The Outer Borderworlds.

Cowboys in space... Kinda

It bothers me to say, but The Outer Worlds just doesn't pop for me. That bothers me because Obsidian's latest RPG looks like everything I want out of my gaming experience, so why can't I get excited? I will get the game eventually, and I'm sure it'll change my mind, but I can't help but feel worried for its success if there are others who feel the way I do. After watching oodles of content regarding the game, I think I may have come across the key reason why this has failed to 'blow-up-my-skirt', so to speak. It looks too familiar.

Similarities are to be expected, it's important to note, from a game that co-game director, Leonard Boyarsky describes as 'kind of a spiritual successor' to Fallout: New Vegas. But that should, in no way, be a bad thing. Fallout: New Vegas was the entry in the Fallout franchise that many, including myself, hail as being the best. It had the best narrative, the most authentic world, the most relatable companions and the most amount of freedom for being who you want to be in the post-apocalyptia. This was achieved because the team who made it, Obsidian Games coincidentally, were comprised of many of the same people who designed the original two Fallouts, thus they could marry the quirky tone and provoking themes of the original games (Mostly from Fallout 2) and imbue them with the liberating open world advancements of Fallout 3. New Vegas was wild, challenging and memorable. (And also one of my favourite games of all time.)

With all that in mind, surely a spiritual successor from the same developers would be right up my alley. Heck, more then that; I should be ranting and raving about The Outer Worlds to anyone who'll listen. Yet from that very first trailer I found myself cool towards the project and a little bit underwhelmed. Since then I have warmed a bit, (through sheer force of will), but this title has never entered my thoughts when I pontificate on 'The most promising titles of 2019'. My approach has remained, 'Oh, I'll probably pick that up a year or two down the line.' instead of 'My lifeblood will cease to flow if I'm not playing this as soon as humanly possible!' (I may take games a little too seriously...) Put plainly, I just don't care. And I should care, darn it! I should care a whole lot.

My first disappointment came in the reveal trailer when I heard the first two jokes fall flat. I've watched the trailer again since and they whilst weren't as bad as they seemed during last E3, they still weren't exactly zingers. Two, almost non-sequitur, jokes that don't really sing to the style of prime Obsidian script writing. I know what you're thinking, 'What are you, a joke critic?' I shouldn't have gotten so hung up over lame jokes but it just reflects badly on the whole product that this is the foot they choose to lead with. First impression matter and if my first impression is "Huh, Borderlands 3's jokes were a bit punchier", Then I'm already not focused on your game. Speaking of-

Another big issue I have with the core concept of The Outer Worlds is the way in how the world seems like a less vibrant version of Borderlands' Pandora. Just look at the similarities; They both take place on the outskirts of civilized galactic society on backwater planets that no one cares about; Said worlds are valued only by the slew of corporate entities trying to carve the place up for its resources, rolling over the inhabitants as they go; and the player takes the role of an unaffiliated mercenary shunted onto this backwater planet and set on a chaotic collision course with that planet's elite. From the basic setup these two games could almost be twins. The problem is, from that reveal trailer all that was established for us was the basics. So then, naturally, I began comparing The Outer Worlds and Borderlands 3; Graphically, The Outer Worlds looks a bit dated and Borderlands looks stylistic and colourful; In terms of gameplay The Outer Worlds looks... satisfactory, and Borderlands looks fast-paced and competitive; and when it comes down to simple brand recognition, Borderlands was every bit the adventure I'd come to love from Gearbox and Outer Worlds- Well, I wasn't sure what to make of it. I didn't exhibit any of the soul I expected from Obsidian and so I didn't 'recognise' that trailer, for want of a better word. And so, through fault of the trailer and my own, I had hyped myself for Borderlands 3 and promptly forgot about The Outer Worlds, in no time flat.

Had this been any other game, that would have been the end of the story. They failed to impress me the first time, now I can shift my attentions onto Cyberpunk 2077 or Final Fantasy 7. But this was an Obsidian game, so every now and then I would see some gameplay pop up and think 'I really ought to give that game a second chance.' Afterall, this is a brand new IP from a talented developer and so it is unfair to compare it with another well established brand on its third mainline entry. (Despite how similar they look from the outset.) And so in the spirit of loving games, I tried to love this one. Honestly, I'm still not sure if I'm there yet.

The marketing for 'The Outer Worlds' has been very candid in the time since the reveal. Almost as though Obsidian knew how this game would have a difficult time standing out unless they made an effort to establish exactly what it was about for the public. Whatever the reason, it means we have a slew of content to look through and a, seemingly, solid basis of what the game entails. As I understand it, The Outer Worlds is a science fiction game set in the Wild West of space. Players take the roll of a blank slate landing in a solar system run by corporate entities and must navigate the game world interacting with revolutionaries, companies, everyday people and all manner of duelling interests, as they try to carve out a place for themselves in the space frontier.

Watching some of the gameplay videos have alleviated my budding concerns for one aspect of  the game: The writing. One of the playthroughs took us through the beautiful city of Byzantium, to a live reading rehearsal for a movie role. As the player travelled through the colourful facade to their destination, we see glimmers of the humorous Obsidian charm that always seems to land, like their collection of silly, futurama-esque sci-fi movie posters that seem to hark back to the days of Plan 9 and over melodramas. After that, we actually get to see the rehearsal; a heroic standoff between the hero and villain. (With live ammunition in play in order to stay 'authentic' for the scene.) What follows is a great back and forth between a lead actor who struggles to get his lines straight and the player's team who mockingly play along, cognizant of the fact that they are about to blow him away. It's all snappy, funny and likeable. Just like I remember from the 'New Vegas' days.

Another important highlight would be way that the combat is handled in The Outer Worlds. Seeing as the moment-to-moment gunplay doesn't seem all that special, Obsidian have decided to work on some of the systems at play during gunfights to help flesh it out. Most notably, with the tactical time dilation system which, much like it sounds, allows the player to slow down time in order to take precision shots. (Like a more fluid version of Fallout's V.A.T.S.) The team have explained that time dilation was established in order to bridge the gap between tactical players and action-game players, allowing people to slow down time and take combat at their own pace if they so choose. Similar to how and why Square Enix established their tactical system for Final Fantasy 7's remake. Of course, then there needs to be a reason to shoot specific body parts, and that is where the hitboxes come in. The Outer Worlds allows you to focus on certain parts of your enemy in order to weaken them in specific ways; Shoot them in the head to blind them, The legs to cripple them, the crotch to... weaken them? (Sounds accurate.) These elements all add up to create a different take on gunplay that may not feel the freshest of anything on the market but carries enough depth to look, and perhaps feel, distinct.

Lastly, I've decided that some of the core design features that The Outer Worlds boasts are worth checking out. Note, I do not mean the aesthetic design; I actually really dislike all of the visual designs I've seen so far: guns, armour, tech, nothing looks striking or memorable to me. Rather I mean the game design choices. Like the Flaw's system, for example. As you play through the game, it keeps track on the things that happen to you and your team and once you cross a threshold the game will present you with a Flaw. Flaw's are a totally optional mechanic whereupon you accept a permanent debuff stringent to a flaw-specific situation in return for a free perk point you can use to improve your character. It's a nice balancing act to allow your character to get stronger as the progress whilst ensuring that the game itself gets tougher in kind. And it's optional, allowing players to opt in or out as they please. This concept of player choice is key to The Outer Worlds and, indeed, Obsidian as a whole. Of course we've seen the branching paths built into level design and the multiple quest branches at key mission moments; but Obsidian are adamant to assure us that every step of the way we can play as by-the-book as we want or balls-to-the-walls insane as we want. The claim was even made that you can go through the game killing everyone you meet before they even have the chance to speak to you, bar one NPC, and still reach the end. And that one NPC has to survive in order to give you some incentive to reach the end, I assume. It's the kind of player choice that the team have to move heaven and earth to accommodate for, but the kind that can really pay off for the player if well executed.

You have probably figured out by now that I am very much torn on this game. On one hand I love Obsidian's work and am genuinely excited for a lot of the cool things this game has to offer, on the other hand the game looks drab and, in some places, uninspired. I do owe the creators of one of my favourite games of all time, Obsidian, the benefit of the doubt; but I can't promise I'll be there contributing to those, all important, week 1 sales. I just don't need to be. My planet-hopping mercenary fix is being met by the better realised, Borderlands 3; and my choice based RPG fix is going to be be fulfilled by the more promising, Cyberpunk 2077. I  just don't need The Outer Worlds and I really hope enough people disagree with me, that The Outer Worlds doesn't need me.

