of that Apocalypse- that it happens in a fifties-tinted retro-future. 'Humorous, dark, bleak'- two of those descriptors are being used as synonymous, but otherwise- sure, to the point. "Brilliantly written"? Seriously? I get we're giving a little bit of 'under the table hand service' to Bethesda here, but 'brilliantly'? That needs a bit of closer inspection.

So I can't think of a game in the Fallout canon, outside of New Vegas (Which was not a Bethesda game) which I would call 'brilliantly written'. Fallout 3 presents a pretty straight forward tail stretched out over a long winding plot that stands on the shoulder's of the quality world building, to be decent. Fallout 4 trips over itself in a flurry of factions that withers and ends up failing to say or go anywhere significant by the end of the game. Side quest lines aren't that much better. DLC is pretty hit or miss. And the less said about 76's main storyline, the better. Bethesda aren't really known for their writing- and in fact the best Fallout story was told in the Honest Hearts DLC for New Vegas, that of Randall Clark- and something tells me Johnathon Nolan isn't familiar enough with this franchise to be thinking about a optional note-quest storyline in the second DLC of a spin-off game. Just doesn't seem his speed.

And besides, if the 'writing' of Fallout is so darn brilliant, why does this show seem so eager on changing it? The Prydwen from Fallout 4 found itself copy and pasted into this new show despite the fact that airship was actually a one-of-a-kind custom build from the remains of the Enclave carrier destroyed at the end of Broken Steel. The Brotherhood themselves are described as post-war military in press snippets- without any mention of their tech zealotry- which is, you know, their defining characteristic! Also, the idea that there's still vaults that haven't been opened this long into the timeline (the show is actually the furthest along we've had so far) is supremely questionable. It's all enough to make a guy wander just what Johnathon Nolan thinks Fallout is anyway.

I would describe the Fallout franchise somewhat similarly to how I would describe Star Wars. Neither are brilliantly formed works of storytelling mastery on the main face, but they triumph in the worlds of recognisable design. The power armour, the monsters, the retro-futurism, the iconography- Fallout is a visual icon and that- at least- Nolan has replicated to considerable success. The show looks like the game should. Arguably a little too much like the game, considering this is supposed to be a totally original story but appears to be borrowing hyper-specific scenes from the games and simply transporting them over to LA where this show is set, such as the scrap-yard city built out of the ruins of a downed airliner, or the aforementioned floating fortress for the Brotherhood of Steel. Of course, looking like the real thing is only part of the struggle, Nolan also has to make sure the show feels like Fallout- and that is going to be the thing to look out for.

There's certainly something here, in this Fallout show. Something that wasn't present for the Resident Evil adaptation, which is good- because we don't want a repeat of that. However, there was a visual parity for the Halo TV show, and we all know how Season 1 of that turned out! (Poorly) I just hope that Nolan knows how to make his show feel independent of the Fallout games that we know whilst still remaining in that universe without spiralling off into existentialism like Westworld did, or collapsing under the weight of it's own lore. (Like Bethesda would have done if they were in charge of making this show) I want something original, and good, and I'm asking for too much, aren't I? If this is a low-key Fallout 3/4 remake, like I'm half-certain it is- then we'll just chalk this up to another chunk of wasted potential, won't we?

Lessons in leaking

 

There has been a shifting of the balance of video game news since the turn of the century. The power is no longer in the hands of the creators, nor the marketers who own them, but now in the grimy paws of the hackers and leakers and people driven not by passions but something baser and impossible to explain. Is it clout? The potential for profit? The desire to prove oneself as having worth? Or maybe just the spurred desire to watch all the world crumble for your fun and profit? Whatever the situation, we've seen much in the way of projects, in the gaming world, having their debutes marred by early releases, unfinished glimpses and just recently in a turn that feels pretty unprecedented- a complete early game build that people have ran off with and, much as I insinuated, have already managed to get playable. But not everyone is really built to be a victim in this world.

Nintendo are a company renowned for their zero tolerance policy on anything regarding their owned properties, as though they see themselves as the Disney of gaming and must impart similarly draconian measures upon the world. Woe be those who fall under the Nintendo hammer for the crime of, loving their games enough to make a totally original game set within their worlds- yes they've gone after unique fan-made Pokémon games before. They will come down on people with the wrath of the gods if they are caught using ROMS or porting a game to the PC even though Nintendo will never try to cater to that market as long as they live- and we've even heard stories that Nintendo get upset when people play their games totally legitimately but not in the fashion the developers wanted. Let the story of the Nuzlocke challenge which was vetoed by Nintendo never be forgotten. They also hate mods, because of course.

But another company with such a reputation has been the big boys of the development world themselves: Rockstar Games. All the way back during the days when they still visited E3, (we're talking pre 2004) Rockstar suffered the brunt of a leak thanks to engaging with the convention and entrusting one of their builds with said staff. The leak ended up revealing content that was never intended to make it to the final game, but which ended up causing much controversy and getting Rockstar in trouble with certain advisory boards for pushing the boundaries of sexual content. Boundaries, I remind you, that they never actually intended to push in the final game because the whole minigame was just a test build which was ultimately scrapped for whatever reason. Since that moment, like a supervillain origin story, Rockstar became a lot more serious about how they maintained their data.

Rockstar had themselves one of the most profitable franchises in entertainment media, and they realised with that kind of acclaim came a lot of jealous eagerness to step on their image. Rockstar became recluses, locking themselves out from the public discourse of convention shows and gaming news outlets correspondence. They refused to let outsiders in to see what they were working on or even to know about their development practices in even the most abstract sense. Marketing, when deemed absolutely necessary, was handled with the secrecy of a CIA operation. Materials went out earmarked, investigators were on standby if any piece of information went errant, and I can only assume they had secret contracts with black van kidnapping crews just in case they ever needed to go that far. The way we hear former Rockstar executives tell it, they got scary with how they handled the mythos of their company- correctly assuming that premium reputation was tied in with the success they enjoyed so liberally.

Somewhere along the line that bulletproof reputation got lost and disseminated. They grew complacent. Pliable. And then- boom, Grand Theft Auto Six gets leaked. A game that has yet to be officially announced, and certainly hadn't been revealed- was open for the public. And sure, there had been some narrative leaks a few years earlier. We heard details about probable scenarios and characters- but it's easy to brush that aside as idle speculation. Just like when I saw someone summarise the first 3 chapters of Assassin's Creed 3 in the reveal trailer the day that game was announced, they were absolutely right- but I still shrugged it off and the spoiler didn't ruin anything on the day. But when you see hordes of gameplay footage featuring the new playable female protagonist, and the recognisable locales of Vice City, and some of the new mechanics which haven't been officially announced yet and so I won't mention them- that's a bit harder to brush off.

The responsible party, led by a severely autistic hacker armed with an Amazon fire stick, a Hotel TV and a Mobile phone managed to make off with indisputable proof of Grand Theft Auto 6's existence which he spread liberally around the Internet. And no, before you ask- I have no idea how he manged to pull that off with the tools mentioned. (I assume he is a wizard.) Seeing as how I know so much about the lad, however, you can probably predict that the hack did not go so well for him. Whatever grand ideas he had about clout and infamy will unfortunately have to go brushed aside as the lad is served up to the legal system after being hunted down in no time flat. But not by Rockstar's elite recovery team. It seems this leak caught them entirely by surprise, law enforcement had to get involved. The spotless Rockstar doublet got itself tarnished.

Of course, the police did not need to look very far in order to find the hacker, considering he was already in their custody. The kid was already on bail and in Police Protection for the hacking of Nvidia and BT, he did this hack in his free time, which is about the worst time to perform a follow-up you could pick. Originally details on this case made it seem like the prep was on the fast track to a slap on the wrist, but considering the details, as well as the aggrieved party in question- that possibility vanished quick. As of now the boy has been sentenced to life within a Hospital Prison, after being deemed remorseless and dangerous, essentially cutting short all potential the kid had of being covertly recruited by M16 like in the movies... or, maybe providing the perfect cover to discreetly slip him out of the public eye and into M16! (Oh, I may have stumbled onto a fresh conspiracy!)

