Multiversus is released?

 

Some time ago there was a new entrant to that rare space of the video game online sphere- the Smash Bros alikes- to use a reductive label- The Warner Bros. Multiversus. Piggybacking off the inevitable success of Space Jam 2, this was a game that smashed as many licences as the team could get their hands on together into a fighting game smorgasbord of personalities and sass. It was a simple idea on the face made impressive by the level of detail needed to make stock-based fighting games feel right. Game feel is so important with fighting games and I have to say, Multiversus gave Smash Bros a run for it's money some times! Although that may just be because I was playing Multiversus with an actual controller, whereas for Smash Bros I'm forced to use the godawful Switch nunchakus that are terrible. Either way, I had a lot of hope for the title.

I mean sure, there's something undeniably corporate-driven about a game that chucks Aria Stark, Lebron James and Velma onto the same screen in a desperate bid for cross promotion- but honestly the crossover multiverse ideal actually gelled a lot better in games than it did for the movie. It almost feels natural to want to sneak all these brands together in a casual party game setting, instead of cramming them into the running length of a supposed narrative to score 'Oh look!' points. And honestly, with all the quality of life features the game offered, it really did feel like the team were taking a serious leap at keeping the game as player friendly as possible. As long as corporate greed remains only in the casting- that effects me so very little I can't even consider it an entity.

And then the game went quiet. After a few updates and releases of new characters and bug fixes, Multiversus just stopped being updated and eventually the community started to drift away. Smash Bros. may be able to get away with months of silence but that was an established franchise with an entry fee that people are invested with- Multiversus still had to prove itself to keep players around and it was largely failing too. Thus the begrudging drying up of matches and eventually the game just sort of unceremoniously stopped being open to play. "Well, that's it." I thought. "Another font of potential drained in a mad spurt of throwing everything out up front and leaving nothing to drip feed over the coming months. A live service journey underestimated once again." And now I'm being told that I'm completely off base with that thought and the original Multiversus was a beta?

Yeah, that wasn't the release of the game at all but a very early access version of the game, presumably to gauge interest, which was why no real updates schedule was committed to? Did anyone know that going into the supposed 'Beta'? Weren't they actually accepting store purchases during that Beta? (I can't quite recall but I vaguely recall a store.) And the game had absolutely no set boundaries of a beta-play period... I'm starting to think the team is lying to save face and this is actually a total relaunch. Afterall, the original game was pretty feature complete on a basic level, it was just lacking in content to use all those features on. This extended year of silence has flown by with barely any anticipation besides some odd rumours of a Multiversus 2 being on the horizon, because that's how it was always discussed online. Mighty suspicious if you ask me...

But strike my misgivings from the record and rejoice- Multiversus is here and done! Or so it would seem at first glance. Now we have a full release of the game with many more characters to toy around with, one of which being a Mark Hamill voiced Joker because this game has been on the back burner for so long that some of these characters were voiced back when Kevin Conroy was still alive! (Which is sad, but a nice reminder of the legacy of a legend- I suppose.) God knows why some of these characters were chosen, however. Banana Guard from Adventure Time? (My Beloved?) Gizmo from Gremlins? The most hench looking Jason I've ever seen in my life? Oh, and the kept Reindog. Of course. (Also, I am astounded that their Velma still doesn't have a Mindy Kaling variant skin- what's the matter, HBO? I thought you stood behind the series!)

Oh, what's that? Multiversus drama? The game is apparently less feature complete after all this time than when it released as a beta? There's that cooperate meddling I was expecting! You sure kept me waiting! Yes, there are quite the grumblings from folks online who claim that several steps were taken backwards in making Multiversus pop, perhaps because the 'beta' was so well received that the team released they didn't need to sacrifice so much in order to generate goodwill with their fans anymore. For example- why allow players to play offline when that doesn't directly assist their active player numbers? No more offline play! Why let players try out any not-unlocked character in training and run the risk of them not liking how a character plays and not grinding for/ outright buying them? No more free training trails! And now there are no end of match stats and leader boards because... actually that one makes no sense to me, is that just an oversight?

What strikes me is the way that Mutliversus, like many other modern online games, seems to have pitted itself so directly against solo play in the most perplexing way. As though stopping players who don't hop on with a large group of friends is the same as driving away an undesirable element from your neighbourhood. The entire competitive multiplayer genre is undertaking vast cultural gentrification and I can't stand it! No offline play, no player versus AI, no trial characters, no co-op - they've even taken away Battlepass progression through basic matches in order to force you to play their challenges so they direct the way you play- including one particularly insidious challenge that asks you to go into combat with someone else which, lacking co-op, means you have to convince someone else to install Multiversus to play at the same time as you. Crafty.

It is perplexing that Multiversus has taken such an aggressive stance with their playerbase, (and ironic for a developer called 'Player First Games') and a testament to the confidence of Warner Bros. that they think such a stance will pan out for them in the long run. To be fair, the game launched exceedingly strongly, hitting just over a hundred thousand at drop and regularly seeing 10's of thousands as the day's wax and wane. We'll see how many stick around as the problems start to compound and Multiversus agonisingly relearns the lessons that every other game in these genre's have already learnt on their behalf. Such as not lacking Battlepass progression to challenges, not blocking offline play- you know, the absolute bare basics! I hope they get it together before people just leave for the second time. 

Neil Druckmanm: the punching bag

 

It's hard to make friends as an adult. Everyone already has their lives, their preferences, their own baggage they carry with them- it can almost feel like you're trying to forcibly borough into someone else's life just by asking for a phone number to keep in touch. It would be especially difficult if you just so happened to be, oh I don't know, a messy lad with a habit of turning all the world against you with incendiary articles written about everything wrong under the sun. If you absolutely live to kick over chairs and scream your name out to a world that see's you less and less as the auteur it once did. Think of it like the 'reverse Kojima effect', where the more people see of him the more convinced they are that the man's farts are made out of solid gold? The more we see Neil try his hardest to prove his intellect, the more of an idiot he appears to be.

This all began with the lead up to The Last of Us Part II, the long awaited follow-up to the much beloved original game that many expected to push the brand foreword to even greater heights. And it it's credit, The Last of Us Part 2 seems to have been every bit the technological marvel that people were pining for! But it also came with some narrative and tonal shifts that some people found to be deeply incongruent with the charm that made the original so beloved. What was a story about hope, even at it's most twisted and self destructive, was disseminated into a cynical and mean-spirited diatribe on 'The cycle of violence', which fails to really 'speak' in any manner more substantive or coherent than shock. Honestly, the game feels like emotionally mature than it's original.

Neil, of course, has defended his baby as best as he can, but just as the director of the game received all the applaud of the original, he has endured the brunt of the askew brows and quizzical glances of it's follow-up. People who want to know exactly what he thinks he's touching on by sneaking in out-of-place reference to conflicting wars in communism and the like. Kind of feel like he had several dozen ideas that he wanted to enact all in the exact same moment and that sloppy feeling conflux of half-digested concepts was the result. At least the game played good. If only people came to The Last of Us games purely and solely for the gameplay. If only.

He was even threatened with the worst fate a studio like his could possibly endure, being strung out on a live service gravy train for the rest of Naughty Dog's natural life through 'The Last of Us Factions' which bounced around the studio for far too long until it was cancelled. They were talking about that game for years before the obvious question of support, which everyone was asking about from day one, reared up and killed the project dead. I can't rightly say what took them so long to come out and scrap the thing, but I won't pretend I don't hold a little bit of appreciation for the way that Naughty Dog handled themselves in that cancellation message which smacked back at the wide spread mandate for these wastes of time as a question of working to your strengths versus working to a vapid bottom line. Rare W for the Druckmann.

But then you have to bring up the biggest hot button issue of the year and what do you get? Well, you get Neil talking about the revolutionary possibilities of AI within game development which just... man, it totally boggles the mind. A man from a studio of some of the most talented artists in history, extolling the virtues of a technology fostered and primed to put those very artists out of a job. What could possibly have been going through the man's head? Not only is it a marble-mouthed condemnation at his own team's area of speciality, but it's also horrifically untrue in the manner which AI is currently being spoken of.

Basic learning models that flood any and everywhere desperately lack the reasoning and deduction to be put to creative tasks. At the very best they can fiddle about with provided tools and assets and throw them about to the vague tune of a model you explicitly lay out for them. Which is just generation software, that has been used in popular gaming since before the days of Minecraft, but arguably most popularly in Minecraft. This is the breed of tool that Neil is praising and calling potentially revolutionary to development. And sure, perhaps he's looking forward to the potential of what might happen with generalised AI in the future. We know he isn't, but let's pretend for a bit- eh?

Now of course, we would be remiss to omit context from this. Neil was pulled up under Sony, not Playstation, to ramble in front of technological luddites about matters they clearly know nothing about. So maybe he used simple words to keep their tiny minds chugging along for the ride and it was his misfortune that such a figurative sound-byte was captured and waved under his nose to make him look bad. But seriously- even in such straits the man has to know the effect of what quotes like that can do when waved around the industry, spoken by one of it's supposed creative leaders, the AI truthers at Ubisoft have been salivating for anyone with an ounce of credibility to endorse these tools. (as obviously no-such creative exists within their walls.) 

