What is currently up with The Wayward Realms?

 The waiting game

I consider myself deathly allergic to the disease known as hype, and for very good reason too. Hype has bought me nothing but pain and disappointment my entire life, usually in scaling measure; the more hype, the more disappointment, the more pain. Any time I've been optimistic or hopeful or expected anything more than the worst outcome, it's been for naught and I've been more the idiot for not expecting it. Hype stinks and I hate it. Which is why I find it so damn unconscionable that I'd currently be tickled by the damn bug and on a game that we know so very little about. I'm talking stupidly little. We haven't even got any real substantive gameplay and reading some of the development teams rhetoric on the game makes me think they've actually never heard of a sandbox RPG; which is pretty freakin' worrying to hear when you're looking at a team that's proposing to make one! But beyond my utmost better judgement; I want to believe in The Wayward Realms.

If you've forgotten what that even is then I do not blame you, afterall the developers have announced the thing, released two trailers and gone radio silent across the board. That's because they're busy making a game that in their own words is going to break new grounds across the RPG genre, although by every other perceivable metric appears to just be a largely ambitious sandbox RPG. These developers are said to be key figures on the original Elder Scrolls games, which gives them quite the soapbox to launch this new project upon. Although 'project' might be putting the thing a little above its station for the moment, for as far as I can tell these folks are just a small team for the moment working on developing a working proof of concept, presumably to try and lure in some sort of publisher. Yet, even in this early stage the team went the route of gauging interest with an announcement, and you can consider myself an interested party. Potentially.

Of course as we're so early in the days of what The Wayward Realm even is, rhetoric has been quite general and geared more towards sparking the imagination than tempering a defined edge for the mind's eye. Such is a dangerous time to start dreaming, because the perception you create in your head is forever going to surpass what reality can conceive. And additionally, depending on the scruples of the developers in question, entering such a state can make you a prime target for manipulation into believing the coming game is everything you want it to be, just so long as you kick back some support to papa developer. It's something of a growing concern across the indie development space recently given the rise of Crypto concepts leaning on the already delusion-ridden crowd funding scene. I can already count two legendary developers who have cashed in on their reputation to try and grift their audience with obvious schemes; although to be fair, anyone following and trusting literally any word that comes out of Peter Molyneux's mouth at this point probably deserves to be scammed. Natural selection has clearly marked them inadequate.

All that being said, there's some tangible concept being worked on here which actually seems to lean into the wheelhouse of the development talent working on the game, so I want desperately to be optimistic this is a real idea that's just starting to spin it's wheels. The Wayward Realms is a wide open RPG that is focused more on the creation of a functioning setting and world than the journey of some nebulous fantasy hero character. Similar to games like Kenshi, the appeal of The Wayward Realms appears to come in making your character and then setting them loose in a wild world where they attempt to survive through whatever means they can. Not by scrounging for food and water, unless that's how you want to play it, but by becoming a mercenary or a pirate, or any of those other 'make ends meet' kind of professions in an exciting and opportunity writhe fantasy setting. And those are the sorts of games that I like.

What we've seen of little snippets that we can perceive to at least be early composites of gameplay features 'paper doll' style sprites walking the world space, not unlike Arena and Daggerfall had all those years ago. Again, a sensible measure given the purposed scale of a giant archipelago's worth of interconnected factions and kingdoms and traders all interacting with each other independent of the player. One of those overly ambitious titles would throw their weight around with garish claims of 'top of the line graphics' and deep engaging combat with procedural aging and death and children and- so many features that sound utterly pointless. Wayward Realms is keeping it simple and classic, playing to nostalgia no doubt, but presenting a believable vision. And I really want to believe. A more modern take on Daggerfall's style of gameplay sounds charming even to consider, and if those original directors can truly summon up that presentation in a wider and more open world space than I think excitement only makes sense.

Of course the most important question we should really be asking following a genre style of game like this one is about the world and what type of universe we're going to immerse ourselves within. I mean the fact that it's going to be fantasy is a given, it has orcs in it. But is this going to be simple high fantasy, maybe a bit edgier dark fantasy, maybe a peppier colourful fantastical fable world? I think the general sentiment seems to be shifting towards more darker fantasy universes in the vein of some of the most popular fantasy properties such as Game of Thrones, The Witcher and even popular fantasy anime like Berserk or AOT. There's an appeal to diving into some of the most grim and dark worlds that specialise in serving up everyone as supper for the cruelties of that unfair world, and a game where there are no heroes but only survivors seems like an ideal fit for a world like that. Then again, these developers have their experience in TES, which is more high fantasy without that edge; so I guess it depends on the way the winds blow for the team, if they want to try something new or iterate on the classics. (Although knowing the modding community for games like this, I imagine it'll eventually be modded into whatever style of fantasy you want it to be. Providing the game takes off, of course.) 

None of which is to say that The Wayward Realms is a sure hit flying our way. Sandbox RPGs aren't exactly plentiful because of how difficult they are to make work, and The Wayward Realms is shooting for a pretty ambitious goal even within that troubling subgenre. Crafting a working and breathing world for the player to interactive within takes a ludicrous amount of independently functioning parts, the likes of which would make a AAA studio blush, and ensuring that they shake hands in a manner that allows for dynamic and meaningful evolution can be the difference between any old Sandbox RPG and the really special ones. Kenshi has a system of factions pinned together by leader characters. Should such characters be taken out of action, their faction loses prevalence in that neighbourhood and another faction might take over. Through that system it's quite possible to upset the balance of a very violent nation of zombie-like Hiveless and have them spread over the entire map like a plague. That is the kind of reactivity Wayward Realms should be trying to replicate, the kind where we can play world breaker with the right careless actions. Like Hitman 2016- a clock of working gears waiting from the player to jam their foot and break it all.

Currently the Wayward Realms devs are spending their days slowly updating an online library of in universe lore books which seem to mostly serve as short story experiments as well as hiring a team to get together that working proof of concept of theirs. A very humble position to sit in for the moment and hopeful a portent for great things in the future. As you can likely tell I have some significant expectations rolled up into the Wayward Realms, both for what I think the game is capable of and what I want that final game to be. Whether they wanted to or not, the team have sparked a real fire of curiosity over here and I would simply love to find our more about the process they're working. Heck, I'd sign up to the team if I had any UX experience or character design work, for that's what they're looking for right now. (Actually it says they're looking for 'volunteers' but I'm assuming that's a error and they're looking for contract work at the least. Right?) Fingers crossed there's a future for this one, I want to see it.

'Divinity 2: Ego Draconis', perfectly mid

As all things should be

Larian is a studio that has had something of a meteoric rise; in the sense that they have gone so far, not that they've been rapidly granted success they haven't worked for. Because Larian have worked for it, bitterly and long from the beginning top-down RPG gameplay of Divine Divinity to the action adventure stylings of Divinity 2 and the strategy virtual novel game 'Dragon Commander' before finally nailing their style with the CPRG legend: Original Sin. That last couple of games were, of course, the slam dunks that won the team the dream contract of developing Baldur's Gate 3 which they have done with a unique attention to the source material which makes me so gosh-darn glad that these are the guys working on the game. Could you imagine how dry Baldur's Gate 3 would be if WoTC bought back modern Bioware to make it? I shudder to even ratify that thought with a serious contemplation.

But in their journey towards the CRPG genius that was Original Sin, Larian did take the short detour into more accessible action RPGs like the rest of the industry did. And the result? Well that would be 'Divinity 2: Ego Draconis' and it's second part 'Flames of Vengeance'. Now as is the case whenever a big studio lives long enough in the spotlight, the modern fame has attracted new eyes to rock up to the devs and analyse them, usually even going back and assessing their past catalogue to see if their modern success story was ever hinted at in the games that came before. Video game archaeologists with a shotgun approach to digging out any old game that still functions and immediately declaring it an unsung classic of it's age. Well, although I did not have the chance to follow this trend, I did actually get around to playing all the Divinity games around about the time that Original Sin was coming out. (With the exception of Beyond Divinity because I hated that game so much it made me quit after the first act.) So lacking the rose-tint of a dumpster diver; what can I really say about the Divinity 2 game that treats it honestly?

My god was it average. In all the best and worst ways. Whereas so many fantasy RPGs of the age were falling into dime a dozen heap in an attempt to emulate the greats of Oblivion and... well, Oblivion; Divinity was taking it's inspiration from Oblivion and... making it worse in an attempt to do something different. Look Larian had ambition, and if I tell you that this was a game where you balanced fantasy adventuring with regularly transforming into a fire breathing dragon then you're going to imagine something incredible, right? Well hold your nose for that cold water because Divinity 2 was one of those titles that was a tad too ambitious for it's own good. And yet, even then the game isn't a total dumpster fire like most 'too ambitious' projects are. It sort of hovers in this nebulous space of a game that I wouldn't ward you away from like it's the plague, but also one I don't really have any reason to recommend either. Like a double edged dagger, my critics balance themselves.