Borderlands is back.

After all this time.

When the original Borderlands hit shelves back in 2009, I was one of the flocking masses that rushed to pick it up. I didn't really have a choice, discourse of the time told that Borderlands was the quintessential cooperative multiplayer game. If you didn't have it, you'd be missing out. Borderlands had it all, great gameplay, millions of guns, cool class themed powers and more bosses than you could fit into a strategy guide. Every gamer I knew was absolutely crazy for it; it was loud, brash, crude, violent, vast and funny in all the right ways. I got my copy on the promise of the amazing cooperative experiences that people were raving about; briefly forgetting about my lack of friends. Yeah, I didn't really ever play with others. But luckily the game itself was a good enough in single player game to keep me hooked on it's vices for about a week before I got bored, put it down, and didn't pick it up again for years. Kids, am I right?

Since then, I've started to realise how hard of a sell a game like Borderlands was at the time. A game with no real narrative incentive, no real stakes for failure, without any real diversity regarding it's gameplay; You just shoot stuff. The end. Back then terms like 'Looter shooter' didn't exist and the concept of basing an entire gameplay loop around the economy of weapon stats seemed a little bit hollow. A lot of people I know, including myself, dropped off the game rather quickly after the honeymoon period. We concluded it was just another shallow product that shut us up for a bit before we went back to Modern Warfare 2. Because that was the real game. (On an unrelated note, MW2 is another game I never played online. I know. Heretic!). But Borderlands didn't just go away. Some people came back to it years down the line with a whole new appreciation. Perhaps it was the timeless, cell-shaded aesthetic or the meaty, well balanced gunplay; or maybe it was the gun-collecting gameplay loop that we initially chastised. Something about that game drew people back. And when they got back, they were hooked. That's the thing about Borderlands, then and now; You either 'get it' or you don't. If you don't, no number of retrospective articles or trusted recommendations can win you over; you will not enjoy the game at that place in your life. When you 'get it'; when you fall for the silly, irreverence that Borderlands emanates; you fall hard.

When Borderlands 2 rolled out in 2012, I was a bit more cautious. I remembered how the first game had seemed fun at first but ended seeming like a repetitive grind after not too long. Reviews, however, were glowing; everyone wanted to sing this game's praises. Apparently every flawed aspect from the original was fixed; the game's visuals were no longer monotone but now they were beautiful and diverse, Guns were no longer samey and boring but distinct and exciting, and the story no longer distracted from the gameplay but reinforced and transformed it. I didn't remember having any of these gripes with the previous game; but then, I didn't remember what it was exactly that I didn't like about the first game. I found it boring, I thought, and repetitive; but I wasn't sure why and in what ways. Maybe these were the reasons why, I decided. Maybe I'll jump into this next game and finally love it like the other kids do. But not at launch, I was never that rich.

Next year, I picked up two very different games at a second hand shop; Borderlands 2 and Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen. Two games which could be seen as a little polar opposite to each another. Probably why the games ended up fighting for my time. On one hand, there was Borderlands 2; a sequel that exhibited whole heaps of improvements from the last game, A huge step forward in every aspect from the original. On the other, Dragon's Dogma; A brand new fantasy adventure that wowed me with it's meaningful day/night cycle, innovative grasping mechanics that transformed the combat and a cast of faithfully captured mythological creatures that all felt challenging to face. In the end the inevitable choice I made between the two was a no brainier. In my defence great fantasy games are hard to find! So I dropped off on Borderlands, once again.

So did I ever 'get it'? Sure. When I picked up 2015's The Handsome collection. (Aren't I Mr. 'Late adopter'.) Maybe it was because of my brief, fiery liaison with a little game know as Destiny. Destiny was perhaps the first game to popularize the 'Looter shooter' branding, wearing the tag as a badge of honour defining their playstyle. Destiny rocked the gaming world when it came out and introduced everyone to the basics of the Loot-shoot genre, under the pretense that they had pioneered the system. At the time I did fall for Destiny and her season pass before she broke my heart with The Taken King. (But that's a whole other, much more bitter, story.) In my rebound I ended up with the game I had discarded so long ago, The original Borderlands.

This time I 'got it'. I felt the urge to keep collecting that loot, to keep building my DPS, to keep honing by build to its zenith. I blasted through the campaign and onto the, much superior, DLC. I ground my head against the Underdome, searched for Cyans in Knoxx's armoury (unsuccessfully) and soloed Crawmerax the Invincible. I saw everything and did everything. Except get a freaking Cyan. I had keyed into that 'je ne sais quoi' that Borderlands fans had been trying to tell me about for years and I was hooked. Needless to say, I moved onto the Handsome collection and fully appreciated Borderlands 2 for the first time. It became my mission to go as far as I could on my own, collect as many rare weapons and slay as many raid bosses as my stubborn self could handle. I can't explain to you why all this mattered to me so much, just that it did. If you don't understand, then you won't unless you feel it for yourself.

Due to my late coming to the franchise I haven't had to endure the agonizing 7 year wait for the sequel. Heck, with Ultimate Vault Hunter mode, Overcharge levels and the surprise release of 'Commander Lilith and the fight for Sancutary', I'm still not done with Borderlands 2. With that said, I can still get excited to see the franchise return and innovate for a new console generation. Or rather, for the current console generation, as it has taken them this long to get a game out for us.What have we got in this one? Vaulting and sliding? Game changers!

Observing the gameplay and trailer reveals that dropped before and during this E3 has been incredibly interesting, still being an active player of the last title. Whilst some have complained about how the game looks identical to its predecessors and how Gearbox hasn't even touched upon the basics, I can clearly see how that is the passage of time clouding folk's recollection. Visually, Borderlands 3 looks stunning compared to the others; textures and colours pop in a manner they've never done on Pandora before. Shooting has also been improved upon with weightiness to movement and recoil making the guns seem more powerful than they ever did in BL2.

Those looking for fundamental changes, however, may be disappointed. Borderlands 3 shares a lot of DNA with the last two games, sometimes looking like a 'New Vegas'-style inbetween title rather than a full blown sequel. Of course that couldn't be the case because they already did that with the Pre-Sequel. (A game I cannot get into and I have no idea why...) I suppose the question that fans need to ask themselves, is whether or not they are okay with more of the same. Borderlands 2 holds up so well today, and the slew of post launch content that game ended up with makes the bundle package of 'The Handsome Collection' an absolute steal. If Gearbox want to just do that again with a little bigger scope and some reworked systems then it isn't really the worst possible thing that could happen for a sequel, is it?

At least we'll finally be getting off of Pandora. (Oh, and screw Elpis. I hated the 'moon walk' crap from that game.) Borderlands 3 will finally allow us to take off into space and go to 5 different planets, one of which being the long talked about Promethea. Finally, an urban setting in Borderlands! Maybe this time we'll finally feel like we are travelling to whole new places. Borderlands 2's icy intro was nice and all, but by the end of the game Gearbox literally made us walk over the same plots of land from the first game, kind of defeating the point of 'switching it up'. Now, with variety in mind for the creation of every planet, no two skylines should look the same, ideally.

One element I'm really excited for, personally, is the change to how characters play. Previously, your choice of player character was decided by the passives they would get and the play style you wanted to lean towards. Ultimate skills were fun, but the focus was on the moment-to-moment gameplay and thus flashy class powers easily went underutilized and under appreciated. This game, however, Gearbox have decided to change things up by giving the player 3 unique powers for each Vault Hunter. The effect is very reminiscent of 'hero shooters' like Overwatch; giving cooldown dependant small powers that change up the way you handle each and every encounter, meaning that you instantly know who you're playing as without having to wait for a voice line. For my money, this will have the most impact in multiplayer. (Which, of course, I'll never play.) With these distinctive powers thrown into play, team play is going to feel alot more complementary rather than cooperatively competitive.