I stand by my title, Neil Druckmann is a punching bag for certain chunks of the industry and that likely is only going to ramp up the more successful the man becomes. He's no moron, just a bit full of himself, which is why gaffes like this puzzle me so. I detect a bit of the Ken Levine from him, a tint of the 'out of touch'- and placing himself firmly on the wrong side of history in this conversation is a shining beacon to that sullen truth. Whatever the circumstance, whoever the audience, this conversation is really exposing those who think first about the people, those who thinks first about the art and those who think first about the product. Not the 'art'. The 'product'.

So now Siege has a subscription service...

 

You know my thoughts about Ubisoft. Ain't no secret that me and they don't see eye to eye on a lot. Or anything, for that matter. There's probably enough content out there showcasing me moaning about the leech-like quality of that absolute dumpster of a development pit that I could actually be considered a tertiary suspect in the second act of a crime novel where the detective starts to piece together deeply ideological motivations behind the bodies left in the wake of the killer. Of course then I'd be detained and another string of murders would occur and the police would be forced to let me go and I'd quip something smug and cryptic on my way out to drop a bit of a red herring implying I'm in on the grander plan, only for it to come out later that I had absolutely nothing to do with it and I had no reason whatsoever to bait the line like that but the writer simply forgot he'd ever given me that dialogue to begin with. Where was I?

Oh yeah, if there's one single ongoing game within the Ubisoft stable of development that even I cannot call a travesty upon the world of gaming as much as I hate it's publishers- it's Rainbow Six Siege. Siege is a unique and enduring competitive tactical hero-based shooter that has preserved it's place within the top most played games of that style deftly over the years. Even through prolonged periods of abject disinterest from the Ubisoft heads, where the game has gone large stretches of time being entirely broken thanks to rampant cheating, still people cling to that life-raft of a game with desperation whenever cries to bury the ravenous, industry eroding, interdimensional grey ooze of Ubisoft is called. Which is fair. Burying the grey ooze only poisons the land anyway according to Colour Out of Space, need to send that parasite back to the cosmos it landed from.

But know well that the success of Siege is not due to the parentage of Ubisoft, but rather in spite of it. Like drug addict parents who's child starts a success Tea Cake company that still suffers abuse and condemnation from the homestead that cripples the heart. Players form callouses around themselves to persist within the Ubisoft ecosystem, enduring the unending streams of monetisation raining down upon them from the endless store offerings, the battle pass, the banner ads shoved in your face like this is a mobile game. You might say that self respect would tell you that as a seriously player you don't belong in a place where the property holders expect blood money every other week. But those calloused hearted players tough it out, year after year, to enjoy the new operators, maps, fixes and tweaks and everything else enabled by the seedier elements of 'the Ubisoft cycle'.

Yet I guess we all have our breaking points. And for a lot of the community that breaking point came during an in-person announcement (because apparently Ubisoft do live shows for their games?) wherein the 9th year of content was discussed in the lead-up to season 2- despite the actual lack of overall new additions the game is getting beyond one new operator. (Feel like that would be a reason not to hold an in person event, were I the Ubisoft decision maker... But I guess ticket sales are important for the starving artists over at the industry's most loquacious insane asylum.) It was during this event that fans first got details on the reworking of the basic 'Rookie' class from the OG lineup which I feel like had been teased for months now- which has landed with a bit of a dud. Not least of all because it's treating the Rookie as an operator now, meaning you can only select one a match. (Which is genuinely moronic when you might have more than 1 person in a match that wants to get to grips with basic movement and maps before committing to a powered role that someone else might be better suited for. Almost like Ubisoft are trying to cause community friction.) But would you believe it, that wasn't even nearly the most frustrating part for people.

What earned the universal boos of an entire room full of fans was the announcement of a brand new subscription service that is being chucked atop the Rainbow Six game entirely unceremoniously. This is entirely unrelated, of course, to the subscription service that is already presented by Uplay, (or whatever the hell Ubisoft are calling it these days- Ubisoft Plus, Ubisoft next- who can keep track of this crap?) and marks yet another step in Ubisoft's master plan to remove the concept of ownership from gaming entirely. I'm not even being facetious there, Ubisoft's 'director of subscriptions' himself coined the concept of gamers getting 'comfortable not owning their games', which was met with a rather sound "sod off" from the community. And now that philosophy has landed with a wet thud at the door of Rainbow Six? Great...

It should be pointed out that Siege has not exactly been hard up for monetisation all these years either. They have a store front absolutely dripping with cosmetics for people to sink hundreds of dollars into, ranging from operator skins to weapons skins to unique head gear to victory dances to operator cards to gadget skins to weapon charms. And that isn't even taking into account the battlepass which demands the attention of the player regularly in order to score a list of exclusive items. The subscription service, 10 dollars a month by the way, gives you the ability to skip 10 of those battlepass levels- which saves barely any time whatsoever- but otherwise the two systems kind of sit at direct odds to one another as competing money injection sites across the same game.

And perhaps most laughable of all is what is actually offered by this pact with the subscription devil. On a very subjective level, Siege hasn't really offered the most interesting and exciting skins in the past. It's not like Fortnite where you can find totally creative and transformative models from any franchise on the earth, they have to make do squashing and morphing everything in a manner that somewhat fits a tactical shooter. You'll stick get your totally moronic Halo Crossovers which present armour that makes Frost stand-out like a sore thumb against pretty much any background, but most people don't proliferate stuff like that for obvious reasons. (Don't reinforce bad behaviour.) Objectively, the subscription service presents an ugly-ass exclusive skin, a single Bravo pack (one!) and one weapon skin. They couldn't even pretend to offer anything worthwhile, it is honestly shameful.

And it bears pointing out that Siege is not a free game. It never was. Thus piling monetisation upon monetisation like this only serves to remind players more and more about how little value they're getting out of the odd pack they do give up and shell out for. Ubisoft are a company of absolute vultures stalking about their player bases and opportunistic dive bombing every spare penny which glints off the moon, and the ugliness is becoming more and more apparent with each passing year. Even at their absolute best Ubisoft's mere presence is a blight upon their games and the sooner their audience finally has enough and starts abandoning them- the better for all this accused industry.

Where are the good Games of Thrones?

 

It is genuinely galling how after all these years we've never received an officially licenced game based on what was the biggest fantasy franchise in the world some time ago. Game of Thrones was a monolith amidst giants, surpassing even the respect that Lord of the Ring maintained at it's absolute best- before trailing itself off a cliff and yadda yadda. You'd have thought that at some point over the years some opportunistic studio head would just smell the profitability on the air and go studio hunting, but rather disappointingly all we can do is stitch together existing experiences to try and get the feel that show elicited. At the time I flocked to Skyrim to get the look of the grand fantastical North we saw often during the early seasons, and The Witcher 2 for the feel of the mature, political consequential, plots popping around the landscape. (Of course, this was before 'The Wild Hunt' released and toned down the political ramifications somewhat.)

But, of course I hear you shout, there were officially licenced Game of Thrones games- ya big dunderhead! And whilst yes, in technicality that may be true- I consider such... efforts, about as 'true to heart' as the 'Pooh Blood and Honey' evokes the spirit of The Hundred Acre Woods. How can one consider these official in any meaningful way when both seem cobbled together by absolute disgraces to the entire artistry of games development as it stands? I'd endorse a great game, accept an average game, but a smear on the genre and franchise? Nah, that's got to get tucked under the rug. In fact, despite their timing, I'll call these adaptations of purely late season Game of Thrones and thus lament we never got an adapatation of the franchise at it's height.

2012's Game of Thrones, published by (I actually held my mouth in shock when I saw this-) ATLUS, is an actually god-awful single player RPG set during the events of the first series in an actually original story to the show- which is worth some small credit on it's own. (Someone tried somewhere.) It follows two members of the Night's Watch that no one cares about, (they exist in the show but you don't remember them and neither do I) sort of shambling about an ugly 'Two Worlds' reminiscent attempt at something like a 'Witcher' guided role playing game. There's nothing to boast of in the way of interesting gameplay ideas, I'm told the story is pretty rote but I'm not foolish enough to endure it myself to check and the fact that literally no one remembers it is evidence enough that the game had very little in the way of impact- which to be fair fits the somewhat low-key status of the show during it's first season so I guess they nailed that aspect, for what it's worth.

Then we have the Telltale Game of Thrones game which brough the classic narrative-based storybook style of the Telltale brand to Westeros in what might have been on of their least interesting titles to date. I don't know if the terms of the contract precluded experimentation or if by the point of that game the company was so firmly stuck on it's development cycle death-spiral that ended up killing the company stone dead- but there was such a waste of potential for what this entry could have achieved. The family they threw in to the main story were just discount Starks, most of the episodes were spinning wheels until black and white choices at the cliffhangers and the whole adventure felt ultimately worthless on the other side. I would go so far as to consider this one a 'game', at least; but nothing was brought to the table that wasn't also copied for a dozen other narrative games of the generation. The game disappointed me. 