For positives I think that Divinity 2 has a simply great music scape, one that can almost trick you into thinking you're playing a more epic game than you really are. And that disparity is probably best bought up in the combat which is an open-action no-turns affair without stopping for tactics or any of that noise, and an ever present adjustable ability bar akin to an MMO or CRPG that becomes a little cumbersome to navigate in real-time action combat scenarios. (Unless you memorise your favourite moves and just tap the corresponding hotkey, of course.) The narrative shirks the stuffiness and over-seriousness that plagued some of the most boring fantasy RPGs of that generation, unfortunately Larian's humour is still eye-scratchingly dry by the development of 'Ego Draconis'. ('Flames of Vengeance' actually marked the first time Larian started to swing more hits than misses in their scripts.) It's like I said, every positive has an equally balanced negative.

Divinity 2, which is strangely the third game in the Divinity series, is a linear action adventurer game with pretty weak combat that is justified through the veneer of RPG slapped ontop of it. Enemies are lock on and slap-to-death affairs and most fights end up being no more skillful than 'make sure you have more health before you start so that you can win' affairs. Dragon sections, and you can only dragon-out in very specific areas, are a bit more dynamic and free-reign, but they suffer from a monotony that the game maintains throughout it's design for it's first half and fires into turbo mode for it's second half. Every dragon section is defined by turrets and air-mines that you have to blow up methodically and boringly. Most of the time you'll be ducking out of the action to wait for abilities to recharge, and most of the largest 'explorable' places you get to check out are literally copy and past challenge towers. Not the most inspired of design choices. In fact, every dungeon space in the whole game stretches on far too long without any significant visual disparity to keep the eye from getting bored, and are populated full of mindless hit sponge enemies that you'll end up groaning at everytime you see a group of them.

In fact, the entire world design of Ego Draconis seems cursed from probably being a linear set-up that was wrung together out of a proposed open world, which I think took hints from Oblivion. Not least of all because this game has it's own version of Oblivion gates, only so much worse because they are forced Dragon high-level sections set out across giant floating islands that are entirely flat to walk across aside from randomly scattered enemy patrols who litter it. Larian hide their indie status very well given the sheer quality of their craftmenship in most cases, but Divinity 2 was them at their most 'experimental'. Which is to say the game's garish design decisions stuck out like a sore beaten thumb. 'Flames of Vengeance', by the very nature of being much more linear, has a better time feeling like a professional product throughout, but not enough where I could consider the game a classic of today or of it's time.

And yet I would not call the package an awful game. Actually the fact the whole thing is standable is despite it's flailing rather than because of them. The raw beats of the story are fine, not great or good but merely fine. The environments are... actually rather ugly but ambitious. Larian tried to cover a lot of ground and it really did not work out for them, especially for some of their more open locations in the game. I despise some of the creature design, mainly their utterly bizarre goblins, and find the Dragon form to be more cumbersome than empowering. Seriously, you're more like a flying blimp than a soaring being of destructive might. To be absolutely honest, I do not know if I would have made it through the entire game if I hadn't had Original Sin waiting for me on the otherside. (And thank god I did. That masterpiece was a perfect palette cleanser.)

So was Divinity 2 some lost gem of the 2000's that we turn our noses up at unwittingly? No! Duh, have you been reading this thing? It's a largely mediocre game propped up by slight flashes of potential and the odd good joke in the second half. It's not particularly fun, nor memorable outside of it's soundtrack; and in fact I'd honest recommend Divine Divinity over this one for holding some great piece of early Larian charm in it's construction. As they sit now, Larian are an incredible RPG developer who are currently iterating on some of the most robust gameplay systems in all of CRPGs, without exaggeration. Divinity 2 was a stepping stone on that journey, no doubt; but in all honesty if we were to compare that place with where they are now, it would look like a pit in the road rather than a shining milestone. 

'Dragon Age : Origins ' the old gold standard

 Respect for your elders.

The year is 2009 and Bioware is about to release one of their greatest, and most terrible, achievements. Because you see, 'Dragon Age: Origins' is a game that would shoot the already accomplished developer into the spotlight once again on a golden horse of quality, and would unfortunately be the absolute peak of their life from which the studio would spiral into ignominy. Every success they make from then on would be compared and contrasted to it, every failure would be heightened in the knowledge that they once made this; the entirety of Bioware history would be whittled down to before 'Dragon Age: Origins' and after. At least in the eyes of some. I'm someone who still remembers that this is the studio who bought both Knights of the Old Republic (an arguably better game) to the world and the Baldur's Gate Trilogy; an actual classic masterpiece. None of which is to say that Origins isn't another masterpiece for their shelf, because it absolutely is; but when I see people heralding it as the unbeaten gold standard for RPGs I can't help but roll my eyes. 

'Dragon Age: Origins' is a spectacular RPG, not least of all because it's the only RPG I can think of which has managed to create genuinely impactful origin story set-ups so that the character you make in character creation is firmly cemented in the world. Cyberpunk 2077 even tried to copy that feature, and ended up screwing it up because they forgot to add the follow-up main narrative tie-in which makes the origin stories impactful! Origins also balanced its narrative between several big self contained stories with their own climaxes that all leant towards the bigger goal, so that by the time you reached the credits you really felt like you'd embarked on a world shaking adventure novel the size of a Tolkien book. It presented a simple RPG system which, whilst lacking depth for a game of it's genre, provided a very fun set of tools to navigate the world with. And it also toyed with action and consequence in a manner that felt like it had impact, even if as-a-whole it sort of feels a bit like the whole 'Mass Effect 3' style story where you shore up allies for some big final battle at the end because you need the numbers rather than because you're shaping the specifics of the future.

All of which I lay down in praise, because Dragon Age has been one of my favourite fantasy worlds almost exclusively through of it's stellar introduction in 'Origins'. (And that's still the case after watching that Cassandra Anime which that convinced I'm the only one who has ever watched. So that goes to show you how much of a fan I am.) Thedas succeeds in being a fantasy world lacking the backing of a well established book franchise to lean on or any of the other dozens of helping hands that some game devs rely on, and is still pretty interesting and cool, apart from the elves who are cookie-cutter cliché fantasy elves. And that isn't a given, by the way; lest I remind everyone of Larian's Divinity and that total sewer of a fantasy world so rotten that Larian literally reimagines the entire world canon every game or so. But in Bioware's failure to really nail the formula of Origins again, or to try and supplant it with something better like they've tried to do twice now, I think it's safe to admit to ourselves that the golden boy of 'Dragon Age' is no longer at the top of the pecking order for RPGs anymore. Well, unless you're looking specifically for a mildly deep, narratively formulaic, fantasy cliché ridden, role playing game. By Bioware. If you want those specifics; then 'Dragon Age: Origins' is your king. But if you're looking at the buffet that is RPGs; the genre has moved and branched beyond what that old classic can offer.

Rather than just living in the world of the RPG. Or the western RPG and the JRPG, if you're cultured. We now have the RPG and the CRPG. And for what it's worth, I think that CRPGs have effectively overtaken the western RPG market and made those old titles largely irrelevant, at least from a gameplay standpoint. (Origins will forever be well written, afterall.) These CRPGs harken back to the old days where RPGs existed to adapt robust and expansive board game rulesets into the digital landscape, which provided vast swathes of gameplay potential as they were designed to do. Bioware came at a time when RPGs were smoothing out a lot of those complexities in an effort to become more widely playable, and at the time that made the most sense; but we're leaning back towards an industry of niche and specialisation, such that those old games that tried to balance the fence just don't really cut in comparisons anymore.

Pillars of Eternity was the big return to form for a lot of people out there, as Obsidian slid into the space left behind my the death of the original CRPGs to remind everyone what we love above board-game based RPGs. Options. So many options and builds and styles of play beyond the bog standards 'rouge, mage or warrior' that everyone and their mother usually does. Although for me it was Tyranny which really tipped the cart over on DA:O's shoes. Their unique narrative presentation of being someone who serves the dictator sparked to life that world in a manner I hadn't felt for a new RPG in a very long time, that same spark which had gone stale for Dragon Age after two entries that felt like they weren't giving themselves to the world building quite as much as they could. (What the series needs is a single globetrotting action RPG that really highlights the beauty and diversity of Thedas, rather than redesigning a whole race and telling us to just go with for the third time.)

But what about that unique structure which DA:O rocked? True enough, no matter how many other RPGs you find which get the individual bits and pieces down pat, none quite capture that epic feeling of a total adventure told in one great stride. DA:O is really the successor to the Baldur's Gate trilogy in that regard, only without the ramp up in challenge to match the stakes of the narrative. Except... Pathfinder Kingmaker and Wrath of the Righteous give it a damn good try, don't they? Both adaptions of entire adventure campaigns, those Owlcat Games titles go even further than 'Dragon Age: Origins' to tell branching and intricate epic journeys that feel like a whole sweep of novels by the flipside. They haven't perfected that formula just yet, and there's still some ways to go for Owlcat but they're not stopping improving their craft. Unlike Bioware they aren't moving away from that style of RPG, they're embracing it and expanding it to create games that challenge RPG diehards. Whilst Bioware let the mantle rot and fester.

