The paradox of Paradox

 

So oft do we discuss the machinations of the titans of our industry it can sometimes escape mind that the backbone of gaming is more commonly everything but. The indies, the AA's- those who entreat the niches of our niche and not just the big crowd seekers that seek the every expanding splash. And admits them there is none that I am coming to respect ever more in my advancing years than Paradox- a publisher who exists to squirm annoying in the face of those that insist gaming is and always has been solely for children. (Yes, I read that Metro article- inflammatory and reductive though it was.) Theirs has been the realm of 4X tactics games, Simulation titles, city builders and maybe even a life sim if we lived on a different timeline. But alas- that particular cancellation is the topic of today.

Life by You was the topic of many a thought piece not that long following their rather sudden cancellation just a few short weeks before the supposed launch of their Early Access- and in that void questions have sprung up as hearts sored for what they never had. Personally I saw Life By You as little more than an overly ambitious pipedream fed out of a little bit of a ropey-looking Unity project- but in hindsight I came to appreciate the spirit of what the game promised which everyone else seemed to grasp so much more readily. It wasn't about the individual quality, but having the desire to try and challenge and remake the stagnant life sim genre- wresting a monopoly out of the hands of Sims 4- a game which disappointed in scope back when it first launched- let alone to this day!

But how does a game go along the track to imminent publishing before getting pulled out from under someone like that- to such a rapid degree that even the development studio didn't expect it? Following the cancellation a lot of questions hovered around regarding the game, why it was canned- even by the developers themselves! Well, that was before they, Tectonic, were shut down by Paradox in a move which I think can only be described as 'shocking'. Then again, with the space of hindsight, I suppose Tectonic were founded with the sole goal of creating Life By You, therefore without it there's no objective reason to keep them around- but outside of objectivity it's just kind of a dismissive way to treat your studios. As though we don't already have enough systemic wrestles with self worth in this day and age- you know?

Now I think a lot of unfortunate circumstances have come crashing together for Paradox of late, creating a kind-of miasma of despair they've unfortunately fallen prey to. I'm talking about the general dissatisfaction with City Skylines 2- the complete and utter failure of Lamplighters league, (Wait, that was a Tactics title? Like X-Com style tactics? Might have to check that one out...) Oh, and then there was the split with Double Elven- creators of the cult classic 'Prison Architect' (A game I tried desperately to get into several times) causing the sequel to be delayed into eternity. This has been a bad year for the company all around- and I hate to see it because honest- at their best Paradox published titles hit the kind of itch no-one else can. Stellaris, Crusader Kings the first City Skylines- I love those games for what they are. I'd hate for their publisher to find themselves in jeopardy. 

Paradox Interactive recently went in front of their investors to be appropriately upfront about what they see as being 'the problem'. Overconfidence, in a word. The deputy CEO spins a tale about going into projects too hard, investing early in ideas that might have ended up not panning out the way they wanted them to and this feeds into a lot of problems we see effecting the industry at large. Bigger teams with longer tails end up circling the wagons more on simple tasks. We've recently been inundated with excerpts from Jason Schierer's upcoming book on Blizzard that relay similar confusions, where team members end up working on assets that had been completed by someone else months prior. Even just arguing about the direction of a game can hold of months of pay, muddy an idea or entrench viewpoints that fail to reflect the realities of the outside world. Long story short- it's tough out there for scaling up production.

For Paradox it seems they claim their confidence applied blinders, maybe something akin to the sunk cost fallacy, where ideas that really weren't working were allowed to fester because to say otherwise would be to admit having wasted time and money. That explains how a Life by You would have made it all the way to the week before launch until someone sat back and went "This game really isn't going to do well at launch". It sounds harsh, but bare in mind Paradox recently went through City Skylines 2- a game which had the entire genre-type in a chokehold during marketing only to realise as a poor shell of the original title that sought innovations in areas that few to no player really appreciated in exchange for taking liberties in places that players really cared about- such as accessible performance. Skylines still has a sore reputation in the community after years and that rubs off on the developer and the publisher- maybe Paradox saw the exact same situations approaching with Life By You.

Of course we're never going to get specifics, that would be 'unprofessional' or something- but you don't really need everything written in bold ink to figure the heart of it all. We hear about them 'trusting the devs' before realising "Everything will be worse if we keep going, so we have to stop." It seems a good guess was made by the community in the assumption that the cost required to make this game a true competitor to Sims 4 was more than the publishers realised that they could fund- and in the current state the Early Access would embarrass more than it would impress. And that's a really hard thing to see from the inside looking out, to be honest. Getting to that point requires some real introspection that can become muddied in the big picture of a team project.

Where they are right now, Paradox has really burnt up a lot of that consumer trust they had- which is significant given how much a publisher their size relies on that trust. Sure, on one hand you might argue they have a stranglehold on games of this type built to this size, but on the other- a lot of their popular titles are enfranchised. All those popular hitters I named are years old supported by infrequent DLC drops, you can't really support a growing publisher off of that. You need new games that people buy, expanded IPs, eggs in more baskets. But as I said for 343, recognising the problem is the first step to fixing it- and I hope Paradox really knock it out the park in the years to come because, to be honest, their a unique little star in our industry I want to see shine more. 

Death by Paradox

 

If there's one thing about the whole life cycle of Life By You taught me- it's that after all these decades under the degradation of the EA hammer- people really want a competitor to the Sims brand. I guess it's something you never really think about if you've fallen off from caring about that franchise ever since EA decided to turn it into a simulator game for how many inconsequential pieces of nothing they tacked onto the product with a hefty pricetag. The bloat has gotten so ridiculous it's now a mental hurdle for new people coming to the game simply looking at the insane price to have at everything on offer and deciding- "you know what? I don't want that smoke!" The average consumer, and even the entrenched life simulation enthusiast, seems to have finally gotten around to the truth that if literally anyone else could scour some ground in this market- maybe things would be just that little bit more equitable on the consumer's side. Just a tiny bit.

The reason I know that so well is because when Life By You was first announced it looked like total crap and no one can convince me otherwise. Seriously, just look at it! Life By You seemed every bit the under-realised starter Unity project back when it's in those pre-Alpha stages of trying to figure out the bare basic idea of what it is you're even doing. Everything, from the character models to the UI looked placeholder- and it's only by merit of the publishers involved that I didn't immediately take it for another overly ambitious nowhere project helmed by a team of first time coders. Paradox's name alone was the only thing that led this game announcement any ounce of legitimacy in my wary eyes. But when you're just hungry for a competitor- you look past the face and see the heart.

Life By You promised full world simulation, instead of the aggressively regressive 'single plot' simulation that The Sims 4 has confusingly peddled for so very long now. Itself an absolutely humongous leap back from The Sims 3's simulation efforts which allowed people to wonder the whole neighbourhood if they felt like it. Of course, LBY promised to take things one step further by having all the town be playable on a whim, so that if one families' plight began to bore you could switch to see what the bickering couple down the road's life is like. That kind of seamless connectivity would obviously be impossible in the direction that the Sims went, making a genuine opportunity for more of the ultimate 'life sim' fantasy to be fulfilled. 

But then the game did also throb with an air of the overambitious too. There were those typical overreaches of promise that boasted more of insane propositions rather than legitimate possibilities. NPCs taking off their clothes and then leaving them on the ground to be interacted as objects? That is an insane level of dynamic deformation values that would need to be applied on every errant piece of clothing at all times- for a seemingly inconsequential feature. How about cutting flowers in a garden and then putting those flowers in a vast? Innocent enough, until you learn that was supposed to be tracked the entire way from the ground to the vase. This is 'watching an acorn turn into a tree' from the Original Fable all over again!