By actual second pick for a Game of Thrones game that doesn't deserve to be even considered an actual game would have to go to the grand 'Official Browser Based Game': Winter is Coming. To this day I do not believe they actual got the licence for the brand like they claim. They insist too much for that to be valid, like- Marvel games don't flaunt the fact that they're 'officially licenced' in their title and advertising- why should this game? Either because they're not licenced and are trying to make believe for the audience, or they genuinely cannot believe any idiot at HBO gave them the go-ahead to publish this and rake in money for the least possible amount of effort any human being could put behind an 'original game'.

If you didn't know, I actually made a blog covering that train wreck a few years ago- and the scars still haunt the edges of my psyche, pulling me under at my weakest and secreting away wisps of myself that I will never get back. It was a city builder, but somehow even lazier than your typical archetypal city builder that is cobbled together using an online blueprint I once tracked down for a blog on the matter. It featured lore inconsistencies out the ass, such as featuring a Weirwood Tree in the Red Keep and offered a string of utterly coma-induced 'tactical missions' which auto-battelled for you whilst you spent time uninstalling it. The 'game' was a pathetic time-hungry grift of a 'product' that sullied the brand's name to even exist. And it's what most people think of when they hear the words 'Game of Thrones' and 'Video game'. Which is just tragic.

Especially given that Game of Thrones Beyond the Wall came out shortly after the series wrapped and whilst it wasn't exactly what I would call a great game, it certainly packed a lot more quality in it's systems than 'Winter is Coming' could muster. Slapped together by the same team who put together Fallout Shelter, and who later put together a Westworld clone of Fallout Shelter that Bethesda sued, Behaviour Interactive put out a basic hero collector that kills time as good as anything else out there. I mean, does it capture the incredibly rich and engrossing heart of Game of Thrones which made that franchise special? No. But then, as we've established, it seems that absolutely no game does! It could have been a fine enough addendum to the franchise to keep the spirit of the series alive. And I suppose it was all the way up until House of the Dragon swooped onto the scene making such space fillers redundant. It shuttered last year.

Of all the attempts across the years it feels like no one really has given their all behind turning this franchise into a worthwhile interactive endeavour worth sticking your hat on. And I'm not generalising asking for an Open World RPG the style of which we typically ask for out of franchises like these, in fact I seriously question what an Open World RPG could even bring to a franchise like this aside from shirking down the scope of the world in order to 'fit' the constraints of a game world. I don't need another Skyrim with a Game of Thrones reskin. But maybe there's a solid prequel narrative that could be told in a Witcher 2 style focused action adventure, or maybe even a CRPG style RPG! We need something that evokes the elements of the franchise that make Game of Thrones a grounded fantasy story unlike any other.

But I suppose that moment is gone to the wind, isn't it? Despite the success of House of the Dragon, there is nowhere near the same level of goodwill afforded to this franchise to attract the sort of the investor hubbub needed to fund a game of that kind of necessary scale. And in the times when that would have really worked, HBO instead put all their eggs into the show's basket only to watch helplessly as their golden child showrunner punted that basket into a river and shot all of the eggs. In situations like these it falls to the fans to keep the show's spirit alive- and I may just have a contender for a fan project that does just that in an upcoming blog.

IS Avowed allowed to be exciting?

 

With a release date late this very year and more than enough build up to start a fan club rubbing our hands together for it- why am I not excited about Avowed even so close to launch. At this point this really isn't a case of 'wait until I see more and then it'll hit me', I just don't seem to be feeling the game at all and that's both a reflection of what the game actually is and what the fool version of myself wanted it to be so very badly. Obsidian are not a company I hold in any small regard, I consider them some the great RPG creators of the modern age and will die on several hills to defend the absolute majesty of 'Tyranny'- rest in peace for what was an evocative world that could have spawned a absolute cracked of a series! Outer Worlds practically had me frothing at the mouth when it came up to launch! So what is Avowed just making me sigh?

Unfortunately I think The Outer Worlds might have had something to do with it. As much as I enjoyed the game at the time, The Outer Worlds  just didn't manage to live up to everything I wanted it to be at face value- lacking the malleable RPG dripped world and story which made Fallout New Vegas unforgettable to me. There is choice, to be sure, and significant paths towards finishing the main story- but nothing that is a patch on what New Vegas offered. No complex factions that balance against and around each other as they struggle over the narrative, no ability to play an evolved game of cat-and-mouse with all the leading factions as you play them off one another- No ultimate pathos between you and your companions as you reach the apotheosis of your journey. The Outer Worlds was a good RPG, don't get me wrong. But I expected something great.

For everything we see of Avowed the more it looks like something on an almost identical path to what The Outer Worlds was- and indeed the studio themselves have even evoked it's name to give people an idea of what to expect and, more importantly, what not to expect. Avowed has no interest in giving us a simulation of a world to live and explore in at our own past, like the Elder Scrolls series does. Avowed does not want to bother translating it's complicated Tabletop inspired gameplay systems faithfully over, like Baldur's Gate 3 did. Avowed isn't even going to give us an open world. And I'm just... not feeling a game produced to the exact same standards that The Outer Worlds was. And what makes that especially strange, is the fact that I think the Pillars universe has some crazy potential!

Pillars 1 and 2 are kind of dark fantasy verging titles that are made special and unique by the bizarre relationship the player character has with the various gods that rule the world and the how they work with the idea of souls. Pillars 1 really put the mechanics of the world at the forefront of the narrative you worked through how the universe functions on the metagame and the way in which theological divides shape, develop and destroy lives amidst even that, the armpit of the Eora. Pillars 2 put you in direct contention with the personalities of the gods themselves, hearing them bicker, forging their favour, splitting hairs over philosophical diatribes. It really did offer an experience like no other. 

The universe that Avowed is entering has so far teased itself tantalisingly over the years but now- maybe I'm just finding my first glimpses at the so called 'Living Lands' underwhelming. Deadfire wowed with it's incredible isles dripping with culture and character, and if Avowed actually manages to follow that framework for storywork we could have a suitably spongy narrative to play around with at the very least, which at most might give us hints of what we could get if Obsidian ever put their backs into a New Vegas 2, but I can't see this meeting them at their best- which feels a bit odd after all these years. If working under Microsoft with their money, and stepping on the best franchise to get a leg up, isn't enough resource for their best effort yet- are they ever going to get there? I get that Obsidian pride themselves on great smaller games, but they have the talent punch above their weight too, don't they?

It was definitely the ambition of The Outer Worlds that soured me so much. The story they decided to tell within their worlds space felt so ludicrously tiny that I just couldn't accept being told the universe was any bigger than the confines of the playspace I was navigating. It's like the polar opposite of Starfield's problem, where the scope of the world building is so grand nothing you ever explore feels of consequence or immediately interesting- The Outer Worlds felt so tiny I genuinely bawked when I see The Outer Worlds 2 announced as I said "Really? What more story is there to tell?" Which really shouldn't be the case with an RPG! Perhaps their DLC really picks up the slack in that area, I haven't had the pleasure yet. (But I intend to, at some point.)

I'm trying to ignite my fandom, every few months I come back on this topic. I'm trying to extract all the positives, put myself on the road, but I just come away hollow. Maybe I've lost the capacity to love. Other Obsidian fans are getting there, rising up the hype train, getting on the band wagon, and I'm cold to it all. The good ending is that I'm off base and when the game drops it's that special brand of Obsidian that has me hooked and laughing and loving once again, but that's everything I wanted out of their last game. I think it's myself to blame for expecting so much out of this studio that clearly aren't interested in the same things that I am- but I still want to hold on hope that the Obsidian I love is in there somewhere.

Pillars is on the back burner following the under performance of 2, Tyranny never got off the ground because people brushed by one of the best RPGs of it's time, Fallout is a maybe depending on how desperate Bethesda gets. I guess I just thought Obsidian were in a healthier position than they are, and Avowed isn't their big stab into the AAA world, but more another gentle hop on the road they've been on for over a decade now. And to be fair, looking at how the industry is eating itself around them, maybe it's better they aren't sinking triple A budgets into triple A games and turning over triple A numbers of staff in the process.

Still at comic con

Four blogs next weekend to make up

At Comic Con

 Blogs to resume monday

EA and the AI?

 

Artificial intelligence is not what expected to become the great equaliser for creatives across the world. I did not forsee generative models taking the jobs of artists because numbskulls think it'll save them a quick buck, but I guess when you blow 100+ million on the money laundering scheme known as 'Secret Invasion', you have to make those funds up somehow. And these tools start developing, in the manner that they do, upwards ticks the demand to have them dripped into every single factor of life with horrific gusto. It's becoming expected for you to have 'ChatGPT competency' listed in your CV- I am no joking, I've been told that by job recruiters! People are treating this tech like the new breakthrough innovation on par with the mobile phone and I can't rightfully sit here and tell you that they're wrong with how many people are upending industries to feed into it.

