Battlefield 2042 goes under 1000- they need a plan of action

 Everydev report to the panic room!

What is it like to walk across a totally empty active Battlefield? I suppose that's something Battlefield 2042 players know intimately given that their game recently sank lower than the 1000 player mark on Steam for the first time in it's brief history. Just to labour on this point a little: One of the selling points of Battlefield 2042 was the max player match-up of up to 128 players duking it out simultaneously; which means that for a time on Steam there wasn't enough players to support 10 full match-ups at the same time! Now of course, I assume most matches launch with considerably less than full lobbies, especially today, so there could have been a decent number of matches; but no one is getting to experience this game as it was meant to be played and that disappointment is strangling the player base out of the product. Isn't a car crash an fascinating thing to watch?

I know it's another update in an inevitable and obvious fall-from-grace; but golly, it is so surreal to have this happen. It's like watching your parents getting divorced at a young age, when you're not exactly privy to all of the arguments and struggles, because it just feels like a force outside of your recognised and recommended world view. I did not for a single second ever even entertain the idea that one of the world-wide mainstays of the video game industry would slip off in such a spectacular fashion, pull themselves into a noose of their own creation and just choke themselves out in the public square for all to gawk at. It's grotesque and revolting, but also stunningly bizarre. Imagine if it was Fifa that was falling off the wagon. Or COD? Heck, COD put out a lukewarm game in the same year as Battlefield and got praised for it; maybe in pure reaction to how much of a dog's dinner BF2042 truly was. I guess a sinking ship raises the tide for everyone else, too.

And at this point I think it's unofficially positive what happened. Just looking at the badly designed, too large maps; the popcorn cheese on all the operator personalities, the lack of devotion to the established grim lore, the lack of basic scoreboards at launch, this was a Battle Royale at some point in it's life, definitely. What I can't figure out is why the change was made, and why it was so last minute. I mean, I know I claimed that EA saw the tend of the industry and decided not to try and compete in a clogged market but when I really confront that belief I have to argue with myself. "Really? EA would absolutely be hubristic enough to think they could climb to the top of a stuffed market!" So what possible force called for the BR to be stripped out of the game, and how soon was this before launch? Do you think those initial marketing material, celebrating the Battlefield people, were made when this was still a BR? Who made the choice to cut the past?

My suspicion is thus; at somepoint the concern raised to the devs that in order to keep a BR rolling with regular updates, the team would need to station a substantial team to keep this thing running; a bigger team than it takes to maintain a typical Battlefield live service. Maybe the office was suffering from an exodus of talent. We know back in 2018 DICE reported how 10% of it's workforce had left and the company hasn't seen any significant successes since then so perhaps that trend kept up. Maybe when it was first purposed, DICE had just enough bodies to run the BR idea for as long as they wanted, and employee number bleeding just naturally scrapped the viability of that idea the closer the team got to launch. Without any sources it's hard to back that guess up, but it's the only real idea which makes any sense to me. Because otherwise DICE gutted a game moments before launch for no good reason, and I can't rally behind that.

In recent weeks DICE have publicly come out to ensure the loyal few who remain that they haven't abandoned development just yet; meanwhile behind the scenes we've already heard that development for the next Battlefield is underway, so I guess they're still talking out of gritted teeth. Still, if we ignore the fact they're planning their out whilst committing to keep the ship afloat, we can instead look to the strength of their actions to affirm just how crafty the team that remain are. And they have, in a directed communication to the fans, accepted that the game had huge problems and that this needs to be worked on piece by piece. Brave enough to admit, even if it comes a little late for my taste, but how is that going to actually play out?

Map changes! After the obviously necessary work that had to be done to fix things like the missing UI elements and clean up a few, but crucically not all, of the bugs; map fixing was decided to be the next biggest step. Because all the maps are too large and lacking in tactical mainstays like cover-at-important choke points. (and terrain destructibility; but we're not getting that so there's no point moping about it anymore than necessary.) Fixing all of these maps up and getting them up to snuff is actually a huge undertaking, and in many instances would demand a total reworking of the whole area. Heck, most maps need to scaled down by orders of magnitude in order to keep the battle clean. We're looking at maps the size of the Fortnite island when a slightly bigger spread of Operation Metro would be much more effective. But I don't think changes like that are even remotely in the cards, so we'll have to swallow incremental additions in the meantime.

Speaking of incremental: how about those storage containers, am I right? In their defence, cutting off large angles does improve the gameplay spread and throwing down storage containers in the middle of empty fields and solar farms is an inelegant, blunt, but effective way to do that. It's also embarrassingly minute. Why didn't the team work on reforming an entire map and then show their work to the public, rather than drip-feeding mediocrity so that they could be laughed at for it? I know that the argument is: "Well, that could take months. What are the community going to play in the meantime?" To which I say: I dunno, whatever they're playing right now, because is isn't currently Battlefield! There's no playerbase left to satiate, and the only chance that Battlefield has of winning back some small pride is to change literally everything and then do a soft relaunch of 2042 to drum up a sliver of that hype again. Otherwise this is going to be a slow, and painful, death.