Ah, but I can't extol the virtues of Bioware RPGs without talking the cinematic presentation that they alone have possessed and perfected for all these years, now can I? Unless... oh, Larian is in the process of nabbing that crown of excellence with their work on the upcoming Baldur's Gate 3; a game which is a follow-up to Bioware's own legacy work too, which has got to be something of a double whammy. Soon Bioware won't even have the façade of epic narrative storytelling to hold up as their saving grace, which is going to end up leaving the studio practically bereft of virtues to call their own. And that's probably because in the years since DA:O came out, the game development industry has grown and involved in ways that version of Bioware could never imagine. 

Some games really do stand the test of time and remain the shining beacon that everyone looks back to for inspiration, but they are very rare exemplars of their genre. With how busy the RPG genre is, it shouldn't really be news to anyone that even a classic like 'Origins' isn't going to remain the top-dog golden standard forever, this medium evolves too quickly for that. None of which is to say there isn't still lessons to be learned from Origins, specifically in it's still unmatched character origins mechanic. (I really would have thought Larian would have managed to trump that one in the years since, but no such luck.) But even legends need to be put to rest, lest we leave them on the pedestal as more of a curtsey and it just becomes an embarrassment, like giving Martin Scorsese an Oscar for Gangs of New York instead of Goodfellas; it's just unseemly. So sing of how good Origins was during it's time all you want, but don't pretend it's still the king of the crop. Give it the respect to let the game rule it's time, why dontcha? 

COD and plagiarism

 They can't keep getting away with it!

It's funny that COD should in the centre of so many competing crosshairs as big console manufactures argue about whether or not the game is fundamental to competition across the FPS market. It's funny because whatever way you look at it, this conversation is placing COD at the top of a very influential pedestal where almost everyone can agree it is a model to aspire to for continuing success. So all eyes are constantly on them when they have a month like the one they're living through. You know, the sort of month where you get continuously pulled up for plagiarism again and again to the point where you look like hack amateurs with absolutely no quality control department whatsoever; meanwhile giants are wrestling over who gets to stick you on their shelf to be their golden trophy. That's what you get for having idols and role models, I guess.

To be clear, accusations of art theft are a pretty hefty chunk of mud to sling around and are so hard to prove in most cases, almost as much as it is to find. With so many artists in every field, more than at any other point in history by several orders of magnitude, content is being developed incessantly and constantly, everywhere that you look, so if someone wants to steal a little idea concept from some small corner of the internet, who the heck is going to know? To be fair, the COD design artists are probably look at this as 'taking inspiration' from the work they see everyday; which there is nothing wrong with as long as you put enough of your own special juice in it to transform the final product. This month has presented an Activision that were very lax on the whole 'changing up the homework in the assignment' part of the equation.

It started with a posted advert for an upcoming COD Vanguard skin, the worst performing COD game in a very hot minute, in which one of the coming skins had a very eye-caching and interesting design to it. It was a heavy winter suit with the head of a Samoyed dog thrown over the player's usual boring human head; making the player approximately 15% all around better. Honestly it was a striking design that would have been really cool if it wasn't a paid cosmetic... oh, and bastardized from a random artist on the web! An Artist called 'saillin' took credit for the design and compared the COD dog with his own military canine design in some side-by-side comparisons. The concept itself was already pretty novel enough to inspire a raised eye-brow or two by those already in the know, but after that comparison; with how closely the military gear the dog is wearing matches up with what COD were planning: there really is no question, so shenanigans were taken here.

To their credit Activision did move to remove marketing materials featuring that dog and later announced that particular skin would be scrapped (Instead of, I don't know, maybe just paying the original artist to use their cool design. That would have worked even better in my opinion.) And to take away that small credit, they had to be mocked and ridiculed in order to do so. Had no one really made a fuss about this and the situation still be bought to Activision's attention; they would have helpfully ignored it so that they could continue their money raking unabashed; because that's just the kind of company that the COD creators are. Although, I wonder how this backlash might shake the structure of their content development departments going forward considering that, as I mentioned, this was not the only significant case of plagiarism that has been bought up this month.

 

Yet another upcoming skin for Warzone and Vangaurd featuring future-tec glowing pieces, has ended up drawing comparisons to a truly vapid upcoming game, leading myself to wonder if the COD plagiarists have literally no shame. Because at some point you have to grow some standards, and I'd feel that would come at some point before ripping of designs from the Dr Disrespect's Crypto FPS 'game' he's trying to tote up: Dreadrop. Although to be fair, there is a bit more nuance to this one. Not least of all because the aggrieved party is actually an ex Infinity Ward manager. He has taken it 'on the chin' by joking that Activision should name the skin after him (Ha Ha- they're never going to do that.) but even then I have to throw up a little bit of doubt to how much this one quite constitutes plagiarism. 

Oh the designs look similar alright! Damningly so, in fact. But COD's Malware Ultra Skin is just a guy in neon blue techy-armour with a hood on; it's not exactly the most inspired armour design ever invented. Of course not, they're being compared with freakin' Deadrop; a game dripping with unoriginality, this dispute really just raises concerns about the trite thematic elements fuelling both design processes. If it hadn't been for the more obvious dog-skin rip-off, people would probably be making more of a fuss about the big design variations, such as the skull face and glowing exo-skeleton design elements of the COD game versus Deadrop's decidedly more boring hexagonal urban camo design. Both skins do use pretty much the exact same colours, however; which doesn't help Activision's case at all. 

And then people just entered 'Twitter cancellation mode' where they comb through your entire history looking for a smoking gun to hang you with. They found it in the prospective logo for a COD mobile game that doesn't even have a title yet; it's just known as 'Project Aurora'. Well Aurora recently got a new slick logo featuring a sharp and spikey stylized 'A' at a slight slant which certainly looked cool- probably because it was allegedly ripped from Amuro Ray's personal emblemage on his RX-93 v Gundam from 'Mobile Suit Gundam: Char's Counterattack'. (Thank you, Animenewsnetwork, for being so complete in their coverage of this story.) Again, one could argue this as a coincidence since the logo is quite literally just a stylised A; but it just doesn't make for a very good look, does it? 'Confirmation Bias' is turning into 'Confirmation Prejudice' at this point.

All of which goes to paint COD, one of the biggest franchises in the world, as a lazy corner cutter who cares nothing for the sanctity of art. Although to be fair there is a perfectly rational explanation for a lot of this; pressure piled on by time constraints as a result of failure. Remember, 'Vanguard' pooped the bed as far as COD games go, shipping less units than the franchise has suffered in about ten years. That reflects badly on the team who are then flipped into a rush to hurry out content that might win people over, rushed employees start ignoring due diligence or just ripping off ideas full kettle in order to keep their jobs, and the potential media backlash for any of these screw ups is so unlikely because no one ever pays attention to this stuff. Until the day that they did, and now their bad position has probably become much worse as their indolence has been characterised as incompetence. Let this be an example of the snowball effect of big company run development studios where stopping to take stock is a crime punishable by redundancy. 

Arkham fans have lost it

 How about another joke, Murray?

What do you get when you treat a rabid fanbase with years worth of cold shoulder before turning around and slapping them with a product that gets wrong most everything they were most excited about? Well, then you get a situation like that which has inflicted the Arkham series subreddit, a group of passionate fans of the stellar Batman Arkham series, a game who's lasting legacy set a new standard for games of it's ilk and genre. (Hell, Marvel's Spiderman's combat is a huge homage on it's own.) However when 'Arkham Knight' came about promising an end to the series... well, it seems that the devs really did take that seriously. Although, their fans certainly weren't ready for them to just walk away like that, and with old passions being stirred since the announcement of the follow-up to the Arkham games, which has nothing to do Batman, and Gotham Knights, where you play every bat family member except for Batman; something was going to give.

To be fair with the fans, their desires aren't totally out of left field. Afterall, WB apparently had a Project Sabbath in development which was a concept for an Arkham Knight sequel before that got scrapped. (The apparent reason why is deviously ironic.) The main theme of the game was all about legacy and passing the torch, as such the apparent Death of Batman from Arkham Knight would had led to the ascension of Damian Wayne as Bruce's successor. Concept art reveals a new generation Poison Ivy, after Pamela sacrificed her life during Arkham Knight, and a new Black Mask because the old one has a bullet in his head thanks to the Red Hood DLC for Arkham Knight which is apparently canon now? (I thought they were just bad challenge maps, to be honest.) It was going to be set in an apocalyptic Gotham which has fallen since Scarecrow's takeover and Batman's retirement, and the team weren't going to just throw up their hands and do 'The Dark Knight Returns' like everyone else who tackles an 'old Batman' story ends up trying. Frankly, it sounded bloody brilliant; so of course it was cancelled because WB weren't sure that a Batman game without Bruce in the cowl would sell... wait... then why are the hell are we getting Gotham Knights in it's stead?