And sure, I've confessed already that there are some positive implementations of AI throughout the world worth commending. Most all are done in conjunction with human art, however. I've already talked about the stellar Glorb SpongeBob music videos, but there's recently been another really heartwarming story. American country folk singing legend Randy Travis, who has spent the last 10 years incapable of singing due to suffering a massive stroke, is now capable of making his voice heard once again through the creation of a new cover using his voice, AI trainers, a human performance and a the tweaking of a sound engineer who worked alongside him for many years. In doing so the man is taking back a part of himself he thought was lost and giving the world a reminder of his talent. Ain't that sweet?

But that's about my tolerance for sweetness, how about you? Wouldn't you much rather hear about the absolute dumpster fire that is modern AI games that are starting to pepper the Steam dumpster heap. It's not quite at the pandemonic levels of Freddy-like games back when that franchise first hit the scene, but we've seen a fair few number of these detective-like games where the NPCs you interact with are all powered by AI. Meaning you have to extract information from these dead-eyed NPCs using Text-to-Speech voices, in order to deduce the truth of some sort of murder. And it is- rough. First of all, it's a bit insulting that so many people out there thought mystery novels so throw away that you can entrust an AI to their careful laying out. Trust me when I say, it ain't that simple. Secondly- the tech just doesn't work.

Have you ever had a conversation with someone who just doesn't have a clue what they're talking about but are determined to pretend that they do so they lock you in cursive circles of conversation that conveys nothings, goes nowhere and makes you more and more frustrated the longer you gab? That's every single conversation with AI NPCs. For technology that is proposed to create totally distinct and unique interactions beyond the possibilities of static game development, it is astounding how every one of these AI games ship with a cast of the exact same dull, indirect, bumbling idiot of a conversation partner that keeps it's thoughts about together as a loose sheet of A4 in a rainstorm. It is shocking how none of these games even shows an ounce of workable potential. What are these- Crypto games?

And yet if you peak over at the notes of one Electronic Arts, you can see them confidentially call AI games the 'future' with their chests puffed out and their heads firmly stuffed where the sun don't, and simply can't, shine. EA have announced their intentions to rush towards AI implementation in the game development process- because afterall- most of their games are being lambasted for being bad- so why not just thrown in the towel now? Why not just replace all the hearts and souls that are supposed to be emblematic of the company and their dedication to continued development when you can instead put that effort into a chatbot that spits out recycled globs of code that you plaster everywhere- with a tiny team of code patchers on the other end struggling to make sense of the hallucinated garbage the machine threw in there for good measure?

Of course that's not all, EA also posited interest in researching ways to add advertisements into video games, which has always gone over so well in the past- hasn't it? You know, with the mass complaints, the walk backs and the revisions! People just love having their time wasted inside of products that they've already paid for! And it just makes sense that EA would be the ones hinting about their willingness to jump into such a field despite that being absolutely unhinged to even consider, but since when has that ever stopped a company like EA? But as much as I would like to crucify them for what the company are proposing to bring to our precious little hobby- it's better to take all of these as warnings.

EA didn't offer up any of these considerations unsolicited. Each were broached during an investor call wherein EA are tipped to give their thoughts on directions that their investors want examined to try and shore up their returns. Now you must bare in mind that these investors are below the level of a neanderthal. We're talking genuine pits of evolved lifeform, the sagging pustules of the proto-humanoid sludge that modern producers are formed of. As such, they ain't got no clue what makes money. Of course those idiots are going to think that chucking in ads to games will score them a bit of extra dough, or that AI powered development is going to completely automate games so far we'll be seeing a new Battlefield game every two weeks. We're talking about people who stopped mental development after the age of six.

Unfortunately, however, these are the people with the money and they are leaning on games companies to pursue these dead-end trips to nowheres-ville. A big company who knows what it's doing like EA can pay lip service that they're doing it, chuck a faux-research team on the topic for a couple of weeks and call it a day, but what an absolute disaster of a company that can't do anything for itself? What about Ubisoft? Do you think Ubisoft will be able to help from soiling itself during the meeting if their investors told them to stick Banner ads in Assassin's Creed Shadow? And if enough companies start feeling the push, how long before one is dumb enough to go for it, and another follows suit, and then the next cancer on the industry is born? What I'm basically saying is- investors need to be institutionalised. 

The death of the 'Exclusive'

 

Somehow within the past few console generations, measurements of 'Exclusives' have become a litmus test for how that respective company is performing within this 'console war' that we all like to pretend isn't real because in such a world- wars have losers. Securing award winning games that push the needle forward really symbolise the fact that you (Nintendo, Playstation) are leaders of the industry securing all the best reasons to play and positively growing the industry that raised you. Whilst struggling to put out anything worth a damn in the AAA space (Xbox, Stadia) is seen as a emblematic of a collapsing model that is failing to keep up with the demands of an industry that pushes ever forward. Creating fear and uncertainty for those that lag behind. Is the biggest and most powerful company in the world really headed towards shutting their gaming arm? If they continue to flounder like this, possibly!

Thus games of such huge renown as 'The Last of Us' and 'Starfield' have become soldiers in a battle far beyond themselves, ranked up for their ability to drive entire console purchases and lambasted for every way they fail to rewrite what it even means to be a gamer. But in that same breath, they've also become symbols of the giant wall that 'marketing' and 'finance partners' have forcibly erected between gamers and games. So many titles are sequestered to forgettable parts of the ecosystem that are then retired, losing great experiences to the void of false 'progress'. I had to wait years before I could play the Persona games because of exclusivity. Fans of Samurai are just getting Ghost of Tsushima this month. And now, after so many years of suffering, the shoe is starting to drop at the one place producers fear most- their bottom line.

Xbox was the first to really give up when it came to trying to create a brand of exclusive titles to combat the Playstation supremacy. They purchased studio after studio, dropped a metric bomb worth of funding behind a nowhere project that we're still heard no update on, and they put actual billions into their buying spree stealing exclusivities off of Playstation. And it hasn't moved the needle Xbox's direction any significant manner. Maybe if Starfield was more of a world beater like it was originally proposed to be, but without any significant gains, Xbox is looking more and more like a financial burden. Now that Game Pass is starting to slow down, they've run out of ways to prove themselves equals in the playing field, and it's all falling apart.

We're already seen a slate of Xbox exclusives spit their way onto Playstation in a desperate bid to try and score some more players and buyers, with Sea of Thieves being the biggest to make the leap so far. Reports claim that Xbox are being pressured to port everything eventually, with absolutely nothing held back. Look out for the incoming Starfield port, Indiana Jones may just launch multi-platform, and then what? Gears of War? Halo? It's probably coming. All because the exclusivity model has proven to be unsustainable in the modern age. And, of course, we've had pointless layoffs thrown in the mix for good measure because this is the worst timeline, of course! 

And what of Final Fantasy? The biggest JRPG franchise in the world, and probably the biggest RPG franchise straight up- Final Fantasy has jumped back and forth between which studio it better favours over the year, being first a Nintendo exclusive before being pushed onto Playstation thanks to the lack of N64 innovation before fliting with Xbox for 13 and 15 and now sleeping with the ex over at Sony once more. Their games launch as exclusives so often it's a genuine mystery where one would even need to go to begin building something resembling an exhaustive collection of their games. (I think even Steams remaster collection misses out on a few choice titles over the years.) But maybe this has started to catch up with them.

Both Final Fantasy XVI and VII Rebirth have been reported to be underperforming compared to their previous counterparts, even when taking into account exclusivity hold-ups. These titles have already surrendered to timed exclusivity with the PC market, but even that doesn't appear to be cutting it when many players, such as myself, hold no interest in getting the game until it's made available on Steam leading to a lack of engagement. I don't even think the community has been as rampant about VII rebirth as they were for Remake, and the wave of excitement around XVI dissolved long before XV had done it's rounds. Something needs to be done!

During it's financial round up the last year, Square included a little note about their future strategies, revealing an intention to focus more on releasing games on multiple platforms going forward, perhaps even including the Xbox! This would be a drastic shift from the Final Fantasy strategy of the modern day, which has been so hardline that the director of XVI still refuse to acknowledge whether a PC port even exists as a possibility. But Rebirth was announced upfront with at least three months exclusivity. But from here we may just be getting full cross-console parity to feast on with our hungry-hungry eyes! (Goodness knows we thirst for it!) 

So does this finally mark a shift in the perception around the role of 'the exclusive' within the games marketing world? What once existed as a testament to the broadening of brand value is now considered a wayward relic of previous generations, a roadblock in profitability that benefits nothing. Perhaps the death of Xbox's competitiveness might just be push everyone needed, as now that there's no-one to compete against Sony as no reason to keep it's toys in it's own playpen anymore. Of course, that doesn't mean we should be crossing our fingers that big boy Nintendo starts sharing, that spoilt brat has been stuck on his lonesome for so long I doubt he even knows other consoles even exist in the modern day!