I don't mourn for Battlefield as much as I should, and maybe that's because we know another is on the way. Also, I already know that game is going to be a bare-bones wasteland of a title, but it's going to at least stick to it's genre and come out playable so enjoyment starved Battlefield fans are going to flock to it and defend it like the second coming of Christ. I hate to use crass terms like 'battered wife syndrome', but lacking a synonym there really is no better simile. Honestly, my blunt and unsolicited advice to the DICE Team? Kill 2042 right now and put all the to-be-wasted effort into the next Battlefield, make it the successor to 3&4 we need it to be and don't, for the love of everyone and everything, in and around this earth of ours; put in NFTs. Dear god, no.

I hate: Platforming Puzzles where it doesn't belong

A said a Hip, Hop-

We all have our places in life, I am told. Our inexorable, inexplicable mortal duties to which we are chained and drawn like moths to a roaring open flame. To lash out against that fate, or to rove off in search of it, is the topic of many a philosophical piece; but the way I see it, the proposition alone contains the most salient tincture of truth. For if we are to accept the premise that somewhere out there, tucked behind the golden clouds, lays our marble-paved destiny draped and ready in anticipation, then wouldn't it track to say that there are plenty of paths in life simply not for us? Pitfalls to ruin? Dreams within which we simply do not belong? If there is one then there must be the other, and that's why I never shy to point out when I see an errant pilgrim, driven far from their field and languishing in a life not theirs. And today my finger points towards platforming puzzles.

For some reason or other, games absolutely love throwing sections of precision platforming into games that, rather pointedly, are not always platforming games. It galls because platforming is not some throwaway minigame you can just shove into your game when your think the loop lacks variety, like a match 3 tile game. Platformers are delicate and intricate machines, a masterwork of delicate control tweaking, mindful level design and balanced vectors for challenge. Platforming has been around for as long as home gaming as been (longer even) and still it's an artform being worked upon and reiterated towards; people have dedicated their professional lives to making sure their platformers play the best they possibly can. And then Valve comes along and just shoves a platforming section into their first person shooter.

Yes, Half Life, a game renowned for it's groundbreaking variety in mission structure, apparently abandons all vestiges of sanity near it's end act and sends the player into a notoriously fiddly platforming section. I haven't played the game myself so I can't attest to it from experience, but I have seen the section in question and heard tell of controls implicitly not designed for precision platforming. Because of course not, why would they be? The sorts of movement you need for a good first person shooter, smooth fluid movements, decent travel, subtle immersion touches; don't cross the Venn diagram for Platforming in the slightest. (intuitive movement weight, responsive and disciplined controls that start when you prompt and end when you stop.) And perhaps I can't add my own voice to the mix for this game; but I did play DOOM.

In DOOM (2016) there is one level in particular that tasks you with making large jumps over deadly pits of death whilst trading projectiles with a smattering of imps all scattered across a service pipe leading into your destination. This isn't the only platforming puzzle section, but it's the most frustrating to my mind. The large leaps to safety you are required to make, whilst the split second reactions you need for avoiding demonic balls of flame, often clash together to spectacularly frustrating effect. In the heat of it's action, DOOM is dance of call and response between waves of enemies and the suite of movement/violent tools at the player's disposal. All of which comes to a grinding standstill when you need to line up the perfect jump for fear of tumbling to your demise. For this one small section of an otherwise adrenaline fuelled game, it suddenly becomes most heavily advised to find a vantage point and pick off the imps from afar before getting all embroiled in the steelworks of the service bridge. It changes up the pace, I guess; but since when is DOOM not about getting up in the face of demons and blowing their jaw through their skull with a super shotgun? Consider me wholly unconvinced as to the necessity of that platforming section.

And speaking of platforming sections that wrestle with the genre of the game they're thrust into; who's played Dark Souls? Yes, the king of difficulty itself tripped into a vat of ill-advised platforming section for a few memorable awful scenes. Everytime it's been a case of 'you need to drop on these tiny ledges in order to reach the bottom of this pit', and everytime the result is you being reminded once again how pathetic Dark Souls' jump mechanics are. The way you hardly leave the ground more than a couple centre meters, heavy amounts of fall damage, the fact that the button to jump is the same as the one to sprint; everything about these sections are awful. Although little tops the platforming puzzle in the worst boss of the franchise. Which, incidentally, is the reason why this is the worst boss in the franchise. The Bed of Chaos requires a precision jump in order to finish it off, and that single leap alone is the hardest challenge Dark Souls has to offer. It's so unreasonably difficult, that this is the only boss in any Souls game where the progress you make on the boss (cutting his roots) actually stays completed if you die and respawn. Platforming so bad it challenges the traditions of an entire subgenre; that's impressively terrible.