But all those character-unique combat improvements all just build upon the combat system rather then define it. At the end of the day the meat of a 'Looter Shooter' is the diversity of the loot you shoot with. This appears to be the department wherein Gearbox have made the most steps forward. Whilst it's true that Borderlands 2 had a ton of really unique weapons, most of those were found in tiers Rare and above. The bulk majority of BL2's loot were mostly diversified by manufacturer quirks rather than individual quirks. This time Gearbox has aimed to expand the gun pool once again by ending crazy modifiers to their quirky modifiers. Like a Teidore gun that is discarded once empty but also bounces about with an explosion on every landing or the walking gun turret from the reveal trailer. Borderlands 3 will provide one of most unique feeling arsenals that gaming has to offer, reinforcing the addictive collectability of loot and comedic stylings of the developer's creativity.

Speaking of, comedy is another core aspect of the Borderlands formula. One that is largely subjective. Since the release of Borderlands 2, Gearbox has really established the comedic style of their cell-shaded IP. The games are obnoxious, childish and a little bit puerile at times but they bring it all together with an oddly authentic charm. Whilst these elements should clash and burn, they instead compliment each other to create the unique world of Pandora. (Or at least they did for BL2 and TellTale's 'Tales from the Borderlands'.) Of course, as with any form of humor, not everyone gels with this brand of comedy. Some find it grating and will likely find Borderlands 3 slightly unbearable because of it. But I have maintained a soft spot for the wacky crew of Vault Hunters and their manic, neurotic CL4P-TP unit. Perhaps it comes from watching the series grow from the occasionally funny first entry to the genuinely hilarious 'Tales from the Borderlands'. Whatever the reason, I resonate with Borderlands humor and from the trailers and gameplay I've seen, I can feel that same Borderlands essence here from the last game. (Excluding the pre sequel.)

Like I said, Borderlands 3 offers more of the same but in the style and attitude that only Borderlands can muster. The jump from the second game to this may not be as revolutionary as from the original to 2, but it doesn't need to be in order for Borderlands 3 to compete against the market. Borderlands easily surpass it's competitors in the core defining components of the 'Looter shooter' genre and now it's finally starting to catch up in terms of raw gameplay too. Providing that Gearbox stick to the example they set themselves with Borderlands 2, Borderlands 3 will easily become another high value classic experience. Word of mouth will spread, more people will come to the franchise and maybe, if their lucky, they might just 'Get it' too. 

Greedfall. The Nature strikes back.

Bet you weren't expecting me to have this game on the docket.

Heck, I don't even where this game came from, but it looks like it'll scratch an itch and so I'll talk about it. Which itch is that? That would be my ever irritable itch for RPG's. You see, Role Playing Games were the first genre of games whose traits I learned to recognise; That is because for a very long time RPG's were my favourite genre of games. Looking back now I realise what a broad selection that actually covers. But back then when I was eager to play any role other than myself, the height of entertainment was stepping into another's shoes, no matter how involved the end experience ended up truly being.

RPG's are a safe bet for games. After all, gamers have been playing RPG's forever, years before video games ever started becoming popular and decades before any mainstream buzz picked up. Go back to the tabletop days of Dungeons and Dragons and you'll see that gamers have been seeking to immerse themselves in fantastical worlds of wonder and surprise since gaming began. Although, for my part  I've never had enough like-minded friends to dive into DnD, It only solidifies how much I need me a good RPG.

That brings me around to the indie development studio, 'Spiders' and their upcoming RPG adventure Greedfall. Being one of the smaller development studios in the RPG landscape, Spiders understands the importance of single player experiences where bigger entities, who shall go unnamed, struggle to get it down; hence why Greedfall rings with me straight away. This isn't 'Spiders' first rodeo, either, they made the fantasy adventure 'Bound by Flame' and the sci-fi RPG 'Technomancer'. So they are used to working on these smaller RPG's that are imbued with personal passion.


For me I've started to wonder if the RPG genre even belongs to big budget companies, of late. I mean, it seems like a simple mathematical equation, more money and resources allow you to devote more on the project that should lead to a better final result. So if that is indeed the case, then why do these big RPG's keep getting it wrong time and time again. Final Fantasy XIII lost all narrative flow too early to get invested, Fallout 4 lacked the series' heart and soul and Mass Effect Andromeda was missing so much, a solid story, great design, likable characters, etc. So many of these big budget RPGs crash and burn, whether due to development issues or too-many-cooks-in-the-kitchen syndrome, the results are the same. A substandard product.

Of course not every high budget RPG is a mess, nor is publisher backing a death sentence, just look at The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt or Skyrim. But in terms of games that make me care in the manner a great RPG does, success for these projects are staring to seem like the exception rather than the rule. Just look at Deltarune, Octopath Traveller and I am Setsuna; All relatively recent indie titles that all offered much more condensed experiences than those, 'hundred hour RPG' titles that are touted today. And yet those three titles have elicited more emotional response from me, and others, than those bigger games managed in all their days of playtime. Am I sounding like a downer? I don't mean to. I just mean to hail the impact that independent titles can have. The precision focus and mastery that smaller projects can hone in on can be so much more powerful than the 'catch-all umbrella' that modern AAA titles are always built under.

That brings me to Greedfall. I certainly did big this one up didn't I? To start off, no; from what I have seen this doesn't look like one those emotional roller coasters like the titles I just mentioned. However, it does look like the kind of quirky, cool little RPG romp that the bigger studios just aren't making anymore.

Greedfall is a historical-fantasy RPG set in a distorted version of 17th century Europe. You are placed at the height of the explorer boom, a time wherein the untraveled world stretched out for ever and forever, to intentionally misconstrue a line from Tennyson. Greedfall follows the colonisation of the new world as represented in the island: Teer Fradee; if that new world itself didn't want to be colonised, that is. Everything seems to be out to kill you for your imperialistic ways from the natives all the up to horrific, monstrous abominations of nature and bark.
Wait, what was that last part?
Well, you see that's where the 'Fantasy' comes into play. Greedfall pits the players against, what appear to be manifestations of Teer Fradee's will to F you up. And, like any good RPG, Greedfall expects you to make hard choices about your allegiances as the consequences of your actions start to have tangible effects on the world and the people who inhabit it.

Artistically, Greedfall developer 'Spiders' are attempting to capture the style of the 17th century rather than the its accurate details. They describe their influence as a mix between Baroque art and Flemish painting. Being an expert of neither, I can merely attest to the almost sepia-like tinge to the colour palette that does invoke the paintings of the time in every freeze frame I've seen. The design elements that really stood out to me, however, were the monsters. From what little they've shown it seems as though the team were influenced by a certain Capcom title; and they are certainly a fine muse to have. The creatures we've seen either embody this shamanistic aesthetic of bark and leaves or this incredibly well-realised, faux zoological approach that invents fantastical beasts that look like they could acutally exist. Making the world seem so real is going to make it harder to burn it all down for raw resources when the time comes.

Like FernGully meets Monster Hunter, Greedfall seems to be asking you whether or not you have an ethical quandary with unchecked expansionism and if you can stomach to look its victims in the eyes afterwards. Of course, things aren't so cut-and-dry as that; folk back are home are being ravaged by the Malichor plague and the fact that this Teer Fradee appears to be untouched by the malady seems to indicate the key to a cure might be there. Does that mean we will have moments of deciding whether to choose between our family back home or our new friends on the island? Probably. And I look forward to getting torn up over those choices when the time comes.

Combat looks like the weakest aspect, as it tends to be with these 'Spiders' RPGs. It might be judging a book by its cover a little bit, but the gameplay shown makes the hack and slash fighting look like Dark Souls-lite. And know that I loathe to make the 'Dark Souls' comparison. But what the heck else am I going to think when the UI is literally laid out the same? Movement looks stiff and contact looks floaty. But hey, I played through Morrowind so I can double down on the fact that; bad combat does not a bad game make.

I find myself anticipating this understated little gem in the same why I anticipated Divinity 2 back in the day. As a small game that encompasses a large adventure. Something that many of the big titles seem to have forgotten how to do, lately. Where Square Enix looks to be trying to retelling the, originally one game story, of Final Fantasy 7 over a ten year period (like it's freakin' Ben Hur); Spiders will be delivering what is likely going to be a 10-20 hour game that is much more to the point but just as effective when it gets there.

The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild Sequel!

Oh, What's that? You don't think I can write extensively about a 1 and a half minute teaser? How little you know me...