All this goes to show you that on the otherside of things, there really is nothing at all to be gained from leaking. Even the tiny scraps of attention are often vastly outweighed by the crippling punishments, if not the vast amount of anger you stir up. Remember the amount of disgrace thrown at the guy who leaked the audio of the Cyberpunk 2077 closed doors demo? Now, do you remember his name? Google barely does. And yet we come back here time and time again. So the moral of this little lesson? Don't mess with these big scary companies who care more about asserting their authority than the little people they step on to do it. If they're willing to squeeze their own fans just for liking their games a little too much, just think what they'll do to you!

New leak just dropped

 

What is this, a yearly occasion? I swear it was about this time last year that the Internet was gathering around to take a naughty look at the GTA VI leaks before swearing blind that they never once saw them for fear of being hunted down by Rockstar's team of elite assassins. And here we are again, discussing another leak of- would you believe it- even larger proportions! Not because this is a bigger company or a bigger game, per se- that would be literally impossible. Rather because this is perhaps one of the worst leaks of information I think we've ever seen, where there's so much floating around the web right now I'm genuinely fearful for the safety of the staff- yes, it goes that deep! And, well- someone is probably going to be losing their job for failing safety protocols- that one is pretty much for certain.

You've probably already seen the headlines, and it is fact- Insomniac games got themselves held ransom by a hacker collective who made off with 1.67 terrabytes worth of data that they held for a $2 million bounty. Paid in Crypto, of course, were it the case that Insomniac handed over the money. As it happens they didn't, whether out of bravado, fear, or because Sony told them not to, and the consequence has been the most horrendous tidal wave of leaked information one could imagine. If Grand Theft Auto's leak was like a natural disaster for the development team, you can call this a unnatural apocalypse- there is no way this isn't going to have a huge effect on the development process as the team scrambles to get ahold of just how much is in the public hands. And the biggest leak out of this mess? The unrevealed Wolverine game.

Well, 'unrevealed' is a bit of an overstatement. We had a gameplay-deprived teaser trailer announcing the team got the go-ahead to make the thing at some point- but I don't think anyone expected that our first glimpse of engine running footage would be unfinished pre-alpha testing stuff. This is pretty much the worst possible scenario for any marketing team, and I can only imagine the developers have locked away all internet access, for no other clearer reason than perhaps to save themselves from inevitable brain rot takes of' "Pff, this game dun look too good!" There's no saving it. Some truly unevolved strains of direct neanderthalian blood have already started their ragging on the visuals, animations and general aesthetic of this game that hasn't even made it to it's first ultrasound yet, let alone been born. Apparently these geniuses all looked like sculpted Michelangelo in the womb! I mean afterall, what was it that cretin said last time? "Duh, visuals are the first thing completed in game development! Everyone noes dat!" Some genepools have obviously spread too far.

Want to know what's even more depressing to hear? Apparently some of the files leaked were working builds of the early alphas. Of course none of this software has been published into workable executables outside of a developer kit PS5- but if anyone happens to have their hands on such a piece of hardware, (which isn't exactly common but you know how resourceful Internet people can be) then they could feasibly play this early build for themselves. What's worse than a leak of footage? A potential infinite font of leaks that are made fresh because of the stolen game files. That's enough to drive a man to drink, or maybe just early retirement.

Of course we've also heard news on general release dates of topics which has revealed some upsetting trends. I'm sure Hideo Kojima is just giddy to hear that this project we heard announced a year ago wasn't planning to make a debut until 2026! Isn't that just lovely? More games that get themselves fancy trailers when their still glints in their publisher's eyes, leading on people by a spaghetti thread of hype through most of a damned decade! Because that's a reasonable amount of time to expect to fill someone's headspace! Seriously- what is the benefit of these stupidly early reveals? Let other, closer, titles take the spotlight fully whilst you fiddle about with your overblown 200 million dollar masturbatory AAA why don't you! God, I'm sick of this industry's marketing stupidity. 

The leaks also reach out to Insomniac's entire release library for the coming years meaning we also know about Venom, their return to one of their beloved old school franchises and even another dream game that I won't spoil here, but provided the team make it until 2030- it will be quite the major Marvel gaming event. I would be excited but... well, I honestly expecting the Nuclear Fallout to wash over us and send us to Bethesda land before we reach the 2030's. (God, it is insane that gaming has reached the point where we're planning seven years ahead! How long do you think Bethesda are planning, considering they think Starfield is going to live on until 2033?) Oh, and we also know that the team aren't abandoning the Spider-Man franchise for their other key projects. They want to wrap that whole thing up before moving onto their next franchise. (At least that's job security for ya.)

But here's the crazy thing. Personal, identifiable information about the actual development staff at Insomniac found itself into these leaks, essentially doxing the workers of this project to the entire internet full of mount-breathing wierdoes who likely wouldn't pass a psyche evaluation to join the army. (And is it really hard to fail an army psyche eval.) I mean sure, 99% of people looking at all these leaks couldn't care less about that stuff. But the 1% who do look it up? Well, they're likely the same 1% who are only currently with the rest of us on the internet right now as a stop gap on their way to a small box in an institute. Penal or otherwise. Real people's safety has potentially been put into jeopardy hear and that is not a matter that should just be brushed over!

Overall, this has been one hell of a bad week for the fellows at Insomniac games- probably vastly out shadowing their recent nominations for best game of the year. You just really don't expect to receive a blow to the testes like this when you sit down to make a project, and I know that personally I would rather chew out someone's eyes than show them an uncompleted little draft of a piece that I'm writing. Nothing is worse than that feeling of all your insecurities laid bare before you've had to appropriately pave over them with professionalism and grit. I can't say I'm personally excited for the prospect of seeing some of these belated release dates get themselves knocked back as well, although considering Insomniac's track record I wasn't going to be playing Wolverine until 2031 anyway, so I'm not exactly weeping either. They still don't deserve this however, just to be clear.  

The Finals and AI

It's always cool to see how the world manages to fit in one final story about the buzzword of the year into the headlines before everything is said and done. For no new release can be free of it's own injection of controversy in order to 'spice things up'- so to speak. In this case the game in question is the hugely popular destructibility championing first person shooter- The Finals, which finally released on all platforms in the middle of the game awards after wooing over the shooter public with it's solid preview events and striking gameplay focuses. And not being much of a multiplayer gamer and having not actually had the time to try out The Finals for myself, I feel comfortable enough to confidently say that the game is total meandering trash- I'm joking, of course. People seem to like it enough so I'm sure there must be something to all the hype. But becoming the budding Internet darling is not enough, it would seem, to shield The Finals fully from all the drama it's stumbled into.

So as the name might suggest 'The Finals' presents itself as something of a 'fake game show' tournament murder game, presumably broadcast over some sort of dystopian society who's remnant cities are the arenas that the fighters blow to pieces. A common premise, you've seen it before. Fitting in with this theme the game features a couple of announcers who talk over the action, announce shifts in the game, provide slight colour commentary, the usual guff out of team based shooter games. These announcers in particular sound a little off, as though the vocal director did not take the time to coach them on each line. Or the actors are only semi-fluent in English and stumble on inflections still. Or... or almost as though their dialogue is rendered entirely through an AI. But that couldn't be- wait, it totally is- isn't it? That's what we're currently embroiled within this blog, isn't it?

That's right! It didn't take too long for the accusations to be made and the most scary thing is that unless you're listening out for it- it's easy to fool your ear into thinking the performances just aren't very good. Pay some attention however, and spend enough time around other AI voice videos, and you hear the taletale giveaways. The lifeless delivery, missing obvious inflection points, the rushed pace of certain lines. There's no human behind it and- it actually hurts the performance. But only ever so slightly. Given time, and more data, it's pretty likely we'll get models that aren't noticeable in the future, and maybe even play through entire games without knowing there were talking computers programmed in until the credits thanking ElevenLabs. And you can picture the kind of havoc that knowledge is currently wrecking on the voice actor community.

