Bethesda's biggest gap

 

With Starfield out of the way and now in the hands of the content delivery team who are said to be on the game for the next ten years- at least until the going gets rough and they decide to abandon the game at year 3 and then pretend they never said 'ten year plan' to begin with- (Bungie flashbacks galore) we can look unto the future. With Todd Howard pretty firmly declaring that he doesn't believe in spin-offs because he believes all those gameplay verticals can fit into a main line Fallout game (which he is horrendously wrong about, by the way. The day a Creation Engine game produces a half-decent stealth experience is the day I eat my hat.) the next title is most definitely going to be that Elder Scrolls VI game that was announced last decade, and with that comes my concerns, once again, that Bethesda are going to drop the bag.

Now to be very clear with you, I would consider myself a Bethesda fan. I think they have been extremely instrumental in establishing an identity to the entire western action RPG genre and have revolutionised the way that many games function as a result. Meaningful RPG visual customisation through the equipping of armour sets, fully immersive simulation worlds to experience loosely guided open worlds that let the curious explore- they wrote the book on all of that. And unlike many others out there, I don't actually believe that Bethesda has at all regressed from what they once were. What I think people are observing but not quite clocking, is the rest of the industry jumping forward by leaps and bounds whilst Bethesda hang around with their tackle out wondering how to proceed.

One manner in which Bethesda has consistently failed to make a splash, for which they absolutely must revise should they wish to have any remote foothold in the current RPG market- is combat. Fallout 4 enjoyed a total revision to the way Fallout 3 and New Vegas played in order to make it a half decent shooter. Starfield doubled down on those improvements to become a mostly decent shooter. But that's different. The path to making good shooter games is mostly linear and very well paved by the leading shooters of the games industry before them. Call of Duty. Destiny. Wolfenstien. There were models for Bethesda to base themselves after and shoot towards aping. Not so much with fantasy hack and slash,

There are dozens of ways to bring such combat to life and it just so happens that Bethesda have tried a few throughout the Elder Scrolls life-cycle... and none have been really all that good. Arena and Daggerfall had an innovate but quickly depreciating click and drag weapon swinging system that aged worse than the Nazi's before the Ark of the Covenant. Morrowind had a 'hit or miss' calculation system which ran in the background and basically made the early game unbearable and simply failed to account for anything late game- being overall useless. And Oblivion and Skyrim just went for simplified wet-noodle slap systems which got the job done, but never felt satisfying to play. But there's no real excuse for experimentation anymore.

As much of a predictable cliché it might feel to read- fantasy melee combat has largely been solved in the modern age and those plaudits belong to the very successful Souls genre. The tight hit-box, swing and dodge/parry/block foundation presented by Demon Souls presents a tactile and dynamic system of combat which has been remixed and iterated on incessantly over the past half decade without growing tired or style. It is a foundation to base a genre off and honestly should probably expand outwardly. Maybe not to the extent of totally ripping the tactical core out of previous tactical party based RPGs- but I suppose that ship has already sailed seeing the gutted out remains of 'Dragon Age: The Vielgaurd'.

Now of course I'm not saying that The Elder Scrolls VI should be a souls-like, absolutely not! But there are fundamental lessons of control that could be built upon from the basis of how those games play- but iteration is definitely key in this discussion. One of the key-most pillars of how Elder Scrolls games is the fantasy of power which Souls-style games actively work to downplay in the way they play and control- so there are certainly some liberties that would need to be taken on Bethesda's end to make a game like this feel as good as it can. And in that vein, I actually might have an idea of what kind of game they could also learn from- although you're gonna have to bare with me for a second as I explain myself.

So the best third person action games for selling into that extreme power fantasy has to be the Devil May Cry games- for the way they present a challenge of combat mastery with a reward of total combat control. I'm not saying that we should be able to literally juggle our enemies around like putty in Elder Scrolls VI, that would be taking it too far- but there's a level of combat complexity present in Devil May Cry that is achieved with precious little controller real estate. Most of the extreme content that each of the Devil May Cry weapons offer are achieved with two buttons and sticks flicks- and the wealth of combat value they add fuel an entire franchise. I don't expect Elder Scrolls VI to rival the deep thought-out complexity of DMC's best- but capturing some hint of that level of intrinsic combat mastery, combined with a more ground Souls-Like basis, would create a unique vision of gameplay that both fits the Elder Scrolls mission statement and evolves so far beyond the basis to shoot this franchise back into the headlines.

Of course I speaking on supposition and dreams here- but in my mind you're really going to need to shoot big to be competitive in the modern world. Bethesda no longer offer the biggest or most detailed open worlds, they no longer offer the most reactive feeling RPG spaces, they no longer achieve unparalleled world simulation and I'm argue they no longer have the benefit of the doubt to flub their way through despite all that. The next Elder Scrolls need to be competitive in real terms, and I somehow don't expect the company to suddenly bridge that gap with world-tier storytelling or graphical aplomb. Something core has gotta give. And that something has to be Bethesda's lacklustre approach to putting the sword in their fantasy player's hands.

Is it too late for Days Gone 2?

 

Days Gone was a zombie game I didn't really expect to like when I picked it up. Open world and narratively linear- I was kind of expecting the 'Ubisoft' of zombie titles that was going to burn me out as surely as every other recent Ubisoft game unfailing has. What I found instead was an impressively well realised character driven story that focused on grief, purpose and flashes of redemption. Perhaps not as impactfully as Red Dead Redemption 2 did it, but solidly enough to win my surprised recommendation when I reviewed the game not very long ago. And considering how that game ended with a cliff-hanger- the question has been asked now and then whether or not the game is truly ready for a sequel follow-up in the coming years.

Of course, the not-so stellar critical reception of the game when it first released might have been the kibosh on that particular train of thought. Sony didn't particularly want a game that couldn't hit the perfect scores of their other high-premium first party titles and thus made it decently clear to Bend Studio that a sequel wouldn't be on the table anytime soon. Similarly, the game director of Days Gone has made it a not-so-secret that the game did not quite sell as well as it come have; particularly with the man drunkenly lambasting everyone who doesn't pick up games full price in the first week as untrue fans who don't care about supporting developers. Which I guess makes me a freakin' war criminal in the games industry because I pick up about 1 full price game every two years or so. 

But recently it seems like Days Gone can't really stay out of being in the news, despite the apparently 'dead in the water' status of the franchise. That former studio director recently scored headlines by saying the head scratching cliffhanger of the original game was set-up to lead into a trilogy of games, not just a boring old sequel- which sparked up questions about whether or not such a plan could really be in the drain like everyone says. Bend Studio had to reaffirm that the franchise was dead, they're moving on to new IP and even took the time to sneak-diss their old Director by claiming this was all being drummed up for likes. Not that I blame them, to be honest- he does come off an a whiny dick in a lot of his diatribes. 

So it would seem that the official word is good and said no matter how many times that director tries to impress "never say never!"; but if there's one thing we've come to learn about Sony, the real people in charge of making decisions around here, it's that they don't have a backbone when it comes to public pressure. They folded like a deck of cards when it came to Helldivers 2, pulled back on their Live Service hellhole plans when The Last of Us developers straight clowned on them and I'll bet that if enough fan fever is drummed up they will turn around and un-cancel this franchise. In fact, I'll bet that is what the Director is low-key drumming for with all of these breadcrumbs he keeps dropping. And it wouldn't be the strangest heel-turn that Sony has ever done. Remember when the Internet tricked them into re-investing into placing a critical and commercial bomb of a movie back in theatres because meme culture convinced them it would be popular? (Morbius remembers.)

The original Days Gone game presented itself as a showcase of technical ability presenting giant hoards of zombies moving as one that were actual threats the player had to face. There were times when these served as simply background set-pieces to story moments and others when you would literally be diving in a cave, visualise the sound around you (as you can) and spot several thousand bodies rushing through the caves directly coming for your head. It was tense, dramatic damn near terrifying at times. It also wasn't a half-bad third person action game featuring really punchy shooting, entirely serviceable melee and a bike combat minigame that... existed. I guess.

There was certainly room to grow in terms of scale. Living out in the sticks were could only hear about how insane the cities were under the hoards of the undead, but imagine actually getting to see that in front of you! It would be like living in an actual World War Z game with bodies climbing over other bodes in order to scale walls. Skyscrapers stuffed with enemies. Big explosive weapons to deal with them- they hadn't reached the apex of what this idea provided, not by a long shot! As for Deacon's personal journey- that I'm less sure on. There would have certainly been room to expand if, you know, the third act of this game hadn't happened. But it did, and in doing so sort-of inexplicably resolved all of Deacon's personal issues. They really could have saved all of that for at least the sequel.

But of course we would have to ask ourselves in that much more abstract way- is the world really down for more Zombie games? The situation is not as dire as it were- zombies games aren't hitting the shelves every other day and most of those do look pretty interesting. Even State of Decay 3 looked pretty damn easy on the eyes. But that doesn't mean there isn't a certain subset who just absolutely do not want to hear about it when it comes to the rotting and I can't exactly sit back and pretend there haven't been one too many zombie franchises in the gaming world. Do we really need another one? One that explores character motives does hit a little a differently than your standard fair I would argue, but realising that would take people actually playing this game to learn that it's different and... most people just didn't want to.