Still- I guess I speak ill of the dead with all this rambling because wouldn't you know it- despite the hype and the anticipation- Life By You was unceremoniously killed, axed, cancelled- by Paradox Interactive themselves. The game had been scheduled to go onto early access just a few weeks beforehand, it missed that deadline and then wiped it's slate totally clean but a stone's throw later. (Damn, I didn't Paradox was run by the Japanese Train board!) Now this pretty much came right out of nowhere as not enough eyes were on this game for media feelers to be out there. No trickle of troubled development scenarios managed to make it's way to the headlines and this all spiralled out of control before anyone outside really knew what was happening.

Now we have retrospectives from the now defunct studio, yes they killed the studio as well, telling us just some small measure of the puzzle- and the conclusions we can draw are... puzzling. William Delventhal posted his testimony to Linkedin on the matter, claiming that the game was actually coming together well and the milestones they had set for themselves seemed to have been approved by Paradox until suddenly they weren't anymore. The Early Access was cancelled for them, and with the same public announcement that the rest of us heard- the team lost their jobs. (Which is never going to be anything but the worst way to close a studio. Do you have so little respect for your own staff that you can't even break the news to them personally before airing it out for all the world to see and natter on? It's just a gross, yet common, practice.)

So everything was going well? In a situation like this it seems literally no one holds the answers aside from the suits themselves and all we can do is speculate amongst ourselves about a situation that seems to make no earthly sense. They had the tools to challenge the Sims, even to some small degree, and if that ultimately hadn't worked out for them then at least the attempt would have been made! Apparently the team seems to think what they had was above the minimum threshold to early launch, but someone higher was apparently playing on a totally different board. Maybe someone was looking at the roadmap to totally finish the game and just thought the expense wouldn't be worth the cost, or that the reputational hit of failure would be worse than that of giving up now. (To which most conventional logic would insist is demonstrably untrue.)

Whatever the case it leaves us with the situation where EA's ant farm life-sim has won again without lifting a finger. Top god without making any concession, without fighting for their audience and without learning any valuable lessons about value propositions. I won't pretend to have been a diehard supporter of Life By You- but I like the potential of life sims and was really excited for the future back in the days of Sims 3. Now the genre has stagnated, and apparently the barrier to break in is so overwhelming that a publisher seemingly designed for the sole purpose of developing titles for this kind of crowd- long form deep focus style games, can't take the risk. Can't wait for Sims 5 where EA starts charging us for slots to maintain simultaneous households! (I'm only half joking- I bet they've at least considered that.)

The Bannerlord

 They pulled me back in!

I am a sucker for a fantastic story. Aren't we all? The stakes of a well crafted narrative that unfurls gradually before snapping up and capturing you in it's web, spinning endless tales of daring exploits, twisted relationships and heart wrenching pathos! It's one of the reasons why Baldur's Gate 3 did so well, it had such a robust and malleable narrative that anyone could play around with empowered by the special video game sauce of having the potential to do literally anything with those beats and make the narrative all your own. That's all we ask for in our games. (That isn't too much, is it?) But sometimes I don't have the brain space to dedicate to a whole other universe with characters and stakes and narratives and finales. Sometimes I just want to kick up my feet, slap on some noise on the screen and live in a world that is as in depth or as vapid as I want it to be at that given time. It's at these points I would love to spend my time playing Destiny, but given how Bungie are so revolted by the idea of new-players joining the ecosystem that they actively design their games to sabotage them- guess I'll stick with Sandbox RPGs.

Sandbox RPGs are great in the way that they combine the ultimate freedom of a story-free adventure game where you can travel the game world, do anything and be anyone; with the somewhat structured progression inherent in a solid RPG game system. Do you want to be a trader who goes from town to town pawning off goods here and buying some to take over there? You sure can, but you'll slowly get better at doing it as you go, telling the naturally evolving story of a gifted tradesman learning their craft and dealing with the troubles of the road in the journey. Simply bliss, right? Of course, most Sandbox RPGs have some idea of how they want you to experience their game and world, but the beauty of the subgenre is the ability to spit in the face of the architects and play however the heck you want to. That is why I come back to the Mount and Blade games again and again.

Not just Mount and Blade, I hasten to add. Space Sims have their place in my mind as well, as long as those space sims don't cost several thousand pounds in order to 'buy in': Star Citizen. (Squadron 42 does look sick though, very surprised with what they've put together over there.) But something about the Mount and Blade formula is just that right level of janky, unwieldy mess and thoughtful medieval simulation that tickles my jimmies. Originally released back in 2008 by the Turkish Developer TaleWorlds, the game was conceived to simulate the trade, management and tactical warfare of the swords and steel era of man, set within a fictional continent that at one point was going to have zombies and necromancers before clarity struck the development team and a semi-realistic direction was settled on instead. (Damn, this game was so ahead of it's time they both almost fell into the 'Survival zombie' niche of the 2010's and managed to mature past it into our current age- innovators I tell you.)

But at the end of the day Mount and Blade is really just a game about first person Medieval battles where you smash through a shield wall of fleshy humans with your giant armoured horse and gleefully chuckle in the crunching of bones and flying of heads! Actually there is no decapitation. Or bone crunching SFX. (Missed opportunity, I tell you!) But the immersion is certainly there in those moments when you're charging at a giant rolling cloud of approaching cavalry, Warhammer primed for a preliminary swing! Or staring up at the parapets of the fortress you are scaling watching arrows rain back and forth. The game ain't the prettiest in the world but damn if it doesn't nail all the right vibes that you would be looking for an experience like this. Just goes to show that graphics aren't the whole cake, they ain't even the icing sometimes.

Where Mount and Blade really impressed was with it's melee combat, which remains one of the best systems ever invented for medieval battles both for it's simplicity and it's engagement. Basically, it's just a four directional system where a weapon can be swung overhead, underarm or to either side, with the type of weapon (blunt or sharp) and the locational damage calculating up how much damage is being done. But the elegance is in the movement. By default the player just needs to push their mouse in the direction before swinging and the attack will come from that direction. Look up to do an overhead, look down to go underarm. Blocking just means matching those directional strikes with a well timed block. It's intuitive, it works. In fact it works so well that Mount and Blade has been recycling it time and time again ever since they originated the system- and there's plenty of Medieval fighting games since that owe something of the Mount and Blade framework for what they'd make of themselves. (Even Ubisoft's For Honor owes some blood to TaleWorlds.)

The latest iteration of Mount and Blade, entitled Bannerlord, utilises many of what made the original games so endlessly replayable and brings them into a slightly more stable and pretty package. Bannerlord still isn't anyone's idea of a 'good looker' when it comes to raw graphical prowess, but their is a rugged beauty in the musty fog drifting above a battlefield swamp or the glittering light settled on a lake moments before a dozen cavalry crack that perfect mirror. And the character models look less like unevolved primal apes, so that at least is a step in something of the right direction. Aside from that Bannerlord is functionally the exact same sort of game as the 2008 predecessor. Which really goes to show the staying power of the little cult classic that could, no?

My favourite memoires are the game at it's most hectic, caught in the middle of giant city siege in a moshpit of swords and hammer where everyone is cutting at everyone else with reckless abandon. But there's something to said about the tactical moments too, when you're in a huge battle, two hundred men weaker than your opponent, and take command of a cavalry strike force- cutting away at the enemy force one formation at a time until you turn those heavy tides. There's very few games that can propose 30 minute long battles whilst keeping the tension taut, and Bannerlord can count itself amidst the few! Whether the cycle of fighting an endless war in which the micromanagement is more likely to overwhelm you before the difficulty does is your cup of tea comes down to the amount of patience you have, I suppose.