You see, Voice Acting is a pretty tight knit community of actors who aren't actually the richest people in the world, struggling for each and every job, usually between bouts of unemployment, trying to make enough of a name for themselves to be self sufficient. And, well, lets just say that the prominent use of AI in a large video game is kind of like walking on the grave of acting as a profession, it sends chills across everyone's spine. A voice actor's voice is their most precious and sought after commodity, it is their valuable instrument, to counterfeit that is to introduce fake bills into a bank vault- it taints the entire batch. Not my best analogy but do you even need one to understand how worrying people with a genuine stake in the continuation of human voice actors finds the AI of 'The Finals'. Although to be fair to everyone, the game was in early states of development for a long time whilst being shown off to the public- so in that vein I guess it's acceptable for placeholder text to be AI work, before the final performances with real people are brought into the fold, right? Right? They're not going to hire real actors, are they?

No, as it so happens the Finals actually consider the AI voices part of their vision for what the game should represent, and what they want to convey. As in, they would like to convey how much quicker and cheaper it is to churn out endless lines as if on a factory conveyer belt- ain't that just sweet of them? Obviously, there's a large question of ethical sourcing here. There's so talk around claiming that the team did actually hire actors to provide the base voice performances that were then fed into an AI machine, but were they compensated accordingly for use of their talents in perpetuity? Almost certainly not. And that is the sticking point. Voice Actors aren't just worried that their talents are going to go to waste, or that they're going to have their voices stolen (although both are very valid worries to have) they also are concerned about the prospect of getting screwed out of living wages. 

And believe it or not, this isn't the only such issue right now involving AI. Or rather, believed to be involving AI. The recent entry in the Naruto Ninja Storm series has featured baffling vocal performances so staggeringly off-putting that people seem to have come to the conclusion that the English cast has had their performances replaced with AI composites. The English voice actors of the famous characters themselves, when reached out to, appear baffled as to the performances and seem pretty adamant that they never delivered lines quite so bizarrely, and considering the status of the game as a union project this could, should the claims be valid, be battlegrounds for a AI versus VA war in the coming near future. Or at the very least this could be the last straw before an industry wide strike is deployed.

AI is already something of a snake eating it's own tale for most of it's current uses. AI only really works to an effective rate then it's being fed data of real people, and the more AI starts to proliferate into our own data the more it feeds into bad output which feeds into a cognitive model collapse. But when we extend that to the way that AI voice synthesis works, I'm not sure we can breathe such a sign of relief. It's hard to say how ElevenLabs and it's copycats and competitors train their models, but we can probably assume that unless they are exceptionally lazy it wouldn't be hard to prevent fake AI generated speaking examples to taint their training pool. Which means that AI is only going to become more convincing at mimicking human speeches and soon you won't be able to pick which is which from a Twitter compilation.

All and all there really isn't anything profound to pick out of this story other than- maybe we should have tighter reigns on the use of AI. I understand there's huge potential for revolutionising the way that games are made with the help of AI, but we've had generative technology for decades now and still the best that a AAA company like Bethesda can do with it is Starfield. Maybe tools like these shouldn't be waved haphazardly about when people's livelihoods are at stake, and maybe the various rigors that would otherwise be brushed by with AI are necessary friction points wherein the shine of a polished vision is finalised. It's just a shame to have a great up-and-coming game be tarnished by such avoidable nonsense. I'm talking about 'The Finals', apparently the Naruto game is just a mess. Pay your workers, not your machines.

The vanishing of Fntastic

 

Yeah, I know I already put the finishing touches and the ribbon on the dying of Fntastic, but as it turns out developments were happening even at the moment I was writing that article! Because as it turns out, whilst everyone was busy circling around and mocking the dying of Fntastic's light, those hard working developers were sticking their noses down to the grindstone and fixing all the many problems with the game- squeaking out melee and vaulting in a matter of hours and finally bringing the sheen of quality to The Day Before! Except no, I just lied to you. They were actually planning their escape and attempting to fake their deaths in what has to be one of the most ignoble back-door ejections from the industry that any small developer has ever suffered from. Woe be the day that Fntastic decided to depict themselves as a 'AAA' developer, because from that height their fall has just been unavoidable.

So for those that don't know let's hit the 'quick recap' button. Fntastic were the developers of one survival game and one Prop Hunt game- (For which I'm exercising quite some restraint not to call a rip-off... Oops.) before they decided 'that's enough practice, let's go and make a giant survival MMO to rival that of Rust and Day Z.' Now I'll be honest, I find the MMO genre to be rife with developers who have no idea what they're signing up for when they attack it, so I personally always thought this game was going to be trash, no matter how shiny their trailers. (Couldn't have dreamt of how bad it would be.) But survival games in general did seem to usher in an age of developers who broke many of the fundamental rules of development and usually created passionless wastes of space in the doing, and yet found insane success in doing so. I can only imagine Fntastic were seeing visions of 'ARK: Survival Evolved' in their mind with dollar-signs for eyes when they conjured up this trip into eternity.

And of course, it turned out to be a fools game. The Day Before was a game so far beyond their capabilities that Fntastic has to carefully orchestrate totally false trailers that the community delighted in ripping apart piece by piece for how obviously staged they were with fake depictions of open world design and survival gameplay. Their absolute failure to do even the basic most standards meant that after years of development the game ended up in a legal dispute over it's name with a calendar App also called 'The Day Before'. They were recorded begging for volunteers to do unpaid labour on their nothing-game. And then when the day of release came, it took less than a couple of days for people to realise it was nothing but a shoddily slapped together asset flip and these absolute Neanderthals hadn't developed a single thing in all their years on the game. Makes me wonder if the same is true about 'The Wild Eight' and 'Prop Hunt'...

Of course, such would the moment for any developer to slink away- but not Fntastic! They promised they would stick with the game for as long as they needed, fix the bugs, add in melee, throw some vaulting animations together and do whatever they needed to do in order to deliver a product to players that they could be proud to call their own! And that optimism lasted about 12 hours before the company was declaring their own bankruptcy and they shut down the doors. Turns out that The Day Before was such a disaster that it instantly killed the company and now they need to take every penny they did make and pay off their 'partners'. Except... Mytona, the publisher, claims that Fntastic didn't make any money and that they would be spending the profits paying refunds out... So who is telling the truth here? Well, history would dictate that no matter what the situation- Fntastic is probably lying somehow. So let's see what they're up to these days, shall we?

Well it would seem that other games which were previously listed as being developed by Fntastic have undergone a small update, bringing the new name 'Eight Points' up to the forefront. So is this how it is? Is Fntastic faking their death, throwing on a moustache and walking right back into the development scene pretending to be someone else? And whatsmore, how on earth are they hiding behind an actual game that was made, like 'The Wild Eight', when the product they put out featured tale-tail signs of 'no clue what we're doing'? Well, would you believe it- but 'Eight Points' is not Fntastic under a different name! Oh no. You see Fntastic did indeed make 'The Wild Eight' presumably in some past version of themselves when their company was made up of actual developers. But that game was sold off to the publisher quite a while ago, and their name remained on the product for the sake of prosperity and likely for the rubbed-off aplomb.

In the time since then Fntastic has undergone the kind of downfall whispered about in legends featuring falling burning Greek men. So disastrous has their fall been that everyone who has ever touched them have felt the brunt of the carnage. 'The Wild Eight', for example, has suffered a plethora of negative reviews in the wake of a mob of crusading users eager to burn every cubbyhole that Fntastic has tried to squeeze into. The current owners of the game changed their name as a defensive precaution to differentiate themselves from Fnastic, and in doing so activated the Streisand effect making themselves seem even more like the fleeing developer trying to hide in plain sight. So as far as anyone can tell, Fntastic are still known as themselves. For better or... who are we kidding- this is the worst things can get!

And they are pulling the Harry Houdini act out of their backpacks with a vengeance! Their Youtube pages have been completely scrubbed of any previous trailer or marketing material, as though people are just going to forget the entirely different game they once showed off all those years ago. A failure of a move considering that IGN and Nvidia still have all of their trailers preserved from the days when both of those companies came milking the marketing excitement around The Day Before- expanding the perceived legitimacy of a game that was already largely dogged with compelling accusations of falsehood even in the largest throes of it's fame. Ethical questions aside- there's no hiding from what you are. When the words are uttered that the Internet doesn't forget, it's a bit of a misnomer, because the Internet are people- and people remember how to hold onto seething hatred. (Why else do you think the Crusades went on as long as they did?)