I think it really would take a miracle for Sony to suddenly throw Days Gone back into sudden production but I suppose stranger things have happened in the house of blue. I just think most people have really moved on from this game and in doing so enfranchised a belief that the original game was 'mid', when I would most certianly assist it is well above average by most every estimation. But who is going to take the time to check? Still, I will say it's smart of the director to try and apply pressure on Sony themselves because we know just how out-of-touch those guys can be on the best of days. If he really wants to make this happen- those are the right feathers to rustle. And if the impossible does come to pass- you can bet I'll pick up my copy... provided it actually comes to PC day one this time around, of course... 

The almighty Beta

 

It's such an enfranchised aspect of the video game release timeline to drop a Beta that gets players in early for some free feedback that I can't actually ascertain what the term 'beta' even means anymore. I mean sure, once upon a time it referred to a late-project state of the game where polish and tuning are the core-most requirements to cross that finish-line, but often times it's subbed in to mean games that are literally a spit-shine away from being ready to games that feel like they're one bad slip away from a popped artery. But still the 'Beta' is an almost expected part of certain kinds of games marketing cycle, to a point where some of the time these 'Betas' clearly aren't even for the benefit of the game and serve simply as marketing tools. And in fact, I know just one such time where such marketing blew the game to the moon and back. Wizard. Moon. I'm talking about Destiny.

Destiny was a title that was on the radar of every Halo fan in existence of course, but I wouldn't discover Halo for several more years thus the effect was largely lost on my oblivious ass. The game looked pretty, sure, but there was no wider understanding of what a 'Live Service' was or would become. A shooter/MMO seemed like a strange concept that only appealed to small niches and without getting the thing in your hands there wasn't even any telling if this would be a good feeling shooter at all- remember we were in the age of the every-game-shooter, so everyone and their mothers was cobbling together pretenders to the Call of Duty throne and missing all the points along the way. Destiny was, however, much better than all those pretenders, and all it had to prove that fact was get in the hands of potential buyers.

I honestly do not believe that the Destiny Beta was truly established in order to test the game before launch. Maybe they were kind of iffy about how their servers would hold up but that game was straight done before by the time everyone got it dropped upon them for free. And I was absolutely smitten with the game. It's visuals, it's controls, it's character, it's enemy design (343 really could learn something about character design from Destiny! Even now!) The game sparkled with potential and everyone who was anyone could pick up the game and enjoy that without spending a single dime. It was a AAA gleam that swept the world and, I imagine, played no small part in the industry realising just how easier it is to get online games off the ground by making them free-to-play. Fortnite probably sealed that into fact, but I think Destiny's over-night fame might have had something to say there too!

But nowadays Beta's can even serve as the launching point for some games when developers simply can't get their game to the finish line without support or simply want players hand in guiding that. This movement has given birth to a whole separate breed of game releases- the 'early access' world where you'll view games without complete narratives, fully realised gameplay routines and sometimes even design directions. (This movement owes more to Minecraft, in my opinion.) It is often a mire for missed shots and half-ideas; few of which make it to the limelight whilst most stumble and die along the path. And recent events certainly have highlighted just how contentious this route can be.

Life by You may not have been on my personal radar for games that were going to change my view of the world in any substantive way, but I do think the Sim genre would have been in for a bit of a shakeup had it made it to the beta it was building towards. That's right, the game wasn't even releasing in the full sense, it was just going to soft-launch into a beta that was supposed to build up and up into a grand title that would have shaken the deeply monetised core of The Sims. Or at least that was the dream before Paradox decided to pull the plug early. Could that Beta alone have proven such a drain on resources/good will that they were justified pulling it so early? The team don't seem to think so, neither do the fans. But I guess it's one of those mysteries we'll carry to the grave, isn't it?

And what about 'The Division: Heartland'? Set to be another spin-off of 'The Division' brand, Heartland was going to move the action from the squad-based shooter paradigm into survivalist rough-living where you have to hunt for clean water and manage your resources. Personally I find such a style of game to be largely overdone, but considering the recent survival revival I would certainly be in the minority for that assertion. Heartland actually made a couple of betas, coming out to the audience and gauging that response. And then it was killed off just a few weeks back. Totally cancelled through earnings call.  Was the beta truly that bad? What does this mean for what a Beta even is anymore?

Presumably when a game hits the Beta stage it has already gone through all the preliminary trials and tribulations to prove it deserves in some abstract way to exist in the world. Systems have been built, functionality has been confirmed, the team are headed towards some rough sense of a finish line- pulling the plug at this point is a genuine flushing of time and resources- and yet it's still happening more often lately. Have the parameters changed, then? Maybe the modern day realisation of the sheer damage that a bad launch can wrought on one's reputation, and thus future profitability, has levied unrealistic expectations upon the performance of Betas- or maybe the term has lost any and all meaning altogether.

To be fair, I think most everyone is better off when games are dropped at the finish line-  not a few milestones beforehand. Of course there are exceptions- Larian seem to really think that Baldur's Gate 3's time in early access was totally invaluable to help shaping the game into as fine a point as it ended up striking withy. But how many other titles have used that designation as a shield? Some games, that might be called Fallout 76, even launched their games without such a label but relied on the 'culture' established by beta's and early access games to insist there's nothing wrong with unfinished deliveries. Maybe the status quo shift is for the best in that case...

On revision: Witcher and CDPR

 

Facing a draught in video game releases coming in the near future when it comes to the world of RPGs, I'm forced to look misty eyed into the clouds to try and make out what lies on the horizon. In that vein I really do think we're going to see the strongest showing out of those that both need to prove themselves and still have the hunger in their bones to do it. Bioware have given up their RPG routes in their entirety and are expecting a round of applause for that, Bethesda still have me wondering if they even know what people are thinking about their recent releases- all that's left right now is to look at CDPR- because they certainly showed they aren't willing to let their reputation fade to dust even if they have to kick two years of post launch support to salvage it. In that light I actually have some high expectations for the upcoming 'The Witcher 4'.

The Witcher remains my special little game I discovered back when the rest of the world were still totally oblivious. To this day The Witcher 2 gets looked at with an unturned nose as some sort of black-child of the franchise- along with the original, I guess. (I suppose it's more just 3 being considered 'The Golden Child' in that light.) I remember absolutely falling in love with a totally mature Fantasy game that nailed political drama in a fantastical world with consequence and personality- truly it was the height of the RPG action world back in it's day. And yes it was messy at times, but it stuck with me- and I actually think there are aspects that original that outstrip even The Witcher 3 to this very day! And it seems to me like going back to some of those hallmarks might just be the future of The Witcher franchise in the coming instalment.

Of course those three Witcher Games covered the journey of 'Geralt of Rivia', the star of the books and ailing TV show, through a pretty complete summation of his journeys post the then-end of the original narrative. Where we go from here is entirely up to the whims and wants of the CDPR team, which is partially why I'm really expecting we see something truly beyond the barriers of what we're seen thus far from the studio. Essentially from here on the franchise is their fantasy plaything to go wild with, just as The Elder Scrolls belongs to Bethesda and Final Fantasy belongs to Sqaure Enix. They can go absolute nuts with the scope, the characters and most-importantly: the consequence of the player's actions within that world space.

Sure, there were choices in the original games. But all to a the degree that could roughly fit into the character of who Geralt already was- which itself was a nice grounding aspect to the way they presented the narrative so that CDPR didn't actually have to play out every reality in their mind. As it turns out this quirk would actually stick in the way they tell their stories and bleed into Cyberpunk- which itself was not a total 'free choice' RPG but rather players iterating on a pre-set character that the team already had largely in mind. This really is a limiting factor I think they need to push past in order to push their RPGs to the next level- not go the way of lazy Ubisoft and their one note protagonists with no value or growth to them. Which is why I think that CDPR's real competitor to bring themselves up against is going to be Larian.  

Yeah, I know: "He's brings that bloody game up every blog!" But it stands to bear that Baldur's Gate 3 is the template through which the gaming world is shaped. The very fabric of what an RPG can be is based around the promise of 'reactivity'. You role play in a world that reacts to what you do- however the extent to which that was possible tended to be inelastic. The bigger and fancier your game was, the less space there really was to be truly reactive to the player's choices. Which is how we got into a situation where the more money the Dragon Age franchise receives the less they begin resembling actual RPGs until we hit the point where we're at now. Baldur's Gate 3 bucked this trend to thunderous and overwhelming applause- The Witcher 4 needs to follow suit.

We've already gotten somewhat confirmation that The Witcher 4 is going to star an entirely brand new build-a-bear Witcher who embarks on a journey all of their own, which could be the perfect formula to create a really substantive narrative of exploring the dark fantasy mires of The Northern territories and  

discover what they make of you. Cyberpunk 2077 already proved that CDPR aren't afraid to really delve into the question of 'who are you' even in an RPG, I'd love to see that expanded into a highly political fantasy world stuffed to the brim with warring factions and uneasy allegiances. Maybe we'll get another story of how it feels to circle oblivion with no way out- or perhaps we'll start legend building on a journey to make a hero to rival the white wolf. Maybe they'll get really crazy and move the fiction of the world up to the age of the renaissance and see what happens there! The possibilities are actually pretty exciting.