I don't hate Gotham Knights, I just think it looks like a game caught between a concept and a execution that aren't shaking hands together as well as the team wants. They want some loot-based action game, but they also want a co-op fighting experience on-par with Arkham of old. By trying to compromise they've given us a little bit of column A and a lot less of column B. Also, in comparison to Knight this game looks uglier than first Sin; why in hell does this need to be a current gen exclusive game? Setting that game up as Knight's successor is dooming it to ignominy in exchange for some early sales boosts from the implied association. (Even though the associated team is actually busy working on 'Suicide Squad Kills the Justice League'. God, that's a mouthful.) All of which is probably why the Arkham Reddit fans rejected that game entirely and decided to celebrate their own.

That is, their own Arkham game that they pretend exists, all so that they can extol it's fictional, and often-contradictory, virtues to one another; Morbius-style. To their eyes 2019 was the year that Arkham World was released, a best selling follow-up to Knight that featured a boss fight with the Mandalorian, an upcoming Guy Fieri DLC, the Batcopter and the Batwing for some reason, and several dozen sequels already. It was obviously the best Arkham game ever realised, yet it also simultaneously seem to exacerbate every annoyance-point that everyone had about the vanilla series, such as overuse of vehicle sections. (Which I found to be an overblown criticism anyway once I finally got around to playing Knight. But that's just me.) Of course, the denizens of the Subbreddit have accepted this change in direction for the Sub gratefully considering that for the past five or so years the Reddit seems to have consisted of nothing but 'Hey guys, Arkham Origins got a bad wrap' posts. (Which- yeah obviously it did but you're really preaching to the choir there, you know?)

Apparently this is all a big reference to the Titanfall reddit community who, apparently dissatisfied with the allegedly in-universe spin off success Apex Legends (I've yet to see one person who can point out the connections between those franchises in a significant, not surface level, fashion) had taken to convincing themselves that Titanfall 3 had released and that it was god tier. To be fair, however, theirs is a sadder story because Titanfall 2 was apparently a total masterpiece that was screwed by EA through godawful release windows that benefitted nobody. Their game probably did deserve a sequel, as opposed to Arkham Knight which finished the franchise, and Bruce's story, satisfactorily enough on it's own. We don't really need ourselves an encore right now. (Although, again, I would have welcomed one if it was a concept as cool as how the late Project Sabbath sounded. Damian Bat would have rocked.)

This break from reality does highlight the fact that nothing on the current, inexplicable, busy slate of DC games really carries on the legacy of Knight. Gotham Knights is just... like a Ubisoft-brand version of the franchise, and Suicide Squad feels like an entirely different style of game altogether. I know it's intentionally designed not to be, but it kind of feels like a multiplayer only romping title to the point where I, huge Arkham fan that I am, don't feel like the target demographic anymore. (On account of having no friends.) Now to be fair, Marvel has pretty much picked up that baton and run with it on their ongoing Spiderman series; but sometimes you just want to be a guy in a batsuit, you know? Preppy and positive Spiderman doesn't have the same weight as non-nonsense thug-disabling Bruce Wayne on a bad day. The series' could comfortably exist being active in the same market, is what I'm saying.

But at the end of the day we always have to make do with the hand dealt to us, or slip into a fantasy land where everything we wanted to have happened did and much more. (I support either route, to be honest. Go with whatever's most real to you.) Maybe somewhere down the line, after Gotham Knights comes out to 'whelm' us all, and WB are done with their exploration into other DC properties; maybe we can convince the team to roll on back to Arkham with the lessons they learned to give the old Bat one last go around. Maybe they can go back to that Damian Wayne concept and use it to give Damian something of a real send-up of his own to launch that character into the heavy hitter he's totally capable of being. And maybe we'll get an Injustice 3 one day... Oh god, now I'm slipping into fantasy land, aren't I?

No More Room in Hell 2

The dead will walk the earth

I think perhaps the most plentiful type of game in the entire universe is the humble zombies game. Ever since it became apparent that developing functional AI was becoming more difficult to do and zombies would significantly lighten that burden. Although to be fair I guess that was never a fact that needed to be unearthed, huh? As the popular weave of entertainment culture bleeds from one medium to another, it's only fair that the spate of zombie movies that effect the world start to lead to more zombie games after a while. Although I certainly think at this point the zombie game craze has started to put even the movies to shame. Left 4 Dead, Dead Rising, World War Z, The Walking Dead, Dying Light, Project Zomboid, State of Decay, Days Gone, The Last of Us, Day Z, 7 Days to Die, Dead Island, Unturned, Resident Evil, believe or not the list does go on. Which is why it's with some surprise that it was only until literally last year that I heard of the free-to-play Steam zombie 'legend': No More Room in Hell.

Now if you're part of the big Steam community, the kind that dived into the Garry's Mod legends, then there's a very good chance you have heard of this game and are currently wondering how I can be such a square. You have to remember what a separate world PC only games are to the rest of the industry, not only do console players never hear about the cool stuff that happens in the world of PC, but console game developers don't want to swoop in and start getting involved with introducing that world through ports or compatible software apps, because a lot of the cool stuff that the PC community develops is utterly unmonetizable. That's why the very fact that No More Room in Hell started development in 2004 as a Half Life 2 mod pretty much cemented it's life and legacy as a niche product no matter how much acclaim it ended up receiving. 

The game was officially 'released' under Steam green light in 2011 and had a follow up beta release a couple of years later; which gives Yandere Dev some hope that he could be on the verge of ever actually releasing his game; he's riding up on about 8 years of development now. The game as it currently exists today, and you can go ahead and look the thing up if you want to, looks nothing like the Half Life 2 that spawned it. In fact, it looks and feels like its very own zombie game with a frightening amount of robustness for a free-to-play community developed game. For I suppose given all that time of development and the several years of sporadic free updates that the game has received, and continues to receive, to this day it would be a surprise if the game didn't feel like it's own thing in the modern age.

Of course, there's no comparison to the way this game plays up against the big AAA titles with their millions into development, but as far as paper budget indie zombie games go, there's actually a fair number of games that No More Room in Hell performs better than. Personally I've only had the chance to play the objective based mode and only by myself despite the fact the game feels like it was built for groups, so I've experienced a lot of the jank that the solo experience offers; but even then there's a solid control scheme, a decent amount of guns, and a totally serviceable palette to make this the solid baseline of zombie playing experiences. If any paid-for game out there can't match that level of play, it isn't worth your money.

It makes for a foundation. One which holds considerable potential to be built upon with a, from scratch, sequel just like the one which is rapidly approaching an early access release window later this very year. Developed and published by Lever Games, No More Room in Hell 2 is a considerably more slick co-op zombie survival game with elements of procedural generation and randomisation strewn into the gameplay formula to make a basis for extreme replayability. According to the previews, you won't just be finding different gear in the same containers; you'll be trying to find your way around small American towns were entire lootable buildings are swapped around, making the very layout of levels unreliable and shifting. Visually the game has had a severe improvement; not to any degree that gives really anything from this generation a run for it's money, but enough to hold it's own as a polished indie project over the original which, admittedly, feels very rough to play nowadays.

There are a lot of cool cues that the devs of this game have taken from their various contemporaries over the years; demonstrating that the decade of development hasn't left them totally out-of-touch with the trends of the day. Dynamic map shifting is already a big step in the modernisation angle, but I also noticed an in-game weapon modding action which looks like something out of 'Escape from Tarkov' (or BF2042; but I guess no one really cares for that comparison, eh.) There is said to be beheading and dismemberment at least considered within the newer engine, and a general greater emphasise on 'survival' through crafting menus. Not that I'm really a fan of every game having a bloody crafting menu but I can't deny the topic appears to be popular for whatever reason.

As with the original game, No More Room in Hell 2 will be looking to release in Early Access as it builds itself to be worthy of a full release and gain all the necessities that the studio believe the game still needs. (As well as perfect the move to Unreal Engine 5 that the game has been in the process of) Although the starting three maps are built to have replayability in them (to different degrees and in different fashions) the team want to build and release more before the end of early access, as well as a progression system and character customisation. All of which makes for a pretty darn ambitious indie project here, but then these aren't no 'first time' 'no experience' devs either; so I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt here.

Strangely enough, this is the sort of zombie game that would be more my pace than 'Back 4 Blood', with the slower zombies, more deadly atmosphere and greater strain on making every bullet count. I'm a sucker for the Project Zomboid style 'watch the walls slowly fall apart around you' style of play. Of course, all of these improvements over the original are necessities given that this sequel is going to be it's own, priced product. But given that the team manage the product they're promising, I don't see any reason why No More Room in Hell 2 won't be worth it's asking price.

"Lets do what Cyberpunk couldn't!"

Let's not.