Assassin's Creed Japan

 

I'm sure there are many out there who heard about the recent announcement, paid a little glance over the shoulder at it and faintly smiled in the dreamy way we acknowledge that old wayward car tire lodged in the gnarled body of the park's local tree that has been there since childhood. An ugly thing objectively, overdue for correction, but some halcyon sliver of the thing we call 'Nostalgia' confines errant respect for the thing that reminds us of simpler, uncluttered days. Not many out there have been tuned in on the barking and cawing the creative suction well that represents Ubisoft studio to see what this actually says about the Assassin's Creed brand- because for whatever dark reason it is the words of the Ubisoft from yester year haunt the recess' of my mind like the knell of the dead clocking ever closer with each fraught night. With the announcement of this game, confirmed beyond a shadow by the reveal trailer, Ubisoft have finally admitted that they are out of ideas.

Yeah, I know what you're thinking. "Ubisoft are out of ideas? What was your first clue- did you even play the 100+ hour sleepwalk that was Valhalla?" But I've been tracking their decent into mediocrity much longer than that, seeing their collapse into the mid masters that now defines modern Ubisoft so spectacularly that it is a common sight to see any member of the community with any amount of investment in the industry scoff at the sight of their name. Just look at the like/to dislike ratio sitting under any of their YouTube announcements, the tide has turned- Ubisoft are being recognised for the backwards dinosaurs they dedicated the past decade congealing into. Now their entire business model is to serve as blackened coal fuelling the most most lazy and derivative aspects of the industry so slavishly that they were the first big studio to actively posit their dreams of throwing AI into the mix to do the devs jobs for them. (As if Watch_Dogs Legion didn't prove their games are soulless enough with active developers!)

You see, I remember all the way back in the halcyon, and long buried, days of Assassin's Creed 2 when we still used to think this was a franchise with direction and purpose worth speculating about. Do you remember that? When the creators still had grand plans about what the franchise represented, how it would explore itself going forward and what fans could expect. Yves even claimed the franchise had an expiry date, like the liar he's always been, implying that ever entry would serve as a stepping stone on an ultimate journey to completion. In that I remember very clearly an easter egg placed within the game by the developers hinting at directions they wouldn't take the franchise because they would be 'too obvious', and I'm sure you can see where this is going.

First off they've been very clear about how they don't want to go to any era in history overstuffed with Guns. Rebecca famously spouts how boring shooting is, and in the brief moments throughout the franchise we've dabbled in World War 1 and 2, the player has never been strapped up to the nines. Cars are also a no-no, as explained in some diatribe about how the trance-state of driving interferes with the animus data recall process of some other such trite- they don't want to get to modern, is what I'm getting at. And what else? Well they don't want to go to any time period that has been done to death such as- Feudal Japan. Because that would be a sign that this series which is based around exploring the wonders of history with a fantastical story stitched atop it- is losing it's touch and going for the low hanging fruit. Whelp- Ubisoft meet fruit.

Assassin's Creed codename red was revealed as 'Assassins Creed Shadows' in a CG trailer that I just can't bring myself to watch. Ubisoft stopped making interesting trailers around about the time of Unity, they've been wastes of time ever since. The point of the matter is it's going to star the Blue Eyed Black Samurai, as featured in the recent anime of that name, and a Kunoichi- because Kunoichi are awesome. (Unsure how historically accurate they are, but since when has Modern AC dev teams ever cared about 'historical accuracy'?) And you can bet your bottom dollar this reveal came with another patented Ubisoft collectors edition worth over a £100 because Yves hates us all and he wants us to know it. (Don't worry man, the feeling is mutual.) And needless to say, I have some thoughts.

First off, I couldn't care less to even engage with the miniscule outrage about the depiction of a black samurai- I've seen a tiny smidge of people even commenting on that and those who feed that nothing of a minority are actually doing more harm than they are even capable of when just ignored. Besides, such discourse distracts from the real concerns, such as- is this an actual game this time? I have to ask because the last such title, Valhalla, was a exercise in virtual torture stretched across over a 100 torturous hours of mind numbing nothingness. There was about 5 hours of narrative sprinkled across that disastrously bloated corpse of a game, and that was supposed to be the teams response to people's grumbles about how overstuffed Odyssey was! This one might just kill me off! (If I even get around to it. Don't even know if I can stomach this crap anymore, to be honest.)

And on a more nuanced note- splitting up the combat and the stealth gameplay between two protagonists is a mightily ambitious move for a team that historically struggle to make any single play style feel substantive even when they come as a package. The last time they tried this, for Syndicate, both Evie and Jacob ended playing near identically to one another aside from functionally arbitrary weapon restriction. What has transpired within the development of then to now that they feel comfortable trying it all again? I don't trust them. Unless they've brought their systems so far up to scratch we're looking at Phantom Blood level of AI advancement- I can already taste the half-assed disappointment.

Some part of me took solace in the quiet between Mirage and now, hoping that the franchise had finally given up and we'd get a few years off at the very least. Of course that wouldn't be the case. Of course Shadows is out later this year. Of course it comes with prototypical Ubisoft nickle and diming. Of course it's going to be a disappointment. Only this time around this game has plenty of competition to contend with in it's genre so we can contrast and compare all the ways this feudal Japan will feel wanting. Ghost of Tsushima, Rise of the Ronin, hell- even Like a Dragon Ishin! I'll eat my hat if Ubisoft's Japan is anywhere close to as detailed as those that came before.

A smidge of hope in the Wasteland

 

It hasn't exactly been a fun couple of days to engage with the Xbox ecosystem, and by extension engaging with Bethesda has felt a little awkward. Theirs was the home to the award winning studio that Xbox callously murdered for no discernible reason before immediately coming and declaring they needed more studios just like the one they destroyed a few days earlier. Incredible. And within that debris questions have been asked about who would be next, what other legends would find themselves jobless for the foolhardy whim of having worked with Microsoft? How much more grandly could Xbox damn themselves before a seemingly inevitable exit from the console market that seems all but confirmed at this pace- regardless of whatever, increasingly futile, lip service the team constantly feeds our way. But through it all, I hear that Fallout seems to be doing okay.

I mean it should be, right? Fallout is the face of video games breaking into the mainsteam right now and the surging player count's for the entire franchise are a startling example of that. Fallout 4 is getting updates again, that break all current mods but it's the thought that counts, people's twentieth New Vegas playthroughs are kicking off with gusto. Fallout 76 is actually seeing a rise in players that are somewhat galling about all the hate the game received back in the way, blissfully unaware of all the actual pain they missed getting involved so many years down the line. They don't even have to experience the dead Wasteland before the 'return to Appalachia' update. Truly they are the winners of the Fallout fanbase. But all of that only really goes so far, now doesn't it?

When The Last of Us dropped it's series the creator's were ready with a rushed and messy port of the iconic game finally coming to PC after all these years that people absolutely wharfed up with abandon- rocketing the game up the charts despite it's shoddy QA work. That is a tangible boost in profits that can be traced directly back to the show. And Fallout? Well, I'm sure they've made a pretty penny from people catching up with the games- but there isn't anything new in the Fallout world, is there? You can't really get away selling even Fallout 4 for full retail after all this time, so people are picking up inexpensive collections for a fraction of 60$ and filling themselves up on all the Fallout hype. I would call it an unexploited marketing opportunity.

What Bethesda really needs is a fresh product they can sell the heck out of. A remaster would be nice, but what they need is a fresh new game that soars in the spotlight- a great game that is rocketed into superstar status by merit of association. What they need is Fallout 5.  Which is ironically the only thing that they can't have. Fallout 5 isn't on the docket until after The Elder Scrolls 6, as probably Todd Howard's last game before retirement. Which means we won't be seeing the Wasteland again until at least the 2030's. What we need is something in the interim to keep people busy. An in-between game. A 'Fallout 4.5' so to speak. And whole could possibly be employed to create a little something like that? Oh yes, the rumours have started once more.

Obsidian have been sitting patiently on the sidelines for what feels like half their lifetime. Gone are the days when they were pushing the boundaries of the Classic RPG genre, reviving it with a gusto- now are the days when it feels like they're pushing what's possible from a AA perspective- proud work, to be sure, but not enough to get their name in lights for the new generation. And dammit, they deserve to be! Obsidian have yet to put out a bad game, even if I think The Outer Worlds wasn't really what I wanted, it's still a cracker of a title! Whatsmore, they've always demonstrated a deeper understanding on what makes Fallout special than Bethesda ever has- we need them back around again!

Fallout New Vegas was their last go around, given the tools that made Fallout 3 and given a little over a year to smash together those elements into something new, Obsidian put out the single best game the franchise had ever had, and still has ever produced. The created an RPG of choice and consequence, a world of purpose and weight and value and the tools to destroy it all as much as you wanted. New Vegas put Bethesda to such shame that they attempted to ape it's systems with Fallout 4, to honestly somewhat amateurish (in comparison) results. Give them the Fallout 4 engine and who knows? Obsidian might even be able to make a real RPG out of it! And what a way to send up the Fallout franchise, than giving it back to the people who made it to begin with!