The 25th

 

So here it is, Merry Monday. A time of the year pertaining to some form of magic or some such, I'm really not well versed on the intricacies of it all myself. All I know is that this is the point at which food has been stockpiling as though we're about to embark on a journey through a post apocalypse with nary but the dust bandits to munch on. Seriously, what is the obsession with Christmas and puffing yourself up like a stuffed pig? Am I complaining? Not really, my metabolism had always had mercy on my figure- I just fail to see the correlation. Perhaps the original celebration of Christmas, before Christianity sunk it's paws into the tradition, holds some sway there. Yes, that would make sense- wouldn't it? Medieval villagers stocking up on food in order to survive the winter, gorging themselves on the excesses in a joyous feast. Actually, in that characterisation it sounds more like glamourous suicide. I don't get, it just doesn't make sense.

You know what else doesn't make sense? How this year just turned around and attacked the world with an onslaught of brilliant games that just seemed to fall out of the sky! When this year began all I was really looking forward to was Like a Dragon Ishin- which I still haven't had the chance to get to play! But in it's place we were all pelted with the likes of the surprisingly quality Dead Space, the stand-up (if somewhat po-faced) Resident Evil 4 Remake, the bar raising Baldur's Gate 3, the delightfully complex Rogue Trader- and sitting on a heavenly cloud above them all? The unspeakable majestic face-plant that was Gollum- perhaps the greatest, actually released, disaster of the year. Because what is a good year of gaming without steaming turds to remind us of the effort those great games took to make it? (I'm giving the top slot to Gollum because The Day Before was just a failed scam, no different to any crypto grift rug-pull.)

It really cannot be overstated how good of a year this was for gaming, and I've certainly had my fill of that time. Unfortunately all three of my top 3 played console games aren't worth really writing home about. My most played game is Starfield, which utterly shocked me- but I guess I did blow through 200 hours in about a month. Still, I haven't touched it in the months since, for what that's worth. My second most played? Assassin's Creed Odyssey. Wow. That is 100+ hours of increasingly painful torture that felt like it was never going to end. What a mark of shame! And number 3? Assassin's Creed Valhalla. That one shocked me, because I'm intentionally taking Valhalla at a much slower pace for my own sanities sake- I didn't realise I was only 20 hours behind my Odyssey playtime. Which is worrying both because I don't really feel like Valhalla is winding down anytime soon, and because I haven't even started any of the DLC content! (Gods, I am terrified of what awaits.)

Of course, the majority of my gaming is done on the computer these days, so most of those figures aren't worth a damn anyway. And on the PC my top three are a lot more worthy of print. Baldur's Gate 3, at the top, where it absolutely deserves to be! And below that, a dark horse, Cyberpunk 2077- dominating with that 2.0 comeback story- and really blowing me away in the process! (Although I think it was the building of my new PC which really spurred me to get back into the game. Playing on scuff custom settings versus pure ultra 2.0 ray tracing are totally different beasts.) And thirdly- how surprisingly unsurprising- Skyrim. I dedicated quite some time to my 'ultimate' playthrough, which was so exhaustive I'm not even sure I want to do another. Although that last one was on my scuff PC... and I bet my new one could put that game to task... gah! I really need to learn to put that darn game down! (But it's just so good!)

Using my equipment, my brother has deepened his covenant with the Sonic franchise, having been granted access to the temples of Generations, Origins and Superstars: he has spent the bulk load of his time on my computer- playing Mania. Yes, he still simps of the modern/classic revival, which-to-be-fair, is probably the best Sonic game out so I can't really blame the lad. I just wish I could get him into any of the other dozens of games I've thrown his way! Psychonauts! Bully! Hollow Knight! It's as though he mocks me, remaining staunchly within the small cadre of 2D Sonic games knowing how eager I am to expand his horizons to new genres and franchises! (I'll make him a JRPG fan if it kills me! Which it probably will at this rate...)

In the handheld department, my Nintendo Switch was granted access to the spectacular Tears of the Kingdom, which I never quite got the chance to play because I upgraded my PC to something quality and that has kind of stolen my attention. Still, even though Nintendo do not grant us a 'Year in review' of any sorts, I know well which game I spent the most time playing. Pokemon Scarlet had me gripped in it's vice-like stickerbook collect-athon to literally catch them all. In the past month I found myself utterly bewitched by the possibility of completeing the various Pokedex's of the main game and DLC, likely because I knew the release of The Indigio Disk would be the last time that the in-gen trade scene was still somewhat active. And with all that work I'm happy to declare myself fully done with the game. I literally cannot look at Pokemon Scarlet without suffering waking nightmares of the abysmal capture rates for all 25 legendaries added, not to mention the online BBQ's I had to grind in order to unlock them. (Never once managed to do the 4 star sandwich group quest. I assume it's impossible.)

And in the recluse of my free time between the actual job that I have and the fake job of writing this accursed blog of mine, I find myself keeping these little fingers busy slowly learning some of the tricks of design. Game Design is kind of a casual past time I work on, spurred on by some 3D model photography I decided to teach myself which encouraged something of a resurgence of my interest in Python in order to make use of my rendered pictures. I've also got a few courses burning a hole in the back of my email inbox for proper Unreal Engine projects. Pretty much just enough so that I can dip my toes in the waters and confirm that I have indeed, tried a little bit of game design. Even in some small way, and I find it rather fun.

Which in a macro sense wraps up my look back at the year of 2023 for me. Overbrimming with stuff compared to the usual happenings and with just enough activity to supress the ticking time bomb that is my psychopathy from melting down and sending me screaming down the streets begging anyone who will listen to watch out for them because: "They're already here!" I would call this a good year, but in truth it's been a fine one. Comparison makes fools of us all but I feel better this Christmas than I have on any other since reaching adulthood. And I'm somewhat more confident too, I have medium to big plans for the coming 2024, and I'm eager to see reality kick them in the nuts and break those dreams apart like it's destined to. That's just life afterall, amirite? And finally: 1654 published blogs- four and a half years- how time flies! With 51,000+ views! And no subscribers, but I'll take what I can get and that is just nuts all on it's own. What exactly is it that you all find worth reading here? Maybe we all just like laughing at Fnastic together. I can gel with mutual mockery, for sure.

The last of me

Terrible title, I know.

I come with quite the curious little tidbit, not exactly new news but a pretty impactful update on the direction of Playstation through one of their flagship studios: Naughty Dog. Playstation of course maintains a dominate lead on the market of console gaming which is propped up partially by the supremacy which is their cadre of first party developers making exclusive titles that drop on their platforms months and sometimes years in advance of the PC launch. There was a time when they also had a stranglehold on the high budget Japanese market as well, but thankfully that has become unwound in recent years. Still, those core development teams and their identifying franchises, Last of Us, Spider-Man, etc. through the way they operate we can ascertain a decent idea on Sony's overall game plan in the coming years.

Which is why it was oh-so upsetting to hear that Sony were throwing their weight behind the Live Service model, a genre of games which has failed to put out an unblemished masterpiece in it's entire existence. (Even it's long standing heroes like Destiny 2 ended up collapsing under it's own weight after a while, it's just a poison of a game genre!) Leaked reports claimed that Sony were mandating double digits of new live services out of their first party developers in the current console generation and the vanguard of this initiative would have been forced into the laps of The Last of Us with a 'Factions' spin off game. Based on the online component of the original 'The Last of Us' which was very well received for what it was, Factions sought to expand on that concept enough to support a replayable, season passed up, infinite money generator reimagining. And it was a sad state of affairs.

Not that the concept itself was at all wrong, I suppose. There was a surprising amount of love for the original online mode, even if the DLC weapon pack totally destroyed the balance of every other gun in the game- squashing high level play into the single archetype state which made Gears online so boring to invest into. (I know Gears has it's avid and rapid online fans, but I've tried three times to get into it- I just can't bring myself to care about shotgun/sawn-off metas.) Bringing that back made sense, and given that it's now illegal to put an online mode in a single player game or something, a spin-off standalone seemed... fine. Not a brilliant leap forward for the narrative driven world of The Last of Us, but not a complete cop-out for the sake of nothing. Still, the very nature of a Live Service is voracious. It is born to take more and more until you are bled dry. Was that really the kind of franchise The Last of Us should become?