Hollow Knight is a platformer. It's a lot of other genres besides just sharp and precise jumping from stage to stage, but the platforming element to the gameplay cannot possibly be overlooked or undersold. But does Hollow Knight dedicate itself to it's platforming? Well... yes actually. There's a plethora of abilities, some discrete others locked until found, that modify the way you explore the world in a way that meaningfully unwraps the corners of the Hallownest like any good Metroidvania demands. However, is that any excuse to give me something like the Path of Pain? For the entirety of Hollow Knight it's challenge proposition has been on the dance of boss fights, weaving between deranged swipes, crazy slashes and a prolonged assault of energy wave beams shot periodically at you from the boss who is currently rolled up in an invincible ball in the centre of the room. But the optional 'Path of Pain' forgets all that, and shoves frankly inane platforming challenges, squeezed one after the other with but a rare smattering of platforms inbetween hell to rest and checkpoint. They pull platforming tricks on you that the rest of the game never even hinted at. Suddenly you have to pogo bounce on thorn walls, jump-dash-jump through tiny slivers of free space between deadly spike walls and even master a bit of wall-dash cancellation. And what is the reward? For what do we endure these ceaseless attacks on our sanity and goodwill? An insultingly uncomplicated 3 second cutscene. Thanks for the rondo of pain followed by salt to fester the cuts.

And finally, the very reason which I bring this topic up: Blasphemous. Crossing over with another big Metroidvania should have been a cause for celebration, specifically when that game is 'Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night', the much-beloved spiritual successor to Castlevania! But then the team at The Game Kitchen conspired to have us associate Miriam forever with hatred after they unveiled the five Miriam platforming challenges that made up this collaboration. Movement in Blasphemous is decent, it's not the draw and it's platforming challenge typically comes from frustrating movement elements, such as the way this game breaks the rule of 'whatever your sprite can touch, it can climb on', due to the Penitent One's lengthy conehead that doesn't count to his climbing hitbox. Or the unexpected heft which makes you sink like a rock the second after your manual jump is done, so don't expect to angle-glide to your destination. Which makes the concept of challenges that are only platforming related just a nightmare. And indeed, the Miriam Challenges are that nightmare. Precision jumps when the Penitent One is liable to combust the second his pinkie toe scratches a spike's hitbox. Prolonged and timed stringed-together challenge hallways wherein a single death restarts the entire three minute sprint. Oh, and lamp jumping. A mechanic absolutely never explained in the game wherein you attack a lamp mid-air in order to stunt the momentum of your fall briefly. Sounds simple right? Wrong. Because the only time it works is if you hit down as you swing, a variance in attack with absolutely no visual indicator whatsoever, and which makes it difficult to make forward momentum for the way you have drag your analog forward-down and then forward again. Of course, a little tip on that front: you get the same Lamp-jump effect automatically if your just hold the 'dash' button whilst you hit, something else the game goes through great pains to never tell you! I completed these once and they were easily the most frustrating and unrewarding challenges this game had to offer; curse that poxxy Miracle!

And so you can see my problem; when you shove platforming challenges into games not built for them, you are no longer adding to the gameloop but you're throwing in the game's own controls as an enemy to wrestle with. Even games like Hollow Knight, with great movement, feel a little out of place sending us up against a platforming-only battle. Yet despite saying all that, I do recognise the desire to diversify content and would myself wonder about the viability of a game who's only battles are against platforming sections. I suppose at the end of the day this comes down to a question of how you handle it and if your game is built to sustain it; which in that case leaves no room for justification for games like Dark Souls and bloody DOOM; Learn to stick to you lane a little more, devs!

Kingdom Hearts 4

Is this the way to the door to Darkness?

I'm always one to give into nostalgia, but never did I think I'd be struck with a wave powerful enough to wet the ol' eyelids from a series I've barely known for 2 years. That just doesn't feel like a decent enough chunk of time for the memories to burrow deep enough into my core processors that they can then tap into the 'pleasant emotions' cortex. But I suppose that just goes to show how deeply and how much I truly loved the Kingdom Hearts games. (Except for 'Chain of Memories'.) These games have entered by subconsciousness so fully that a bastardised rendition of 'Dearly Beloved' gave me deep chills all up my spinal column and had me holding by breath taut. Perhaps that is why I felt so warm when Sora received that, all important, final invitation to Smash; and why Kingdom Hearts IV gets me so very excited even when I haven't had to time to even get around to III yet. (Or the fifteen games you have to endure beforehand. Man, this series is sprawling.)

First I have to offer my sincere most congratulation to Sora for hailing from a franchise with the balls to stick to it's number system when things get dicey. Time and time again we've seen roman numerals adorn subtitles for series' because the creators think it makes them look all cool and sophisticated, only for those same creative to subsequently drop the concept once they hit the Vs and the Xs; probably for fear of confusing that most easily bedazzled people: toddlers. (Seriously, it's not that hard; games like Assassin's Creed!) Of course, given the Final Fantasy connection I suppose that's not entirely a shocker, because that series has been rocking the Roman numericals for so long that they're seriously toying with putting 'Final Fantasy XVI' on a box and selling it to people not expecting them to have brain haemorrhages in the store. (They have way more trust in the average consumer than I do.)