Mount and Blade really has longer legs than most to still be somewhat relevant, if within it's niche, in the modern day after all these years- and for a game originally conceived and constructed by a husband and wife duo that is a legacy worth hanging up on the wall as a trophy. There's a timeless appeal to a game like that, one you'll find in Minecraft or Stardew, that worms into your mind and stays there totally naturally, without needing to hook you in the desperate and predatory way that Live Services fall over themselves to do. So if you ever find yourself wondering what it would be like to be part of a castle siege, and balk at all the intimidating looking 'total simulation' medieval games out there with their sweaty online leaderboards and mile-tall barrier to entry, then you could do a lot worse than slapping down a few bucks on a classic in it's own right. Grab a mount and don that blade.

Bloodlines 2 ain't dead yet!

 But maybe it should be.

It's been a while since I've had the chance to discuss anything Vampire: The Masquerade Bloodlines 2 Electric Boogaloo here and for good reason. The last update anyone heard was the recent news that key management had been ejector seated from the company due to extreme disagreements with Publisher Paradox and as a result of that, not even accounting for the terrible year for productivity that 2020 was, and the subsequent drop of the development studio Hardsuit Labs, the game which already had a release window was delayed into obscurity. The way they all painted it made things seem like a game with a development outline was just totally jettisoned out the window and the remaining developers (whomever they may be) have since started from scratch, and I haven't heard a great deal since to dissuade me of that assumption. But at the very least, for whatever it's worth, I can say that right now, for the exact present moment, Bloodlines 2 isn't dead. Yet.

I talked a disastrous game last time about how certain I was this game wouldn't see the light of day, and have I completely shaken that perception? No. In fact a decent part of me feels that the game we saw advertised in that trailer that we loved is going to seem incredibly out of date if we ever do see the game, but Paradox want's everyone to know that the 'delay hammer' hasn't been switched for the 'cancel hammer'. But what that infomation is even worth when we're talking about a project that went from "Expect it around about this time" to "Expect it at some point- I dunno", is questionable. Does anyone have a handle on this project? Is there a person in charge? Do we have enough ancillary Vampire the Masquerade projects to keep the writhing masses sedated for this belated game of 'pass the buck'? All unanswerable queries, for the moment.

Legendary developer Chris Avellone was one of the names that was laid off from the project at the worst of the news cycle, but there's enough evidence to say that since then the entire development studio was essentially 'laid off'. (As in the project was nabbed from them, I don't think the studio has folded or anything) Not too long ago he himself was asking what the hell was happening with this game, as every avenue he had to development had been rooted out of Paradox too leaving him just in the know as the general public. That is to say, we haven't heard jack since the character reveal of Damsel. (Which was mid 2020, by-the-way) Chris seems to think that none of the work he done on the project is being kept, Brain Mitsoda (Lead narrative) left at around the same time so maybe none of his work is being preserved either. Now baring in mind that the game as we know was revealed when both of them were still doing their contributions, what even is this game anymore?

For all we know, Paradox could turn around and throw an isometric CRPG at us and call it Vampire The Masquerade. Now would I be totally opposed to that? Maybe not entirely, depending on what they would do with such a gameplay set-up, but the point I'm trying to establish is that this silence has been utterly perplexing from a fan's perspective. (Although I'm warming up to an Original Sin style turned based RPG) Unless we're expecting some sort of huge gate-crash reveal during the game awards, and I'm not, we're about to cross an entire year and a half without updates on this project. (Sans departures) But through it all the Vegas strip has remained open for business and Bloodlines 2 is miraculously free from the chopping block. Again, that fact amazes me. Although that doesn't mean it's always been immune.

During a recent interview we actually heard a bit about the higher level management decisions that were being made on this project, curtsey of a Mr. Direkt through Avanza. (They're not some bold newcomer to the game journalism field, they're a stockbroker firm from Sweden. So this update on the game wasn't even meant for us: Paradox sure have a strange relationship with marketing) Apparently after they pulled the premature foetus-of-a-game from it's incubation, they toyed with the power of life and death they wielded in that very moment, drunk on the godlike control over eternity. That would have been the end for our little undead abomination, if it weren't for the plucky intervention of some unknown saviour who swooped in with an apparently tantalising pitch. This mysterious benefactor then wisped the babe away to the tall towers of Candlekeep, to start many years of tuition in hopes that the child's destiny may never come back to darken it.

Hmm? Sorry, I just started playing Baldur's Gate 3, I got a little confused for a time there. What was I on about? Ah, that's right: The mysterious guys who snatched Vampire's development. Some incredible-how they've managed to remain anonymous, but by the way this interview sounded it was almost as if Paradox themselves were approached on the matter, so one can assume it's a company they've worked with or are trusting of. Whatsmore, our little tattletail executive bigged up this pitch in saying that it sounded like it would live up to the 'expectations of fans', namely the expectations that they provided fans with the concerted marketing efforts before they decided they didn't like it anymore. So I guess that means I can abandon my dreams of a topdown CRPG for now, this game will at least attempt to imitate what we've seen thusfar. 

Which could mean anything, to be honest, because Paradox's whims and wants are apparently so unknowable that Hardsuit Labs managed to make this game to freakin' E3 gameplay demo level of developed before the publishers realised they didn't like the direction. Heck, we don't even know if the original narrative, which I think it's fairly obvious was going to make big moves in exploring the coming apocalypse 'Gehenna' destined to descend upon the World of Darkness, it going to be kept at all. Certainly that demo has been scrapped. A lot of characters and world elements are gone. Maybe even the small cast we already know to be in the game aren't there anymore. Damsel might be totally up in smoke.

All of this leaves me in the peculiar position where I'm not entirely sure if I'm excited for this game anymore. Back when I first heard about the sequel to Bloodlines, my gut reaction was of fear that a flawed strange little RPG would be sullied by a crappy sequel. That trepidation didn't really leave until that trailer which made me fall in love, but know I'm right back to that awkward stage of club-footed flirting just before the first date. By refusing to impart any knowledge to their fans, Paradox are wantonly obfuscating the fact that this game has most likely undergone a total reimaging and revisioning behind the scenes, which I find to be quiet disingenuous and exploitative, truth be told. Still, at least we've got Bloodlines 2 still in the pipe-line, whatever that even means anymore.

Vampire The Masquerade: Swansong

 I see your white door

Not that long ago I dived into the wild and crazy World of Darkness video game universe to talk about all the plethora or 'in-process' or recently released games that were coming towards us waiting 'Vampire: The Masquerade' fans in order to soothe or aching hearts after the whole 'Bloodlines 2 losing half of it's development and going on extended hiatus' incident. As much as it saddens me to say, in that time we've heard absolutely nothing new from the game and I think (judging from all that's come out regarding warring opinion's of direction and higher-up dissatisfaction) we're edging ever closer to either a complete reboot of the project or just a straight cancellation. Honestly, I hope for neither eventuality as I was really liking what I was personally seeing, but there we are. During my hopeless groping search for literally anything worthy of clinging onto, I spotted this little game called 'Vampire the Masquerade: Swansong' which intrigued me for existing in name only.