Well it would seem that we were not the only one's with concerns given that, in a shock announcement, Naughty Dog recently announced the cancellation of The Last of Us Factions, in some politely scathing statements which kind of spits in the face of Live Services as a whole. So does this mean a shift in policy might be coming Playstation's way as they realise they are better off sticking within the means that have served them well rather than risk it all on embarrassing live service 'plays'?  Naughty Dog are market leaders, afterall- something like this does not fly by in a vacuum. An announcement like that whittles down trust in the concept and threatens to sully any future live service marketing efforts. So what does it all mean on the larger scale?

What Factions represented is exactly what FIFA represents when it comes to the implementation of money sucking marketing tricks- an easy trick. The reason why all the gaming world rallies to kick the FIFA games in the nads everytime it tries to sneak some horribly exploitative nonsense isn't because we care about the wel being of FIFA enjoyers, it's because we know that audience is too oblivious to make a fuss themselves when they're being robbed, and because history has shown that whatever is proven successful in sports games soon becomes ported over to our games given time. Sports gamers are essentially Guinea pigs subjected to experiments that their tiny brains are too simple to comprehend, thus making them a low-risk test market. The Last of Us Factions would have been that low risk market for the Live Service plan, to prove how feasible of a future this really is for Sony's game development efforts.

Naughty Dog must know how drastically they're effecting the bottom line of Sony's plan from the wording of their cancellation announcement. Of course the company is diplomatic, they'd be insane not to be, but one needn't be a professional linguist to interpret the raised brow behind some of the words. Such as how Naughty Dog frame this cancellation as making a choice between sticking to their high quality narrative excellence for which they're known, or dedicating a giant chunk of their production efforts to the maintenance of this live service. Of course they knew about this cost going on, they'd be fools not to know, but by highlighting the contention point they make the distinction unmissable. They essentially say their choices are either 'quality' or 'maintenance' and they chose quality. As influential as they are, those are words that will have an effect.

Whatsmore, this is no idle chucking away of a half baked idea. This game was actually 'in' production for a decent chunk of time. Developers mourned the loss of a year or so of work after the announcement, bemoaning an idea that was good, but not worth the investment. There's quite some world of difference between changing plans and scrapping others, the latter can prove disastrous for many out there. It takes quite the force of will (and a large financial cushion) to have the freedom to be able to go out and just do that. It also, rather pointedly, is not the kind of decision that one can take back. It's just like one of those important moments in a VN where the disclaimer 'This choice will have serious consequences' flashes on screen and you just know the world is going to have something to say on this one.

And as you can predictably expect from someone like me- I applaud them. Completely and utterly! Live Services have been a plague on creativity just as Survival games were before them, and if they're allowed to fester any longer than TES VI is going to have to become one by laws of Bethesda market chasing. For such a significant development studio to be placed in the spotlight of that world and for them to reject the concept so utterly is such a beautiful damning indictment that I can't help but clap for the spectacle alone. Not that I think we're free. Sony will not rest without publishing at least a single Live Service in the next year, but it won't be The Last of Us brand which gets muddied in the scramble and that small gratis is worth smiling over. Thank you for being a stubborn old Naughty Dog, team.

The best and the worst

 

This year in the world of gaming should probably win some sort of unique commendation, for not only bringing to life some of the greatest examples of the medium to feast our eyes, but also some of the absolute most degenerate spawns of Satan to torment us incessantly. Actually, no- Satan is too easy of a get-out card. In fact, from what Televangelists preach, Satan would probably make really sick video games if he could just slap together a development studio. I'd totally follow 'SatanSoft.' (Bet he'd make really cool and long-winded JRPGs where the final boss is killing god.) The worst of this year was birthed within the heretical maw of The Archenemy, spat out to corrupt and taint our perception of what a half decent game even is. To engage with one is to forever sully oneself. And to buy them is to directly fund the enemies of Mankind.

So as you can likely deduce from the ratio of my introduction, in this space you get a lot more mileage starring sideways at the terrible than you do wistfully smiling on the grand. And it makes sense, there's always so much more to talk about on the buffering waves of 'potential' and 'what could have been'- then there is praising what is already there. Afterall, we're pretty much pulling our examples of what could be improved from the completed and gleaming, which makes all of these conversations somewhat circular. Still I strive for something resembling balance and so I'm going to try and dance on the blade's edge and capture the best and the worst of what is the 2023 slate of Video Gaming- which from the look of things right now, might just be the last 'hurrah' before an impending dry slate. (GTA 6 won't be there to save 2024 unfortunately.)

One of the early big wins of this year was the very controversial Dead Space Remake which did the impossible and was actually good whilst the spiritual successor, The Callisto Protocol, was only 'alright'. The game took what it needed to from the original and updated everything else to bring the franchise roaring into the modern era with frightening deftness and aplomb. The game was almost as solid of a remake as Resident Evil 4- which took the premise of it's game and totally remade the meat of the game to better fit the modern sensibilities of gamers. The Resident Evil Remake franchise has been nothing but hits so far though, so I guess I shouldn't have really been surprised that they made their splash once again. Love myself some Resident Evil, who doesn't?

Unfortunately this year also saw us finally reach a game that was threatening to hound us for years now. Forspoken, the last hurrah for the team behind Final Fantasy XV, managed to sneak in near the end of January with a game that just didn't fit it's era. Writing from the mid 2000's, a premise from the cliché bucket and gameplay that failed to inspire in any significant fashion- it's failure felt somewhat predetermined, and it's consequences for that failure proved depressing as the makers were dissolved. In fact, this year (excluding Dead Space) it really wasn't too hard to see the disasters coming from a mile away. Forspoken never managed to inspire confidence in it's marketing and neither did Redfall, which failed to rise beyond the lukewarm reveal presentations and slipped in a 'rough launch' just to sink any chances the game might have had. Just another miss on the Xbox road to exclusive AAAs.

But back to some of the best. This year saw the drop of a game that no one saw ever actually happening- the definitive Harry Potter game which brought the open world wizarding school experience the franchise begged for up until now. The game made wizard play fun, brought the movie environment of Hogwarts into a tactile 3D space and laid the groundworks for a new revolution of Harry Potter games to come. Personally I find all the datamined info about everything the team left out even more exciting than what they managed to keep in. Proper RPG choice and consequences, managing reputations- Hogwarts Legacy 2 has every potential to be even better than the first game was, and that is the mark of a fresh game developer with legs under them- when their initial success is paved in their future. Portkey games ruled the spring.

And then Gollum came to ruin the Summer. Gods, who has managed to do the impossible and forget Gollum? A game that felt so ridiculously doomed from conception that our minds kind of did all the leg work in lieu of marketing and just said "This is obviously going to be some sort of high-art game like 'The Last Gaurdian' or 'Death Stranding'. It can't be as dumb as the concept sounds.' And then when it launched, incredibly the game was so much worse! (How'd they do that?) Hardly functional, creatively catatonic, systematically bare- the game was probably morally bankrupt too, but I've never met anyone who survived long enough to see the credits. To think this was the game destined to win worst game of the year for months, only to be outdone by two even worse releases in the following months! I used to think Gollum was a tragedy, now I realise: it's just tragic.

Which brings us to the best game of the year. The one which reminded the entire damn industry what gaming is about. Baldur's Gate 3, you knew it was making the cut! Spectacular replayability, reactivity, choice and consequence, great gameplay, gorgeous presentation- a straight A in practically every variable. Baldur's Gate is the kind of game that goes down as decade defining, and I have no doubt that every other game this year has been made to look just a little bit worse for sharing the same year as it. Baldur's Gate turned out better than I could ever imagined and the endless acclaim and success it has received are endless testaments to that fact. People are still trying to second guess themselves about how deserving of all it's awards the game was, and the conversation keeps falling back into the positive. Somehow, someway, Baldur's Gate ruled supreme.