We are looking at a new dawn for Eidos Montreal now that they've escaped the clutches of the big bad Square Enix, and though I have my considerable misgivings about where they currently reside, big names from Eidos antiquity seem to be adamant that the company is in better hands right now and that the mismanagement of Square is what led them to rough shores initially. Now I don't know about all that, I just know that 'The Embracer Group' sounds like a paramilitary group of post-apocalyptic nut jobs who prescribe the virtues of togetherness by a very literal and violent take on their adopted mantra: "Kill 'em with kindness". But choosing to believe against my gut I guess we can turn our minds off and look at this coming dawn as a new potential start for Dues Ex. And Legacy of Kain. I've never played Legacy of Kain, but so people seem to be excited about that too so I guess I'll be excited for them. Woo.

But this isn't just idle speculation on the many avenues that a free Eidos could go down without Square's boot on their neck, crushing their tracheas. In fact, the only man with a clue in the game's journalism sphere, Paul Tassi, seems to believe there's enough water in this well to parrot what was otherwise idle talk during a podcast about the early days of a new Deus Ex project. Now I know how that sounds, some guy reports on a rumour that some other guy said on a podcast; but Tassi ain't no chump, he does his homework. I trust his reporting a who lot more than I trust anyone else's. So when I see his name in a byline of an article talking about the ambition of a new blossoming Deus Ex game, I'm in the mood take that with a grain of salt and a celebratory cheer. Which I will because my god; it's been far too long since the last Deus Ex game graced us.

Deus Ex is often referred to as one of the greatest PC games ever made, and having played it myself more than two decades after it's release I can attest to the robustness it exhibits even in the modern day. Personally, however, it was Eidos Montreal's 'Human Revolution' that sold me over to the franchise. An incredible Stealth Immersive Sim with huge branching levels, an engaging globe-trotting conspiracy narrative that unfolded across a futuristic-but-grounded sci-fi setting, great script great cast, fun gameplay, timeless set pieces; it was everything to me at the time. It quickly became one of my favourite games of all time. Mankind Divided did so much right, but got so much wrong in the same breath as a sequel. By pure merit of the design direction it felt like a distinctly smaller game so that even though it's length was actually decently comparable to Revolution, it felt like the first act of a three part narrative. (Which is what it was supposed to be.)

Square Enix screwed over the game by assuming it would be enough of a success, whilst defanged, to lure players into sticking around for a three part franchise, even when that style hurt the body of a story in a game series that always delivered fantastic stories. Adam Jensen's narrative was teased heavily to swoop into the original Deus Ex cannon in two huge ways, but we never got to see that play out because Mankind Divided didn't sell well and Square immediately shoved the planned sequels on ice. Another step on their road to throwing in the towel and just going "Welp, we don't know how to make money from these franchises. They must be broken." I don't exactly know where a new Deus Ex would go, but I would hope that Eidos don't abandon Adam Jensen's story in spite of how Square screwed them. (Even if I'm pretty sure I already knew where that narrative was going, who he was going to end up crippling as the final boss and who he maybe ended up being related to from the original game.)

As the apparent rumour goes, Deus Ex are currently looking at their next project to achieve what Cyberpunk couldn't. On it's own that's a pretty decent sentiment, as Paul Tassi himself says it's a pretty confidant goal to shoot for, emulating the runaway success of Cyberpunk only with a landing that doesn't cost the company 75% of it's stock price in the proceeding years; that seems like a win-win all round! But, of course, there's just as many raised eyebrows as there are raised expectations. Such as the question of: what exactly is it that Cyberpunk couldn't do? Except for 'release when it's done', which to be clear would have been no great achievement if it had, that's the bare minimum we hope for. Is it the failure to be the branching RPG epic that people wanted? The failure to create that open-world Cyberpunk immersion that the trailers teased? Failure to provide a meaningful character customisation process that had consequence down the line? Or maybe just failure to stay in people's heads for the right reasons. Because I have to be honest; Deus Ex isn't really primed to tackle a lot of those.

Deus Ex is a single player RPG series with great stories and some choice and consequence, it isn't typically open world or character customisation heavy. In fact, character customisation tipped games usually don't have very well fleshed out leading characters, which would be a stark contrast to Deus Ex's Adam Jensen who's shoes fans have quite enjoyed stepping into over the course of the past two entries, even if Mankind Divided felt more like we were doing side-steps rather than any proud strides in those loafers. There are no fully realised open cities with dynamic crime and punishment systems, both angles that Cyberpunk attempted and failed on (to differing degrees) nor are there tons of meaningful side missions, which Cyberpunk... actually they didn't utterly screw up that department; they just forgot to bring side content that was more than just 'do this fight'. But then, Deus Ex isn't known for it's engaging and encapsulating side content either. In a nutshell; a Deus Ex that does what Cyberpunk doesn't, wouldn't actually cover any of the expectations Deus Ex fans have for a game like that. It would be something totally new altogether. 

So now we've followed Eidos into their lofty dreams, let's confront the practicality because it is stark. A big issue with what CDPR's dreams were, was that they believed themselves to be creating the next tier of open world game in order to steal that throne from Rockstar. Despite the fact that Rockstar have decades of experience making games like that, and a curated team of developers who specialise in those fields. CDPR didn't have the numbers to challenge that. Eidos don't have the numbers to meet CDPR's numbers, let alone to take over from that dream; especially not after they were just sold to a megacorp. Dreaming big is a part of equation and I'm glad that the next generation of minds attacking the Deus Ex franchise aren't doing so without ambition in their step; but letting that ambition slip into blind optimism can be dangerous; and it seems like they're starting right slap bang in that danger zone if their reported planning sentiment holds any real merit.

At the end of the day, Deus Ex doesn't need to be Cyberpunk in order to make all of it's fans happy; that's not what we come back to that series for. Even in the heights of Cyberpunk 2077 hype, people were happy for this game to serve as a companion to the Deus Ex games, not a replacement; and trying to leap frog the trainwreck to start your own steam train seems like a recipe for disaster. I don't want the Cyberpunk genre to become a synonym for 'cursed genre' after two well known Sci-fi franchises live and die at it's door. As much as Kotaku articles want to kill it off; Cyberpunk is still an incredibly cool and fruitful aesthetic and I'd miss it if it were gone. Deus Ex is coming back, and that's the good news I want to take away from this and thus I am going to; all the while hoping that the hopped up lunatic talk dies down by the time development kicks up.

I'm in one of those moods; lets talk Yakuza

 Yep, it's one of those blogs

Recently I been feeling a little bit hopeless, you know? That feeling that I assume we all get, but I wouldn't know because I'm just a disembodied pair of typing hands across the internet with no interaction with the outside world and thus have no measurement for comparison. And when I get to feeling this overwhelming loneliness and despair, I like to think about my favourite snippets of escapism that paint a kinder, more sensible world. No, I don't turn to classic examples of kids TV with their timeless lessons and great character role models, nor to highbudget TV shows of the day, nor to the countless smooth paced relaxation games like Stardew Valley. (Hah! I just lied and implied Stardew wasn't stressful, when it absolutely is.) No I turn to the one game that really unwinds the knots in my neck and fools me into state of faux contentment; Yakuza. The drama game series about a Japanese gangster who single handily beats up the entire country at least once a game.

I suppose some of that comes from the very specific feeling of 'otherness' that I, as a foreigner to the culture of Japan, experience when I play a game so heavily balanced on Japanese pop culture. Feeling like a stranger to everything around you that should be your various worldly lifelines feels like a total malfunction of being human, but being a stranger to a county and culture I live nowhere near and know very little about is how I'm supposed to feel, I'm not supposed to feel like the world view I have fits in over there; and so experiencing this hyper inflated version of Japan as a backdrop for the Yakuza games feels more natural for me than the waking world does, if that makes any sense. And that's before getting into all of the impeccably silly over-inflated action sequences and dramatic narrative events mixed with silliness and an odd sprinkle of pathos here and there. (Maybe a little bit too much pathos at times.)

Another part of my obsession undoubtedly comes from my love of crime drama and romance. Two repeated sources of fuel for Yakuza storylines in their constant desire to call back to old-school low budget TV crime movies and inexplicably elevate those narratives through bombast and scale. There's a great balancing act between the genuine human drama that lies at the motivations of some of our favourite Yakuza plotlines, such as Tachibana's search for his long lost and long suffering Sister, or Nishiki's scramble to mark out a sense of control in a world that constantly seems to abandon and discard him, that tugs at the heart of everyone. And then, when you're most vulnerable, the game will throw a big crazy set-piece at you where a giant Castle lifts into the sky to reveal an inner castle, or Kiryu Tiger Drops a literal tiger, or you get to double drop kick that slimy character who no one likes out of a restroom window on the fifth floor. (I am amazed he actually comes back later in the narrative only to be killed by a single grand slam that the player doesn't even get to perform.)

As for romantic element; I more referring to the classic sense of romance, When you look at the way that Yakuza characterises the act of being a Gokudo, (I'm using that term to differentiate the actual role from the name of the franchise) it's portrayed as this very noble profession of modern day warriors who often times end up protecting the disenfranchised or 'civilians' from the bad Gokudo or criminals who might prey on them. Very much in keeping with the dreamy imagination of being a gangster that those old Japanese Yakuza movies propagated, and the propagandistic meaning behind the title of Gokudo itself! It means 'going your own way' or something like that, implying some noble self-sacrificing art of defying a broken system so that you can carve out your own sense of good. And of course it's all a load of bollocks. The Yakuza are just thugs, they were born out of a merchant class who teamed up to harass anybody they could and they evolved through the years into an organised mafia. (I used to be very economical about how I talk about the Yakuza, but I can't be bothered anymore.)