Already CDPR are praising themselves with a hardy clap on the back for the extent of their technology going into this new Witcher game, talking about how it surpasses anything they've worked on before. And to that point I just want to helpfully remind you all that Cyberpunk 2077 is still the benchmark to which all new innovations in fidelity are tested, so whatever they're working on which apparently puts that to shame must be making current hardware shudder in it's boots. I weep to think of what my measly GeForce card is being threatened with. But my inner masochist also welcomes the challenge with gusto. And if the technicians are bringing it- you know that the rest of the studio are being edged to match that level of innovation.

I've been rightfully hard on CDPR over the past few years but I try not to be outwardly nasty, and that's because I still have a lot of love and respect for this studio. I was angry because I know they can do better and I know this team has a few hits left in it before it starts to go the way of Bioware and, seemingly, Bethesda. I never held these artists on the same minuscule level as I do Ubisoft, because I truly do think they have the capacity to set the world on fire once again as even their poor releases have done before. The Witcher 4 may still be a sparkle in the milkman's eye, but it's one I'm getting ramped up to start hyping for once that reveal hits. Although, something tells me we're going to waiting until the next generation for that one. Just a hunch.

Nintendo Grows up

 

Nintendo has a reputation to keep, just like Disney before them. And I really think it is in pursuit of appearing family friendly, the last bastion of true kids gaming on the industry, that so many allow Nintendo to get away with some of the truly heinous crap they pull. Stomping down on content creators for simply loving their games? "Oh, but what if someone makes something objectionable and a kid sees it? It's simply Nintendo doing the due diligence!" (Genuine excuse for them recently announcing an initiative to move on mature art of their characters such-as Bowsette.) "Hmm, they present the worst online experience out of all the big 3. So unquestionable bad that you can't even reliable mic-up with other players? Have to keep those kids safe!" People will justify having their houses broken into and being burgled by Nintendo by simply assuming that all the expensive furniture and family heirlooms that were stolen might have accidently been run into by a child. It's their greatest shield.

But what if Nintendo were to ever... rock the boat, so to speak? What if Nintendo went out of their way to do something... not so 'kid friendly' for once? What if Nintendo announced their very first adult game and the only reason I'm asking these hypotheticals is because that is literally exactly what happened and there's no point playing coy. That is the thing. We're talking about it. It's wild. Now that is really the angle that people are going with- calling this "Nintendo's first M rated game", although that isn't really true when you think about it. Nintendo published Bayonetta, afterall. And one of the Fatal Frame's digital editions, and one of the Ninja Gaiden's and some other horror games from back in the day. And you need merely look at the Nintendo E-Store to find plenty of questionable games for sale- but they've never developed an M rated game before. And that is worth talking about.

Now to be absolutely clear we don't know if Nintendo themselves are official working on the game, they just surprised announced the game with a trailer without anyone being the wiser and in the absence of anyone coming out and claiming the thing it appears to be a Nintendo property. Although some have noticed that Bloober team have a gap in their supposed development line-up which would align neatly with a new game... particularly considering they mentioned it was for Nintendo and codenamed 'Project M'. But then Bloober team aren't usually ones to hide their name. Honestly the speculation about the origins of the project might just be more interesting in the game itself- not least of all because it doesn't have a name beyond the bland and easily forgettable "Project Emio".

Now the curious aspect about this trailer is that it dropped literally out of nowhere. With no Nintendo direct, no heads up, no cross advertising- it just dropped out of the sky. The trailer is a tease of a teaser, with a little bit of jumpy visuals and a an in-progress name- and we can't even tell you who's making the thing. Heck, if I were one for conspiracies I might even question whether or not the thing is even a real game being published whatsoever, or if this is another case of the 'headline grabbers' like Blue box scandal from a while back. Hey... has anyone actually checked up on Blue Box recently? You don't think...

As far as a mature venture for Nintendo to go down, I have to say that making a horror game is perhaps the least interesting angle one might expect. Horror games are such 'easy' mature bait, with implications here, a bit of excessive blood there, and maybe a touch of psychological horror and suddenly the ratings board treats you like a real-life goat sacrifice is performed alongside every playthrough. But it rarely goes that deep. Horror is one of the most accessible genres in the entire medium and that makes it excessively hard to do something truly novel and unique that pushes the boundaries. I typically have a bevy of documents drawn up for concepts that would challenge the bounds of current genres but I've never been able to come up with one for horror- because it feels like they've done everything already. (Or Maybe I'm just not that big enough of a fan to visualise it.)

I'd rather see Nintendo throw their efforts behind something exciting that takes advantage of their renown for great feeling controls and pitch-perfect gameplay. Imagine a balls-to-the-wall action hack and slash game... I guess genre-adjacent to Bayonetta, but leaning on the great eye for iconography and character visualisation that makes Nintendo stand out so vividly!  Maybe there's a bit of flashy action, a few over-the-top cartoonish violence, a potty mouthed script, an intense explored theme or two. I just want something more substantive than walking around an abandoned building being chased by ghosts who mutter about mean things that happened to them when they were twelve. Been there, yawned at that.

What we do know is that according to whoever rated the thing, we can expect themes of domestic abuse and permanent self harm- which ties in to what you typically get out of games like these. Although, maybe I'm being a bit of a reductive here. Afterall, my perception of what horror games have been and could be are based on the thriving indie horror scene and career horror studios that live and breathe this style- never have we seen a family friendly masterpiece creator dedicate themselves to this area- so perhaps there's some unique special something they can bring to the genre-type. Tie in the fact that it's pretty clear this is a Japanese game, giving the Kanji at the end which roughly spells out 'Smiling Man', and we know that Japanese horror tends to go places unexplored my Western horror. Maybe there's something interesting there.

Still, at the end of the day this is Nintendo reclaiming their title as caters to the mature which they've shied away from ever since their days of intentionally producing playing cards that were used exclusively by the Japanese Yakuza in order to skirt overly specific anti gambling laws. Never forget that was how Nintendo got their big break. Maybe they can channel a bit of that back-market dealing into giving a unhinged and untraditional experience that really breaks the mould and reminds everyone why we were so distraught when Silent Hills went the way of the do-do.

Water is wet and Rockstar chase money

 

Rockstar games are exactly a complicated beast to predict. Not anymore. If we were to compare studios and their mannerisms to bosses from Souls-Like games- you'd have companies like Larian pulling up like 'Shadow of the Erdtree' major bosses, slapping you with multi-combos, roll catches and back-of-pocket lighting moves you never even knew that boss had after twenty attempts! Rockstar, on the otherhand, would be a miniboss from Lords of the Fallen. Gimmicky, with a couple of easily baitable combos that can be spammed over and over and over again. (I'm really digging into Lords lately, aren't I? That game has not left a good impression on me at all.) Which is to say, I'm actually a little surprised that this recent controversy with Rockstar is even a thing because, well, come on! You didn't know Rockstar buries art for money?

I'm talking of course about the single player DLC for Grand Theft Auto V. That's right, there was actually meant to be single player DLC and it wasn't a Zombie DLC despite the multiple years worth of bait-channels promising that with every other update. (Early Youtube- what a time to be young and dumb!) 'Special Agent Trevor' isn't exactly a secret within the community and I think people had already discussed the possibility that some of the surprise spy-content in GTA Online was actually repurposed single player content but I suppose that became a bit more concrete recently and old wounds opened up. Like a whistleblower coming out to declare that the Cambrian Explosion was actually a Pfizer cover-up job like we've suspected all these years. (Hmm? You haven't heard that conspiracy? Oh it goes deep, let me tell you!)

The revelation that some people are grappling with is the fact that indeed the quality of content presented in the base game of Grand Theft Auto V was purposefully ignored in order to feed the endless juggernaut of the online platform because that is, in the words of the man himself, their "Cash cow". I've said it before but GTA Online makes a sickening amount of money year in and year out, to the point where all those people worrying about Grand Theft Auto suddenly raising their prices to $100 or $150 as was off handily remarked a while back would be a frankly ludicrous proposition- because that would get in the way of the team getting their money printing device for the next decade in as many hands as possible. They would be literally setting fire to their own money- it's never going to happen!

But I mean- it's not exactly rocket science to realise that GTA single player had floundered in the face of Online. Just take into account the fact that after only a couple of updates worth of support GTA Online simply stopped porting their new cars to GTA V- despite the fact they could have easily been injected into the traffic formula in order to make single player exploration more diverse and interesting. Partially it could be argued that the choice was made in order to limit people's ability to 'pre test' these new cars and decided whether or not they want to commit through online. Buyers remorse is king to these kinds of people. But the truth is likely just frank laziness. Why bother when it doesn't translate into direct profit for the company? What's 'integrity' mean again?

Although I do understand the realisation that if this definitely was the case- Rockstar did, in-fact, axe content in order to feed the beast at least once- who's to say they haven't done it again? Could it be that the supposed zombie expansion was at least discussed before the successes of GTA Online killed those ambitions? Let it not be forgotten that one half of the Houser brother duo who started Rockstar to begin with left during the period of GTA Online's success leading towards the release of Red Dead Redemption. Could one factor contributing to that be seeing the direction that the company was headed- where resources were being devoted and no longer finding the spark of fun in being involved with it all? Could that be?

And what's worse- could this be the direction we have to face in the future too? Is the release of GTA 6 going to effectively be the end of support for the single player game as Rockstar happily turn towards the new and improved cash cow with dollar signs in their eyes- giddy at the prospect of an open world infrastructure, this time designed from the literal ground-up to absorb as much extra income off the player as possible? I mean we've already seen Red Dead Online get it's support totally pulled because the team couldn't figure out a way to make it profitable enough after the first year, throwing out the baby with the bathtub in that regard.