The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild was one of the best games of 2017 and easily one the greatest open world video games ever. It is masterclass in game design in so many aspects, the meaningful architecture of the world, the seeding of worthwhile exploration and the integration of a slew of mechanics that fit together like clockwork. Like an exercise in abundance and restraint, Breath of the Wild gives its players a world teeming with things to see and places to go without clogging itself down with the useless and the perfunctory.

Since it's inception back in 1986, Zelda has always been a franchise that attempted to capture the essence of adventure and child-like wonder. It's well known now how much the legendary game director Shigeru Miyamoto drew from his own childhood in the forming of the Legend of Zelda. Whilst it is true, since then, that Zelda has adopted many themes and story elements that elevate it from that original simplicity; Breath of the Wild demonstrated that none of it took away from the core, timeless vision that Miyamoto founded the games on.

Those who participated in the saturated marketplace that was open world games in the 2010's, could probably recall how often it was that a high budget title would launch with a lifeless world tacked on pointlessly. It became standard practice in the AAA landscape for a while to cram your gameplay atop tundras of wasted space and time in order to balloon playtime and tick the 'open world' box. That is not to say that there were no worthwhile open world experiences at this time, but rather to say that those games were mostly made by studios who were learned in doing so, because they had being doing making these worlds for years; I'm referring to Bethesda, Rockstar, CD Projekt Red etc.

Breath of the Wild was seemingly the first Zelda game to feature an 'open world' as the concept exists in modern gaming: As an expansive game space built to give room for the player's curiosity to take centre stage. However, in truth, The Legend of Zelda is perhaps the progenitor of the whole open world genre. Even the 1986 original in its simple top-down, pixel-form glory; was built to allow freedom of movement across the game world, as Link travelled in his quest to conquer its 9 dungeons and assemble the Triforce. That game was so expansive for the time that Nintendo had to pioneer the 'data saving' system in order to make the adventure manageable. Therefore whilst I do very much respect Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot, I must disagree with his assertions that Breath of the Wild was the idealised form of their game model. Sure, Ubisoft patented the rinse and repeat approach to open world games but Nintendo very much birthed the curiosity driven open world that defines the Legend of Zelda.

Curiosity was the main tool that the Breath of the Wild developers exploited for the purpose of making exploration worthwhile without resorting to filling the world up with collectibles and side quests. When making the world, the team used terrain in order to manipulate perspective and ensure that there was no one point from which the player could make out all the that lies before them. If you wanted to discover what the other side of this valley looks like, you have to trek around this mountain or through this river. The Sheikah Slate was another useful tool to guide adventurers, giving players a rough hint on the location of secrets whilst expecting them to use the tools and skills at their disposal to find their prize. These ideas were even built into the combat system, which utilised breakable equipment in order to encourage players to either search around for backup weaponry or figure out which system they can exploit to either find another way to deal with the enemy or some way to avoid them altogether.

In its very foundations Breath of the Wild is both simple and ingenious. It is arguably as close to perfection as a multi-faceted multimillion doller production can get. Perfectly balanced gameplay, world and mechanics all cement the legendary status that the game is destined to hold. Although, I will admit I would have preferred a more hands-on approach to the story telling, (I've never been a fan of the distance that the story-told-through-flashbacks approach, fosters between protagonists and key story elements.) I cannot judge the game for what it isn't over what it is. For my money, Breath of the Wild is an easy 10/10, if I were the score giving type.

Yet despite my adoration (or perhaps because of it), I find myself approaching news of a potential Sequel with mixed feelings. On one hand, Breath of the Wild has become my favourite Zelda title seconded by my former favourite: Majora's Mask. On the other hand, Breath of the Wild was so good because it didn't overstay its welcome and become boring. It offered as much game as you were willing to handle and no more. Will a sequel throw that into jeopardy? At this point I suppose only time will tell.

At the moment, sequel details are obviously light. The high ups at Nintendo haven't even deemed as worthy to know the title of the game yet. Perhaps there isn't one. All we have to go on is the aforementioned minute and a half trailer and the information contained within. Luckily, this trailer does provide a fair few details of its own.

Firstly, the most exciting element of this new trailer for me; The tone. Look at reactions online and the first thing everyone points out about the trailer is how creepy it feels. From the dark, dingy cavern that Link and Zelda are travelling through to the backwards sing/chanting that emanates from the darkness. And, of course,  the dessicated corpse of someone that appears to be Ganondorf. There hasn't been a Legend of Zelda game that immediately seemed this unsettling since Majora's Mask, and I just let you know how much I adore that game. The quick turn around of this new Zelda game also seems to echo Majora's Mask from back in the day; at which time the team re purposed a lot of Ocarina of Time's assets in order to piece together that nightmarish reshuffle. (Nightmarish in all the best ways!) Will this new Zelda game follow the same strategy? Likely. Although will it have anything nearly as off putting as Majora's Moon in the game? Well, that is the real question, isn't it?

Another detail that fans have picked up on, is the way that Zelda and Link seem to be adventuring together, almost like equals. For me, this means that we will get a story with a lot more immediate investment then BotW, as key characters will actually be there alongside you. Some have extrapolated on the scene, however, to conclude that it indicates Zelda will be playable in the game, perhaps as a second player. This idea really does intrigue me; wouldn't be amazing if Zelda and Link were finally both playable in the same game? ('Hyrule Warriors' hardly counts and he CDi games definitely don't count!) That being said, I do hope that if Zelda is playable then she is more than just a reskin of Link. Link famously trained night and day for years to become the warrior that he is so the pursuit narrative cohesion would support Zelda's talents manifesting itself in a completely different way. Does that mean she'll be some sort of warlock spellcaster? That may be my fantasy brain getting ahead of itself, but I sure hope so!

The most enduring part of any teaser, however, is the mystery. Here the trailer excels with two big ones that probably won't be solved until the final product comes out. First would be the purpose of, The Hand. When we first see this disembodied hand it is lodged into the chest cavity of a long dead corpse; it appears to seep a swirling trail of green energy that forms itself into strings of strange runes. (Perhaps Hylian? I'm no expert.) Though it seems obvious that The Hand seems to be sealing some entity, with the body itself imbuing torrents of that same dark substance that ruled Hyrule in BotW, the big question is: what exactly is The Hand sealing? That leads me to the second big mystery of the trailer, who is that corpse that snaps to life at the end?

The obvious answer is Ganon, given his plume of crimson hair and necklace featuring the Crest of Gerudo. However, this doesn't really make narrative sense. Out of all the many deaths that the dark lord Ganon has suffered, none were more final than his death in Breath of the Wild. That game saw Ganon abandon reincarnation in order to assume his true form as a being of hatred incarnate. He attempted to lay waste to all of Hyrule before Zelda destroyed his form with a display of her highest potential of power, completing her arch as a character. Ganon didn't just die. He die died. Like Albert Wesker being shot in head with two rocket launchers whilst standing in the middle of an active volcano, some things you don't just walk off.

So then, who is the body that they find in this cave that appears to be underneath Castle Hyrule? Well, I've heard some speculation that this is actually Demise from Skyward Sword. Skyward Sword is the earliest game in the Zelda Canon and tells the tale of the first Link defeating the demon lord Demise. After this victory, Demise curses Link and Zelda telling them that his hatred will be forever reborn and that they too will reincarnate in order to feel his wrath, kicking off the Legend of Zelda series.The rumors go that now, at the end of his spree of carnage, Demise has returned once again. Though whether to finish things once and for all, again, or to kick off a whole new era of Zelda stories is yet to be seen. For my part it does slightly upset me that this story is following Ganon once more. Some of my favourite Zelda games have been the ones in which the games have expanded the world and gone beyond the go-to villain, such as Majora's Mask and Twilight Princess. However, maybe this eery direction will be fresh enough to keep the plot from feeling stale. Afterall, I've never had reason to doubt the Zelda team before.

Ultimately all of this is just guess work, nothing has been confirmed about the title as of yet. All that we know for sure is that Nintendo have some incredibly big boots to fill whenever this game finally comes around. Nintendo do have the reputation for knocking it out the park time and time again, but even so, this is Breath of the Wild we are talking about! This is like trying to redo the Sistine chapel, it's going to take a lot of work. Although if anyone can get it done and surprise the gaming world once again it is Nintendo. Maybe CDPR as well. But mostly only Nintendo.