And then The Day Before happened. You know, I think we all needed a game like that just to put things in perspective. Out of all the trash games, the disappointments, the hardly functional trainwrecks, at least all of those games were touched by people who cared at some point about anything. But The Day Before can never claim that title. Because it was a scam. From conception to birth. And in an inverse to the Baldur's Gate situation, I kind of think that all the rest of 2023 is made better in comparison. So yes, even in the throws of absolute defeat- some positive notes of worth persists. Because out of every game we received, all are made better by the existence of The Day Before, however briefly it touched us. Talk about a genuine Christmas miracle!

A Larian KOTOR, eh?

 Dare to dream

So with all the praise and love flying this way and that for Larian and their success, few are asking what is next for them after the age of Baldur's Gate is done. It is an unasked question, likely because so few of us want to admit there will come a day when Baldur's Gate is updated no more. This isn't a Hello Games situation, they aren't gonna squat this one for the next decade. Personally I'm also driven by a general distaste in Larian's homebrew franchise, which appears to be their next area of focus. But there was one out there who proposed the obvious, and in doing so opened up a world of possibility I was too closeted to even consider. A former Bioware writer posited the idea of Larian picking up the duties to bringing a Knights of the Old Republic 3 into the world and I have to say, that is a mighty fine proposition to set in the sand! That is the kind of idea that can set hearts racing, pulses quickening and maidens a-fainting. Because if any game out there needs the touch of masters- it's KOTOR.

Of course, KOTOR has not exactly been in the best of places in recent years and months. Ever since the franchise was brought roaring back into the eyes of the public with the reveal of the Remake, it seems to have been misfortune after misfortune for the Star Wars Swansong. The KOTOR 2 Switch port got it's flagship modded content restoration update scrapped, the team signed up to work on the Remake found themselves kicked to the curb and it seems active development has ceased leaving the development a corpse waiting in someone's desk cabinet. It's not happening. What we KOTOR fans need, really, is a miracle worker to stoke some life back into the brand. Honestly, throw KOTOR 3 my way and I'll forget about the hurt feelings residing from the KOTOR Remake debacle. If there's one thing I want even more than to see the story I love remade, it's to see it continued respectfully. (Respectfully! The Old Republic MMO made so many dull narrative choices after the immense lay up that KOTOR 2 set up for them...)

The switch would actually make some bizarre sense given the fact that the original Baldur's Gate franchise was, likewise, a Bioware property before making it's way to Larian's hands. And in a strange mirror of this proposition, Bioware were also the one's who went on to give up the reins of the original Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic to Obsidian for it's sequel. On one hand that is just a convenient mirror image of the past, and in another light it's also keeping a tradition of making each new entry of KOTOR be developed by a new team each and every entry. And you know what, I don't actually dislike that idea. Perhaps that will be what keeps that series of games feeling uniquely special when compared to every other Star Wars series like it. I've always been a fan of competing visions working towards the same goals- and Larian could certainly bring their own spin on things.

The original Knights of the Old Republic felt like it was designed with a resounding love for the original trilogy of movies to heart, wherein the true end goal was to replicate the same basic formula of those films without resorting to a shot-by-shot retelling. (Like what Disney would end up doing when they got their hands on it.) Of course there was some pretty large subversions thrown in there too, that we love KOTOR for; but it was that familiar, workable, framework which built the trust of the audience enough for those special narrative beats to even matter. There's no point in telling us that everything we know is not as it seems if we never cared about what we were told to being with. That is uniquely KOTOR 1's strength, and that is what Bioware successfully brought to the table. All and all, KOTOR is a pretty by-the-numbers RPG, it's the heart and the setting that sprinkles something special on there.

KOTOR 2, on the otherhand, was put together by the Obsidian team- veterans of Black Isle Studios who had gone through games like the original Fallouts and Wasteland before that. Which is to say, they'd gotten enough of the bare basic RPG and wanted to make something a bit more interesting and out there. KOTOR 2 was a rushed game, and that shows very much on it's shortcomings, but underneath the odd expedient plot point there is an expertly penned and weaved narrative that touched even further into the fantastical imagination of what Star Wars could be then any property had done before or since. I would have loved to see what that vision of the Star Wars universe could have become if it was given the chance to walk. But if we're in the habit of passing it off to the next team, well then I think Larian could give it a shot as well.

I'm just trying to figure out what would be their unique 'hook' which would define their design process as distinct from everyone elses. The Baldur's Gate cast is known to be pretty well loved by the public, perhaps creating a cast of deep and well rounded characters could be their KOTOR's call to fame, but I suspect I know what would really get them excited. What Larian would be obligated to do, simply for being involved with another legendary franchise, would be to go balls to the walls again trying to create an expansive web of an RPG with choice and consequence oozing out of every wall panel. The kind of experiment which could have easily bankrupted the entire company if it didn't go to plan. That would have to be what makes KOTOR 3 unique. A narrower scope made up of dozens more branches than is really feasible.

Narratively it would be a very interesting time for Larian to join up too. Because if we are to pick things up directly where KOTOR 2 left off, we would be seeing the brand new threat from across the otherside of the universe that the KOTOR 1 protagonist left to try and delay. The threat that, according to some perspectives, was what Revan was preparing the galaxy for when they started the Sith empire. (And I hope it's more interesting than what TOR ended up saying it was- just a big group of Sith from the otherside of the galaxy- lame!) Although I have to admit that when it comes to making lore, Obsidian would absolutely be the best team to put to task over here; (POE 1 and 2, and Tyranny, demonstrates they haven't lost that deft touch of theirs) a focused narrative with a clear threat would certainly slide right into Larian's wheelhouse for writing. Perhaps a collaborative effort, then?

As for Disney, they have gone so far as to publicly acknowledge the fan love for Knights of the Old Republic and the red hot desire for a remake, even after all the blundering about in the dark. And Disney has been known to give in to fan pressure before. Usually when it comes to fan-casting decisions, but I bet some guidance in the scattergun that is Star Wars wouldn't be shrugged off if people pester them long enough. And what better way to introduce the Old Republic era of content back into the fold than with a brand new game, developed by masters, which brings the era home with players? It could be a whole new way of franchise building than what Disney are used to, provided they are META enough to respect the narrative of a game as content. (Jury's still out on that one, depends on whether or not those rumours about a Fallen Order adaptation are true. Please don't be true.)

There is another aspect to this that I've been avoiding, probably because it's the most prickly one. Because you see, the balance of power isn't really the same as it was anymore. We've been treating this as though Larian would be reverential and honoured to be given such an opportunity, but after putting out a game like Baldur's Gate: this team is on top of the world. It would have to be the Star Wars rights holders coming grovelling to the feet of Larian to get a project like this off the ground, and given their strange fascination with their subpar home grown franchise; (I swear I get more dismissive of Divinity with every blog) Larian would probably turn them down. So we can live in our dreams as much as we want but the truth is- there likely won't be a Larian KOTOR game anytime soon if ever. Shame though, they'd have knocked it out the park- I'm sure!

'Fallout' of the Year Award

 The battles rage

Quick disclaimer, I thought up the name of that title before I remembered there's actually a very famous games series, that I speak about a lot, named 'Fallout'. I was not referring to that game but rather the concept of a 'fallout', as in the consequential wake of an event. See it was a... not really a pun but more a... look just stick with me okay, it makes sense. I think. So the Game Awards went by in a flash and barring some controversy about the way that Geoff decided to run the show and shoe winners off stage with a broom for fear they would sully the time for the almighty advertisers- it was a decent showing. Somehow Hollow Knight Silksong did not make an appearance, and that is the only thing I care about so I consider the show an abject failure, but I have it on good authority that some people out there have other aspects of life they care about or something? Like eating and stuff? (Eh, I don't get the appeal.) But there has been one topic of conversation which keeps popping up again and again; the winner of the big award, and whether or not they deserved it.

Now you would be very hard pressed to call Baldur's Gate 3 a surprise winner of the award considering how everyone already raised the game on their shoulders and carried it off the pitch in slow motion like the final act of a coming-of-age sports movie, but that doesn't mean there was no other game this year with a swinging chance. Heck, back when a lot of us were still naïve believers in the peace there was a genuine belief that Bethesda's very own Starfield was going to be a shoe in. You know, until we actually played the thing and found out how underbaked it really was. (I try to get back into it every week and end up with 4 minute play sessions I just abandon.) In fact, this year was so strong there are several games that never even made the nomination list for Game of the Year that sent people a bit loopy, so of course the winning itself was going to be contentious, no matter how 'pre ordained' it felt.