Second, my goodness they have done an absolute one-eighty on the art direction of this series, and I'm pretty on the fence about how I feel about it. Okay, that's not entirely true: I'm decently sure that I don't like it. Previously, Kingdom Hearts boasted this very cartoonish look, with overly exaggerated body parts, big oversized eyes, even more oversized hairspikes, and a leg-to-body ratio that makes one question the gravitational forces at work on The Destiny Islands. Any character that wasn't from a Disney movie sported these wacky visuals, presumably in an effort to match the animated stylings of our favourite Disney movies which also featured, lovingly recreated, in this series. As the games have moved on they're stepped away from that and made Sora and his fellow human stars, 'Roxas, Namine, Riku etc.' look less absurd and more realistic. Kingdom Hearts 2 saw the removal of the clown shoes, 3 saw the reduction of the hair spikes, and 4 seems to have completed the transition from fun kid's character to boyband wannabe teenager who just happens to wield a Keyblade.

Now to be fair there's actually a pretty decent reason for this. Sora, coming from a world and art style somewhat adjacent to Final Fantasy, has always sort of progressed his visual style to keep in step with the latest Final Fantasy game of the time. Kingdom Hearts 1 came around a year after Final Fantasy X, which introduced the big hands and feet of their art design, so those were features that Sora would borrow. In fact, it's actually somewhat out-of-step that Sora held onto his big cartoon eyes and still decently unrealistic hair in Kingdom Hearts 3, given that Final Fantasy XV had come out three years earlier and that game had pursued a totally sanitised art style. Now in line with Final Fantasy 7 Remake and Final Fantasy XVI, Sora has to be as fidelity-driven as possible in design; and though I may think it robs some of the fantastical charm of the boy-who-rarely-ages, I can't pretend this isn't without precedent.

Those who were waiting around excited to see which Disney property Kingdom Hearts had managed to snatch up this time need not waste their time with this reveal; Square Enix knows the development of their games well enough to avoid any topical Disney universe collaboration promises today so that they can keep themselves free for the Disney movie line-up of 2035: which is when this game is most likely to launch. Still, I think it's fair to say we'll probably see Moana up there, because god-knows we need to not have Ariel be the custodian for our water levels again. Maybe Encanto will make an appearance, but Turning Red will probably be skipped as it's just not vibrant and distinct enough. I dream of bright and colourful worlds, because anything would be more interesting than the boring city-scape that this trailer dropped us into! (Give is a cool name all you want: this place looks dull) Although I understand- this is a tech demo and thus the scene probably won't even show up in the final release; I just miss having proper eye-popping colours and appropriately head-scratch-worthy architecture, ya know?

What his tech demo did manage to show off, however, was a one-on-one battle with a Titan-sized heartless in the middle of a metropolitan city which may have been overly scripted to hell and back, but if this flow of cinematics into and out of gameplay carries over to the finished product then we could be looking at some seriously badass setpeices coming from KH4. Final Fantasy XV had a couple moments of god-sized boss fights where player control took over the action for brief moments, but they felt sort of clunky and required a full transition before they got into and out of the actual fighting gameplay. What this demo proposed here today was something more dynamic feeling than that, particularly with the moment when Sora has a building thrown at him and has to slide through it and out the otherside in order to make his shot. Pack a boss fight with moments like that; and make them meaningful, and this game could be one of the most fun Kingdom Hearts battlers to date.

Of course, some people have raised eyebrows over some of the awkward, antiquated, animations that we're seeing on display projected atop to this otherwise 'Unreal Engine 5'-level showcase. Seeing that weird run cycle where Sora holds his Keyblade upright as though waiting for a pitcher to slug a fast one at him any second now, really jars against the rest of the presentation here, as does the stiff transitions through the grappling hook pulls and jumping. Although I think we can tentatively chalk this up to reused assets from Kingdom Hearts 3. Remember this isn't a release trailer, this is basically just a proof-of-concept for where the team are going with the direction of the gameplay. I know we take the label 'gameplay is not indicative of the final product' with a bit of an eyebrow; but just take a look at the tech demo for Final Fantasy XV, or Kingdom Hearts 3, and compare them with their final products, and you'll see yourself the world of difference in the fabric of everything the game has to offer from visual themes to character design to basic movement.

The question that still lingers over the heads of every Kingdom Hearts fan yet persists; is this too soon for a Kingdom Hearts mainline sequel? Of course not! Don't let the embarrassingly prolonged wait period between 2 and 3 fool you into thinking that's the norm of game development. If every sequel took 14 years to come out, Final Fantasy would still be in the single digits! Time off doesn't make a great game, great ideas and talented developers make great games, and they can pull it off in 5 or so years just as well as they can with a decade behind them. Although, I do wonder if Tetsuya Nomura will manage to find time off from his self-inflicted FF7R purgatory in order to direct this game, or if we're going to have to suffer the whims of an all-new director. I don't know if any-mind is as warped enough to helm this adventure for another baffling outing; so my hopes really on on Tetsuya to get pumping on his overtime. All and around; this is a great treat to look forward to on our gaming horizon: I can't wait.