Of course there's nothing real in the works yet. Xbox have declared that they're aware of the feelings about Fallout, particularly given the popularity of the TV show, but playing it coy is the name of the game so that no hopes are drawn up. However, I would say that recent happenings may end up expediting the process a bit. Xbox is desperate, looking for a way to justify itself underneath a parent who is placing ever more attention on their goings ons. In fact, following the surprise layoffs of Bethesda award winners, one might say that the next few projects might end up being influential in deciding whether or not Xbox even makes it to the next console generation or not. It's times like these, you need to start cashing in the chips at your disposal.

The stars seem to be aligning. Xbox is too desperate to say no, Bethesda are too busy to multidevelop, Obsidian are reaching the end of work on their current RPG and Chris Avellone has been cleared of all those misconduct allegations he had thrown his way. This is the time to bring the band back together for one last go around, smash out a Fallout game like the world has never seen before and give this franchise the absolute rocket high it deserves! And if ever it was going to happen, it's going to be now! I usually don't fan the flames of speculation, I'm usually the first to douse cold truth over it all- but today of all days I'm daring to dream. Bring us back to Fallout, Obsidian- I know you have it in you!

The game Star Wars couldn't make: Force Combat.

Graduates of Teräs Käsi

It somewhat surprises me to remember that Star Wars is still technically an active brand in the video game space given the fact that, you know, we don't hardly get anything out of them but once every blue moon! When are we going to get that Mandalorian game they absolutely should have commissioned years ago? Is Knights of the Old Republic Remake going to see the light of day ever? When is Battlefront 3? I'm serious about that last one- there's absolute no freakin' reason we haven't got so much as a chirp on a Battlefront 3- 2 still has an active player base, dammit! To call this absolute wasteland an 'active brand' is like calling Tatooine a sunny sea-side resort. Arguably true but vastly overselling in some pretty important areas worth mentioning. 

I think the biggest loss in that with the lack of Star Wars games released, we're getting a distinct lack in variety. Back when it was a game ever year you'd see shooters, racing games, strategy games, action adventure games, RPGs- everything under the sun and much more under the moon. Every single type of gamer could find something within the Star Wars world that appealed to them, and as a Star Wars fan who loved games I could gravitate towards any number of different styles of game. Now that we only get one triple AAA game every few years or so, they all have to carter towards the biggest demographic of the audience in order to justify the development costs. Tactical games? Nah, they're too niche. Better make a Star Wars Action adventure game. (Jedi Fallen Order) RPGs? Market's too volatile. Better make a sequel to that action adventure game. (Jedi Survivor) Starship-themed dog fighter game? Okay, you can have that one. (Squadrons) But we get to immediately follow it up with an action adventure game. (Outlaws) It's all getting a bit tiresome, isn't it?

And in times like this who can you really turn to in order to demand more? EA like to pretend they don't even know what a Star Wars is unless they've got one coming out in the next few months, Disney treat games like gangrene, and I don't even think there is a core studio managing the Star Wars brand beyond the movies. Whom do we ask to start doing better? Well, I guess we could ask the people who care about the brand most of all. More than the license buyers or the license owners. More than the brand managers and the producers. The directors and the actors. The people who really put their heart and soul into the franchise. The fans. Who can you trust to love the brand and want what's best for it more than the fans? No one.

Which is why I guess I shouldn't be surprised that the best Star Wars release this year looks to be a fan game that dropped in front of my eyes the other day by the name of 'Force Combat'- a spiritual successor to the much... spoken of old school game 'Masters of Teräs Käsi'. Yes, that was the fighting game set in the Stars Wars AU (what little of it existed at the time) which is widely considered one of the worst fighting games of all time by people who clearly don't play enough fighting games. Not that I'm an expert on that, I'm actually rather terrible- but as a kid I did manage to push through nearly every level of Simpsons Boxing and liked it- so... you're kind of talking to an unwitting fighting game veteran right now!

Now as far as fan games go, Force Combat is surprisingly well put together even in a Beta state. sure, I encountered a total crash the first time I played but such is to be expected. Otherwise it is a totally functional, if slightly janky, fighter that pretty much anyone with a passing knowledge of how these games play will be able to pick up pretty seamlessly. Having actually gone through a fair few of really old school fighting games recently as part of my Like a Dragon catch-up quest- I found quite a few similarities with the heavier feeling, less combo driven, straight forward arena brawl style of Force Combat. Of course that doesn't mean the game is without it's hang-ups. The choppy animations don't seem to have fluid transitions between movements which makes defensive play quite a hassle, but given the giant cast I can't really hold that against the team.

Oh, did I mention? Force Combat features characters from every single piece of mainstream Star Wars media that popped into the creator's head. I'm talking Sith Inquisitors and Mandalorians, Ashoka Tano and IG-88, they even threw in Mara Jade and Darth Revan for goodness sake! (I know Jade was in the original Teräs Käsi, but it still something of a deep cut even back then!) There's no Pidgeon hopping between what properties are safe to use for fear of accidentally stepping on one of Disney's mousetraps for a series they want to make which will never end up making it to the screen anyway because the Disney release slate is a joke! It's just a general celebration of Star Wars as a whole, throw in anyone. Everyone! Settle those childhood debates about who would win in a battle between Yoda and Grogu. (Even if that one sounds a little bit open and shut if I think about it. Grogu would win through the power of marketability, obviously.)

The cherry on top of the cake for me is the pre-built tournaments (or Towers) provided to the game which play out as strung together battles that simulate arcs in the various shows and movies. Whether that be fighting your way up the Sith ladder on your way up to Palpatine, or picking off bad guys in the Mandalorian list as you aim towards the Grand Moff. And some of these battles are special little one-offs like a duel between Grogu and the Mudhorn from season one which- I'll be honest I literally couldn't figure out how to play as Grogu. That ended up just being three minutes of watching the little pipsqueak get trampled. Still, very cool they even thought to throw that in.

It is always impressive how much actual content even a small team of fan-inspired creators can pack into a game when they aren't bogged down by ultimately worthless fidelity concerns and balancing giant teams of checkers and recheckers. Just focus on what works, make as much of it as you can stomach and maybe puff it up to look a bit prettier on the way out the door- that's the way of the world anyway, why shouldn't our games reflect it? Always love a fan game, and love one like this that touches close to my own fandom and heart. Although seeing the brand involved, I would probably hurry to snatch this up before Disney come with their ban hammers- you know what they're like.

Kingdom Hearts is still going for that movie, huh.

 

The very worst part about this movie adaptation culture bubble we're constantly wrapped up within is that everyone thinks they're due a profitably adaptation as long as they've got the money to force it through a production studio. There's no longer that eye from a production studio going 'eh, this is probably a bad idea', probably for the dual reasons that money talks louder, and that production studios have proven in recent years how very little they know about the products they produce. Turns out it's more of a numbers/luck game for how they've been running things up till no. Go figure. And in this rush to try and squeeze a fresh audience from everything on this planet of ours, from beloved childhood books to offhand remarks made at coffee shops, there are a few ideas that should have died on the lips of the lunatics that coined them, making it all the way to active development. Which is scary.

Let me be upfront with you- I love the first Kingdom Hearts game. Having played it only a few years ago myself, I am speaking from personal experience when I declare it an absolute modern day hood classic with the staying power to delight even now amidst it's peers. (Although maybe that is no great statement to make consider the absolute drop-off of kid friendly action adventure games all around Kingdom Hearts leading to an sharp decline in competition to push that genre's needle forward. It's pretty much just Kingdom Hearts and the rare Mario game at this point.) And it's with that familiarity with the franchise, as well as my love for storytelling, that I convey how absolutely hairbrained it is to think anyone can sit down and make a comprehensive, cohesive and creative movie around the Kingdom Hearts brand. Even if it's not a straight adaptation, it would be a chore. And I think this is actually supposed to be an adaption!

But given that Nintendo are very eager to push their own cinematic empire out the gate following the success of the Mario movie, apparently with a Zelda movie in the works, a Donkey Kong spin-off and, at some point down the road, a Smash Bros crossover event- the gauntlet has been thrown. The challenge has been issued. Disney have been put on notice and now they need an animated movie empire of their own. Similarly, Square Enix haven't been doing so hot recently. Oh, they're making money- but not in an angling graph of profitability like they hoped for. As it happens they pushed for very expensive gamble games in a couple years of slow growth for the industry and now they are looking for something of a vertical growth angle that will lay seeds to profit in the near to distant future. God knows why they thought a Kingdom Hearts movie being finally pushed into production would be that lifeline- but at least we know well enough why they're this desperate.