Between the big five I think only Resident Evil 4 raised eyebrows about it's conclusion for merit of it being 'just a remake'. But I have to honestly call bull on that- Resident Evil 4 is so much of a remake that it takes the basic story beats, locations and characters and totally rebuilds them from the ground up. To call is a 'basic' remake is a total misnomer, it was a fresh game totally of it's own right. Now if a remaster was on the list, or maybe The Last of Us Part 1, then I'd understand the side-eye. Seriously, Resident Evil 4 is not a 'side by side' remake by any stretch of the imagination, it earnt it's aplomb purely by being a premier action adventure game. Just as Alan Wake 2 earned it's nomination. And Spiderman 2. (Disgrace the hyphen!) And Tears of the Kingdom.

Funnily enough, despite it's ravenous fanbase I haven't heard a lot of grumblings about Alan Wake 2 not winning Game of the Year. That audience seem happy enough winning Narrative game of the year, which makes sense given no other candidate really threw their narrative prowess to the test, now did they? At least we're not getting a 'Elden Ring' style controversy wherein people complain "I didn't pay attention to the story and I skipped all the dialogue, which means the game had no story and shouldn't be nominated!" Alan Wake 2 was lucky enough to avoid that crowd of 'geniuses'. The other big games on the list however? Yeah, their fans have had something to say- and it's building up into quite the shouting match. (It's like 'Football' over here, everyone's getting uppity like they're actual members of the team.)

There was a time early on in this year when organised queen-bashing title: Tears of the Kingdom was considered a shoe-in for game of the year for it's increadibly robust mechanics that breathed a new world of creativity into the base of Breath of the Wild. There's little doubt that Breath of the Wild was already a spectacular and wide game to conquer, and so to set a sequel on that exact same landmass yet have it be even more full of activity, non-standard world interactions and flexible gameplay systems built atop on another- it was astounding! It's nomination was a foregone conclusion and the fact that it didn't win was a testament to how incredible of a year for gaming this has been. It's fans seem at peace with the award it did win, and don't seem to complain too much.

Spiderman 2, on the otherhand. (Woah boy.) Apparently the 'honour of being nominated' doesn't rub off on Spiderman fans who are so indignant that they've declared active war on all things Baldur's Gate. Specifically for the loss of two awards, best actor (although I'm quite surprised people expected to win that, most of the pre-show buzz had Ben Starr as the favourite second pick, not Yuri) and the big award itself. For a time Twitter was writhe with 'comparison videos', pitting the combat of Baldur's Gate 3 against Spiderman and critiquing, what exactly? The speed? Of an action game next to a turn based game? Maybe they were championing the relatively mindless affair of thug punching next to the comparatively involved rigors of thinking your way through one of Larian's deviously designed encounters. Essentially fans were dead set on missing the forest through the trees and start a war where no one wanted one.

And then we have 'Super Mario Bros Wonder'. Honestly, I ain't heard jack about this game from the fanbase. It's as though Nintendo lovers have their own cubby-hole of reality that they enter from which no sound escapes, in which they love their little Mario game exclusively. I was genuinely surprised when the game was nominated for the Ultimate prize, and when it didn't win- no one seemed to be angry or aggrieved. The most I ever saw was a speculative article from a thought experiment that asked what Super Mario Bros Wonder might do which would qualify it for a game award. The best they could come up with? 4 player co-op. Baldur's Gate 3 has 4 player co-op! (Although Wonder does have 4 player local co-op, which does make it a bit of a unicorn in today's landscape. Game of the year worthy? That's debateable.)

What Baldur's Gate 3 brought to earn it's reward is bigger than the way it played, the complexity of it's narrative or the.. existence of co-op play. It brought a return to pushing the boundaries of gaming in a way that challenges to the confines of the medium, not just of the tech running the programs. Baldur's Gate 3 oozes with a weave of complex reactionary content that would make most Bethesda writer's heads spin, and consequence that would make DONTNOD and Telltale blush. They slapped in a complex and alive Role Playing heart with consequence, not the trite 'flat RPG building' architecture that so many other RPGs have- and what's more, it was accessible. That's the key to all of this, not just what it does but how it invited in everyone. Showing people that properly deep and complex games are actually worth the investment. Giving Baldur's Gate 3 Game of the Year was a testament to believing in the art of games and gaming, and that was what brought it into the very rare league of it's own.

Bye bye E3- we hardly knew ya.

Good riddance

I feel like we already had this ceremony, didn't we? Hell, I remember closing the book firmly on what was E3 pretty much the moment I heard they'd given up on this year's event. I'm pretty sure they were pretty definitive in their sentiments. Some small 'lip service' about potentially coming back was little more than hopeful gibberish- no one really expected to see them pull it back. Remember that PlayStation, Nintendo and Microsoft all ghosted them in the same year! There's no coming back from that! But I guess what we all needed was the short and very brisk goodbye message from the ESA officially bidding farewell to the Electronic Entertainment Expo that we all loved to make fun of. And with it goes many fond memories of reveals that blew us away, events that made us cringe and Ubisoft conferences which dragged on through the Just Dance sections every year despite the fact the game was an annual release- they didn't need to spend that money and time to choreograph it!

Who can remember their favourite moments of the E3 lineup? There are the classics like the 'Giant Enemy Crab' who appeared in a game that was just introduced as a 'grounded and realistic' feudal war game. Several screw-ups featuring Nintendo and their attempts to make motion controls look more intensive then they really are. And more than one presenter who climbed on to stage clearly inebriated out of their minds, whereupon they preceded to make absolute fools of themselves. Of course, then there are the more sweet memories that only a live event can confer. Such as during the reveal for Beyond Good and Evil 2 where the team members forgot to turn their mic off after going back stage and you could hear them congratulate one another- that was adorable. (I wonder how that game turned out when it released...) But all those memories, dreams and nightmares, will be lost in time; like, tears out of the ESA's eyeballs when they realise they aren't the big boys of the games industry anymore.

Rockstar were really the first superstar developers to stamp their feet in the ground and announce they didn't need the ESA to advertise their games, back when they found themselves at the centre of a bizarre controversy due to a leaked build that was running objectional content that never even made it to the full game anyway. But then, Rockstar didn't need the ESA; they were probably the biggest developers on the planet, at least in reputation. That hasn't really changed, and it's taken several decades for everyone else to carry themselves to that same point of self-sufficiency. But here we are, the console runners are no longer beholden to a yearly horse and pony show. They still put one on, however, because otherwise us greedy gamers would get antsy and start picking off our ever expanding backlogs. But no, we can't have that! We need to keep players engaged with content forever because trapping players in an endless cycle of replay is what makes a good game, not making them feel like they enjoyed themselves. (I would say that was facetious but recently it's become clear that Call of Duty developers seriously subscribe to that thought process. Wild.)

It was only a matter of time until the ESA could no longer extort it's peers for advertising space. Leaving the industry with only the biggest award show of the year as an organised point of congregation every year. And you know what? That's alright. It was already getting unrealistic for all these big seasonal events to spit out worthwhile video game announcements, and with development periods only getting longer there really isn't enough to fill the gaps anymore. There's only so many advertising slots that can feasibly be filled, and now those slots are the sole monopolies of the console developers which is... better? I don't really know. I just know that this doesn't quite feel like the happy freeze frame moment at the end of the heartwarming movie. Kind of feels like the cold fade to credits with a stinger in the post moments.

So now we turn on the Game Awards with all of our left over ire? To be fair, journalists always had a chip on their shoulder about the E3 trade show, seemingly upset at it's attempts to become more of a fan celebration event for some reason, laughing at it's flailing attempts to 'update' to the modern age. I guess because they would prefer it if we had no events to bring the game's industry together? I guess that must be why utmost hatred of the Game Awards is now popular- this year's iteration has been declared a disgrace to the industry and pitchforks want the whole thing to burn down. Why? Because the advertising got a little out of hand this year. That's about it. Geoff seems like a reasonable enough guy who listens to criticism, but that's not enough- we need to rip it apart for the good of gaming! Apparently.