Fallout: 76th time lucky.

I have a confession to make. I like Fallout 76. Now hold on there with your "Are you crazy?" comments and "Paid shill" accusations. Firstly, I'm not crazy but there is some context you have to hear in order to properly understand me and secondly; I wish, I'm broker than broke, I could use the blood money.

Let me start with context. I was one of those people who was skeptical but optimistic when information about Fallout 76 first started to drop. That teaser sent me to the moon but leaks revealed by Jason Schreier over at Kotaku painted a fuller picture of exactly what it was Bethesda was already selling preorders for. A fully online Fallout experience? Could the legends be true? Is Fallout Seattle finally due? Sadly no. This was a completely different project that Bethesda had cooked up, using the remains of the average Fallout 4 as their skeleton. Where we, hopeful fans we were, expected some sort of amazing 'Fallout: New Vegas' style remix, Bethesda had something brand new in mind for Fallout. And it confused a lot of people.

Bethesda had always been 'the single player company'. They had helped define single player RPGs. Heck, the year before 76's announcement they had pushed the  #saveplayerone campaign to directly counter Blake Jorgensen's assertions that single player games are no longer popular. Yet all this time they were working on a fully multiplayer title of their own? 'Traitors!' many cried, most facetiously but some with real passion. I was less worried about it, I wanted to hear what they had to say. Not that it ended up making things any clearer.

E3 2018 was a weird one for Bethesda. Fan reaction can be summed up by one shot that the in house cameras captured of the moment after Todd Howard announced the thing that everyone in that auditorium already knew; Fallout 76 would be online. Cue the shot of talented modders, Elianora and Fadingsignal (I believe, correct me if I'm wrong). The former cheered with some excitement whilst the later did not, seemingly more guarded. I was one of those in the camp that an online Fallout would be awesome. Sharing the wasteland with your friends, going on quests, causing mayhem. If everything worked it would be amazing. 'If everything worked'.

The moment Fallout 76 came out it was clear that the game had problems. Several problems. Core problems as well as bug problems. Fallout 76 hardly ran, stuttering and lagging and crashing at the slightest provocation. God have mercy on your operating system if you actually managed to launch a nuke! Combat hardly even worked, the game looked dated graphically and, most damningly of all, the world felt uncharacteristically empty. You see, somewhere along the way someone had an idea they thought would revolutionise the Fallout series, maybe even the online genre! This person thought that the Fallout 76 may be improved if all the human interaction in the game was limited to player on player interaction, so that every human was another player. This person thought this was a great idea and throughout development no one thought to overrule them. This person almost single handedly killed the game. The rest was done by word of mouth.

'The game barely works and when it works it sucks!' was the general consensus amongst critics and fans alike and the claims did hold some merit. Add that with the general negative PR that Bethesda was garnering with controversies such as the collectors edition 'duffle' bag that turned out to be plastic; or the limited edition Nuka Cola dark bottle mishap, and it isn't hard to see why this game plummeted into the burning ashes like a backwards Phoenix. Not even die hard fans wanted to shell out in support. Not for £60. (With microtransactions.) Even I didn't buy it. And that's not just out of being poor. I didn't want to be part of such a dumpster fire. No one did. And so Fallout 76 died. Unbought and unplayed.

So what happened to change everyone's mind? Nothing. Most people still hate it and refuse to judge the game for how it is now but rather lambaste the game for the train wreck it was at launch. (And for £60 they are fully right to!) But for me it was two factors. Well... really three. Promises, compromises and my damn, stupid optimism.
First came the promises. Months after launch the fire fighters over in the QA department were still wrestling with the blazing inferno that was the servers, yet despite that the Fallout 76 team saw fit to release a video roadmap on their YouTube channel. Most promised features were too far in the future to get really excited over, but a couple of items really stood out to dummy number one over here. Raids? In fallout? Sign me up! Even now as I type this I'm slapping myself in the face for being such a sucker for the R-word. So, that alone is what got me interested enough to look up how the game was faring.
Next were the compromises, for obvious reasons (See: metascore) Fallout 76 could not justify it's original price tag. Games with this kind of reception find themselves in sales pretty quick and on second hand shelves even quicker. So I moseyed on down to one of the last second hand stores still in existence and picked up a copy for a fraction of the original asking price.
And finally was pig-brained optimism. After all, there's no way the game could be as bad as everyone said it was. Could there?

And it wasn't. At least not anymore. Fallout 76's team had made great strides towards making the game as stable as possible both in gameplay and in server reliability. The game still crashed. Oh boy, did it crash. But it would happen once every couple of days instead of twice an hour. Still far less then ideal but hardly momentum killing. Giving the advantage of a functioning product, I was able to judge Fallout 76 for the package on offer, and it wasn't all bad news. Yes, the graphics were dated but the game was far from ugly. Yes, the combat was less tight then Fallout 4 but seemed functional overall. The real problems reared their head in those pesky fundamental design flaws I mentioned earlier.

Lets go back to that whole 'Every character is another player' decision. The thing sets Fallout apart from all the other post apocalyptic titles that dot the gaming landscape is it's fun and quirky moments that juxtapose the horrifying reality of persisting in a world ravaged by nuclear flame with the absurdity of light-hearted satirist commentary. These pangs of dark humor lend Fallout it's off-kilter vibe that leaves the player unsure what they can expect to find from the wasteland. Maybe a Nightkin in Elton John glasses and a wig acting the under appreciated radio host for an army of brainless mutants; or a collection of holotapes that tell the sombre accounts of a hiker who losses everything yet finds peace through the subtle mentorship of  a group of lost children. Fallout has a world that can you make you laugh and make you reflect; that world is given life by the people who live in it.

I understand what the intention was. By ensuring that every human is a genuine human, the interactions are made all the more special. Only no, they aren't. Rather the opposite. Players aren't interested in maintaining the facade of your delicately crafted world. Players are players, they want to play the game. Now that no NPCs inhabit the world, no human ones anyway, you have no firm anchor to that world and thus have a harder time accepting its authenticity.
Another casualty of the 'No NPCs' decision was the main story. People have criticized the story left and right for being terrible and poorly written but for my experience that is not the case at all. I tried harder than the average person to invest myself in the story and found a rather unique Fallout tale; one that played out like a zombie movie only with giant radiation spewing bats instead of brain eaters. The real problem was with the presentation of the story. No NPCs meant the quest designers had to guide the player on where to go through notes and robots, making the main campaign just a huge note quest. ('Note quest' being a mod community term for: Not interesting.)

The key reason this doesn't work is encapsulated by one particular interaction in the story. The player reaches the Mire in search of a weapon to combat the Scorchbeasts. The player then finds themselves enlisted in an operation to install an early warning system in the area to warm about impending Scorchbeasts attacks. So whats the problem? Well, you are made to undergo this rather hefty back and forth at the behest of a series of pre-recorded messages made by "A dead girl." This girl who keeps reminding you that she's dead every time you go back. In this way the story keeps constantly reinforcing how the actions you are making don't matter as the person you are helping has already perished years before you ever showed up. Additionally, the early warning system doesn't work for you (Despite some discourse about it syncing up with Pipboys) so you're essentially wasting your time installing an early warning system for a swamp full of dead people. Think the warning might be a tad moot at that point, don't you?

At the start, the story incentivizes the player by showing them the horrors of the Scorchbeasts and the husks that their breath creates. This momentum evaporates the moment you inject yourself with a vaccine and become immune to huskification. Nearer the endgame they switch gears and tell you that, unless quelled, the Scorchbeasts will breed and spread across the continent causing "An extinction level event." Holy crap, right? That's serious stuff right there! Only no, because this tape was recorded months ago so either it has already happened or these Scorchbeasts are really taking their darn time. Also let's be honest, the entire game world is devoid of life so what is the difference if everyone else on the continent dies too? That is the dissonance between story and game that severs any emotional connection that the player might build. Even if they're really trying to build it, like I was.