Now of course, nothing official has been announced- but when we're talking about Disney that's hardly the only vector through which information is portrayed. Leakers give us such a three-sixty scope of every product that company has ever put into production that I genuinely think Marvel under Disney hasn't been able to pull off a surprise since the name reveal for 'Endgame'- and even then that title was unwittingly spoiled by an actor's gaffe a few weeks beforehand. As of now the leaker is saying that Disney are balancing the proposition in their minds, weighing the possibilities available to them, all whilst I imagine Square Enix is pounding on their door demanding their cut because as desperate as they are, you just know their other partner is going to push this down the greenlight road as haphazardly as possible.

The very first hurdle that a Kingdom Hearts movie, or even a TV series, would have to contend with is how in the hell one would condense the narrative into a cohesive presentation. The story of Kingdom Hearts is tucked within hours of games and side games all building atop on another into oblivion, and even if the first game kept everything relatively comprehensive- it still packed itself with mysteries that verge on the curious to the downright bizarre. On one hand, the strange appearance of a single member from Organisation XIII is a fun little prelude to what will happen down the road, on the otherhand the absolute verbal diarrhoea spouted on that beach in the post credits scene is a storytelling travesty. (I say this currently in full knowledge of what the entire conversation meant, recognising how vapid it ultimately was.) And this franchise is full of stuff like that! Look no further than the scrambling way the franchise spent it's first few titles refuting itself in a desperation to define what the heck 'Kingdom Hearts' even is. I still couldn't tell you.

Secondly, Kingdom Hearts juggles quite a large number of properties owned by a bevy of different copyright holders who are portrayed in very specific ways. It's a wonder how Nomura was able to get away with some of his depictions in the game, but I wonder how someone totally unrelated to the gaming space could finagle the rights to portray Leon as a washed up failure operating under a pseudonym in order to hide from his screw up past. Or Cloud as a totally edgy 2000's-coded too-cool-to-care badass who slides into scenes just long enough to reaffirm how disinterested he is with everyone else's plight on his way to battle Sephiroth for the umpteenth time. Or Goofy as a neglectful partner who abandons his significant other at the drop of a hat to go planet hopping with the boys. (Actually that last one does line up with the man's characterisation in Goof Troop, I guess.)

And thirdly, does anyone actually realise what the Kingdom Hearts games actually are, I mean from a conceptual level? They're gamifications of popular Disney movies. How do you turn Alice in Wonderland into a game? You tie it into the convoluted narrative of Heartless monsters seeking to sabotage Alice for some unknown reason. (A reason which, at the end of the day, contradicts the overall plans of the badguy because if Alice had been executed like they were trying to make happen, he wouldn't have had the Princess souls necessary to open the way to Kingdom Hearts or whatever.) What I'm trying to say is, the meat of any Kingdom Hearts game is retelling, practically note for note, popular Disney stories in game format. A totally non-additive adaption. Readapting those stories back into visual-only form is an exorcise in redundancy that I don't think the producers are ready to fully comprehend. 

Remember the audience you are contributing to, and know that these are the kinds of people who considered the Mario movie confusing. If you really think Kingdom Hearts is the kind of property that is just going to suck up a casual viewerbase, then all I can is prepared to be shocked when your viewing metrics drop off a cliff as people drop this show/movie halfway through the first arc. The thing is, Kingdom Hearts is a classic, but it is so of it's time. Spiky haired anime boys who strive their hardest and end up succeeding because they simply believed in themselves until the end is a played out commodity that died over a decade ago. There's no place to bring it back for a franchise as convoluted, obtuse and frankly batty as this. Still want KH 4 though.

We're not getting X-Com 3, are we?

 

To think there was a time I was so afraid of the dense nature of tactical games that I never once engaged with them. I felt the entire genre was type was so very niche there wasn't any inroad for someone who fell in love more with the storytelling or action of games- I just didn't see a path where those sectors of game entertainment interjected. And that panned out in a lot of my attempts to get involved with this style of game, not least of all my attempts to play the original X-Com which, to this day, I cannot get my head around on the most basic level. At least, that was until I stumbled upon the X-Com revival games which not only brought the tactical gameplay down to a comprehensive level for new comers who don't feel like browsing several pages worth of tutorials in order to play their first battle, it also awoke me to the endless dynamic storytelling potential of titles just like this.

Enemy Unknown was a revolution for that entire subgenre of games, not just the brand which had been dormant for over ten years at that point. The tooth'n'nail pressure of managing a squishy group of mortal soldiers battling to keep together the crumbling embers of a collapsing world against a threat far outpacing them, ever present that with ever mistaken call, and often times ever with totally perfect calls, a grim grave can await anyone at anytime. There's little which can encapsulate that level of tension, those crushing blows and those miraculous wins, all decided by the fate of an offscreen die spinning your fate in the moment. And the make-up of what Unknown was became the basis of most boots-on-ground tactical games from then on in. 

What I respect most about X-Com's series is the way they always endeavoured to make every game good enough to stand on it's own, to such an extent that all sequels had to try something a little bit different rather than just spin the ol' wheels as usual. Even as Enemy Within was building upon the base product with new ways of playing the game in both a moment-to-moment sense as well as overall meta- X-Com 2 totally flipped the gameplay dynamic on it's head, making the player the invaders attempting to overthrow an alien controlled world- with the guerrilla tint to gameplay not just being Ubisoft-level set dressing but a total revision to the presentation of gameplay and wider tactical narrative progression. And don't even get me started with War of the Chosen- perhaps one of the greatest expansions of it's age for the way it acted as practically a whole new game on it's own!

Chimera Squad was where the team started to fall off some small degree in my opinion, with the focus taken away from consequence and greater emphasis placed on tailor crafted 'hero units' the dynamic storytelling potential which seemed to be heart of the franchise seemed burnished somewhat. I respect Chimera for what it was trying to do and I still think it's a damn good time that once again shifts the core gameplay in just enough of a manner to justify itself as a standalone- but I'm not surprised that franchise fans felt a bit underserved by it. But it wasn't a break between audience and developers. Not in the way that their next game would be- to such a degree that even after all these years I don't even think the creators knew what went wrong.

Marvel's Midnight Suns promised so very much, bringing the X-Com style of play to a brand we all know whilst throwing something totally new in there to boot. The new card-based system of play was not received well upon reveal but I think it would be a little disingenuous to claim that alone turned people off to the game entirely. You also have the fact that as the marketing trucked along everyone became increasingly aware that the game's X-Com connections would not carry that same spirit of the original two games, with the dynamic storytelling potential, and instead be more like Chimera Squad with it's 'follow along the dotted lines' approach. In fact, Midnight Suns is entirely a driven story game that happens to share DNA with X-Com, once again not quite catering to the audience who had been patiently waiting all this time.

Now it's not as though a follow-up to X-Com was never considered. 2 literally ends with a tease to a subterrain menace mimicking the original X-Com sequel 'Terror from the Deep'. A tease we have been waiting to be fulfilled for about 8 years now. And in the time not only have the team decided to go other directions with their style of development, they've also started breaking off! The big gambit of Midnight Suns ended up not paying off, and underperformance leads to layoffs. The lead designer even left the company and is now off making Life Sims of all things. We lost Jake Solomon to perhaps the single worst genre of non-mobile game out there, the hilariously over commercialised parody-genre of Life Sims. Oh the humanity!

Which of course means that Firaxis are in a worst position than ever before to finally buckle down and make the follow-up to the franchise that put them on the map. They're going to have to build back up to it, proving themselves with smaller titles that score some success, all the while the people will be patiently waiting for X-Com three and won't respond well to these other titles that don't capture those same emotions. All along the way other teams are moving in on their territory and releasing their own takes on the genre, peeling off players this way and that, until eventually no one even remembers what it was they were so worked up expecting all along. In fact, I'd bet most are already at that point- given the 8 years and all that.

Which is all to say we're not getting an X-Com three. Not because the team no longer exists to do it, but because they missed their moment in time, can't capture that lightening in a bottle now that it's out in the wild and won't draw the crowd they once would. In some ways it's a sad state of affairs, but in another sense if we had to pick between getting X-Com three or X-Com becoming the influential phenomenon that influenced so many other incredible titles, I'm glad we got the latter outcome.  Maybe the promise of what X-Com 3 might have been is greater than what we ultimately might have received if it came out and... well, ended up like Vampire the Masquerade 2 is currently looking. (Yikes.)

Sony and the self-immolation of their ports

 

Sony are a peculiar case of a game company. Sitting at the top of the adult console market, chest to chest with Nintendo, you'd have thought they would have a strong grasp on what it takes to succeed. But as Microsoft starts shooting itself in the cranium, I think we're becoming more and more privy to the fact that Playstation has only be getting a foot up because Xbox so regularly falls on its' face providing a step from which to move up from. If the Microsoft Xbox brand were competent, controlled by people who knew what they were doing, extracting the right games out of the right studios and making a name for themselves, Sony would be the donkey of the free right now for how utterly moronically anti-consumer they always insist on being. Of course, in such a reality Xbox would have no reason to play nice with consumers either so they would be just as big of monsters. There really is no winning when you play with corporations, is there?