Blasphemous Review

Your Penitence is over.

There are certain games that you pick at one sale or another and just leave hanging around on your hard-drive, like a time bomb that will one day go off in spectacular fashion and vaporise all your prospective free-time in the blast. Once upon time that game was Hollow Knight, much more recently is was Blasphemous, and someday soon it'll be Bloodstained. For some reason I can't stop collecting these beloved 2D metroidvanias and slipping madly in love with them for week long sprints at a time. It's like a whirlwind romance, only inherently more lonely. But what does a guy like me need with company when he has the Grievous Miracle standing behind him every step of the way, filling his life with purpose and his heart with dutiful sorrow. As such, it's only fair I spread the good word of the miracle unto you through my review of the game itself: Blasphemous.

Born from a Kickstarter success story, rare of it's kind, Blasphemous is the work of a Spanish studio called The Game Kitchen and the publishing rights of Team 17. As such what we're looking at here is another on of those indie gems that comes inexpensively but packs enough high quality gameplay, visual art, music and free DLC content that it's honestly a steal at any price. I'm not going to wait until the verdict to tell you right now, this is a game worth the time of anyone who likes your 2D platformer Metroidvania's like Shovel Knight, and your 2D Souls-likes such as Hollow Knight and Salt and Sanctuary. In itself the game actually strikes a mostly neat balance between the two subgenres, leaning this way or that depending on the particular snippet of content you're enjoying at that moment.  Probably equalling someone's definition of the best of both worlds.

So what does Blasphemous bring new to this world of games? Well, much like the title implies, Blasphemous is what you get when you take the obligatory renaissance-Catholicism sections from your Dark Souls game and stretch it to cover the entire premise. All that precepts and pulpits and self-flagellation fuelled repentance has been bottled up and brewed into an appropriately esoteric tale about curses and blessings. Although mostly curses. Grossly disfiguring, body-horror worthy, curses. All laid upon the Miracle fearing people of Cvstodia by some unknowable, undefinable power known as the Grievous Miracle. A force with will to manifest guilt physically upon people in garish, sometimes ironic, mutations. All of this is bought to life in a delightfully atypical flat 2D art style that looks somewhat reminiscent of old-school flash work from Newgrounds, only sporting incredible detailing in it's face. It is unique in look and narrative.

In play, Blasphemous shapes up like your by-the-book Metroidvania with your sprawling world of disparate themed biomes separated by wide winding treks fraught with enemies and yet surprisingly interconnected once you start unlocking shortcuts. Where this game slightly differs is that barriers to progression are not formed from special abilities that you need in order to cross roadblocks- yes there are collectibles that can only be achieved with certain equipped Relic abilities, but your core route across Cvstodia is bared by doors and locks for the majority of the game, which makes this level design more in line with the way Souls-likes line up their progression. That being said, the art of 2D sidescrolling action where you wield a basic set of moves for your guilty blade 'Mea Culpa' and some bonus abilities tagged on-top, is pure Metroid at it's heart.

Exploration is the key loop here, as you uncover secret routes across the land, over it's icy peaks and under it's buried depths, all to uncover the twisted souls that reside there because yes, there are bosses to slay. (Though not so many as I would have guessed.) Movement and combat feels weighty and fun, with nigh-on everything that should be, being thrown around by the force of your swings, and the bite of their attacks being enough to make you pay attention. Although I didn't find the vanilla game to be particularly difficult to the point of dreading travelling, which is part of what makes exploring this Baroque oil-painting of a world so inviting. That and the plethora of collectibles, false walls and floors, and smattering of side quests that keep the Penitent One busy.

 

Cvstodia is a wonder of a location, absolutely dripping with sorrowful sculpted rock faces and weeping holy edifices across it's entire land. The spirit of holy guilt buzzes across this world, garnished with Roman spires and gaudy crimson cathedrals; all placed in areas coined with delightfully zealous names like 'Mother of Mothers', 'Deambulatory of His Holiness' and 'Knot of the Three Words'. These locations are given significance through lore, ascribed in the traditional Dark Souls coined fashion of item description stories which contextualise events with locations, as well as distinct visual themes that ensure each area has its own core colours as well as its own tile set so that you can immediately tell where you are without having to rely on the map or memorising platform alignments. Some areas even boast unique hazards, such as the unendingly annoying turbulent winds in 'The Graveyard of the Peaks' or the patrolling docile librarian ghosts in 'The Library of the Negated Words' who become deadly if you step on the piles of books that litter the floors. This world is brimming with character and though the doctrinal verbiage of these naming conventions makes their names melt into a conglomeration on a road sign, their visual distinction makes up the difference in spades.