All of these are just the elements that make Yakuza the style of game that I would be interested in, what keeps me coming back day after day is the quality of the games themselves. Now of course, I'm not a diehard original fan who has been with the series since the early days of Yakuza 1's terribly dubbed port wherein Mark Hamill played Majima. (Which even to this day sounds like an absolute lie, but is 100% truthful) But Yakuza 0 was a game I pretty much had my eyes on the second I saw it announced. I don't what it is, I just have an eye for these franchises that I spot for a fraction of a second and go "Yeah, that's the one for me." It was the same case with Persona that is was for Yakuza, and then all these years later I finally get around to playing the damn things and my inkling is always supremely underplayed, the games end up slapping harder than I could have imagined.

Although that isn't to say the other Yakuza games don't have their charms too. I think that Yakuza Kiwami had some great gameplay with it's fully realised styles system, and was only really held back by the fact that the entire game took place in one city which got tired quick. Kiwami 2 looked gorgeous, and that visual appeal really did help sooth the fact that the combat was largely gutted and toned down from it's Kiwami 1 highs. (Also Kiwami 2 story was tons better than 1's) Yakuza 3 is still the beast I'm currently butting my head against because the combat is literally the worst in the franchise. (Yes, I've seen the defenders and the heavy copium they operate on. Let's be frank, the fact that the combat is designed to reward one singular style of reactionary combat is not a 'complex evolution of the combat depth'; it's boring.) But I still love Kiryu and his journey enough to put up with all the sore points.

Because Yakuza is just one of those special franchises that even at it's worst is still the sort of experience that you can't really get anywhere else. Grand Theft Auto has it's influential ties to what this series is trying to do, but Yakuza 'goes it's own way' with a lot of the particulars and ends up with a regularly successful product; sometimes more than GTA is successful with some it's particulars. I have absolutely no reservations about declaring Yakuza 0's narrative as superior to any Grand Theft Auto games, in complexity, emotional stakes, character and pathos. (I would have a harder time saying that about Red Dead. Those stories are really strong.) Few games manage the perfect balance of open world minigame goodness that Yakuza does. And even Saints Row 2's balance of humour and drama is pitiful in the light of Yakuza on it's best day. (Literally every one of Kiwami 2's side missions is an exercise in utter weird in the best possible way)

So that is why when the chips are down and I'm struggling to find reasons to get out of bed in the morning it's titles like Yakuza that make me smile enough not to walk headfirst into incoming traffic. Which is perhaps one of the reasons why I find the burgeoning schism between western and eastern game studios as increadibly disturbing. There's so much great content on both sides of the world that an interconnected community allows everyone to enjoy, and it's worms like Square Enix upper management that put that relationship in danger. I hope that Capcom at least can maintain their ostensibly neutral stance on the issue that they've maintained thusfar, because if the Yakuza franchise just suddenly stopped getting English ports, that would be a genuine tragedy.

Flintlock: Siege of Dawn

Here's my double take

I'm not always a fan of everygame that flops out in front of me during press conferences which is why I tend to only ever really pick up on a choice few. However now and then I do end up passing by something which really should have appealed to me more, given the names behind the project. Which opens up dual lines on inquiry, namely in what exactly it is was I missed from the reveal, and how that reveal might have been lacking from a marketing perspective. But whichever lines I open, the result is that I end up paying the game a lot more attention. So allow me to go back on myself and take a real look at 'Flintlock: The Siege of Dawn', the action game that might not have swooned me when I first saw it, but did make me take that second look once I saw that the creator's of Ashen were backing in. Ashen being that great stylised action adventure game set across a dream-like dreary world with faceless dollish characters. It really sticks in the brain.

Whereas Flintlock absolutely slipped out of it, which speaks volumes about the power of an artstyle. Ashen is intentionally geometric in it's visuals, from the world to the shape of it's people, it's palette is washed out, it's theme nomadic; yet all of that blurs into a presentation that stands out amongst its peers and becomes that game's recognisable identity. What Flintlock has presented is no doubt visually superior to Ashen in terms of fidelity and rendering, likely as consequence of all the funds and growth the studio has enjoyed thanks to the modest success of their last game, but that has lost some of that unique visual style. And the visual uniqueness is a big deal; it's the key initial identifier when anyone looks at the game and thus makes the difference between an engaged watcher and someone who's just skimming the visuals for that 'wow' moment, like I was when I first saw this game.

But coming back to look at this game and forcing myself to care, I can see there are some elements from the trailer worth talking about. Namely the fluidity of the animations which seem, go figure, to grow upon what Ashen was doing; and is a very important component to making this style of game work. (I've said it before, action slasher games live and die on the responsiveness of combat) Also it would be remiss not to mention that the there's a real sense of depth to the palette we're seeing that seems to belie the scale of the open world available to us. Whether that's a trick to the particle volume filling the air equally with smog and specks of light, I really do feel like there's innumerable explorable nooks and crannies to plunder, likely brimming with monsters to slay, speaking of.

There's some pleasing variety to the denizens of this world, all pouring from some form of hell if I've read the description accurately enough. As the style of the game seems to be this mix between romanticised colonialism-era architecture and fantasy, the enemy creatures seem an intriguing mix between Conquistador skeletons and magical Armor-donning mystic knights. Of course, such variety and the one-on-one presentation of the bigger battles is going to draw some well-earned Soulslike comparisons, and considering the gameplay of Ashen I can only assume that those comparisons are very welcome. In fact, I do get this vague scratching feeling at the back of my neck that this is an action adventure reimagining of Greedfall in a way, making these two games peas in a pod for a very specific style of thematic genre. 

Flintlock seems to be leaning itself towards the mixing of styles of combat in order to make something that feels fluid and popping to the eye. As such there will be the heavy weight of a hammer's swing alongside the flare of magical arts, the range advantage of a gun and the stylish elemental flailing's of the companion rodent who flanks the hero. All of which feed into the flashiness of the power fantasy which makes this game's most stark departure from the Souls-like comparison I can find. Those games want you to feel the oppressive boot of weakness ever treading on you, whereas Flintlock owns the more traditional approach of letting the player be the whirlwind of death that they dream about being in their nighties. Although not so much that you don't feel the robustness of facing a deadly boss, of course. There must always be the balance.

Ashen was a game of few words, to say the least; meaning that by the very merit of adding a voiced protagonist, Flintlock is breaking new grounds. Now I'm not expecting some grand adventure of pathos and learning to unfurl before our character like a rich tapestry of consequence and growth, but I wouldn't be upset if that did happen. To be honest, I know very well how a definitive character can get between a player and their craft especially in games like these. Whoever the protagonist of 'Lords of the Fallen' was, I couldn't care less for their story, and William from Nioh bugged me no end with his utterly incomprehensive personal drives. (Seriously; why did he do literally anything in that entire narrative; It never made sense to me. And no, getting back his Irish fairy waifu does not cover the entire war he fights and wins.) Our Nor Vanek, aside from reminding me of Nara from Chorus, does not strike me as the type to hijack the players journey; so I can only pray we either get everything or nothing; not a nauseating half-job like this genre has suffered before.

Aside from that I feel the need to emphaise that this game looks fine. I know I've already complemented the thematic styling of the world, but visually I'm really getting that thirst to explore this city as I did for the cool vistas of Egypt in Assassin's Creed Origins. There's some traces of that DNA in some of the pale stone and tropical climate, only without the utterly enjoying elements that made that world a chore to navigate. (Seeing enemy patrols ever other street made me want to gouge out my eyes.) The open world aspect holds certain promises, and I wonder if an urban sprawl will prove the right step up from Ashen's nature-ruled plains and caves, or if the team will struggle as CDPR did in their jump from The Witcher to Cyberpunk. (Hopefully they won't struggle that much, even if they do. That would be a real shame.)

So upon second viewing Flintlock really does have a lot of unique charms to it, even if it's not the showstopping head turner that one might usually expect at a video game trade's show. This developer has proven themselves a talent in the past, however; which is why I'm willing to give this one the benefit of the doubt when it does finally arrive. It could be this is another big up and comer that the mainstream is sleeping on just like Spiders. Only with a much less spine-tingling name to recite so I don't have to clarify whenever I mention it that I'm not encouraging people to buy pictures of arachnids off Steam. Although that being said, at least I don't need to keep looking up a Spiders name on google to remember who they are. A44, not exactly a tongue roller, that one.