Typically whenever a new game gets announced you want to do that along some form of content to at least prove to the public that something is indeed being made. Be that a trailer, some screenshots or, if you're feeling real spicy, maybe even a demo. (It happens! Don't give me that look!) Swansong hit us so abruptly and so 'sans-trailer', that I initially thought this was a surprise reveal of the new subtitle for the Vampire game. (This was before I discovered that 'The Masquerade' was in reference to the tabletop's edition. Or that the game was even related to a tabletop to begin with.) It was only later that I realised this was actually it's very own game with nothing more than vague words that sort of implied we were looking at something narrative based with RPG elements to it. It wouldn't be until this E3, actually, that we managed to get a trailer for the game which could put it's money where it's mouth was, thus we now have footage to flesh out this proposition for us.

Or rather, this is a trailer that has fleshed out what one third of this game is going to be, because we know from the mission statement that this is going to be a game of multiple perspectives, so our enigmatic developers are still playing things close to the chest on that front. Instead we have a single perspective being highlighted, which at least shows how the team are dedicated to making each part of the game substantial enough to stand up on it's own. What we're still missing, however, is the concrete evidence that this game is an 'RPG' as the initial statements claim. Remember that? 'A narrative RPG'. What does that even mean? 'A Narrative game' makes me think of something akin to 'Life is Strange' or a Telltale title, where you follow a story and make choices for how events should play out, sort of like a 3D interactive VN, but RPG opens that definition up so much more. Is there going to be levelling? Skillpoints? Combat? You leave us with so much to speculate on, Big Bad Wolf Studio!

So what of the trailer? Actually things seem pretty intriguing, with as getting to see a rather disturbed looking female vampire who seems to be caught between some sort of delusion of being a mother-like figure in some idyllic mindspace and the harsh reality being a Kindred. Of course, we're currently looking at the Malkavian's perspective on this Swansong story, with this particular branch of vampirism being forever renowned for their loose grip on reality fuelling seemingly random bouts of lunacy covering the odd kernel of supernatural perception. We've never really gotten the chance to explore one of these kindred in a video game format before, which could prove quite interesting. The most I can think of is in Bloodlines one, where if you picked the Malkavian then you would be treated to singsong dialogue choices that would infuriate just about everyone around with their indirection. This looks a lot more involved than that.

There was even hints of actual gameplay in this reveal, and when I say 'hints' I mean actual slithers of barely anything tagged with the label 'beta gameplay' to let us know the developers have actually coded something during all of this time. Once again, we've no indication of any of these RPG elements that have been hinted, but there's plenty of Life is Strange parallels to me made with all the personal one-on-one conversational moments we're spying and the walking around. There will be walking in this game. Okay, at the very least we saw our player character dressed in a police uniform and walking towards a cordoned-off section of what I can presume is a classified crime scene, which implies some form of stealth here, but that could be as 'involved' as your typical David Cage game for all we know; actual gameplay is still very much sitting in the 'you'll have to trust us on this one' camp.

Which leaves us with little more than speculation, my absolute speciality, for deciding what we've got in store for us. For which I'll immediately say, I really want to see some examples of mind-bending Malkavian nonsense winding it's way into the actual narrative. That lore alone serves as an invitation for some really creative and non-conventional storytelling techniques, and I just love the idea of the studio choosing to challenge themselves like that. (Provided they actually live up to it.) I'm guessing that RPG elements that might show up in the game will be more useful in a social sense, which would fit in with one of the tenets of World of Darkness as a whole. Multiple endings should be a given, I don't think that's even speculation. And mostly I hope for a genuine and worthwhile crossing over for the perspectives in this narrative, don't have the three stories mash into one for the sake of it, have their goals and desires wrap up together in a manner that feels unintentional, and then you could even get away with not even having the protagonists meet. That's pretty much the extent of what I'm hoping for right now.

Curiously, and fitting to my tastes, Swansong appears to be putting players in the shoes of various members of the Boston Camarilla in their struggle to maintain the masquerade on the verge of something that could endanger it all. I've always wanted to be in the shoes of the 'law' for this world without law, and thus I think this will make a grand backbone for the various tales to shoot off from, especially as questions of loyalty and politics start to be thrown up. I can't wait for some of the hard choices and frayed allegiances that could expand from these sorts of narrative threads, as well as that inevitable opportunity to bring the whole house of cards tumbling down which I may or may not shoot exclusively for like the unhinged anarchist I am at heart.  

I've said it before but somehow, inexplicably, it's still a good time to be a Vampire fan. Even as the flagship title softly fades as it dwindles from sight, the shear smattering of different titles out there are enough to satiate those willing to seek them out. The only question comes from how many people are willing to do such, as there were still people during the Swanswong trailer that didn't know this wasn't Bloodlines 2. Maybe there needs to be a more centralised advertising effort from the Masquerade rights holders (Paradox) to ensure despairing fans become fully aware of the sheer wealth of options in front of, next to and behind them. At the very least let the guys over at DONTNOD know they've got some serious competition in the works...

Europa Distasersalis IV

What do you mean I've "been disqualified from the clever titles awards"!?

Every now and then there'll be a little story that'll slip across my multiple screens and I'll peep it for a bit, but then really have a crisis of opinion on when it comes to diving into it on this here blog. (Cause unless I've got some insight on the matter, it's not really worth it) Most of the times that comes when I don't think there's really enough yet out about the topic, or in this case because I absolutely do not know enough to even really comprehend what all of the hoopla is about to begin with. Strategy games may be a little bit of a guilty pleasure of mine but that is in no way indicative of my knowledge of them, no I'm mostly a complete clueless dunce in those regards. But then a little turn to the story presented itself when I happened to take a little closer look at the product in question, and now what I really want to talk about is Europa Universalis 4, strategy games at large, and monetisation in the strategy game realm. Sounds vague, but I promise to hit all of those points by the end.

But first, Europa Universalis 4; what's up with that game? Well as far as I understand it, it's a civilisation-like grand strategy game where you helm an empire through their years of empire. The official description reads that it's games are set between 'renaissance and revolution', which I guess makes sense as those are usually the most action-packed years of any long-term CIV game unless you descend into all-out global warfare by the modern age. (You generally want to avoid doing that) Like most Paradox strategy games, Europa Universalis was well received and regarded as another stunning addition to the strategy pantheon; or at least that was until their latest release 'Leviathan' (Not the Mass Effect 3 DLC) wherein the community came together to give it single headedly the lowest rating on Steam. Now, that's a little bit of a misnomer as there are games with lower percentages than this single DLC pack for Europa, simply because Steam is ever assaulted by an endless deluge of shovel-ware, but it still wins the title thanks to the sheer volume of negative reviews against positive ones. People actually bought and played this DLC, you see, and a lot of them did not come away happy.

Thus was how I was introduced, and why I was reticent, towards this topic. I don't play Europa Universalis, I don't know why everyone would be hating on it's DLC. For all I know it could be anything from the balance of the game being way off, the additions to the game being ill-suited or just the thing not working, and even if any of that was the case, none of it would explain why any of this is such a big deal if we're just talking about DLC and not even the base, solid, game. Well, upon further reflection I understand. Leviathan is reported to be criminally undercooked with bugs hanging from every surface, missing assets and a general feeling that you paid £15 for a work-in-progress build; because that's pretty much what they did. And I also learned that Europa Universalis 4 was launched back in 2013, yet has been prolonged to this day through use of an ancient art once thought only known the live service crowd; content updates. Everytime one drops it's supposed to shake up the game to the point where it almost feels like a new title, serving the role that a new entry in the franchise once would; which could go to explain why everyone was so incensed when this content drop was such an underbaked buggy mess. (Hence justifying the worst rating on Steam right now), but before we explore that there is the discussion of precedent.