Dotted across this land, and poised as the key steps of the main narrative, are a collection of visually bizarre and decently ghastly bosses. In design there seemed to have been a dominate theme of piteous and grotesque deformity which makes some of these bosses hard to look at, rather than genuinely intimating and deadly looking foes. Heck, one of them is a baby flanked by a viper with a man's face on one end for some reason, and another is literally the exhumed corpse of an archbishop held up and jostled around by the hands of his, presumably giant, congregation. These guys may haunt your nightmares, but not for the reasons that Ornstien and Smough might. Unfortunately, for the vanilla spread of bosses I found their interesting designs to be their greatest asset, because in gameplay many of these fights are somewhat uninspired. A lot of them use attack patterns you've be very familiar with if you've played literally any popular Metroidvania in the past twenty years, with one of the first three bosses pretty much hosting a powered down version of Radiance's moveset. (The true final boss of Hollow Knight.) 

Now there are some standouts in the crowd, mostly the fights against the enemies who were humanoid in scale tended to be more creative with the abilities you had to fend against, and the final boss has some decently interesting mechanics- well, mechanic- going on. But there was a lack of surprising and punishing challenge to the base boss lineup, which is a big part of the experience to be lacking on for someone like me. I think a big part of that comes from the way this game was chiefly inspired by Metroidvania's rather than Souls-likes; which has fights built more for their flashy spectacle than teeth grinding, sweaty pitted, challenge. I have no problem with that per se, but it just seems to conceptually clash with the dark gothic world of Blasphemous. This game feels like it should be an unforgiving Souls-like, but 'Salt and Sanctuary' has given me more moments of heated perspiration and that game looks like the lost Thing Thing sequel!

I keep bringing up 'Souls-like' when I talk about this game, and compare the ways in which it leans into that genre and the directions in which it pulls back, and that's for a couple of reasons. One: because I really love Souls-likes and think more games should play like them, and Two: because there are some clear borrowed mechanics here. When you die, a shard of your 'Guilt' is left behind in an Effigy that blocks off some of your Fervour (Mana) until you retrieve it in person. Now this isn't so punishing, because you keep your Tears of Atonement, (Souls) but your Guilt also doesn't expire with time or number. Die multiple times and you'll have multiple effigies to redeem, and soon you'll be totally incapable of casting Prayers, (Spells) which is really only a mild inconvenience because they aren't exactly game changing unless you're in a particularly challenging boss fight, (of which the base game has two) but no one wants to wonder about not at full strength, I guess.

One point of praise I would be remiss not to mention would be the length, both of the individual areas in the game and the whole adventure. It's lean, impressively so. Substantial enough to be fulfilling but slight enough not to drag into a prolonged campaign. I played this game for the first time about a week ago and I'm currently nearing the mid-point on my third playthrough, no joke. This game is pretty much the epitome of knowing how not to overstay your welcome, to the point where I almost felt a bit cheated for having such a vibrant world teased to me and feeling like I only saw the cliffnotes of it. Certainly there's more to the Blasphemous universe for us to see at some point, and I'm eager to experience it.

You may have picked up on some very careful phrasing that I've used throughout this blog, namely how I've consistently said 'the base game' and 'vanilla' when talking about how the game's bosses are handled and the Metroidvania soul of this game. This is because I am of the belief that the DLC represent a seismic change in the direction of this game. The very first DLC added a new game plus mode called True Torment which toughened every enemy up and added punishing ascendency challenges for the brave to take on. DLC two added pinpoint precision platforming races that push the limited movement suite of this game to, and past, it's limits. (Also, it's a crossover with Bloodstained. Miriam actually looks better in this art style, in my opinion) And DLC 3 added an entire new storyline to the game with a brand new, truer, ending. Oh, and DLC 1 and 3 add the best bosses in the game handsdown.

Everything I said about the bosses before goes out of the window. These designs looks badass and intimidating, these movesets are dynamic and creative, and these duels are tough and unforgiving. It's almost as though the game isn't trying to be an exploration-focused Metroidvania with these DLC's but a trial-focused Souls-like. Which is my theory for this game. The team launched their project with Metroid and Shovel Knight to mind and slowly fell in love with Dark Souls and Bloodbourne and started wanted to add some of that into this series. And I think the results are raging; these DLC bosses absolutely slap. And whatsmore; every single piece of DLC is 100% free with the game. How can you rightly argue with that?

Now that I'm on the otherside of two playthroughs, there is another gripe I've had with the game, and it's actually tied to the narrative. Spurred by such an evocative title, 'Blasphemous' boasts a Souls-style underlying narrative that- I'm be honest, totally evades me, even in hindsight. Sure, I understand the acts that happen, but I can't figure out why they happen. The best Souls games, and even Souls-likes, mostly have their story contextualised after the events themselves, with players being able to reliably connect the dots on playthrough 2. I haven't yet done that with Blasphemous, specifically because I can't really find any point at which the game justifies its title.