Yet still I liked the game. That was because around the game was a world that was absolutely worth exploring. If you ignore the missing NPC's, hard though it is, you find that the Appalachian Wasteland is one of the most interesting and diverse locations in Fallout yet. It has an incredible mix of corporate corruption, political intrigue and roaming Cryptids. Aspects that were touched on sparingly in other Fallouts actually take centre stage in this world and still retain much of their attractive lure. I enjoyed digging up the history of the Hornwrights and their job threatening tech push or the struggles of the surviving Charleston cabinet trying to maintain order and the chaos that came of that. I loved the mystery of the grounded space station in the north and the curiosities of the machine run city in the south. I came back to 76 time and time again for it's hidden stories, the stories that exist purely for building the world space in my head.

In many ways 76 took a lot of Fallout 4's aspects and made them better, excluding the gunplay and main narrative. As I discussed 76's world is more intriguing; The C.A.M.P allows for tons more freedom with a far Superior building menu, and the legendary weapon gameplay loop works much better in an online game then it did in a single player setting. If only they had done something more involved with the story, and fixed the bugs. Fallout 76 might have become something special. If only someone decided to reverse Fallout 76's biggest blunder.

Enough beating around the bush, you've probably heard the news. Fallout 76 announced this E3 that they plan to bring back NPC's this fall alongside a brand new main story, settlements, companions, romance, the whole shebang. Marking the capping-off of what has been a road map of mostly great content for the struggling game. People cheered for a decision they never expected would be reversed, heck I never expected it. They even tout the lack of NPC's on the back of the physical box. They are going against the back of the box! Is that even legal? Even the team seemed amazed to be going this direction, in the trailer they have the Overseer (Now confirmed to still be alive) say "I don't think any of us expected for people to actually come back." No kidding.

Most telling of all for this paradigm shift in direction is the way how the brief E3 trailer took time to tease the dialogue system. It's going to be the Fallout 3/Vegas dialogue tree again! No limiting wheel in order to accommodate the quickly stale gimmick of move and talk. Full dialogue boxes that will allegedly accompany actual choice and consequence. Maybe, when this 'Wastelanders' expansion hits the game will finally start living up to the promise that everyone had for it in that first trailer. Okay, I won't go that far but it is a huge leap in the right direction.

It still isn't ideal that in the modern age of gaming we are comending a game for announcing that it will reach the state it should have been at launch, one year late. It's a terrible reflection on the absoulte state of AAA development, that Fallout 76 made it to market the way it did for the price it did. But it's done. It happened. It's history and Bethesda will be dealing with these ramifications for years. Likely until the succesful release of Starfield. (Fingers crossed on that one.)

I am optimistic about where Fallout 76 is heading. I like the game and I'm starting to think that one day I may even love it. But that day is not today and I doubt it will come this fall either. Until the day when I can sing the games praises, I'll keep dropping in from time to time and building up my base or gearing up for another solo run of the nuke silo. Or trying those raids I was so excited for, and then completely missed due to E3. And whilst I do that I'll keep looking at that roadmap with anticaption and skepticism. Wondering if this country road really will take the Fallout francise back to the place it belongs.

Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Franchise.

Oh right, there was a Star Wars game wasn't there?

There was a time, not so long ago, where Star Wars was the height of pop culture for me. I read the comics, watched the shows and, most relevantly, I played the heck out of the games. And in that time there was no shortage of middling to great Star Wars video games for me to play. Star Wars: The Force Unleashed, Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy, Empire at War and Pandemic's Battlefront; all allowed us to visit the galaxy not so far away and live the life of a Star Wars hero.

Back then there was a Star Wars game out every year, like a genre unto itself, and Lucasarts managed to get some of the most talented companies in the industry working on their property. This was due, of course, to the lure of Star Wars brand the the availability of the licence. Anyone with the funding and the skills could try their hand at bringing everyone's favourite characters to life in pixelated glory. It's how we got such gems like the Lego Star Wars series, The Star Wars Galaxies MMO and, my third favourite game of all time, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic. So it's safe to say that I am a fan. Or rather was.

As with all things good in the world, the golden age of Star Wars would come to an end. Now, I'm not going to attribute that all to the 2012 acquisition by Disney, 'cause this ain't no movie blog, but I won't put my head in the sand and pretend that the purchase had no affect. At the time that Disney took control of the Star Wars license they, as a company, were on their way out of the Video Game market. As developers Disney had never seen huge success in gaming outside of their Disney Infinity hybrid project that was already beginning to lose steam. Therefore it wasn't a huge surprise when, not long after Disney bought out Lucas, the Lucasarts team was essentially shut down and now exists only as a licenser.

Of course, Disney would be insane to just abandon the video game market entirely; they'd be turning their backs on a billion dollar industry. Disney needed to take advantage of their newly acquired licensee company, but they were no longer making big games themselves and Disney's famously oppressive quality assurance would mean many of the companies that used to make use of the Star Wars brand would now be ineligible. Disney needed a company big enough to handle the production of Star Wars games and with enough resources to ensure they are made to exacting standards. Disney needed EA.

Now, I'm not going to rag on Electronic Arts for the rest of this blog. I look at the founding of this blog as a new start in my relationship with that company; I will now approach them as though nothing they have done previously has had any affect on me. With an exception made to what they did to Star Wars. Remember when I said how there used to be a Star Wars game every year? Not any more. Remember how I mentioned Pandemic's Battlefront as an example of a great Star Wars game? Well now we have DICE's Battlefront with it's undercooked first entry and morally corrupt sequel. And I don't use the label 'Morally corrupt' lightly. Heck, I don't think I've ever used it before.
That being said, it's all water under the bridge. EA have made dozen of platitudes about having learnt from their mistakes and moved on and whilst I don't believe them in the slightest I believe everybody deserves at least one second chance. So I approach Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order with a blank state and a fresh mind.

Straight away we have an palatable prospect; A single player, linear, Star Wars adventure that will follow the story of a Jedi surviving the aftermath of Order 66. It's no 'Star Wars: 1313' (the bounty hunter origin story that was scuppered by Disney when they downsized Lucasarts) or 'Project Ragtag' (The Amy Hennig lead Acton adventure that was killed by EA in favour of an Open World title... that was then killed by EA) but what the heck, I'll eat up your scraps, EA; not like us Star Wars fans have any choice at this point.
Cal Kestis is of the Padiwans who managed to survive the, increasingly ineffectual, Order 66. (Seriously we got Yoda, Obiwan, Kanan, Kota, Paradus, Ashoka, Shaak Ti, Luminara and now Cal? I know what they say about Stormtrooper aim but this is bloody egregious!) Now Kestis, carrying the likeness of voice actor Cameron Monaghan, must struggle to persist in a galaxy ruled by the Empire. It's hardly the most inspired story to come out of the Star Wars lore but in this new cannon I suppose it still has some room to explore.The game itself will center around Cal's journey, allowing you to play as him through his adventure to becoming a true Jedi and likely dying at the end. Hey, there's got to be some excuse why this guy wasn't in the rebellion.

EA opened up it's conference, and indeed all of E3, with an extended gameplay look at Jedi: Fallen Order and after watching the footage ten or twenty times I can conclude that the game looks... fine. Visually it looks pretty, I guess. The gameplay sort of reminds me of the Batman Arkham franchise only leagues easier and the world we got to explore in the E3 demo was Kashyyyk. (Whoopee.) You know, for such a rare and secluded species the Wookies and their homeworld tends to be at the centre of so many different plots. The Sith went there to enslave the population; the separatists tried to invade there for... some reason; two Jedi masters, completely independently from each other, hid there after Order 66 and now the Empire have moved in with the goal of... enslaving the population. Are the bad guys starting to copy each other's notes?

Overall, Respawn's Star Wars looks very safe. They chose the safe option of setting the game during the free-for-all period of Star Wars lore. They made the safe decision to make it about a Jedi, banking off of peoples lust to satiate their power fantasies. They based the story about a young man discovering his Jedi destiny, with friends to help him along the way. They had the protagonist look like he just escaped a cloning facility for stock white guys. Okay, that's a little mean. He's based around Cameron Monaghan; but I can't shake the feeling that somehow, somewhere down the line the design artists made a conscious effort to make him look particularly generic.

Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order is a peace offering from EA. They let Respawn go to town with, what appears to be, very stringent confines to make a Star Wars game that will be as appealing to as many people as possible. This is what you Star Wars fans who miss the golden age get. An action game with a vaguely interesting premise and the honour of being the first video game to feature the Sith inquisitors. (An aspect of the new lore that I am coolly agnostic towards.) All those tactics fans, flight simulator fans and RPG fans that made up the old Star Wars gaming community will have to make do with this compromise of a game.