There is certainly room for both in this world, should the powers that be decide it's worth pursuing. Even the designer who commented on this in the first place attested that Rockstar could very well have chosen to support both at the same time. Now being even bigger than they were before, Rockstar could very well decide to do so this time around- or they could sink that extra talent into squeezing more easily monetizable online crap. Aside from the common-sense argument, we also have the fact that Rockstar just recently introduced a bevy of long requested quality of life features and then locked them behind the subscription paywall- so they certainly haven't gotten any better with business practices over the years.

I think Rockstar is a company of two halfs, one being a world class developer that developers non-stop masterpieces and the other being an opportunistic waste-of-space that milks all the framework left over by the real artists for a quick buck. And that perception has survived the entirety of GTA Online's life cycle, throughout Rockstar's life cycle and I have no reason to believe anything significant will change going forward. At least not in the 'player friendly' direction. Just remember the Rockstar we care about and support their efforts, and spit on the Rockstar who seems very eager to do so back.

Souls-like in design

 

With the recent explosion of Souls-Like games flooding pretty much all of the gaming markets, the question of what makes the ideal Souls game becomes more and more pertinent. Questioning every design choice, narrative quirk, gameplay twist- all in the aim of breaking down this genre to it's core most elements so that they can be replicated onto eternity. And through all of that questioning and experimentation I think one of the most easily overlooked aspects of the development process is that of Level Design- perhaps the biggest culprit of games like these turning into either contemplative explorations into the depths of ruined society or simply collapsing into a frustrating trudge through endless identical hallways for no real reason other than the developer wanted to pad out the gameplay of their levels.

Level Layout of course refers to not only the path that players walk throughout their experience with the game but also the artistry with which these digital hallways are draped. The scenery, the environments and also in this genre- the way the world reinforces the narrative that is being told. Level Design also works as a kind of silent language to the player teaching them unconscious norms of the world. If you stumble upon a shortcut that ties you back to a previous rest point you'll come to learn that points of reprieve are valuable in this area and you should always look for ways to shorten run-back trips through short cuts. If you see a ruin layout with a staircase leading down repeated a dozen times, and then spot one ruin without a staircase- you'll know to start poking about the area a bit for that inevitable illusion wall. So much goes into level layout that you'll never consciously consider.

Of course, at the same time it is very easy for Level Layout to become the detriment of a game. If you overload your levels unnecessarily with looping paths and overlapping routes without means of guidance, overt or otherwise, then you've turned the act of navigation into an obstacle- which never seems to work out well in the combat-heavy genre of Souls-likes. We like to challenge ourselves against enemies, test our builds, battle against huge bosses we have to learn to overcome. Trying to figure out where such enemies even are does not exactly feed into any vertical of the supposed gameplay loop. And yet Blighttown still exists.

Sometimes we can be victim of looking at game design in an objectifyingly binary angle. "You either get exploration or linear worlds" but it's never quite so simple. Exploration is a avenue of expression, that can be stoked just as powerfully in a carefully crafted mostly linear dungeon as in a wide-open field. In fact, typical wisdom has taught us that more often than not it is the carefully crafted smaller scale content that is imbued with the more meaningful exploration over the large open wastes. Those that achieve meaningful exploration in giant fields are the exception to the rule, with Elden Ring being a bit of a dazzling exception. And I can think of a few linear games that totally drop the ball when it comes to exploration.

Take 'Lords of the Fallen' for example. That is a game which ties up it's world in a labyrinth of corridors differentiated only by the theme of the biome that situates them. Too often you'll find yourself thrown into an area that you simply wander around blindly until you stumble upon the boss- and even Blight Town is never that obtuse. Remember Blight Town starts you at the top of a perilous descent of iffy-looking hovels suspended over a drop into a mire. You see the destination from first entry before you're shoved into the hell of houses and ambushes, so that the player always knows what it is that they are heading towards. You see how powerful that is?

Every one of these Souls-likes handles their exploration in a different way, most of which work to support the style of game. Nioh and Wu Long have largely mission-based designs where you're never too far off the beaten path- you constantly have a map marker giving you the rough direction where to go, and exploration is something of a means to empower yourself before the final boss by collecting a group of standardised level powerups present in every map. Sekiro employs perhaps the loosest rails of a FromSoft game prior to Elden Ring due to it's more Metroidvania style design philosophy prioritising movement freedom. You're still on rails, but you don't feel on rails. And, of course, Elden Ring employs wider world design philosophies to guide the unshackled mind to points of interest on the vast horizon guiding their way in a subtlety most don't even realise. 

Through it all LOTF remains the one franchise that has always been an outlier and which I think I'm happy labelling the most rough of the big budget Souls-likes out there. I can't rightly say why it is that Lords of the Fallen just never seems to get the fundamentals of this genre down right, but it might perhaps be because they seem to focus on 'frustration' over 'challenge'. Never have I seen that principal channelled more disastrously than by the new game's 'innovative' New Game+ challenge wherein, get this: the game erases 'Bonfires' (they called 'Vestiges' in this game, but you know what I'm talking about) with each new game. Those are places to recharge your healing kits, and more importantly to respawn when you die. By New Game+ 3 they're all gone. Do you know what that means? No fast travel. Who, exactly, finds the fun in the 'challenge' of navigating several hours of enemy spam hallways?

There is no blueprint to making the perfect Souls-game. So much of this genre is vibes based and that's what makes it so fertile and open to interpretation- it's what brings the genre life. But it's also a slip-up point when you come to studios who still, after all this time, can't seem to nail the right vibes. Don't get me wrong, Lords of the Fallen has improved significantly from it's predecessor who prominently featured identical room layouts in unfathomably dull labyrinths. But they also haven't improved as much as you'd think someone would when publishing their fourth Souls Like. I just... expect more.   

Blumhouse horror

I can't believe this totally slipped by me- as though everything else just got in the way so much that I couldn't keep up with it all at the time. Yes- Blumhouse have announced their grand debut into video game producing to expand their horror line-up laterally and that is... actually I think it's pretty cool. Blumhouse represents some of the most consistent backbones of the movie industry across the past decade. As even sure-bet movie studios are starting to drop off piece-by-piece, raking up embarrassing losses that make their occasional big budget knockouts feel more like bandages across all the failures they're spitting out- never once has there been a Blumhouse movie that has collapsed and burnt. Not to say they've all been good. Most of them haven't been. But has there been a financial failure? Not even close. Why? Maybe because they're the only production studio in all of Hollywood that remembers how to actually make movies- like, within a genuine budget.

But what does that have to do with games and why am I bringing it up? Well- budgeting has kind of become an issue for the video game world, now hasn't it? Not in the same sort of manner- mind you- it's not like video game companies are spending money fabricating sets they could have literally just relocated to, or CGI coating the most mundane innocuous background assets- different medium, different costs. But you do hear about these big studios bemoaning production costs for these games that simply cannot sustain them- performing backflips to try and justify raising prices of games- as though we haven't been inundated with microtransactions and battle passes and virtual capitalistic guns to our heads over the course of the past decade. Meanwhile, here's Blumhouse, novices to the industry, approaching yet again with a high delivery method that- I'm going to be honest- is going to make them tons of money!

Because what is the biggest issue with modern game productions? It's actually something that Hidetaka Miyazaki commented around recently when talking about the way he runs FromSoftware- it's this all or nothing mentality that every big games company is hard committing to. Throwing all of your eggs in the same basket and basically making a suicide pact with all your work partners everytime you set off on a project. Gigantic budgets for gigantic games that need to marketed to everyone and be accessible for everyone, whilst also sell three million copies and generate a recurrent revenue source for at least three years with a battle pass and Microtransactions- but oh no- apparently people don't like that and now the game is reviewing bad and now it's not selling enough and now we've wasted another investment and now the company is broke and now everyone is fired. The real legends try not to do it like that.

FromSoftware hedges it's bets even at it's pinnacle. Elden Ring was in development at the same time as Armoured Core VI, both acting as collateral for the other. Bethesda are supporting Fallout 76 and trying to revive interest in even Fallout 4 whilst trying to get Starfield it's own identity to build a brand off of! CDPR threw everything they had into Cyberpunk and had to dedicate the next two years on an apology tour because if their brand was tarnished enough that their next game flopped- how could they possibly move on to the next game after that? Larian, also, threw everything they had behind Baldur's Gate 3 and if that dropped off a cliff- I'm not saying they'd be kaput but we'd certainly be looking at a more dire situation then they're currently at. (We'd be looking at definitely another Divinity instead of just probably one. >Shudder<)

Blumhouse are practically built from the ground up to work with smaller budget enterprises. They know how this goes. When everyone is throwing their weight behind that one mega game that takes 8 years and 50 million to complete- Blumhouse are going to ride off their name alone in order to push 5 low budget indie-sized horror games a year and people are going to flock to it for name recognition alone! I won't pretend that anyone could do this, Blumhouse has a name synonymous with horror, but the pattern is what I want to highlight. Horror fans do not have a high barrier of quality. They made Hello Neighbour a popular franchise and that hardly crosses the bar to climb out of the 'tech demo' territory! It's not about quality, it's about consistency.