This isn't the first time that Europa Universalis 4 has dropped an undercooked expansion. Judging from comments this may be the worst example of that, but there have been others and, understandably, this is a trend that had started to weigh on the fanbase. If you've ever been sold a terrible game from someone you trusted one time that's already bad enough and is going to affect your opinion of them, but imagine if the next Bethesda or CDPR game was just as rushed- you'd start to feel pretty ticked off eventually. Well that's where the fans are at and it's the reason why they came to this expansion in droves to make their displeasure known. Even doubly so since the Europa Universalis developers have stopped visiting the forums often both for fear of retribution and because their track record has sort of painted them as a target around there. But then, as the developers tried to, we could turn this on it's head into a conversation about feedback.

Because in the wake of all this random negative press which got so bad that even bystanders like me were drawn into strategy games drama, a few fingers were pointed back at the community and the way they've been acting. In the eyes of the developers, it's demoralising to make content for a group of people who tear it to shreds each and every time, label them as incompetent and seem to thrive on their failure. All reactions that I can honestly understand, devoting yourself for those that don't seem grateful at the very least can take the fun out of the job, but on the otherhand one must consider that these are customers were talking about. People who pay a certain amount of money expecting to receive goods or services of equivalent value are usually pretty justified in their annoyance if what they receive is wanting. Calling out those who stiffed them, and on their own forums, does seem like a pretty reasonable response. Or do they expect everyone to say "Meh, they'll get it right next time." Die hard fans might, but the average player probably isn't going to be that patient. Cause a big enough ruckus and there really isn't many others to redirect blame for all this negativity to, and screwing up several expansions in the strategy games field is a big deal.

It was only when I looked at Europa Universalis' Steam page that I realised how big, and that was because these expansions basically form up what these games count as 'monetisation'. Rather than Microtransactions or lootboxes, these games shoot for a much more traditional DLC model, but with so much DLC you might as well be looking at a Microtransaction market. Buying all the DLC for this game in particular would run you back £290 for 34 items! (Of course, bare in mind that some of those are compilation packs, so the real full price would be slightly cheaper.) Good lord, these guys make a lot of DLC! And some of it is merely unit packs for various factions, but others contain actual systemic changes to the game that evolve the game experience to the next level. Following this train of DLC is similar to following the storyline of a Liveservice, both yourself and your wallet are invested so it's important for the developers to deliver. Of course that also puts the pressure on them to constantly perform or else end falling flat on their face, falling out of rhythm and then end in a situation like Europa Universalis did, with a string of poor releases.

Though I can't speak of specific examples for this game, I can offer my experiences with another strategy gem from the same publisher: Stellaris. There's a game about expanding a civilisation to the stars and it's built on a similar (if not as milked) model of big content updates through DLC that extends the game's life cycle. 'Apocalypse' added a whole new class of military vehicle with the ability to destroy entire planets, shaking up the balance to it's core. 'MegaCorp' implemented a whole new interface wherein supremacy could be won through the expansion of business, opening up brand new avenues to successful supremacy and essentially operating as a whole new campaign path. With 'Federations' there was a whole new system for diplomacy to fix the honestly broken system that was in the basegame. And 'Nemesis' was apparently a bit of a bust. Strategy games are no longer following the iterative release strategy of other genres but have settled into a pattern of building upon base foundations, which is why this seemingly unprecedented backlash to a DLC is simply a reflection of the environment in which these games are now thriving.

Recently the lead of the Europa Universalis has accepted all blame for the broken DLC and chose not to throw the virginal studio who helmed it under the bus. (Golf clap) He's also taken the time to detail exactly what they should of done under the assumption that because he can pinpoint it, that means fans should trust him not to make the mistake again. With any luck that will be case, because strategy game communities are so tightknit that's it's honestly heart-breaking to see one tear at itself like this. (I don't know what I'd do if X-Com were hit with something similar.) But I guess this just goes to show that half-assing DLC is no longer something that developers and Publishers can get away with under the guise of "Well, you don't have to buy it so stop complaining." (>Cough< Bethesda >Cough<)

Tyranny Review

If Eb tells me about her thoughts regarding "Nipples on men" one more time...

Wait no, hold on. I'm not reviewing the concept of 'tyranny', that seems... well I was going to say 'redundant', but given the etymology of the word and it's ancient Grecian heritage perhaps there does lie some merit in a detailed dive into the intricacies of- no. Nope. This is a gaming blog, thus I will talk about the game. And that's final. (Yeah, me.) Rather I'm referring to the 2016 isometric RPG created by Obsidian and published by Paradox Interactive. Something of a one-off for the team considering that their other series' appear to be the Fallout-inspirer 'Wasteland' and the Fantasy-series 'Pillars of Eternity'. (And the space-age machinations of 'The Outer Worlds') I've pretty much been a huge fan of Obsidian's work ever since Fallout New Vegas came along and redefined what a great Fallout game should be, so I sort of knew I was going to like this game going in, but did I fall for it as hard as some of their other properties? Let's find out.

So Tyranny launched as a successor, but not sequel, to 2015's Pillars of Eternity and was met with modest, but ultimately disappointing, sales. Figures weren't hit and the chances of a direct sequel to this story are pretty much non-existent, but what could have been the reason for this apparent failure? Well, just as with any story, there are innumerable sides and angles to look at the game from, including some who argue the entire isometric genre is just past it's prime. (Although I'd say the success of POE, D:OS2 and BG3 would certainly call that into question.) All I can say for certain is that it wasn't down to the reception because this game seems to have swept up the review circuit. Though there was one theory on the game which I actually resonate with, and it's because it relates to an feeling I developed on the game back when I first started looking into it. (Which was about 5 hours into actually playing the thing.) And, handily enough for the structure of this blog, it actually relates to the way the game was marketed.

"Evil has already won" is something you'll see plastered to a lot of their material, and it really is the prevailing point that is slammed in the face of everyone with a passing interest in the game. Taking place in the world of Terratus, Tyranny tells the story of the last territories, known as The Tiers, to be conquered by the ruling dictator, Kyros. (In which the entirety of the game is set.) But rather than take the side of the resistance holding off against global domination (the marketing loves to emphasise this point with sadistic glee) you are on the side of the invading party, working directly for Kyros. (Or rather, working for a direct underling of Kyros.) In this way you are essentially 'playing the badguy', to be reductively blunt, and whilst that makes an interesting point which should certainly be flaunted, the manner in which marketing handled it is questionable. I touched upon this in my other blog, but all the official material in the game seemed to revel in all the ways that Tyranny differed from your proto-typical RPG set-up, despite the fact that fantasy games have been walking away from that 'traditional' set-up for the better part of the last 15 years, so there's no great accolade to me made out of avoiding it.

Yes, taking the side of the ostensible 'villains' is an incredibly bold direction which inherently forces players to confront the specifics of what they assume to be 'evil' and the extents to which they are willing to bend to or against it. But for some reason we saw less of that in the marketing and more emphasis on what the game was not. Now I can't say for certain whether or not that proved determinantal to the interest of the game to a general audience, but I do know it inherently put me off. If I hadn't already put 5 hours into the game and was already invested in it, I might not have been interested in diving in, all because I wasn't shown the many reasons why I should. And having now completed an entire playthrough from start to finish, I can say rather definitively; this is a game that I'm glad I didn't miss out on. So I'm going to throw a little shade at marketing. (Nothing they can't handle I'm sure.)