The Penitent One, sworn to silence, enters a world of devout worshiper's to the cruel and monstrous Miracle which weaponize their guilt to torture them with it, and so the path to being 'Blasphemous' seems pretty clear cut, doesn't it? And yet instead the game immerses you in a journey where the hand of the Miracle is just a part of life that you exist around, never questioning and never really confronting it in any serious fashion. I'm not saying that's a story beat which is necessary or anything, but when you make a promise on the box I sort of expect you to follow through. (The final boss even dies with the Latin message 'Summa Blasphemia', Tragic Blasphemy, and I can't understand why.) The final storybeat follows a renewal, cycle narrative, plot point- pretty much the standard for a Souls-like; but in Dark Souls there was a purpose to restarting the fire, rebirth and repetition were core aspects of the series' themes and the choice of whether or not to continue the flame was of tantamount importance to that story, even if the choice was ultimately futile. I don't think the same is true for Blasphemous, which makes it's original two endings fall a little short in my eyes. They more shape up to endings that they drummed up because that's how games like these end, rather than because it's what this particularly unique narrative demanded.

And yet I'm saying things like 'base game' again because, as I implied earlier; the final DLC adds a totally unique storyline with a new, now canon, ending. Should you devote yourself to the narrow margins to complete this thing, (Key points of contention are making sure not to kill the mid-boss and penultimate boss) you'll be treated to a narrative that actually justifies both the title and the many roadblock faithful on the path who seem convinced you're on a traitorous traipse. Bolstered by two excellent new bosses and a couple cool remastered bosses, this finale feels so much more fitting for the world we've been introduced to and apparently goes to set-up the now announced sequel, which is something we're going to have to wait to see because otherwise this ending really does seem to wrap up the overall narrative far more nicely than the base game ever did.

However, I have to be honest and say that personally I still prefer Hollow Knight, which I consider to be the king of this style of 2D Souls-like. I think there was a special something about the alien, yet familiar world, of hegemonic insects locked in a classical paradoxical struggle between stifling order and chaotic void. A sweetness to the various side characters who you actually came to know, rather than spent the whole time pitting for the horrendous manifested guilt they seem to gladly adopt. A rush of excitement from the dozens of bad-ass and creative bosses who's intricate movesets turns every duel into a choregraphed dance of answer and response, rather than a mad-dash of 'hope this RNG works out for me this run' like a few of the Blasphemous bosses suffer from. And finally I prefer the music of Hollow Knight, not that Blasphemous' is bad- it just fails to stand-out at any key point with those one or two tracks that I can't get out of head. There's no 'Gwyn Lord of Cinder' or 'Nightmare King Grimm' track to make the heart weep or set the blood pumping. 

In Summary, Blasphemous is a gorgeous and memorable Metroid/Soulslike that introduces a stunningly realised theocratic world and fills it with all sorts of interesting secrets, twisted lore bits and grossly deformed enemies. Although I did find the base game lacking in the setpiece boss fights and certain lacklustre story beats, the free DLCs that are patched into the package picks up the baton and runs with it, in this regard. Those who see the torturous world of Cvstodia and go in expecting that pain to translate into bitter trials will be sorely disappointed, but those wanting to engulf themselves in a brilliantly written renaissance-catholic hellscape will find more than they could have ever dreamed of in this game. Caught between what this game does so well and what I feel it desperately is trying to be with it's three DLCs, I find it hard to land on a grade for this title that I find fair. But if I'm hard pressed, and insisting that I account for the full package here, rather than splitting it into 'Vanilla' vs 'DLC'; I'd end up going with a solid B Grade. Great in execution but wanting in vision. Still, an absolute recommendation to Metroidvania fans out there, even if I know Souls lovers will be a bit deflated by the ease of the product. (Unless you're one of those game's journalists constantly badgering FromSoftware to completely rebalance their games and remake all the meticulously crafted fair bosses in order to make a mode specifically tailored just to them. Then I suppose this is your game.) The Game Kitchen were just on the verge of getting the vision they wanted out of Blasphemous when they wrapped up development on 'Wounds of Eventide', and I just know that Blasphemous 2, due 2023, is going to learn from it's predecessor's shortcomings and be something incredible. I can't wait to champion it just as much as Hollow Knight come then!

In fond memory of Fallout 76's Battle Royale.

Rest in Nuclear ash

Back when Fallout 76 first descended on a mostly aghast public, people weren't exactly receptive to the game that was in front of them. In fact a good chunk of them hated it. They hated the overly bloated world which stretched out points of interest so far from one another that a good several hours needed to be invested in the process of getting from one end to another. They hated the barren state of the world, having had all the NPCs exorcized from the map thus depriving the game of a chance to feel truly alive independent of the player's involvement. They hated the main narrative, being told entirely through second-hand audio logs, robbing any urgency from a plot that was otherwise one of the most 'save the world' style narratives that Fallout has had since 1. But most of all they hated the endless, seizing, jutting, bugs; the legacy of a project thrown together in an engine that could not handle it, led by a management team who were unfamiliar to this style of game.