And to be clear, Blumhouse's line-up doesn't look all that ambitious. Because they are working with publishing these games from small otherwise indie groups. That gets these small teams names out there and it builds the brand- everyone wins! Right now the only one they've got out is a game called 'Fear the Spotlight' that looks like a 90's stylised puzzle horror that gives me vague Resident Evil vibes for some reason. Maybe it's the PS1 Graphics with that font for their text boxes. You know the type, too big with colour tints. They know their audience. And of course they do- it's a passion project. And you know what? The game is reviewing well, people are liking it- perhaps making this game Blumhouse's most positively received product for a hot minute- but that's neither here nor there.

I'll admit to being sceptical when I first heard this announced. There are enough small indie horror games out there to drown out the Pacific Ocean but... upon review, I realised that in itself- indie horror is a gateway into the industry for a lot of creators. Sure a lot of it is going to be shovel ware, but some of it is going to be really clever and ingenious little takes on relatively small scale games that deserve the platform to elevate what could be a budding career. Having a studio dedicated to highlighting some of the best of these indies and getting them on a platform is like watering the grass-routes knowing the backbone it will go on to support. I don't know if that is what Blumhouse was considering with this venture, but I respect it under that light.

Now will I actually play their games? It depends. I don't mind a small indie game here and there, depending on if it fits my sensibilities, but at the very least I'll have a catalogue of some of the best to shift through- similar with Devolver Digital. And who knows, maybe we'll end up getting a new wave of ingenuity pulsing through the horror industry that will finally move us on from everyone trying to copy PT. It was years ago and I personally think that formula officially died when Ubisoft stole it for the dream sequence of Watch_Dogs Legion's Bloodlines- I'm serious by the way, they literally took that entire hallway and replicated it for no reason and thought we wouldn't notice. Most didn't. I did. We need new inspirations.

What Watch_Dogs could have been

 

Watch_Dogs has something of a special rose tinted place in my heart. Not Watch_Dogs 2- no tint needed there, that game just slaps. Always did, always will. And definitely not Legion- that game was a complete miscarriage with all the tragedy and sadness perfectly preserved in the package. I'm talking the original story of revenge and... nah, it really doesn't get any deeper than a revenge plot, does it? I was going to throw in 'conspiracy' but I think the ultimate reveal is so exceedingly disappointing that it single-handily undoes all the conspiratorial build up the game dedicated itself to beforehand. That first game really was something, wasn't it? Maybe not a masterpiece, but not a disaster piece either. I wouldn't even call it an average game- but I would certainly understand pushback against calling it one of the greats. It was a game of significance, I think we call agree on that much- which is more than can be said for a lot of Ubisoft titles.

And I think a big part of that topsy-turvy state of being comes from the fact that Watch_Dogs is rather transparently a very ambitious game that bites it's own tongue so very often- but not often enough that you don't see the glimmers of what it once was shine out every now and then. I'll just say it straight, you don't pull out all the stops to make a third person shooter play that good unless you have big plans- and I'd go so far as to say bigger plans than what ended up on the disc. Of course these suspicions would have remained only that until my imagination was sparked by learning about the impressive Watch_Dogs 'Living City' mod which aims to achieve much of the latent potential it feels the game always had, albeit through the hands of 'modding' babes.

In many ways what the Living City attempts to do is make the world, missions and player experience more reactive to the narrative- not in that vague marketing way where random variables are tied to the odd player input- but in the really tangible way that the pulse of the city quickens and slacks with the pace of the plot in a manner that is true to the spirit that Watch_Dogs was trying to evoke, rather than just true to the lethargic principles of open world design that Ubisoft stick to like a holy text. Even simple things like restoring an apparently cut feature where hackers hunting for Aiden, the most wanted vigilante in the state mind you, would set up fake contracts to lead the player into an ambush- that kind of stuff contributes to selling the world.

Watch_Dogs was ostensibly built around the idea of the death of digital privacy in a world where the wrong people with the right tools can peel apart the world from the touch of a button on a smartphone half a block away. It's a world of false safety and paper-thin civility draped over a pulsing underworld of the cities worst- a world that Aiden is embroiled in. It should be dangerous, poignant, paranoia inducing and unrelenting- as you dive deeper into the guts of the beast and rile up even more of Chicago's filth. Aiden is built up as this one-man army taking on a city of corruption, collusion and collateral chaos. But in the base game, none of these ideals exist beyond the page of the script they're written on- and that's just not how you design effective works of art. Not in the gaming medium.

Watch_Dogs could have leaned into the consequence that was clearly supposed to be of some significance during that infamous E3 trailer. The way that people would recognise you and try to discreetly call the police, in reaction to the inherent violent actions the player could partake in reflected the human cost of a war waged in blood across residential streets. The fact that in the pursuit of vengeance in resolve to a very human reaction to loss, Aiden would divest himself from the average citizens he believed he was fighting for (to some degree) would reflect gorgeously upon the general themes of the franchise. Just as we surrender our security for the sake of security, Aiden surrenders his humanity in search of humanity. It was right there!

Whatsmore, all of this would have served better in making Aiden this tragic tortured character who never managed to get over the loss and guilt like Ubisoft clearly wanted him to be by the events of Legion. No, instead they just kind of jumped awkwardly to that conclusion without taking the small amount of effort to set it up, resulting in jarring discontent of story. In their version of Aiden, the only thing he really has to feel guilty about is getting Clara killed because he was a dick to her, only she was conveniently left out of his flashbacks forgoing that slight amount of guilt- I suspect because they didn't want to try and source her voice actress again. Ubisoft are just the kings of never following through and it ruins the potential of so many of their works!

Don't even get me started on the failings of the main narrative. Clara Lille, the female supporting character who never got a chance to develop into anything because Ubisoft killed her off in the third act for cheap pity points before she got the chance to become a character important enough to where that death would mean something. Imagine if they killed off T-Bone in Watch_Dogs 2- a character they actually developed! Imagine how people would have felt about that! But no, in this 'brutal world' of vigilantes and corruption the story never has the courage to go that one step further- and perhaps that was what led to the franchise giving up on that angle and instead going the 'rainbow attitude' route for the sequel.

Watch_Dogs had potential to be a very different side of the Ubisoft formula- doing away with the gimmicky nature of it's style and showcasing just how well this style of development can reinforce themes and plot. Instead it became a disappointment, then a redemption too late and finally a disgrace upon game design as a whole. At the end of the day I'm starting to think that the idea of Watch_Dogs wasn't the problem, and I still find the whole 'Aiden hate' to be deeply routed in ancillary distaste for Ubisoft that somehow manifested itself in generalised protagonist bashing. The problem was a lack of conviction. Maybe some day we'll get something similar with the right hearts leading the project to show us the true face of what Watch_Dogs could have been.

So about Fable

 

With a new Fable something on the way, (Remake, Reboot or just straight sequel- can't be sure on which one right now) I and many others have really had the franchise on the mind as everyone tries to come to terms with what this franchise even was to begin with- because it really doesn't seem like anyone is sure. It has been so very long since a proper Fable game has come out and an entire couple of generations have flown by in the interim. A lot of the target audience of these games have moved on entirely and they're now presumably batting for a whole new group of players right off the bat- but we won't be able to recognise those attempts unless we categorise what Fable is and more importantly- what it isn't. Because with that latter comes undue expectations that aren't really fair on the game.

Fable is an RPG franchise. But not really RPGs like any other franchise currently does it. They were mostly child-focused, with variously exaggerated adult winks, high fantasy RPGs that prided themselves on providing a sandbox. But that doesn't mean they were Sandbox RPGs, mind you! Perish the thought! They were robust and largely linear affairs- or rather bi-linear, I suppose? They championed purposefully opaque views on morality and heroism and created impressively creative black-and-white adventures around those parameters. They also boasted themselves as bastions of player expression despite never one featuring a character creator. (They just had so many character customisation options everyone felt like they were making someone unique.)   

But Fable didn't always stay as just that. As the games went on and the Fable brand grew the games started to shed their RPG routes and developed into a bit more of a general action adventure beat-em-up with basic moral compunctions chucked in for good measure. At least, in the rare times that they were even still traditional games! I don't mean to speak ill of the later games given that my introduction to the franchise was Fable 3 which I still hold some nostalgia for in my heart, but there's no hiding from the truth that Fable became a bit too much of a brand as it went on. Was the Horse VR game really deserving of the Fable name? Not really. What about the short-lived Asymmetrical multiplayer game? The 'player's playground' which was so integral to the franchise's identity was kind of lost.

I think as the franchise became more polished and outwardly approachable, it's innards were slowly gutted to a point where series fans became a bit disillusioned. Although to some degree I do think the streamlining improved the experience- there's no deluding yourself into believing that the original Fable isn't a bit of a convoluted mess in user experience, questing, combat, levelling- just about everything. It's the spirit of what Fable was that keeps it glued together and for better or for worse, I think that spirit was alive all the way up until Fable 3 dropped and Peter 'liar liar pants on fire' Molyneux flew the Lionhead coup. Speaking of- 'RIP Lionhead'- what a shame. Miss those guys and girls.