I know I'm being harsh. I know it's unfair. I'm certain Respawn, creators of the underrated Titanfall franchise, are trying as hard as the can to create the best possible product that they possibly can. But this game has inspired little more than mild interest for my part, as a game that I may pick up two years down the line for a heavy discount. Maybe I'm still just stuck in my nostalgic memories of the age when Star Wars games were plentiful and diverse. Maybe I'm still too darn stubborn to move on and accept that the gaming landscape has moved past the days of high-budget projects that don't reek of corporate conformism. But then I look toward Rockstar or CD Projekt Red and remember you just have to look in the right places, at the right companies.

Darn it, I said I wouldn't rag on EA. I don't want to. I really do want EA and Respawn to prove me wrong about this game. I want it to be something special that will really reverberate with fans of the Star Wars mythos and invite in a whole slate of new fans. Uhh, I'm getting cynical in my old age. Make a good Jedi, I would not. Faith inspires optimism and I haven't had faith in the Star Wars franchise since 2012. Please change my mind EA, I want to love my favourite franchise again.

DOOM Eternal. We're going straight to hell for this...

Welcome to hell, population; you.

Is there anything like the classics? I find it pretty telling that even now, in 2019, one of the most anticipated games of the year is a DOOM title. In the almost sixteen years since the original we have seen so many innovations and changes in the way games are made; we've seen advancements in graphical possibilities, established fundamentals for level design and even seen honest-to-goodness storytelling worked into our favourite hobby. DOOM is one of the grandfathers that sparked it all with iconic, unforgettable gameplay and a simple kickass premise. If Wolfenstein 3d birthed the First Person Shooter genre than DOOM raised and honed it into a deadly, demon slaying machine. (And all in the space of one year.)

That is not to say that DOOM guy has always been with us. There was a period time, after the confusingly named reboot; DOOM 3, when the franchise was dormant. 12 years, in fact. In its absence the FPS market saw the rise of many genre definers that would keep the FPS throne warm whilst the DOOM Slayer hibernated. Bioshock introduced the genre to resource management, Call of duty bought weight onto the player's movement, Far Cry bought mobility with fluidity and Crysis... still runs like crap. All these classic games defined the FPS' of the mid to late 2000's and paved the way for the great FPS revival. Starting with the fantastic 'Wolfenstein: The New Order' in 2014, with its great gunplay, thoughtful level layout and gripping story; And really solidifying in 2016 when the second DOOM reboot came to pass.

I remember that moment when the first DOOM trailer launched. Right away the folks at Id Software made it abundantly clear that this game was going to set itself apart from the well worn FPS market. Where Wolfenstein: TNO impressed with an adult, well told narrative; DOOM would win back gamers with its relentlessly brutal gameplay aesthetic. Yes, this was the same old story of the DOOM marine wiping out the demon population of mars, but we had never seen him do it with such ardent ferocity. Back in 1993 the height of DOOM's violence was the way in which some of the sprites would burst into bloody chunks if you shot them with the super shotgun or the way enemies would gush pixelated blood when you stuck your chainsaw in their chest. In the lead up to the 2016 game, we saw the DOOM Slayer rip off a Possessed's arm and beat the demon to death with it. This was a DOOM for a whole new generation. A whole new desensitized generation.

DOOM would release to rave reviews and a whole slew of sales. Fans old and new flocked to the gore-ridden blood splattered revitalization of the FPS genre. DOOM 2016 was pure, classic, video game fun and people responded to its simple truths. That isn't to say that the game had no story, just that it didn' matter. The DOOM Slayer himself indicates as such when he (Without requiring prompting from the player) grabs and tosses exposition-spewer Samuel Hayden's terminal halfway across the room in favour of killing some more demons. He isn't given a motivation, he hunts the demons. He doesn't negotiate and cooperate, he slays more demons. The DOOM Slayer was presented to us as a one-dimensional badass just like he always should have been. Id Software even gave him a cool backstory that painted out the lore as though the DOOM Slayer was always hunting demons, from age to age, never tiring, never faulting, always slaying. Like a space-age John Wick.

With how much adoration, praise and (most importantly) money that the DOOM revival generated, a sequel was inevitable. DOOM Eternal looks to be the entry that will finally push the franchise further than it has ever been before. Don't get me wrong, the first game was and is thrilling but in many ways it wasn't entirely fresh. It was a modern reimagining which was crafted to invoke the essence of the 1993 original. With DOOM Eternal we're pushing the setting forward. We're leaving Mars and Hell and seem to heading to Heaven in order to... kill angels? (It isn't exactly clear but I must say, the prospect does give me flashes of Paradise Lost. If Paradise Lost had more decapitations, that is.) Players will face off against at least one sky scrapper sized demon and have a laser sword fight with a hell knight. Oh, and God is in the game. And he looks like one heck of boss fight.

Eternal promises to take us to places that we've never before been in a DOOM game. We've seen a demon ridden human colony, (That isn't on Mars this time) a cathedral space station donned with seraphic iconography and a swirling vortex drilled into the face of what looks to be the moon: Phobos. Id Software have also expanded their colour palette beyond shades of red to take us on a visually spectacular roller coaster through the bizarre science-mythological world of DOOM. Visual fidelity has been improved as well. Glory kills are more visceral then ever with demon organs now tucked away inside of those demonic flesh bags you eviscerate.

Visuals, however, are just the garnish and DOOM Eternal does not disappoint when it comes to gameplay either. The player's basic arsenal has been expanded upon from DOOM 2016 to include several new weapons with slick alt fire modes, a handy chain for pulling yourself around or pulling demons to you and the aforementioned laser sword. Because swords are cool. All of these tools are to be placed in the hands of the DOOM Slayer as he cuts a visceral path through the forces of... I guess just anyone who gets in his way this time. Each new addition still shakes hands with the old mechanics to enrich gameplay without diluting the formula. It is incredibly delicate recipe that Id are well equipped to cook.

Whilst other franchises feel the need to alter their very DNA to stay relevant, such as the melodramatic remodelling of the Modern Warfare licence, DOOM can still wow audiences with the simple pleasures of ultra violence. This isn't a reflection on how shallow the series is but rather a dive into how bottomless the potential is. Wolfenstein showed that a modern FPS can respectfully tell a dramatic narrative and DOOM Eternal is set to enforce that a concept shaped around the idea of endless conflict can still be fun and even surprising for a modern audience. Even after all these years; Id is at the top of their game.

Elden Ring. Oh, Elden Ring!

I doubt I could even imagine it.

This is perhaps the first time I've written it but it shall not be the last; I love stories. Moreover, I love storytelling. Stories have been a part of human culture ever since we first discovered how to communicate. Stories are how we teach, how we learn and how we speculate. A story told right is one that will last for generations.

We experience stories and storytelling every day in our books, on TV, at the movies and in games. Each medium has its own special quirks unique to it that makes it difficult to translate elsewhere. That isn't to say that games can't have moments that can be 'cinematic'; but that you can't tell a story you told in a movie the same way you tell it in video games, and vice versa. Just look at video game movies; like the mess that was the Assassins Creed movie. Games are expected to be 10-20 hours long on average, giving the story plenty of time to juggle two entirely unrelated stories such as an assassin in the present and his ancestor. However, in the movie there was just no time and so all the moments of the movie set in old Spain were stripped of story and left as just impressive feats of action with no context. Storytellers must always be cognizant of the medium they are utilizing and always play to its strengths, or else the final product suffers.

This brings me to Hidetaka Miyazaki. Miyazaki is renowned as a visionary game director and storyteller who greatly benefits each project he heads. So much so that he has built a reputation for his company, From Software, as being master craftsmen responsible for a slew of high concept masterpieces. Dark Souls in particular absolutely enamoured me with its unique take on storytelling, told in a way that one could only do by utilising the strengths of storytelling in games. At some point I intend to write a full blog on the specific ways that Dark Souls  revolutionises storytelling whilst simultaneously returning the art form to its spiritual roots. For now I just want to establish that this is man who is a master of his craft and who understands how to work within his medium.