From the very start it's clear that Tyranny is the sort of game that's going to require some investment from the player, which is shown in the way that the game hits you with several walls of text if you decide to manually write your protagonist's history. The first few years of the campaign in The Tiers is summed up before you're even given control of the character, and the decisions you're asked to make here will have effects on the entire story going forward. So you'll know if this is the game for you right away based on whether you're repelled by this very concept or impressed at the amount of worldbuilding that you've been subjected to off the bat. (I was somewhere in-between; it was a long intro sequence) What I find fascinating about this whole intro was the way that I was expected to make rather nuanced rulings on situations that I had next to no context on. I didn't know who the Scarlet Chorus and the Disfavoured were! It was only after the fact that I realised a lot of things I had done were really rather cruel, and that works incredibly well to the theme of the narrative. (So, oddly, I think that was well done on their part.)

Interestingly, the character is given a position of some consequence right from the start of the game, as they serve the war effort as a Fatebinder. Fatebinders are the agents of the Archon Tunon, who's job it is to govern the laws of Kyros' empire and keep order, so you can imagine that your job of imposing law on this, to-be-conquered, region is of the utmost import. It's this framing device which allows the player to rub shoulders with the main players in the region off the bat and delve into political intrigue, which I think the entirety of Tyranny handles exceedingly well. 'Actions have consequences' is a bit of a played out sentiment, but in Tyranny it really felt like every time I made a choice, spoke out of turn or simply leaned a particular direction there would be significant political ramifications; all of which sold the story of living in this world of perpetual turmoil very well.

As for the meat of the story, I was pretty much hooked the whole way through. Tyranny does this wonderful job of showing the darkest elements of this brutal world in a sardonic light that doesn't completely obscure the harshness but doesn't make you uncomfortable playing it all either. And considering you're navigating an world rife with pillaging, enslavement and regular massacring, that's quite the neat balance to strike. I also commended the way that, true to the concept, there are no wholly good or wholly evil sides to the war, either by the two invading armies or several factions of locales who defend The Tiers. Everyone is nuanced with things that make them good and evil in their own ways. Although that being said, I think we can agree that if we were to come down to the wire; the Scarlet Chorus are probably the closet to being fully evil. Their leader literally eats people's souls, for goodness sake!

Speaking of, I found the many important characters and personalities of Tyranny wonderfully unique both in design and personality to the point where I loved interacting with them. Chief among all characters, however, I have to commend the various Archons of Kyros. 'Archons' are beings of immense magical potential who all hold weighty positions in society, and thus in Kyros' regime. They are all these larger than life beings who are linked to a particular attribute which represents their purpose, such as the Archon of Secrets and the Archon of War. Ingame this is realised in this scintillating mix of ostensibly singular entities who inspire awe, like the ultimate objectivity of Tunon Archon of Justice, offset by the slightest hints of complexity that manages to not undermine what they represent but colour them in beautifully. I found myself particularly enamoured with the Archon of Secrets, The Voices of Nerat, and the way that it always seemed to have this warring personality where you didn't know if it wanted to help you or stick a knife in your back. (Extra points for the way that it's Staff, which appeared to have an agenda of it's own, would communicate with you only through optional text boxes, to infer some form of clandestine telepathy. Very clever.)

Kyros his or herself is probably the most interesting figure of note in Tyranny, however, due to the way that you never get the chance to meet this eponymous Overlord and yet their presence is everywhere. Kyros has entered this position of reputational godhood to the point where people argue over the very nature of her being,  (or indeed, their gender) which makes for a very unique vantage point for the player to learn about him. Literally one of the first things you discover about Kyros is the way in which one of your duties, as Fatebinder, is to occasionally declare one of her 'Edicts'. Essentially magical contracts in which the very words that he has written down will cause a great calamity upon the world, such as a neverending rain of storms or a complete annihilation of all Antelope in the world. (Yeah, canonically Kyros made Antelope extinct with the Edict of Dust. I don't know why.) But even as undeniable dictator of this world, the distance you forever maintain to her allows the player to really speculate on who he is and build this image through second hand accounts, creating this 'villain' really unlike anything I've seen in a story before; one of complete rumour and legend. It's almost preferable then, that this story will never get a sequel, because not meeting Kyros is perhaps one of the most powerful bits of intrigue in this story.

Companions, too, are of significant import to the world of Tyranny, but it's here where I think a little bit of the limited range of the game starts to show itself. In character, pretty much every single one of the companions is unique and memorable, with none of them ending up as the archetypal cut-and-paste characters that you find at least one of in every Bioware game. And even those that are close to being similar riffs on other companion characters, are at least built with enough nuance and/or context to differentiate themselves. I particularly liked Barik and Verse, who's stories and personalities so clashed with one another and yet in a manner which suited them together perfectly. I was also a fan of Sirin and her interestingly tragic backstory, as well as they way in which she's the only character in the game who openly acknowledges (and has fun with) the fact that no one, save for possibly her, knows Kyros' gender. Unfortunately, it's clear that there's some shortcomings to this side of the game, not least in that only three of these characters have companion quests and those ones were added in DLC. The rest don't really have arcs to their character beyond the evolution of the way they feel about the main character, and that leads to endings wherein it doesn't feel like any of them really went off and became anything unique due to their journeys. Pretty much everyone you meet, save for Verse, Barik and Landry, leave the party exactly as they would have if they'd never seen you in their lives.

In terms of gameplay, Tyranny plays as a full action isometric party-based RPG that runs exactly as you would imagine it to. It's pretty much click on the enemy and go to town, with the strategy coming from who you target with which party members and the abilities you utilise. Some of the more eccentricities come in the abilities themselves and the sheer number of them, by the end of the game you'll have so many abilities at your disposal that you'll be picking through submenus in pause mode just to make sense of everything. This comes from the way that you earn abilities from levelling, as well as through building relationships (both negatively and positively) and even special 2-way moves from getting closer to, or scaring the heck out of, companions. Now, narratively this makes absolute sense for reasons I hesitate to touch on for fear of getting a little to deep into spoilers, but in practise it does get a bit much. I had powers I never even used because I couldn't find them through all the menus they were hid in. Then add on top of that the way that special 'artefact' weapons and armour grant abilities when equipped (which is a brilliant idea for making each tool feel unique, by the way) and there's absolutely no way of keeping on top of things. The endgame comparison certainly made me feel unparalleled by the end, but I wonder if perhaps this could have been toned down a bit, in favour of less, but more powerful stand-out abilities.

A spellcrafting system is also available in the game, although I find that due to a requirement in the 'Lore' skill that grew exponentially when I started to really get into the system, most spells I made, even by the endgame, were basically straightforward. I'm not sure if this was intentional and I was just trying to get a bit over the top with the systems, or if perhaps they intended this system to really come into play for newgame plus, but as a result I didn't find myself relying on selfcrafted spells really at all. Also, I'm still unsure as to how greatly items affected gameplay, outside of your standard healing vials. Bonuses to armour class could also be achieved through gear and leadership skills, and more often than not I just ended up forgetting my pack full of items in the big fights anyway. Although I won't put the full blame of that on Tyranny because I believe the fault was both my own and partially the genre. (RPG's have never really figured out how to make every consumable item matter)

Tyranny is a game that boldly steps in many directions that RPGs haven't even thought to go in before, and where I feared this 'trailblazing' approach might result in a half-hearted execution through sheer merit of "Well we got here, which is good enough", Obsidian proved me wrong with a startlingly strong realisation of the concept. I adored every which way that the story was told and was swallowed by the immersion totally. My only gripes from a narrative standpoint is that there wasn't enough in certain regards, (such as with companions) and that I thought we'd learn a little bit more about Kyros by the end of the game than we ultimately did. (By the credits all we really had were suppositions and a 'maybe' confirmation on the source of his/her most impressive power) But whilst I might understand if this was made with a sequel in mind, I never really felt as though Tyranny was. Even as the story left itself open, I feel as though that was because the point of the game has been realised, and the proceeding events would have stretched beyond the pathos and thus become a tad redundant. (At least that was the impression I came away with.)