As Fable exists now, the franchise is not where it was left. In the absence of any serious contemporaries, Fable has become the great fantasy hope of the Xbox world, promising to bring back all those fond memories of sandbox escapism integral to this genre- even if quite a chunk of those memories weren't actually originated from Fable itself. People want Fable to be this grand fantastical adventure that will seamlessly immerse you in an otherworldly space, imbue you with all the skills to be some laudable attractive badass and thrill you throughout- most of which doesn't gell with this franchise at all. People genuinely get in their feelings about how 'unattractive' the female protagonist is like every other Fable character over the years have been virtues of beauty. The franchise's art style has been 'comic mis-proportions' since it started; what Fable have you been playing?

But lacking an Elder Scrolls, Fable has kind of had to serve as the interim Bethesda title whilst they fumble about trying to make Starfield feel like a better all around game- which has led to Fable adopting largely unrealistic expectations. Following the trajectory of Fables past- this game should only ever be a pretty decent AA game at best- honestly the production value we've seen so far largely diverges from the Fable we've known up until now- which is what leaves me to wonder whether or not there's any connective tissue from the series we know to the one we're seeing today. Will Microsoft even let this game be anything less than the big budget world simulation Elder Scrolls companion game it desperately wants to sell?

Now just because all of that is what Fable was, that doesn't mean it is what the franchise must always forever be. In fact, given the renewed spotlight-style focus that Fable is getting from Microsoft you'd almost be justified in saying they're expected to go above and beyond and create a 'premium product' to compete with the likes of Playstation's flagships- your Last of Us and God of War's. I don't believe that Fable can rise to such a task retaining it's playful innocence, no they'll need to shift in a manner that better suits the style. More cinema, less whimsy. And will that detract away from the heart of the franchise as it was? Perhaps- but sometimes it isn't a crime to change things up a little bit.

Take Perfect Dark for example, adapting a rather retro boomer-shooter into a pristine looking Immersive Sim- that's the kind of glow up that the Fable franchise could be looking at! We could get a narrower but cleaner RPG style adventure game than any Elder Scrolls game could realistically pull off. Fable could become an RPG franchise of tailor-made adventure pieces, rather than padding the waters between open world and garden plot exploration like they've done previously. And honestly, maybe the franchise would be better off leaning into it's own successes like this. Or maybe it'll just be another big open world RPG chucking it's two cents into one of the most competitive genres in the market- see how that works out for them...

In a Savage Land

 

I've been playing a lot of different games that try to borrow here and there from a genre or two across the road- like borrowing milk from a neighbour. Which has what led to my two blog so far knocking the exploration prowess, or lack thereof, of Lords of the Fallen- a game gradually turning into one of my grumbling chores to endure. But at some point it helps to take stock and go- "Hang on! What even is good exploration in video games?" And in times like that you go to a bit more of a pure exploration title to clear up the confusion. Along with Game Pass recently adding a title I had recommended to me a while back- it was only fair I finally sit down and dedicate a day or two to Journey to the Savage Planet- a pretty tongue-in-cheek exploration focused game set on the deadly frontiers of the planet hopping spaceways. And I happen to think the game is pretty good.

Exploration is really the crux of the gameplay loop as best encompassed by the handy Metroidvania-manner in which this game handles progression. You are set loose in wild and visually popping landscapes of colourful fauna and alien creatures both passive and hostile, with a small bag of tools that slowly, through careful resource collection that doesn't loose itself under the weight of several thousand useless currencies like so many other do, the player becomes equipped with everything the burgeoning explorer needs. And a gun. This game is delightfully Blaise about the fact you interact with so much of their world by callously shooting it dead. Still there's ever the delightful fun of doubling back across environs you've treaded and spotting a new path you couldn't have reached before without your new double jump or ground pound or hand explosive-plant buds. The true scrappy-explorer experience! 

Of course, just padding around alien worlds is not in itself a full gameplay recipe (just ask Starfield) so there are of course platforming puzzles that task you to make use of those upgrades you pick up across the world in order to figure your way around fairly straightforward obstacles. The game is very robust and straightforward in it's design this way, there's little wiggleroom for experimentation or solving a platforming challenge in a way the team didn't explicitly lay out, which speaks both for the consistency of the gameplay experience they created and also the stiffness of the design which comes to bite a little bit down the line.

That being said I think it's worth saying that Savage does not really attempt to challenge with any of it's puzzles, which feels like a bit of a missed opportunity. Savage is very approachable, and bite sized as far as these kinds of games go, which is absolutely a lot of it's charm. The game doesn't outstay it's welcome at all. But I felt the beginner area where I was learning how the game worked, the intermediary area where systems were reinforced and expanded upon- and the game just kind of ended. There was no 'high level play' area to speak of where you'd maybe get a bit stumped and have to figure your way around a stubborn door or two. I suppose that kind of thinking was preserved for the secrets which do sometimes take a little scouring now and then.

Savage's world is very tongue-in-cheek ultra-corporate in a manner that is faintly 'The Outer Worlds' if that game had turned the farce all the way up to eleven. You are treated to offputting ad videos everytime you enter your homebase, vaguely existentially unnerving products for everything you didn't ever want or need litter the world's lore and the companion AI who walks you through the game with an adorable folksy charm happily reinforces just how expendable your human life, and practically all life you come across, is in the pursuit of discoveries your parent company can exploit on their path to become the number 2 space faring company in the galaxy. It's all very sickly and comedic in a manner I could certainly see wearing thin if this game were a slog- but as I said- bite sized!

Where the game kind of slips for me is the combat, what little of it the game actually has. Of course, fighting isn't really the point of the game but this is 'The Savage Planet' for a reason- and savagery comes in the form of fauna in the need of-a shooting here and there. Rather curiously the decision was made to turn all of the more hardier non-fluff enemies into mini-puzzles of precise dodges and retaliation- which brings up that issue of 'rigidity' I mentioned before. All of these monsters have attack patterns that you need to dodge and retaliate with- and in the manner of a puzzle you need to be exacting. Any puzzle, afterall, needs to have a specific solution- it can't be made to have any old solution, else it wouldn't hold up as a puzzle- but that philosophy doesn't quite gell so natural with combat.

There's nothing wrong with rules to combat, I play enough Souls to recognise the importance of patterns and how they make boss fights fun and engaging. But fights like these are enhanced by order to the chaos, not defined by them. The freedom to strike out of turn and not do as much damage as you were hoping, or get punished for your carelessness, feeds into the dynamic nature of game combat. It needs to feel like by playing to the game's mechanics you are reinforcing your tool set- but even a blunt object can break through a brick wall eventually. Stubborn heads can prevail against mechanics. Unless you set it out like a puzzle where enemies are utterly immune unless you specifically trigger a retaliation window by dodging at the right time. Then it becomes a bit of a chore. Can you tell which direction Savage goes for?

Journey to a Savage Planet is a very solid small-scale game that stands firm on it's foundations as a puzzle explorer and executes a lighthearted and decently engaging journey to embark on. It's is stuffed with collectables to hunt after for the so inclined, and trickled with enough variety to keep interesting throughout it's playtime. I also happen to think the game is perhaps a bit too safe on the gameplay front, a bit too restrictive in some unnecessary areas and maybe a little too rigid in it's design principals. You'll rarely discover a piece of equipment that has several uses beyond it's explicitly designed MetroidVania-style key resolution, and that always felt to me like 'the point' of where these kinds of games were headed. Still, I think it's worth a play. -B Grade.

The problem with money

 

Money is such a fine and fascinating thing, is it not? A great equaliser that cuts through skill, craft and means in order to... well, establish a whole separate class worth of skill, craft and means- but now with in-between currency! So many of the greatest ever to rise has been brought together thanks to the distribution and coalescence of money, as bodies are brought into one, ambitions are taught to soar and the improbable is willed into reality in it's cold pursuit. But it's also pretty much the anti-Christ, isn't it? Money, and it's pursuit, has that tendency to corrupt literally all it touches and I ain't talking about people. I'm talking about art, I'm talking about collaboration, I'm talking about the overall fabric of society in general. And today, I'm talking about Esports.

Now Esports hasn't exactly been in the best of places of late. Well, actually I guess it would really depend on who you ask, now I think about it. The number of Esports teams and tournaments popping up for all manner of competitive game, talent level and proficiency is frankly astounding. To think that we all once ago laughed at Evolve for desperately trying to sell it's game to the Esports crowd before it even hit store shelves when to be honest- that is what sells competitive multiplayer games these days!  Apart from Call of Duty. Call of Duty has it's own gravitational field that summons players to it's doorstep. It's simply the effect of the sweaty shooter- totally inexplicable and undefinable. Nothing you can do about it. But... that doesn't mean Esports is at it's healthiest on a meta level.

Because when we zoom out to the biggest level of Esports, the big games with the big teams, then it looks like a little bit of a graveyard. All the big Esports conglomerates who came out trying to settle into the scene recycling the same basic trad-sports monetisation techniques which turned hobbyists into superstar millionaires- ended up realising the vast difference between digital and physical sports to disastrous effect. Namely they realised that advertising revenue was nowhere near enough to bridge the gap between investment and output, like it is with normal sports. And the results? Most of the big Esports groups that tried to juggle all the popular games at once have fallen apart at the seams, dropping talent, dropping games, juggling liquidation and the worst fate of all- selling their rights back to the hobbyists who started the teams in the first place. So you could argue that is a net positive, but not to the pocket book.