The Witcher 4 question

 42

Welp, we have an irrefutable example to hold up to the rest of the gaming industry that deciding to rush a game to launch in order to capitalize off the hype from today in hopes that the momentary rush of bedazzled early adopters will offset the backlash of a broken product is a risky venture no matter how big the game in question is. Unless, of course, you happen to be running a studio producing sports games, because Sports fans are straight sadomasochists when it comes to getting screwed out of their money for belittling value games. (Which is why the Sports game industry is dead in innovation, funnily enough.) Even after a whirlwind amount of sales for Cyberpunk, interest and respect for the game quickly fell off once people realised that only the prologue vaguely resembled the game that CDPR sold it as and how the actual game was riddled with bugs and/or totally unplayable depending on your system. Now, nearly two years after the fact, CDPR has lost roughly 75% of their company value and has surrender their spot as most valuable games company in Europe and most valuable company in Poland. (Somehow Techland have earnt that spot. Weirdly.)

So the mountains have wobbled and toppled over themselves and everyone is crying blue murder about the unannounced changes that are coming to the Cyberpunk 2077 post game support. It's becoming increasingly apparent that the promised 2 DLCs, with the first one testing the waters and the second being the game changing kick to the nuts in the vein of The Witcher 3's 'Blood and Wine' has been reduced to one small DLC. So where does CDPR expect to go next once they've finished airing out all those Cyberpunk plans that were in development too long to just scrap? (Like the 'Edgerunners' Anime that looks okay) Well they've actually already let us into that little secret thanks to a teaser screen shot of something we all very much know; a Witcher Medallion buried in snow. Oh yeah, they're doing the Witcher 4.

What makes this interesting is not only the fact that the storytellers fell over themselves at the end of Blood and Wine to let us know that this is the end of the story and we need to let Geralt rest, but that thanks to that retirement wherever we pick up the Witcher next is likely to have absolutely no connective tissue with The Witcher books thanks to the jettisoning of the last canon characters. Of course, The Witcher games always set themselves as occurring after the canon of the books, and are now a separate canon altogether thanks to another book being released since they started making the games. But Geralt was always very much The Witcher, and the games tended to bring themselves back into the path of characters from his long history. Triss Merigold, Yennifer, Ciri; so where we go next from here is pretty much uncharted grounds for the franchise.

And let me just be the first to express my disappointment that we won't be following Ciri through this game. I mean I suppose it was always going to be that way due to the exponential power of Ciri's abilities that would make any attempt to create a balanced gameplay experience antithetical to her canon power level, (you could just throw up a hand wavey power-draining excuse though. Every game does it!) as well as the multiple endings of the Witcher 3 that could very well end with Ciri locked in a stuffy dress for the rest of her life or even dead! (Although let's be honest with each other. We all know that only one of those endings for Ciri is canon. Ain't nobody patting themselves on the back and pimping on with a thoroughly dead Ciri.) I just assumed the reason why the CDPR team were so deadset against bringing Ciri into Cyberpunk 2077 was because they had plans for her in The Witcher 4, but it seems not. The director was just super self-conscious of their game not being seen as a cross-over property like Kingdom Hearts or Smash Bros. (Did he make that Smash Bros comparison himself? I think he did; and if he did that is more than a little asinine.)

All we currently have to go on for what will be covered in The Witcher 3 is the animal pedant in the snow which has been revealed to be of the Witcher School of the Lynx. A school that doesn't exist in the books or games, meaning that we essentially know nothing. However we do know that around the time of The Witcher 3 the Witcher profession was exceedingly rare with the School of the Wolf being perhaps the only place left with the know-how left to create and train new Witchers. Geralt was a famous figure, a long lived Witcher who's reputation made him a go-to problem solver all over the unnammed realm of The Witcher, and presuming this new game follows a successor or contemporary that inherently means we're stepping into the shoes of someone considerably less famous. Of course, that's not taking into account the possibility that this could be a prequel game. (Not traditionally a 'prequel' in the sense of 'story that leads into the original story' but rather just in the 'set before' sense.)

What has me equally curious and worried is the prospect of expanding the border of a nameless world, because the world of the Witcher, whilst expansive, is designed to be very functional. Every wild tangent of lore and world building has it's relevant place within the narrative, even if only slightly, because the pace of the narrative is set to tell a story. Thus there aren't really huge patches of untapped potential waiting for the CDPR team unless they go into making their own narrative by scratch, which in a way they have already been doing all this time but never quite without the heavy spine of pre-set context propping them up. This is a frontier that I'm not sure they've come up against before. The Witcher springboarded off a popular book series in Poland, Cyberpunk off an established boardgame with help from the creator, primarily following an established legacy character from that pre-written fiction. The Witcher 4 will be uniquely CDPRs, making this a endeavour that could make or break their creative spine. 

I also worry about the difficulties that CDPR might have living up to what The Witcher 4 needs to be in the wake of Cyberpunk 2077. It's no secret that Cyberpunk was the culmination of all that studios successes up to that point; for every game they threw their entire weight into squeezing every inch of productivity out of their employees, often times regardless of how their work life balance. The great dichotomy of this industry is now that they fell face first with Cyberpunk, people are going to want The Witcher 4 to earn back the accolades of the study by being some massive product, maybe as big as what they pretended Cyberpunk was going to be; but the studio has suffered so much reputational damage, value shrinkage and general hardship that one has to wonder if that would even be feasible. Right now, CDPR is a studio with the reputation for burning it's staff to cinders without the offsetting prestige of being the industry golden boy. They might end up not attracting the level of talent they once did.

The Witcher 4 question I purpose is thus: Can The Witcher 4 restore faith in CDPR to the point it was at after The Witcher 3; and I think no. It might make some significant ground to that end, but The Witcher 3 was the culmination of an 8 year long franchise with a running narrative. (A loosely running narrative, but it was running along nonetheless) Mix that with the time when The Witcher 3 came out and the relatively lukewarm open world games that were growing stale, the pleasant surprise it ended up being for everyone involved; and much of what made that the hit it was turns out to be irreproducible. In some ways The Witcher 4 is looking like a big reset button for CDPR bringing them back to something resembling square one. Of course, that's 'square one' in comparison to the heights of Cyberpunk pre-release, and thus is still miles better than they were when they actually started out. So to break my two year long train of pessimism, I'm going to say that CDPR might claw their way back out of the doghouse for the industry, but its' going to be slow going.

Noble 6: Ghost of Reach

A stone overtunred

I'm sure I've mentioned this before, but I only really started playing Halo at the beginning of this year. In fact, it was specifically so I could do a quick review series on the entirety of the Master Chief Collection, the first of such reviews you can find here. However, though I like to big-up the whole 'I had never played Halo before that moment' the truth is only partially right there. Because whilst I had never played any of Master Chief's journey before, I had actually played one Halo game. That game was 'Halo: Reach' and I loved it. That attachment that so many old Halo fans have towards John-117 is how I feel about the secretive 'Nobel 6' from the defence force that were overwhelmed during the Fall of Reach, and even having played the rest of the story I still think that Reach offered some of the most poignant and cinematic moments of the franchise in it's best moments. As such, as far as my nostalgia is concerned; Reach is my Halo game.

I set this as an establishment to the issue of how important this game is to me, such that when I tell you how curiously I approach a fan animated project to tell the story of Nobel 6 after the events of Reach I get a bit curious. Now that's for a few reasons. Firstly, we are currently in a golden age of technology where fans are totally within their capabilities to animated high quality video footage if they have the know how, and I'm always excited to see the results of all that. Secondly, I am personally invested in a couple of my own 'fan fiction' sort of projects, they're not to the scale of highly produced animatics, but I'm familiar with the balance between respect and imagination you want to juggle in that situation. And thirdly, and arguably most importantly; what after Reach? Didn't Noble 6, you know, freakin' die on Reach? Isn't that sort of the point of his entire narrative and story? Well I have to see what sort of project has the gall to stop on something as significant as a sacrifice plotline.

Right now what we have is a teaser trailer that looks exceptionally well animated given the tools at the team's disposal, conveying the bare basic premise as well as giving us a look at the armour of Nobel 6 and a brief snippet of some of the voice work going behind bringing this story to life. (Oh, and it sounds like the team are reusing some of Reach's incredible soundtrack. Can hardly ride them for doing that, can I?) As I understand things, this narrative is set to follow Nobel 6 embarking on several completely lone wolf guerrilla campaigns against the occupying Covent force on Reach after surviving his final encounter with them after the Pillar of Autumn's evacuation. Actually, from the look of things it might be more accurate to say that the epilogue mission never even happened at all by these guy's reckoning; as they depict Nobel wearing his full armour without a broken visor like what happens at the end of Reach. (You know, that perfect Bookend moment which brings the narrative finale back round to meet the intro? They just scrubbed that.)

The presentation appears to be a story told in reverse after Nobel 6 has been bought back by ONI to answer for his, presumably several, years AWOL in the middle of a Convent/Human war. (Master Chief could have certainly used another badass one-man-army helping him out during the campaign against the Covenant.) So in that way somewhat similar to that other fan-verse Star Trek story that was shut down all that time ago, Axanar. A style of narrative presentation I inherently dislike due to the way it divorces the tension of possibility from the followed events as we know the speaking character gets through it all unscathed; they're the one telling the story. Although I suppose in this particular case, it would be a bit weird for the team to resurrect Nobel 6 just to kill him off again, huh?