In terms of gameplay I found my time with the game fun and rarely too challenging to the point where I felt as though I had no options going forward. Now whilst that may sound perfect for some, I'll admit that personally I get a thrill out of hitting that brick wall and forcing a way through it, and since Tyranny gave me no moments like that I never felt completely satisfied with my time. (Dark Souls has ruined me, I guess) By Act 3 I was pretty much invincible (thanks to my thirty-odd abilities) and though that was a somewhat fun state to be in, it was also a little jarring. I hadn't really gone out of my way to be this overpowered and yet I never died once in the finale Act, I hardly even broke a sweat. And I was playing on the second to hardest difficulty! Maybe my playthrough was just a fluke and I accidentally perfectly min-maxed. Or, more likely, the game was just a tad too easy near the end and could have used a few more new tricks to throw at the player.

That being said, I wasn't devoid of my moments of mouth-agape wonder, because that was earnt from the strength of the story alone. Truly, I loved my time playing Tyranny and will absolutely be willing to play the game and delve into it's weighty choice-consequence systems again. Some part of me is saddened that we'll never see a sequel as the world of Terratus seems brimming with stories to tell, but another part tells me that this sleight tease was perfect and we're better off left wanting more. I would absolutely recommend this game to isometric RPG fans everywhere and I hope other developers look upon titles of this quality to inform how they make their own RPGs in the future. (Including Obsidian themselves. But I needn't worry there, those guys always know how to improve upon themselves.) Were this a Visual Novel I might be given a perfect rank, but with some sleight misbalances to the gameplay I'm forced to deduct a little. But even then, with an A Grade rating, I'm hardly dissatisfied with my play experience. Pick up Tyranny for yourselves and experience a RPG tale quite unlike any of the ones we're used to.

I Recommend: Tyranny

Binding fates and taking names!

So I consider myself an eclectic gamer who really does pay attention to the game of the day no matter what their genre or my chances of actually ever playing them. I know when the newest FIFA comes out and about such a game's pros and cons even though I've haven't owned a FIFA since '05, the same could be said for Forza games and even Just Dance. (Have to keep up to date on Ubisoft's super seminal franchise, afterall) As such, when it comes to a genre that I'm super invested in, RPGs, and a studio I love making them, Obsidian, I expect to have an encyclopaedic knowledge of them up in here. That should be a given, I shouldn't even have to look it up; freakin' osmosis should just kick in. Therefore when Epic Games decided to give out some Obsidian games in their free program I scoffed in the knowledge that I was likely already well versed and experienced with all the titles that could possibl- what the heck is 'Tyranny'? Why have I never heard of this? It came out a year after Pillars? How could I not have heard of this? What the heckin' heck?

So yeah, apparently Obsidian managed to sneak an entire RPG around me about four years back and I'm only hearing about this now. (How sneaky of them) And to be clear, Obsidian is the sort of company whom I very much expect to hear about whenever they make moves. Ever since 'Fallout: New Vegas' dropped and I realised that these guys beat Bethesda at their own game, I made it my mission to note everything that comes out of their offices, because there's a good chance I'll like it. I never got the chance to give 'Alpha Protocol' a try, which saddens me because despite the heavy jank which people claim the game shows I literally adore the premise. Stealth-based spy-themed RPG with choices and an odd sense of humour? Did Obsidian read my dream journal for that one? But that loss made me all the more dedicated to snapping up every one of their games whenever I got the chance, lest I be left short again, so I have no idea how 'Tyranny' slipped me by. (Well it's in my hands now.)

But what about the game itself, what has Obsidian thrown together and how does this differ from the isometric formula which Obsidian themselves helped revive back in 2015? Well actually this time the very premise pretty much sums up the USP, because Obsidian went for an off-the-cuff premise with this game and I have to admit I was dubious at first. (Okay, that's not true. First I played it for 2 hours and then I looked up what it was roughly about. Then I was dubious.) Essentially 'Tyranny' takes place in your everyday fantasy world without the crazy races but not without magic. Plus, there's an all-powerful agent of evil who seeks control over the entire world, par the course for any game out there. But things diverge from the norm, because instead of telling the story of a simple farmer's rise to becoming the 'hero of us all', 'Tyranny' starts at the end of that story. After the Tyrant has already seized control of the entire world and won, all that's left is the subjugation of some bumpkins out by the coast who are such a non-threat that they're busying fighting themselves by the time you arrive. Oh did I mention; you're also very much on the side of the Tyrant and consolidating their rule. (Talk about flipping the script!)

Now the reason this had me worried, even after playing the intro and quite liking what I was seeing, was because of the way it was marketed on the Steam page. "Tyranny turns the archetypal RPG story on its head!" the description reads "The player is not a random villager!", 'this isn't your grandma's RPG!' Yeah I made up that last one but you get the sort of vibe this is going for, right? 'Everything you expect out of a game from this genre? Yeah, this game completely changes all of that so buckle up for a envelope pusher!'. It's the kind of marketing that lays itself into what the story isn't over what is, and it gave me the impression that the game would mirror that sort of direction. The result of such situations would typically be a promising premise that get wasted when it could have been something really special. Luckily, my fears were so far off base that it's almost embarrassing, 'Tyranny' doesn't miss an ounce of it's potential.

Set in a world where the villain has won, Tyranny knows exactly what sort of world it's trying to build as it establishes a struggle between lawful tyrannical order and unrestrained chaotic freedom in a manner that's almost reminiscent of Shin Megami Tensei. The world building towards this is fantastic, and though it demands a lot of the player, in terms of reading heavy and detailed passages, it proves itself rich and deep enough to earn that commitment. Terratus is a plane that is shaped very much by the cult of personality which the regime forms around the all-powerful and mysterious Kyros, and as soon as you are positioned as a agent of this regime it'll become clear that traditional concepts of good and evil aren't really going to apply here. By most traditional standards you very much are the 'bad guy', but in this narrative that are no more side left apart from Kyros', and that fact alone paints this laudably natural coat of grey over each dilemma in the game and each system feeds that amorality beautifully.

Just like in New Vegas, the players will find a lot of their actions will be driven by the desire to build or sully relationships with close party members, factions and even just the various societies around 'The Tiers' (The region under siege). And just like in New Vegas, this allows for unique shades of personality and opinion to enter into decision making in a manner that doesn't quite happen with mortality-shader RPGs. And within this dictatorship relationships can shift and devolve over the matter of a few dialogue choices, thus players are always hyper aware of their interactions and the way it shapes those around them, to a degree that honestly shocks me in that I never really knew I wanted it this deep. But as if to wrap it all up in a beautifully neat bow, the very reputation system and it's quirks even get naturally tied into the overarching narrative in a manner so clever that I had to clap my hands together when I heard it. Or read it, I guess. (It's amazing how masters of their craft can blow you away even when you think you've seen everything.)