Enter George R. R. Martin. Another renowned storyteller in his own field. Say what you will about season 8 of Game of Thrones, (And 7 while we're at it.) but for all the time the show was directly adapting his work it was a one-of-a-kind rollercoaster that pushed the art of TV shows further than they had ever gone before. And the books are good too. George R. R. Martin has a long and rich career of writing for films, TV and, of course, books. He is an incredibly talented and subversive storyteller who respects his audience enough to deliver them tales that ring with the utmost authenticity.

What do these two auteurs have in common? Elden Ring of course! Elden Ring is the latest From Software project to get a sly tease and a vague trailer. Marketed as a meeting of two great narrative minds, Elden Ring promises to deliver a challenging story, with classic souls gameplay and a concept that is 'bigger' than anything From Software have produced before. Whatever that means. All I know is that as an amateur writer I find the collaboration of one of my heroes with an author I greatly respect to be absolutely fascinating. That is why I will now proceed to break down the stark, haunting, weird teaser that was dropped during the Xbox conference for any nugget of insight I might glean.

First I decided to provide a transcript of the disparaging old man who narrates the trailer:

I doubt you could even imagine it,

That which commanded the stars

Giving life its fullest brilliance.

The Elden Ring.

Oh, Elden Ring!

Shattered by someone, or something.

Don't tell me you don't see it.

Look up at the sky, it burns!

Then I realised that all sounds more like a sermon then anything concrete enough to draw actual information from. But it's all we have to go on so let amateur analysis commence!

Right away the viewer is berated for being a dullard and told of the importance of this seemingly omniscient, godly presence known as the Elden Ring. I feel that it's important to note the reverence in the tone and feel of the trailer suggesting an almost religious feverance within the speaker. Whatever this Elden Ring is, the trailer man seems to hold it in as high regard as the first flame from Dark Souls, A lynch pin the holds the whole world together. Or rather held.

'Someone or something' (Real specific there, pal) managed to break this force of such omnipotent power and the backlash of this event appears to be have caused something catastrophic. 'The Sky... burns!'

Now I'm done listing the bleeding obvious, lets dive into rampant speculation.

When the voice first speaks, we're greeted with the image of this old man sporting about five arms too many and holding a severed forearm above his crowned head. For me, this image immediate evokes the concept of creationism, with the many armed figure reminding me of beings like Kali from Hinduism or... well... Arceus from Pokemon. Okay, hear me out! Arceus was another character based heavily around the idea of the creator deity represented in many religious cultures. And he had 1000 arms. Allegedly. We never saw them.

If this image is supposed to represent a creator of some kind, is it so far to assume that he might be some form or representation of the 'unimaginble' concept that is the Elden Ring? Unlikely. Chances are he is just our narrator and the man who will greet us at the beginning before giving us a whisper of a motive and sending us on our merry way. But I can speculate.

Also, there is a moment when the servered arm twitches as though it is still alive. I don't know what this is meant to denote but it might be a reflection of what I have gathered to be the core theme. Familiarity with Hidetaka Miyazaki's work had taught me that it ain't a Miyazaki game without the theme of decay. But perhaps with 'Ring' in the title we could be looking at a theme of renewal too. Like the ouroboros, the serpent eating its tail, The Elden Ring could be the process of death and rebirth symbolised by... a twitching severed arm... Yes I know I'm grasping here, just work with me.

Now we see the smith, hard at work at his forge. Several of the shots of this trailer revolve around showing him off, so he or his work is clearly of importance here. The man himself appears to be cracked and burnt as though his skin is made of porcelain and at the moment he finishes whatever it is he is forging, the man falls to his knees like his toils have finished him off.

What is he crafting? It's hard to say as the shots are specifically constructed in order to block the viewer from seeing but the obvious answer would be the Elden Ring. I know that clashes with my earlier theory but we're going to treat it as an open relationship. I can't shake the vibes of Lord of the Rings this shot gives me, either, as though The Smith is pounding away at the one ring like some hairy Nordic Celebrimbor. I'm not a big fan of the idea that The Elden Ring is just a piece of jewelry but with a shot like this is hard not to draw Tolkien parallels. I know George R. R. Martin is a Tolkien fan so this may just be a thematic send up but the prominence of this image in the trailer implies something more concrete.

One hypothesis I have is that this Smith is a god, or The God, crafting the divine entity that is the Elden Ring. Hence the cracked, porcelain skin to indicate that he isn't human and the intentionally obscured perspective to indicate that he works at something beyond earthly comprehension.

Another observation I made is that one shot shows The Smith striking his anvil, and at the moment after he does the cracks and his back grow as though the act of making this ring is destroying him with every strike.

Next we get a couple of enduring images of two individuals that I have decided to label The Burnt Lady and 'Gilgamesh'. I named the former for her burnt hand and fiery plume and the latter for his resemblance to Gilgamesh as he appeared in Final Fantasy Type 0. These two are perhaps the only human characters we seen in the entire trailer and are indicated as such by their wear and tear. The Burnt Lady has a badly scolded arm and fits what seems to be a prosthetic onto her left shoulder. 'Gilgamesh' is seen staring up and screaming into the heavens as the narrator equates the shattering of The Elden Ring and the burning of the sky. As he screams, 'Gilgamesh's' garments seem to be beginning to catch ablaze, as though the narrator was being literal about the whole sky thing.

Perhaps this references a mechanic in which the longer the player remains within the force of the red sky the more they catch on fire.

Tenuous, I know. 

Maybe the absence of the sun within these shots is also important. If The Elden Ring 'Commanded the stars' and the Ring ain't around no more, the sun might be decaying as a result. We do get a glimpse of something beyond the sky when The Shatterer charges but I will get more into my theory on that, next.

'Gilgamesh' seems to be a lone survivor sitting amidst some sort of battlefield (Just like in Final Fantasy Type 0) with some very large weaponry nearby. He looks almost as though he is surrendering to his fate as the burning sky swallows him up. This tell me that the world we are being shown is undergoing some sort of doomsday scenario in the absence of The Elden Ring. Maybe this is the world players will get to explore; but I suspect that, given Miyazaki's previous bodies of work, that what we see is the prequel to our story. We will likely see the world in the aftermath of it's apocalypse and walk among the dead, just like dark souls.

I chose to separate The Shatterer from The Burnt Lady and 'Gilgamesh' because I believe this scene comes from earlier than those two. For one, he is the only character we see outside who is not burnt, for two, he is the character we see when our narrator mentions the 'something or someone' who shattered The Elden Ring. Also, we even see the sun clearly behind him as he charges not faded like it is in 'Gilgamesh's' shot.

The Shatterer (Assuming he is the one who shatters The Elden Ring) seems reminiscent of Dark Souls' iconic Black Knights from their matching scorched obsidian armour and shared penchant for long halberd's. In Dark Souls, the Black Knights were the spirits of Lord Gwyn's silver army sacrificed in the linking of the first flame. Perhaps this Shatterer is a dark reflection on them, a being that lives in a world of enlightenment who shatters The Elden Ring and brings darkness upon the land.

Do note that I do not believe that the scene the see depicts the shattering of the Elden Ring, The Shatterer appears to be ganking some poor golden armoured guy who doesn't even have a guard up, but I have chosen to equate him with the words that accompanied him. Of course he could just be a nobody and I'm looking into him way too much. That is likely. I should move on.

The trailer concludes how I have already described. The Smith finishes his work and falls to his knees spent/ possibly dead, some otherworldly presence seems to ooze from his workspace and we get a fleeting glimpse at a lady overseeing his work. The Forewoman, as I have called her, seems godly too. She is present within this dark abyssal void, for one, and she shares The Smith's pale, milky complexion. Beyond that her presence is an absolute mystery. The narrator has already trailed off to go chase kids off his lawn by the time she shows up and we see so little of her that it's hard to even guess at her role. I suppose her relevance will remain one of the many mysteries that this game raises. And maybe even answers. If we're lucky and eat our greens.

Needless to say I'm already heavily invested in this game. I've always loved the dreamy, ethereal essence of the From Software trailers and the way the seem to beg you to unravel its layers of secrets. Now I can say I've devoted a blog's worth of speculation to the matter and perhaps now my hungry heart can rest until more is revealed. Don't count on it though.

If you have any ideas yourself, please comment down below. From my nonsensical ramblings you can see that there are no wrong guesses here. At least none that are any more wrong.