And the pocket book is king. That's where all the eyes are drawn, all the hearts are fed and all the souls ripped from the chests of executives are kept. Therefore when the ol' treasury is looking light you can bet that's when the buttoned-up exec's start turning into straight ravenous animals chomping at any little bite of opportunity no matter who's blood strained hand might be holding the contract. And in that regard- well- to be honest Esports and normal sports aren't all that different. Morality becomes so very murky when multimillion dollar bonus packages start sizzling under your nose- and I'm sure that suffering the odd spitball or two is more than fair enough payment for the surrending of all basic decency. >cough< David Beckham >cough<

But this isn't a dunk on ole Beckham today- no instead I want to point finger at the extreme wealth disparity kingpins. Raid bosses of bad worker conditions. The kings of capitalism. Saudi Arabia, the host country of 2024's ESports World Cup- an event conceived to centralise the medium of Esports as much as possible combing several popular games into one. (Which doesn't make sense when you think about it. It'd be like a world cup event covering Cricket, Football and Tennis at the same time- but again, not the point.) I bet you're wondering if there's any reason why Saudi Arabia was chosen? Why bother, you know. The Crown Prince dropped a stupid prize pool and the organisers went floating after the waft of it like a cartoon dog.

Inclusiveness is already kind of an issue with high level Esports, there are no significant women's teams for a reason. And working towards bridging that gap might go a bit better when so-called scions of the sport aren't saddling up to the kind of folk who spit on their kind. I mean sure- if we're talking pure monetary gain then this could be seen as a lateral move to keep the sport in business- but is it opening up the sport to the world? Is it welcoming in new comers? From different branches? Or is it further insulating Esports in an elitist whirlpool of mega rich benefactors and generalised discrimination? And does anyone care enough to do something about it?

Esports are hardly the only target of this. There was that golf tournament that shimmied it's way off to their luxury pads and I'm just certain once Russia realises it's not getting back into the Olympics they're going to start up their very own counter Olympics with Saudi money- just mark my words. But what's the harm, I hear you say? Well aside from the lives of the ultra poor who are exploited in order to facilitate all this excess- but I suppose we have a blind spot for the strife of those we don't see too often, don't we? How about the spirit of what all sport is about? Professional art and sport is always a balancing act between the monetary gain and the artistry of the craft- but times like these make you feel like that is a tug of war we're losing more than we ever stand to win.

Of course the Esports World Cup has defended their partners with the same vapid affectations you've come to expect in moments like these, but they've lost a little bit of that credibility they once might have maintained. It's never a good look when you're being looked at on the same stage as bloody Fifa- because good lord if money is the Devil than they are a cadre of arch-demons suckling on his goat-milk! In moments like these it helps to take a step back and remember that the things we love are always bigger than the sell out corporations who throw-away their decorum and act like it's for the good of everyone, and maybe the smaller passionate tournaments are worth a watch over the bigger budget wastes of money now and then. 

Finally played that Dead Space 'Successor'.

 

Striking Distance Studios was a studio that launched with such promise behind it- that of a name AAA-level action horror game produced by one of the core minds that birthed Dead Space- one of the greatest horror games of all time- even with everything it shamelessly borrowed from Alien and other Sci-fi properties. (Mostly Alien though.) It was creative, repugnant, thrilling, scary, exciting and mind fogging nearer to the end. I remember distinctly finding the world of Dead Space so very interesting, not only for it's industrial-space-farer aesthetic but for the bizarre ecclesiastical heart of the body-bending disease- leaning into the unknowable unfathomable depth of pure cosmic horror. What's worse than something you can't see in the dark- something you cannot even comprehend higher above it. Which is partially why I was so excited for Striking Distance's virginal title; The Callisto Protocol.

Otherwise I was excited because the original Dead Space was so groundbreaking in the way it worked with Physics engines to create a combat system unlike anything before- where shooting off the limbs of enemies could be used tactically in order to dismantle your way around tough encounters. Dead Space truly was a classic worthy of it's plaudits and the Remake it enjoyed not that long ago. A Remake I have already played and which I love quite a bit, I might add. (It truly adds so much without losing the spirit like I so feared it would.) But I wanted someone who was going to take that next leap and who better than the core team that pushed that envelope the last time around? Who were now free to innovate again, free from corperate boots on their neck? What would the Callisto Protocol bring to the horror world?

I am currently sitting on the other end of a playthrough across the entire game in it's top-most difficulty and I have to say, much as what I heard at the time of it's release, that was largely mediocre. To a decree that actually deeply bothers me. The Callisto Protocol does literally only two things better than Dead Space did- it is visually gorgeous to look at, and I care more about the characters. Although that might be because Dead Space's Isaac was mute and that game purposefully limited contact with the rest of the crew in order to heighten that sense of isolation- as opposed to in Callisto were you have someone nattering across your comm link every two minutes or so- it's actually a little annoying. Everything else that Protocol does feels like pale imitations of what Dead Space achieved fourteen years previously. And I still can't wrap my head around that.

Most importantly, the combat. Wowzer. So the original Dead Space was literally innovative in the way it opened tactical depth in a survival shooter through the dismemberment mechanic- The Callisto Protocol might be innovative in how they made possibly the least engaging combat system possible in their 'horror thriller' game. When I tell you the entire system is literally holding left to dodge an attack and then right to dodge it's follow-up I am not exaggerating. That is the entire combat system. You don't even need to see which direction the attack is coming from- any direction is fine as long as you point the stick the other way for the follow-up. Also, there is no timing window, (As the game stupidly puts in the in-game tutorial. Never talk about what the game isn't- that is so professionally sloppy!) I had several moments where I was fiddling with something on my phone and weaving through attacks without looking because it was that unbelievably simplistic!

And what's worst of all- all the enemies patiently wait in line whilst you kill them one-by-one. Groups add practically nothing to the challenge of the game because they will simply not attack you out of order, even if they surround you. Apparently they did at launch, but because this game's controls are so sluggish there really is no means of effective side stepping or really anything to counter multiple incoming hits- so they just removed that possibility from the AI and ripped any bit of challenge out of the game. Now you can be a bit more active. Shoot to interrupt combos, use the telekinesis power to chuck enemies into spike walls, throw a power attack to knock enemies flying into one another- but you don't need to. You can just slap them around all day and win like that. You have to try to be exciting, which I tried to do because otherwise I'd have torn out my eyes playing this game so lethargically.

Funnily enough, polite zombie monsters who attack you one at a time and can be dodged in your sleep also don't illicit anywhere near the amount of dread of the Necromorphs from Dead Space who could pop out from the floor and tear off your legs at a moments notice. In Dead Space rounding a corner into an enemy was a 'jump out of your seat' fear moment, in Callisto it's a cue to start wiggling the old mouse as your eyes droop shut in boredom. I cannot overstate how badly they dropped the bag with every aspect of the game on a tonal level. And a gameplay level. So let me touch a bit on story and character to wrap it up.

The characters aren't good. They're more present than in Dead Space 1, but that largely serves to show how annoying they all are. Everyone dances around their grievances and meanings with one another as though they have some grand conspiracy to unravel, only for the basic-most explanation for literally everything to end up being the route the writers take every-single-time. Why was Jason specifically taken by Black Gate? Why is Dani so unduly upset with Jason for half the game? What is the guilt stalking Jason? They are all the first guess you imagined when these questions are brought up. The guilt one does confuse me however, because Jason acts like he genuinely did not know the answer until it was unveiled through McGuffin in the third act but... how could he not have? He was literally suffering guilt hallucinations the entire game as embodied by truly pathetic jump scares that were frankly embarrassing to sit through. (I remember the chills that Dead Space Extraction gave when we started seeing the ghosts. That scene at the tram station shook me to my core. I yawned my way through Protocol. I am a horror coward, by the way- I shouldn't have been so blaise!)

The biggest narrative trips are both spoilers unfortunately so if you care I'll save you some time- the game is below average- get Dead Space instead. Now, I need to rant about how unforgivably disappointing the cause of the outbreak was. In Dead Space they uncovered an otherworldly alien 'Marker', an extra-terrestrial counterpart to the human marker which was said to have kickstarted the rapid evolution of early humans into what we are today. The fact that this Alien marker started twisting people into something horrific and destructive felt almost like the hand of an evil mother nature itself fraying the lines of evolution. The Callisto Protocol outbreak is caused by Aliens. That's it. They just... mined up some alien from under Callisto, shot it dead and then decided to start digging up it's glands and shoving it down people's throats. (I cut out a step or two in the middle there.) How generic! How boring! And why is the Warden spreading it around? Because he wants to find a subject who responds well to the virus to kick off the next stage of human evol- >Yawn< what is this, a template script for a sci-fi movie? How do you start with otherworldly cosmic horror and evolve to space Covid? What kind of backwards trajectory is that? 

And then we have the ending. So Callisto actually ends on a cliffhanger. I've got nothing against that, I think it's fine. What I do find a bit objectionable is the fact that this cliffhanger does not lead into the next game, but a paid DLC which contains the true ending. I opted out of the obvious scam and watched someone skim through it on Youtube. (Thank you for your sacrifice, Oboeshoe!) What a waste of time. Truly. Essentially the entire extra four hours amounts to little more than those really lazy after credit scenes in bad 1990's move where the camera zooms in on the bad guy's shut eyes before they open- only in the context of the alien pathogen research being recovered so this franchise can perpetuate itself. Yet there's such an strange actual finale that I think killed any small amount of hype people might have had. 