If there's another general feature of Tyranny which I cannot in good faith go without mentioning, it would have to be the the choices and consequences. Now, if you know me you'll know that I hate games wherein 'choices have consequences' is waved as a chief selling point, as it's almost always a prelude to disappointment as it merely draws attention to all the ways in which such a system doesn't live up to it's promise. Literally everytime it's a letdown, from 'Cyberpunk' to 'Life is Strange'; it's never as deep as they say. Tyranny, however, plays with this is a very subtle way wherein actions have consequences that may not be obvious all the time, and may not try to be flowers of opportunity either. Sometimes a choice you made in the prologue scrawl (Which is an extensive and important section) will shut down a potential interaction you could have otherwise had, or ingratiate you to someone you've just met, thus opening up more freedoms to interaction. It's hard to describe but I find it be a very honest approach to the concept where I have found myself frustrated upon coming against a wall, but its a wall I've built myself and thus I'm only immersed deeper by that frustration. (Does that make sense?)

I'm being very vague about my time with Tyranny and the parts of it that I loved and that's because I'm both still chipping away at the game and this isn't a review; it's a recommendation. Sometimes when a big shiny new hotness comes along and promises the world, what you really need instead is a robust and reliable clunker with a few tricks up it's sleeve and fine motor. (If you can even decipher that horrendously mixed metaphor) Tyranny won't blow you away with it's graphical fidelity (it does look pretty, but more artistically) nor it's gameplay; (it's basically just a real-time RPG like any other you've played) but it will satiate that hunger for solid, clever stories wrapped in an unfaltering RPG shell, if that's what you're so inclined towards. So unless the final act I'm approaching manages to screw everything up to an unreal degree, I'm pretty comfortable calling Tyranny my recommended game of the month. Because that's a thing I decided that I'm going now and you can't tell me it's dumb, I already know that it is.

Is Vampire Bloodline's development a Masquerade?

 Two

There has been one story that I've been pointedly avoiding for a while now in the hopes that it was all a bad dream. Perhaps I would wake up one day and look at my news feed only to see one huge emblazoned "Gotcha! Sincerely from the folks over at Paradox Interactive" But as we barrel ever closer to the date that was meant to be the originally revised launch window of 'Vampire Masquerade The Bloodlines 2' it's becoming increasingly difficult to deny the truth, that this game that I've been secretly thirsting, what feels like a lifetime, for is undergoing development difficulties. And just to be clear, I'm not talking about the kind of difficulties wherein you hear "Ah nuts, we messed up and there's some more bugs than we originally thought there would be" but rather the kind of complications that fester to the point where serious concerns are being raised as to how steady the entire team is right now. I don't want to be the one throwing stones here, but I'm really starting to worry about the game we're going to be getting.

For those unaware, Vampire The Masquerade Bloodlines has been very important both to me and this blog ever since I started it. I found the game as a recommendation of a recommendation, and it was one of those titles that you hear about and forget time after time. Every now and then I'd bite the bullet and look up some screens and gameplay, but each time I'd come back concluding that it looked kinda weird and bad and completely forget about it. But that changed when one day I ended up getting it on sale and it's safe to say that I never looked back. Rare is it that one comes across a purely abnormal and weird title that completely turns on it's own head so very often and cleverly, with memorable characters, moments and choices throughout. Was the game rough? Yes. Was some of the dialogue clunky? (Especially some of the player's dialogue choices) Yes. But was the game charming enough to endure as one of my favourite oddball RPGs of all time? Also yes. 

And to make this a little more about the blog specifically for a moment, one of my very first blogs I ever did, (hold on... no it was actually my very first blog) was about Vampire The Masquerade Bloodlines 2 and how excited it made me. I remember diving into that blog and really enjoying just spilling everything about my personal love for the title, and finally getting my own opinion out there. It also got me to look up things about the game and I was amazed about how many other people loved the things I loved about. And I even found some on the opposite side of the fence, like how some outlet somewhere was criticizing the portrayal of the Voerman twins, which encouraged me to refute and explain how in actuality they were the highlight of the game's writing and completely inkeeping with the lore of the source material. (Also, they were voiced by Azula, so show some respect.)

Somehow this has made the Vampire game deeply personal to me in a manner that I hadn't really expected it to ever be. Thus whenever I read articles about the troubles the game is going through I end up taking it weirdly to heart as though my own child is up there receiving ridicule. (Which is ridiculous, I admit, but that's just the way it is.) Of course, what I'm talking about in this instance is the removal of key staff from the project in very foreboding ways. Recently the senior Narrative designer decided to quit both the game and the company working on it, Hardsuit labs,  a couple of months after the firing of the creative director and the lead writer. That last one especially hit me hard as Brian worked on the original, in fact, he was one of the reasons that I was deeply excited to see this sequel with the promise that it would remember what made the original great. Now he's gone and rumours claim it was a very turbulent departure too.

All of these are like blaring sirens warning everyone that there's almost definitely severe troubles with this game and maybe we should be bracing for something heading our way. I'm not saying that there might be a cancellation, but I don't think it'd be the first time that a VTMB 2 project got canned. That being said the release date has been indefinitely pushed back, so at least things aren't being rushed into a messy sequel that ruins all the things I loved from the first game, but sometimes it doesn't matter how long you dedicate to a project if the ingredients are wrong. And if so many key cooks have abandoned the kitchen, who's to say anyone can even make sense of the recipe anymore. (Is that analogy stretched a little too thin? Maybe overcooked a little? Okay, I'll stop.) I know I'm not the only person who has officially entered nail-biting mode right now, and concerns might be rising within the studio too. (No one is comfortable when the bosses start getting fired.)

But just in case you're perhaps thinking I'm making mountains out of anthills over here, let me direct you to another game that was struck with similar staff departures in the leadup to it's launch. You ever heard of, 'Mass Effect Andromeda'? A game that I still attest came out 4 years too soon, not because it was underdeveloped but because the franchise needed time to become nostalgic before it was bought back; Mass Effect Andromeda has become something of a poster child for troubled development processes. Fraught with complications, overambition, withdrawn resources and key staff turnover: it really is quite telling that it wasn't until the ill-advised early-play sessions with the public that folk started to notice this game wasn't baked nearly as well as it really should have been. Bioware were heroes to the western RPG community before then, and since that mess of a game they have been as much pariahs as modern day Bethesda. (Even though I'd argue Bethesda's fall from grace has been all around worse.) Does a similar fate await VTMB 2? I certainly pray not.

What especially sucks about this was that things seemed so smooth for so long that I actually let my guard down. Truth be told when I first heard about a VTMB sequel my guttural first reaction was distaste in having something that I loved so personally bought out and thrown into the spotlight. It felt like having a memory of mine shared without my sayso, thus I was concerned from the get go and had to turn myself around to the idea. In fact it wasn't until that Christmas themed 'Come dance' trailer that I threw aside all reservations and screamed "Yes! They got it!". Now it seems that I was premature in my celebration and the game we were promised in that brilliant little tease may never make it to consoles. (God I hope I'm wrong.)

So we approach the year end and VTMB2 has been delayed out of 2020 and all news surrounding it has been exclusively covering and speculating on the departures. I haven't the experience with game design nor the sources to definitively conclude what this all means, but I have hope that things may come around on the otherside despite it all. Over everything else I want Vampire the Masquerade bloodlines to be both good and a success, to make up for the cult reputation that it's predecessor has never been able to shake. I want 'The World of Darkness' to hit the mainstream in a fashion similar to how 'Cyberpunk' has and I want to play as a particularly dickish vampire who either learns to have a heart as the narrative goes on or becomes the embodiment of pure asshole by the end. (I was waiting for the storyline to help me decide.) Fingers crossed that these delays don't banish the hope for all those milestones, but just pushes them back. (I put my faith in you, Paradox and Hardsuit)