Now although the animation looks eye-catchingly good, the voice work gives away the amateur nature of production. There's a bit too much unnatural 'gruff' going on behind the ONI commander's words (Which I've noticed becoming very popular in indie games recently. I don't know why non-actors don't just play it straight and allow their script to do the heavy lifting) and some questionable mic quality. There was also the decision made to give Nobel 6 a new voice which was... unnecessary. But I can kind of see why they went that direction. Of course, all we're currently looking at is a teaser trailer and the team are actively reworking elements of the final product at all times, so what we see will not be representative of whatever ends up happening. The newly chatty protagonist, however? That's a given, that ain't changing; so let me go into my thoughts on this matter.

Obviously they want this story to be narrated by Nobel 6, he needs to speak; and I've got some personal experience in trying to give a voice to a character who was originally conceived as a voiceless avatar for the player. It's hard and the transition is always going to be rocky. I'm not in love with the voice they chose to give Noble 6, nor that cliché of an opening line, but I'm willing to give some ground because I know this can be done right. Again, I cite Cloud from the FF7 Remake where the team knew to characterise his taciturn depiction as a quirk of character that defines who he is. That is a way to bring this to life, and writing is as much about learning what fits as following the rules; I just hope the team have taken into account that the process of adaptation needs to be formative for the character they're writing if they went this depiction of Noble 6 to have chance of sidling up alongside the vanilla man. Oh, he's canonically a man now. Not sure if that was done in any side novels. They're obviously disadvantaged by the fact that Nobel 6 actually had a voice in the game, meaning there are comparisons to be made, but if the characterisation feels on point the mind's eye will overlook that.

Those are all the barriers to entry, as for the potential; well that's wide open for this team to come along and tell their own Master Chief-style narrative deep within the heart of enemy lines. From the little snippets we got it looks like the action is going to be a core pillar of narrative rather than following the emotional breakdown of a stranded deep behind enemy lines of a war that, from his limited perspective, humanity has already lost. Were it that I didn't know any better, I might even suspect this whole set-up of a 'disobedience trial' as a metaphorical mental construct with which Nobel 6 tries himself over his failure to save Reach in a sort-of 'Jacob's ladder' style projection flashing through his failing mind as his body flatlines on the scorched sands of a planet mid-glassing. That would be ridiculous though. Nobel 6 was ultimately killed by an Energy Sword through the chest if I remember correctly, that's gotta be a pretty instant way to be taken out. Not much space for self reflection there.

I love fan projects and really wish there were more space for them to exist across the industry. Heck, KOTOR would already have its remake if the world were more open to fan works, but by that same merit we'd have even more Fifty Shades of Grey copycats; so it's a real give and take equation here. Of all the animated projects of this vein, and there are a couple milling about (including a retelling of KOTOR with similarly dubious voice acting) the very idea of spitting in the face of a perfect conclusion is so ballsy that I can't help but tilt up my chin to meet the challenge. Of course, my biggest hand goes out to the team that had the guts to step out on this road to begin with, whether out of love for Halo or bitterness (the fanbase is often driven by equal parts of both) the more reimaginations we see the absolute better.

GTA Metaverse!

Crimes on the blockchain 

Grand Theft Auto is the biggest franchise in gaming. Probably. I'm willing to bet it's at least up there, although depending on how you choose to independently measure scale and size I'll willing to bet you could land on just about any game being the biggest. GTA has the biggest recognition value by market trends, in that whatever strives it makes will quickly become industry standard. COD probably makes the most sales due to how often it comes out. Earth 2 has the most loyal numbskulls who desperately sink their life savings in the hopes that Earth 2 is going to be a game that anyone even knows about when it drops. So I'm happy suggesting that Rockstar have quite some pull in whatever it is they want to do with the direction of their game and the grounds they want to cross. Heck, you could say that GTA: Online has single handed changed the trajectory of the Ubisoft games as all of them have attempted to copy what that game did since 'Black Flag'. (To hardly comparable success)

As such it makes sense that if you're a scrappy up and comer with the 'new way of doing things' that you want to become the standard across the industry, it makes total sense that you'd be ecstatic that Rockstar's seminal crime franchise was supporting it too. Ecstatic enough to distend and distort the news in front of you into reading whatever fashion best supports the ideals that you support. I mean we've all been there haven't we? When the words in front of us say one thing to us and something else to the person next to us? It's common human nature to try and bring everything into line with our world view, which is the reason why I don't necessarily blame the crypto bros for reading the recent GTA 6 supposed leaks (Which I do not take for gospel, mind; I still find their timing suspect) regarding the rewards of some missions and thinking they've finally found their golden boy in GTA.

But first, what is it that Cryptobros have to do with gaming? Well for some reason, presumably because of the size of gaming as an entertainment model, dozens of crypto products get their start nowadays by promising to revolutionise gaming by introducing blockchain integration into their new game which is going to revolutionise the world. Whether that's through some sort of vapid NFT marketplace, or Play-to-Earn economy or just another stupid bloody 'landsale'. It's the corruption of the art of gaming into some sort of vaguely disguised investment model where the little people stumble over themselves believing there's some sort of path to financial success and the early adopters and creators make the big bucks off their sweat and tears. It's cynical and largely antithetical to a lot of the current drives of gaming, not least in the way it ties real-world economics into the fake world of games. But where does GTA 6 fit into all of this?

Well one of the leaks that followed the recent 'blowout', aside from the female protagonist and the Bonny and Clyde style antics, was a bit about the economy of the game. Somehow, without being able to detail the narrative or any actual missions, our leaker was able to provide details on the reward of some missions, (one of the reasons I'm calling all of these leaks suspect) namely that some would reward the character with Cryptocurrency. Of course, that set off a spark in the eyes of the Moonbros reading such an article, and I can only assume they immediately clicked off the covering article they were reading the second they finished reading those words, as that's the only way they could miss the qualifying statement that most articles have directly following that: how it's referring to an 'in-game' cryptocurrency, not a real world one.

Which makes sense, doesn't it? Grand Theft Auto has always based itself in a facsimile of the real world that emulates the fads and trends of the day to turn them into jokes because that's always been the beating heart of the GTA franchise; one of a big joke. The amount of articles I've seen recently of people who clearly have no idea what they're talking about claiming 'GTA needs to grow up' boggles the mind. I figure they must have just played Red Dead, fallen for the epic tale of a family of robbers falling apart and gone "Huh, you know if GTA didn't have all those jokes then it would be just as emotional as this" No it wouldn't. Because that isn't GTA's mission statement. It's a funhouse mirror placed up to whatever generation they're aiming at in order to make fun of hyper inflated versions of today's issues; and I wouldn't be surprised if this whole 'GTA needs to grow up' diatribe doesn't end up in the spotlights.

Crypto currency and their many financial woes is big news for the much struggling investors desperate for it to take off so that their financial investments can mean something. That's a joke that's already writing itself, of course Rockstar are going to jump on that bandwagon to get their own shots in! GTA V had the heavily underutilised Stock Market feature which allowed you to day trade, I can imagine Crypto will function within the game much the same as that, only probably with at least one mission where your exchange gets hacked and you lose a big chunk of the crypto you had saved up, were I to speculate. Those believing that GTA 6 was going to become a metaverse haven for them and theirs were straight dreaming, there's no money for Rockstar in alienating most of their fans with a scheme that most of them don't understand and those that do are actively hostile towards. Which is the problem with WEB3 in a nutshell; they're always trying to land the plane before the airport has started construction, and end up crashing into a fiery mess because of it.

However that doesn't mean that this representation isn't going to good for the Crypto space, because it absolutely will be. (providing the leaks are true, which I don't believe that they are but this concept seems plausible enough to probably end up in the next GTA anyway.) Even if Rockstar throws in Cryptocurrencies literally just to make fun of them and what they represent, their very inclusion in a video game of that magnitude will invariably do wonders to legitimise crypto and introduce it to some people who don't care enough to research on their own. Reputation might take a hit, but those are foundations to build upon. Do I find that encouraging? Not particularly; I can't see a single benefit from Crypto in the modern age and when the platform becomes bigger I can only see it being defanged into nothing more than a pumped up version of normal finance; similar to how Streaming services are steadily becoming traditional TV.

So no, sorry to disappoint all the Cryptoheads out there, GTA 6 won't be the amazing posterboy of Metaverse madness that all of you want it so desperately to be. You'll just have to clash your brains together to make your own terrible crypto game with pay-to-win garbage leaking out of the rafters and a nonsensical gameplay loop that sounds mindnumbingly boring to anyone who isn't profiteering directly off of it. In fact, I'd argue that Moonbros should probably just hit up Peter Molyneux and ask him to make their DeFi game; he tends to be pretty experienced in putting together scams for his audience. (Ever since he got that 'lifetime acheivements' reward and suffered a midlife crisis, it's just been downhill ever since.) Oh wait, he's already on his own NFT grift. Better luck next time.