And we can see this clearly in Sony's bizarre first party direction, which to this day hasn't changed from the Live Service mandate of yester year. Despite their successes in buying single player developing studios that have secured award after award for the company, even going on to secure and award winning show from one of their first party produced properties- Sony wants to chase after the biggest no-where prize in gaming: Live Services. What is the point? As this point it's a more likely best to take your money to the high-rollers table and bet on a hand of Blackjack, the odds are actually better to make a profit doing that then investing in a Live Service- given their horrific failure rate. Helldivers 2 may have skewered perceptions for Sony a little bit, but if they really invest in this direction as much as they're threatening to, in 5 years time habitual Poker Players will be more in the black than they are!

But that's the old news, how about that Helldivers 2 situation, eh? Remember when that all transpired and Sony tried to wiggle their account requirements upon a game that provably functioned just fine without them- twisting PC players into creating PSN accounts just to play the game they bought. Of course, the team themselves cared very little about the comfort of their playerbase before discovering that due to various countries not having PSN countries, some of their players would be actually unable to keep playing the game. Funny how it changes the conversation when "I'm actually not comfortable doing this" turns to "I actually can't keep invested in your ecosystem if this continues." But my surliness regarding Arrowhead and their backpedalling aside, why was such a system even a Playstation mandate to begin with?

Rumours abound but the most likely idea I've heard brought up is the ol' hotshot exec wants to show how much of an impact he's had excuse. It's the classic. Change the brand logo to something objectively less clear and worse to prove you've effected something worth sticking in the CV. This was just a case of a guy wanting to talk about the big new sign up numbers that PSN has received, even it was at literally gun point in order to play the hit new game. The requirement was suspended upon the rocky launch, but when the game blew up that drove the heat under the execs collar for that sweet praise from his sugar daddy bosses. That seems to play out perfectly in my mind explaining all of this to an unfortunate T. But whatever the truth of the matter, whether it was Sony pushing this or Arrowhead, the results were perplexingly bad for Sony.

Ignore the PR hit for a moment, if you can. Logistically the shrinking of your current most popular user base is an active assassination of the PC port to an unreasonable degree. A desecration of basic profit making principals in an age of the games industry ruled by the almighty dollar bill. Steam ended up pulling the game entirely from storefronts outside of the purview of the PSN, cutting off entire countries worth of customers for absolutely no real gain. There's so lip service about making moderation a little easier on the team's side because they can just ban a PSN account rather than work to ban IPs- but is that alone worth cutting off thousands of customers? Who then will be granted refunds by a surprisingly understanding Steam?

Of course the story has that happy ending where the big bad Sony were told off by a user base who review bombed the game, got the decision overturned and now have a shiny new cape to show off the great meta-war: but those regions are still blocked from buying the game for whatever reason. It seems some degree of the damage has been done, and nothing of consequence was gained. Whatsmore, absolutely nothing was learnt either, because Sony are doing the exact same crap again for the port of Ghost of Tsushima, and one has to wonder whether or not there's one sycophant in charge of PC ports that no one at Sony is keeping a close enough eye on, because financially, this makes no sense!

Now Ghost is a single player game primarily, meaning the decision to not sign into a PSN account isn't going to invalidate the entire game suddenly. But the game did get a post-launch online mode which, according to folk from the time, is supposed to be pretty fantastic. Oh, but what's that? Ghost of Tsushima has also been blocked from purchase in all regions that don't have PSN coverage. Which... actually makes no sense whatsoever! The game doesn't need online connectivity whatsoever, there is no reason to take a torch to everything like this! Is this just the cost of working with Playstation? Having them kneecap your product out of misguided caution over a non-existent backlash because they're too stupid to employ any amount of critical consideration to the situation?

Sony have always had a strange and icky relationship with porting their first party games, almost as though they're terrified of people realising that the only value the PS ecosystem holds is it's exclusive games and without that they're just an average console developer who made a few lucky studio investments back in the day. But it's only recently they've demonstrated an unhinged level of frank disconnection with the reality around them to an absolutely dangerous degree. And for those that sold their studio to the Sony machine, they can just sit back in perplexed horror as their hard work is stamped upon for absolutely no good reason as Sony flails around striking out at phantoms. Is this what it means to experience cognitive company decline?

A new lord of the rings

 

You'd be hard pressed to find anyone who didn't consider Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings to be a masterpiece of fantasy cinema that in many respects still waits to be topped to this day. Where Game of Thrones might have trounced the classic for a while with it's unflinching gritty and muddy dissolving of the fantastical formula to the murk of real world politics, as the concept was originally designed to do, it unwound so much of it's good will with that finale. Luckily, Lord of the Rings managed to keep itself up to snuff until the final moments of it's trilogy and kept all the embarrassing gaffes for the follow ups. The over indulgent Hobbit and the frankly confused 'The Rings of Power'- they never felt like they were strictly parts of that original tale and so didn't tarnish the original product. Hence I would argue the crown still sits squarely on it's gilded throne.

That being said- good god what a shame every single piece of proceeding media has been, huh? The Hobbit, with Peter Jackson on board, had some charm and heart to it- but that quickly became lost under a strange diversion away from the source material in an attempt to try and create something on a somewhat comparable cinematic scale to the original movies, only without all the hard physical sets which brought that world to life. It really does hammer home how much physicality aids the films when you look out and can seemingly touch Lord of the Rings through the screen, but The Hobbit feels like every other fantasy movie squeezed out over the past 10 years. How'd that end up being the case? And wouldn't you know that's the best of it!

The Rings of Power views like an over-funded bad fan fiction slapped together by someone who had a bit of an unhealthy crush on Galadriel. There's a real sense of lost purpose behind the show in it's progression, how they film the big set piece action moments that are supposed to punctuate the narrative, and how they handle new and reimagined plot threads that gnash at each other awkwardly like mishappen teeth. Stripped of all the love and care for Tolkien's works, themes and spirit that Jackson's adaptations held tantamount, what is left is a bloated corpse of a show puffed up with the grandeur of 'the grandfather of fantasy' without so much of an inch of the requisite weight to back that up. It's a bit of a disaster at the end of the day.

And outside traditional media, there really hasn't been much of anything at all. What comes to mind immediately is the 'Of Mordor' franchise which inserted a new character into events surrounding Lord of the Rings and expanded the lore in a manner pretty much acceptable only if you view the property in a complete vacuum. Accepting a second Ring of Power fuelled by a 'Bright Lord' who isn't, as the name might imply, Sauron's opposite but more just a lesser of two evils- it's a bit contrived. Then throw atop that the added bonus of Shelob into both a shape shifting sexy lady and the franchise's biggest dolt by making her actually on the same moral side as the fellowship only for some reason failing to communicate her intentions appropriately- It is again, a mess.

Which is all why I accept the news of a brand new Lord of the Rings entry with... trepidation, above all else. A brand new movie directed by Peter Jackson is the most likely project to do this halcyon franchise some small slither of justice- but you've got to bare in mind he was also behind the mess that ended up being The Hobbit trilogy. Of course, Peter isn't actually directing this one as far as I'm aware, but merely involved heavily in the process of creation- so perhaps that distance will permit a more objective view over his role in what is going to be another original tale told within the Lord of the Rings Universe. Yeah, let's be positive about this for once, shall we? And prae, what are we telling this new story about then?

How the hell is 'Gollum' the go-to when it comes to these original stories? The contemptable little creature, emblematic of greed and lust in their most pathetic form, deserves to play his role as a background agitator- not the guiding force of a narrative! Sure, he's interesting to work on screen, but only when you are as in dark as the characters around as to what's really going on in his head. That pitiable, seemingly helpless thing that manipulates and plots- never showing his true face until it's time to push you down a mountain and leave you for dead. Kind of like Patches from Dark Souls in that regard, then... And would you like a Dark Souls game where you played primarily as Patches the trickster and grave robber?

We've already been down this road with the disastrous Gollum game, and that was not just a failure for it's shoddy construction, let me tell you! Gollum's narrative was lethargic and undriven, portraying a worm living the life of a worm, going back and forth with those that have the compunction to actually have thoughts for themselves- because without the Ring in his life that is literally all that character can be! I actually don't think the game did a bad job of accurately characterising the Gollum character, in fact they did too good a job and ended up creating the perfect use-case as to why a Gollum centric narrative doesn't really work unless you shift the character altogether!

I suppose if I'm being charitable I might say there's a story to be told about the downfall of Smeagol- discovering the ring and falling deeper and deeper into his obsession until he becomes the thing known as Gollum. But downfall stories typically work best from the highest height of pride and Smeagol... well, even in his prime he was just a greedy little hobbit. (Or more accurately a Stoor- but those are a progenitors to hobbits- leave me alone.) Honestly, this is going to need quite the upsell in order to work, and Peter Jackson hasn't presented the best track record for his original additions to this franchise. But hey, if anyone is going to learn how to do it right- it would be the man who has dedicated the best of his professional years to the property. I trust his ass more than Amazon, for what little that's worth...