To cut a story short, the doctor who helped Jason near the end of the game before he cures Dani and shoves her on the last escape pod- (aside: Can't believe the Warden actually left an escape pod. Some evil genius he is!) contacts Jason about a possible second escape option from the planet. Jason rushes through some extra hallways, there's only one new enemy type, you get a new hammer- it's not worth the money. You collect the doctor's research but 'oh no' she is attacked by a monster who turns her into a boss monster. Jason kills her, the research burns along with her, he boards the escape shuttle and rides off into the sunset. And then he wakes up. Turns out it was a dream, he's actually being dissected by the doctor lady who is happy to have her research and presumably go do another war crime in the next game. Yikes, what a crappy way to send us off. Honestly, I think most of us was fine with having Jason's last on screen appearance be him heroically sending off Dani in atonement for his sins whilst he fended off monsters on an exploding station. This just feels... mean spirited and disrespectful. Like a punchline to a joke that no one remembered to set up.

There's a similarly dour ending to Dead Space Transmission- but that game handled it way better. First off, Transmission is a prequel, meaning you're pretty sure from the get-go that it's probably not going to be a happy ending given that no word of the carnage of the Necromophs got out before Isaac showed up. The entire latter half of the game offers a genuine look through the eyes of a mind being slowly broken by the Marker as the player fights to keep it together long enough to escape, and the extent of the physical toil reaches an extreme when the player has to literally cut off their own hand in order to escape the vacuum of space before their oxygen runs out. ( Did I mention this was a Wii exclusive game? It's some crazy stuff!) Only for at the end of game, when the final challenge has been overcome and he is aboard the escape shuttle with Lexi leaving the carnage- only then does the player finally succumb to the Marker and transform into a Necromoph which Lexi has to put down. A grim ending- but a purposeful one. This shuttle is the same one that players of Dead Space will remember seeing at the beginning of that game- tying the threads of story together neatly. Lexi goes on to star in another DLC for Dead Space 2- lateral movement is made in the plot. It's not just a footnote DLC that the team cruelly crucified the protagonist for in order to score cheap shock points. Callisto's DLC's ending was just another lazy move from an all around lazy game.

With embarrassingly lacklustre bossfights, (it's literally one bullet sponge copy-pasted four times and then a finale with a slightly different styled bullet sponge.) a near non-functional enemy they base one and a half chapters around (the 'blind' monsters quite literally can't hear you loudly stab one to death from touching distance.) and a 'twist' that is literally "I can't believe you accused me of facilitating the >bleep< on >REDACTED< Dani, what must you think of me" to "Oh whoops, guess I accidentally did. And I know that I accidentally did too, but also needed to be told for some reason?" You might wonder if there's anything good about Callisto Protocol whatsoever. Well, if you put it in a vacuum, ignore the many numerous ways that Dead Space is better, and turn your brain off- this could be a mildly entertaining enough B-tier horror game that isn't too awfully long. It's got fun set-pieces. You might get through it before the bad combat grates you too much. None of which stops me giving this game a D- Grade mind you. Experience pieces are all well and good, but a horror game with bad combat, crappy plot and near-fundamentally-broken gameplay? That is a mistake. (I'll admit the DLC might have knocked it down a couple of micro-grades.) Their next game is apparently going to be a rogue-lite in this universe... don't know what to make of that honestly... 

Inspiration to the 'Fallen'

 

Lords of the Fallen is the sequel to Lords of the Fallen but also the reboot of Lords of the Fallen so that Lords of the Fallen can exist as it's own Lords of the Fallen irrespective of Lords of the Fallen and move on in order to establish it's own, now confirmed, upcoming real sequel called, tentatively, Lords of the Fallen 2. (Dammit, they had the perfect chance to do the funniest marketing ever!) Lords of the Fallen is also shorthand for 'bad souls-like' in some circles (referring to the original) for decent reasons. The original Lords of the Fallen felt like a holdout for some of the worst prejudices about the genre-type brought to life. Boringly sluggish movement that made every swing feel like it was triggred in the last age of humanity, horrendously tanky bosses that take 10 minutes of blocking the same attack patterns in order to gradually tap to death and a paper thin generic dark fantasy narrative interwoven into a worldspace nowhere near as interesting as it thinks it is. Dark Souls began at a place that felt more advanced than Lords did- and that original released in the same year as Dark Souls 2, by the by.

But it was also the other considerably major Souls-like at the time so we could actually see what it could be like if other developers took to this space. You know, before it became so unending popular that even Respawn Entertainment aped it for their Star Wars franchise. Which might just be the only aspect of the original Lords that kept it alive in the mind of gamers, because god knows the game wasn't doing that for itself! With an indistinct world, uninspired monster designs and a 'save the world from the demon king' plot that lacked the flamboyancy to rise above it's routes like Japanese titles need to have- I doubt many Souls lovers have actually finished the original. I haven't and I tried twice, before giving up to sheer boredom. Which is why I had no intentions of trying out the reboot/sequel.

But then people started talking about how much better it was than that original, praise called it above average for a title of it's calibre, and I got gamepass which made the game pretty much a free grab and after all that I just went "Screw it! I'll play the thing myself!" And since then I've been able to see it for myself and say: "Yeah, this is actually tons better than the original!". For one the game feels absolutely smooth as butter to play, I really like the movement playing as a lightly armoured character when doing so felt like an inside joke the developer's were privy to in the original. And movement counts for a lot when it comes to Souls-likes: it's one of the few reasons why the original Dark Souls can be hard to recommend. That 4-way-directional stickiness is a killer in games requiring precision movement!

I also think the world has a bit more going on with it now, and though I am largely flabbergasted at exactly what medieval period of history the team are trying to evoke- (dialogue sounds nigh-on whimsical at times, with one of the key companions having a hardly disguised American accent.) there's a substance to the world they've made. Monster designs are a bit more interesting, sometimes in a grotesque manner I haven't see really reached since some of the most memorable of Dark Souls 2. Oh, and the biggest win? The main character doesn't speak! Thank the gods! That's means this game actually has a full character creator too, so I can be anyone but tat-face! (Bless the small miracles, for they are few.) Although I have to say- I understand why even after all these years of improvements the game is still only being called 'Average or barely above at best'.

It feels like CI Games are developing their Souls-Like Games (yes, plural- they published for the 'Surge' games too.) in a total vacuum oblivious to literally everything else the rest of the genre is doing. And that perception is only worsened by the absolute trainwreck of development cycles this reboot went through before being dumped on the laps of a fresh studio 'HEXWORKS', who have been treating this game as their own personal war to win since launch. There are huge structural decisions that confound the senses as they press on seemingly solved pressure points in this genre that has been improved upon over the stretch of the past decade and a bit. It's almost as though these developers shun looking at what FromSoft and their contemporaries are doing for fear that would be 'cheating', or perhaps in a desire to strive in a different direction altogether and wiggle upon some new development direction no one else could have. And to that- well, maybe they need to wiggle a bit more- they ain't there yet.

Having extended walk-back periods for difficult bosses is such a Dark Souls 1-coded way to lay out your levels- but even Dark Souls 1 used to hide quicker shortcuts here and there for prosperities sake. But then Dark Souls could have that option, because that game's maps weren't anywhere near as needlessly labyrinthian as Lords' are. Defenders seem to mistake size for size's sake as 'facilitating exploration', but when you endure every environment until the point of frank illness with the aesthetic- maybe you've mistaken your 'open world' design with how a level based game would present itself. Then there's the 'other world'; Umbral, which is such a chore to endure. I get that's supposed to be the point, it's supposed to feel dangerous to travel around the shadow world, but they present that by forcing you into 'the land of chip damage' in order to do something as mundane as climb a ladder- it doesn't feel like embracing this dark world of carnage in order to meet the challenge to save the world- it feels like the game is constantly baiting you into the shadow world for giggles.

And of course then comes the design. As I play the game whenever I enter any location with a visible enemy on screen there is one thing I know- that there's someone else in the rafters waiting to ambush me. It's a funny little gotcha the first time- but after the fifth it becomes a bit of a crutch. Actually, it's a lot of a crutch. And to think this is the problem improved from launch! At launch I heard they actually spawned waves of enemies on top of you! Talk about miserable! And on the topic of combat- why is practically every boss a gimmick fight? Don't get me wrong it's actually somewhat impressive that the team managed to come up with so many gimmicks- but did they know this was a Souls-like whilst they were designing it? Clever and complex enemy patterns just seem to fall into wayside so the team can focus on horse-back fights with mines or mob gank spam, or any number of ancillary crap that get between you and the fight. At the utmost a Souls-Like should make you feel always in control- but half the time during these bosses it doesn't feel like anyone is in control, of even the experience the team is trying to get us to have!

I think there's actually a lot of potential in the bones of Lords of the Fallen- and I like playing the game. They could be a little less stingy on handing out gear to change up my build- I'm still basically rocking the exact same stuff I started the game with simply because the game doesn't offer much at all to play with- but I like seeing the extent of the game, sure in it's tropes but also in it's occasional cool mechanic- 'even if most of their 'cool' mechanics are the one's they borrowed'. Maybe Lords of the Fallen 2 might be a good game from the get-go next time around! (Wouldn't that be a stretch!) So yeah, this ain't a review- but if it were: I'd probably be erring to a C Grade, and I'd be very surprised if that changed as I got any further into the game based on what I've already experienced. Still, that's a passing grade by most metrics!