I'll be honest, I actually really like gaming event shows. So much of the games industry feels like such a lonely hobby. We play alone, we get excited alone, we game together alone thanks to the death of LAN- I just like the feeling of the community all having it's eyes in the same spot at the same time. When everyone is getting hyped or rolling their eyes at a new announcement we finally feel like, you know, a 'community', and I don't there's some higher morality to turning your nose up at some events because they don't quite slide in to every facet of respectful representation you expect it to. I literally read an article from a writer who moralised over the fact they didn't watch the show, and still went on to complain about it's contents! What kind of future do you really want, anyway? Are a couple of events every year really the worst thing for the industry?

There's always going to be a balance between awards and game advertisements, and although the balance was woefully twisted this time around- I still want there to be equal amounts. If Geoff found a way to fund the show completely independently and hosted the awards without any announcements whatsoever- I wouldn't watch. Because to be honest with you, I don't really care about who wins awards. It is a significant event, as much as the same journalists are desperate to insist it isn't, because the fact that The Game Awards is the most watched award show of the year grants power to the winners and prestige that draws talent, establishes respect and widens opportunity. But how did the show get to be so sought after? Because everyone is tuning in to see what crazy announcement Geoff has cooked up! It's a tightrope to walk, between advertising and award giving, but it's a necessary one as far as keeping the show relevant is concerned. 

Maybe it's failing to even engage with that tightrope which ultimately killed E3. They had nothing there for the community and industry- it was all advertising, and that made the event feel disposable and exploitative. Many out there like to denigrate Geoff Keighley as nothing but a marketing man with no real respect for the art of gaming, but I'm sorry- if that were true he would never have thought to do an Award show. He would have made yet another trade show. Geoff Keighley wanted the medium to be respected, he wanted to have his own version of the Oscars, he wanted to celebrate games. Does he enrich himself in the process, yes- the man isn't a nun! But to throw him in with the same lot as the ESA is, I think, to give E3 so much more credit than it was ever do. Goodbye to the Expo, and to hell with the Expo.

The Day Of

 And there it goes...

I remember when we first embarked on the tale of the game that would be known as 'The Day Before'. A title I immediately dismissed as 'just another survival zombie game' in a generation already full up to the brink with them. Of course all it took was watching the first trailer for suspicions to form- I just never believed the thing looked like a real functioning product from the first moment. I'm not the only one, but a solid contingent of real (mouth) breathing people, unfortunately, were subject to the glitz of those original gameplay 'dives'. The real-time reflections, effusive lighting, cluttered and abandoned city streets. The 'Division'-esque movement and promise of movie-style zombie interactions intercut with dangerous and deadly human encounters. This was going to be an MMO. Breathing and alive. Aflush with player driven dynamic encounters that would keep the spirit of the world alive, whilst delivering AAA quality visual fidelity all the while. And of course it was a scam.

With every new trailer the team seemed to dig themselves deeper and deeper into the hole, promising ever more over-elaborate nonsense from a development team who had never once presented themselves close to that level of capability. They weren't totally incapable dreamers, mind you. Fntastic, the company in question, had put out Propnight, a monetised version of the popular Gmod game- 'Prop Hunt'. Which isn't creative, per se, but it is a game. And one that even brushed the YouTube circuit lightly when it was relevant, which I'm sure did not hurt their potential sales. In fact, perhaps it was that stab at notoriety which gave the team at Fntastic their 'unique' view of game development. A view where the game itself was secondary to the amount of buzz you could drum up around. A process of ultimate risk and ultimate reward. A process which would lead to 'The Day Before'.

You see, whilst 'The Day Before' was slapping together pre-rendered high-light reels of speculative gameplay mechanics they absolutely had not yet realised, the team were not doing the typical scammer move of fund draining the public. There was no Kickstarter, no donation links, nothing to indicate this project was a quick scam- and that might be because I suspect their 'scam' was largely unintentional on the team's part, although no less legitimate in the end. As I've voiced before, I suspect that what the team where trying to do was build up the profile of their game and studio through fake trailers in order to spark the interest of investors and Publishers. If anybody managed to take them up on the offer and inject some cash into Fntastic, then the developer could build itself up and get around to maybe living up to some of those wild promises. Even if they feel short of everything they wanted to do, the same tactics that had led to them becoming the most wishlisted game on steam would surely rocket up enough day one sales to make them a ton of money. See: big risk, big reward.

Only it seems no one took the bait. I cannot imagine why, game investment gets thrown at everything with a pulse if you head to the right sectors of the industry. Maybe they weren't knocking on the right doors, or maybe the suspicions on their conduct spread quicker than all the blind optimism. Either way, Fntastic weren't getting any closer to realising their dreams at the start of 2023. The gameplay they put out earlier this year, lacking most of the graphical streaks of brilliance they once teased with the reveal and presenting a systematically dead world with little to nothing to do- presented a cold truth to the hopeful, the game they had been sold on was a lie. From there the clock was ticking, everything else just brought the team closer to doomsday. The trademark dispute over their name, the delayed release, the misguided teaser snippet trailers- all just piled atop the files of the bed they'd laid for themselves.

And then the game released.

To call it a mess would be a little bit of an understatement. For one, they attempted to drop it a few hours before the GameAwards in hopes it would be overshadowed by the event. Fat chance. Secondly, the game that was marketed all it's life as an MMO, released as an extraction shooter. 'Tarkov' at home, so to speak. Thirdly. The thing hardly functioned on pitiful servers that snapped under the slightest pressure, bizarre visual bugs that made character models balloon to the size of Kajiu from certain angles and a general non-functioning AI suite that needed to be patched in order to jolt some life into the scant two or three zombies you could expect to run into every hour or so. The team put the game out with a desperate statement begging people not to call them a scam or an asset flip, but it only took people a couple of hours to track down the entire city on an asset hub site. The Day Before was everything people thought it would be, a disaster.

Now, merely four days after the game released, the team are declaring not only that they are shutting it down, but that they are shuttering the entire company as well. Propnight and all. Goodnight Fntastic- bye bye. On their way out they deleted all their videos on YouTube, cleared their personal website and withdrew the ability to buy the game on Steam, creating lost media almost instantly. And in their goodbye message, Fntastic wanted the world to know them as failures, not scammers, and wanted to drive home how hard they worked these five years. Despite evidence to the contrary, they really hammered on that 'no scam' line, possibly to try and avoid the incoming lawsuit they are no doubt going to receive. And in their defence the game never did ask money from the public. You know, until they released it on 'Early Access' for $40 a pop. (Which, judging from their player peak, probably earned them around 1.2 million- not counting all the many refunds I'm sure they were hit with.) But, well, that still doesn't make it not a scam.

For one, the 'full release' was dropped as an Early Access game out of nowhere, despite promising a proper release eons ago. Secondly, the game was sold to people on lies the entire way, every purchase they made was either on false pretences or curiosity about how horrendously bad the game actually was. And more pressingly, the team probably tried to shop around their game to investors based on their notoriety from all their false marketing, which means that if they received any funding whatsoever they'll be liable for major financial fraud. Their goose is well and truly cooked, and we can look at this tactical bankruptcy as the team pulling stocks out of the market before they lose anything else, running for the Bahamas and probably trying to change their names. All whilst covering their traces and hoping they can get away with dropping such a solid worst game of the year candidate.

I did not expect the ballad of The Day Before to end so suddenly. Truth be told, I was kind of hoping the story would go on for another full year of minimal update after minimal update, breaking the game more and more as the player base dries up and withers. You'd get those stragglers singing the praises of the broken game, saying how it's actually tons better than everything else on the market. ("Actually, it's the community that makes it unique." Is what Fallout 76 players say to justify themselves slumming it. I'm in many of their circles, I hear it a lot.) Then the game would peter out after everyone had forgotten about it and slip away. But I guess we saw a much sped up version of that timeline, full with explosions and shock exits- and maybe this is for the better. Afterall, we have Skull and Bones ready to fill that space in the new year, and 'Suicide League gank the Justice Squad' for deserts. Guess all that's left is to put the story to bed and prepare The Day After.