It was a rocky start, and even the community that did grit their teeth and bear with the hold-ups were often left with their hands in their pockets wondering what there even was to do in the game. I mean sure, you could run the nuke silo's everyday and kill the Scorchbeast Queen, and people absolutely did, but what else was there? Running the ski lodge for tokens that you can gamble on getting a 'Fancy' skinned weapon? Those odds were way too low and the output way too underwhelming. Grinding various daily and repeatable quests? Barely took more than an hour back then to clean the map if you knew what you were doing or had a semi-competent second player backing you. Schematic hunting. That's about the high and low of it. We could hunt for schematics which gave us more weapons to craft or, much more importantly, new furniture to shove into the tiny build budget allotted to our personal towns. We were starved for stuff to do.

And that's when Bethesda decided to jump on the bandwagon of the day, a little bit late, and introduce their Battle Royale mode: Nuclear Winter. Coming from a Fortnite fatigued world and flanked by a plethora of other studios all trying to push their own ill-advised BR modes; (Dying Light even had it's own BR!) and thrown that atop of that hill of ill will that Bethesda's diseased game had already dredged up. It doesn't take a mystic to conceive why it was that people were less than optimistic for how this new mode was going to turn out. 'They're cluelessly chasing trends again!' 'If they couldn't manage a simple online game, how will they pull off a highly competitive mode?' 'This is going to be dead within a week!' I myself wrote off this Battle Royale upon announcement too, and I was actually enjoying Fallout 76 for what little it was worth at the time. I just didn't believe the promise. And then it came out.

I think the initial shock that shut everyone up right away was that the mode worked. It didn't suffer the endless desynch problems that the base game died at launch for, damage delay was minimal if it occurred at all, the spread of Fallout 76 weapon and their scaling felt right, the risk/reward of unique mechanics like 'Power Armour' felt almost tailor made for this balancing and the briefcase nuke mechanic was- well, actually I never came around on that mechanic and I still think it was dumb. But for the most part this mode worked much better than I thought it would. And whatsmore; it was fun too! In the way that gladiatorial BR bouts are always fun, I suppose; but when the vast consensus was that this mode would barely function, this slapped the dissent right out of our mouths. It was something to do, with a full spread of BR levelling systems which reward crossover cosmetics and caps for regular play and exclusive gameplay cards which could be earned and slotted to make builds and literally no mode-exclusive microtransactions! Okay, actually there was a Woodsman skin which was added to the base-game store and became something of a must-buy for anyone who wanted to take this seriously because of its natural camouflage; but apart from that this was a fresh and free mode which proved more than worth the time commitment.

Making use of just a fraction of that garishly oversized map which Fallout 76 was mocked for, Nuclear Winter boasted a huge play space with a variety of environmental variance which could account for differing play situations. Perhaps you'd be duelling around the lodge of death in the centre of the forest, or swapping sniper duels up the mountain incline; or maybe you'd have a skirmish on the huge intersecting overpass bridge which I feel like I ended up looting in about 9 out of every 10 matches. This map has ended up as one of my favourite places to do a Battle Royale just for the merit that it didn't feel like a BR map; it felt natural, dynamic and dipped with character, because it all pretty much was! Every other BR felt somewhat tipped to fit into that arena archetype to serves that style of game, and that works for them, certainly; but the homebrew aesthetic fit Fallout, and particularly the ramshackle community of 76, like a tattered, rustic glove.

I loved the mode, totally and absolutely. When Fallout 76 was really starting to bore me, and I could no longer justify the 20 minute walk to the nearest train station in order to pawn my scrap for a pittance in order to free my my storage limit for the hundredth time, I'd throw up my hands and decide to spend mt time having a blast rocking a mode which shouldn't have fit Fallout nearly as well as it should. There was nothing inherently flawed with the Battle Royale mode like there was with the base game, which meant the only failing was on Bethesda's side: their support. They didn't have enough of a focus on this mode in order to support it. Only one Battle Royale map works just fine when that map is a BR sandbox with elements you can shift around periodically in order to keep the player base on their toes and the gameplay loop churning, but when it's recycled from an established world and modifications are impossible; the team needed to make up their slack elsewhere. And they just didn't.

The pool of prizes was forever static, and the in-game store and soon-to-be-announced seasonal Battle Pass stole the idea of rotating reward pools, which is really something that would have kept Nuclear Winter fresh and worth coming back too. A second map was eventually introduced, but it was added into a rotation rather than just chosen to be the map for this season, meaning that people just preferred playing in the map that they already knew all the angles to and when offered a choice would just vote to stick to the classic. And despite all the new weapons and items that were being introduced to the base 76 experience, very few, if any, made it into the Battle Royale mode. In hindsight this all made it clear that Nuclear Winter wasn't something that Bethesda was seriously committed too, but I would have figured that the quality of the product would have won over a few spare resources from the development team. It didn't.

To this day I don't understand why Bethesda shuttered the Nuclear Winter mode in September 2021. It was receiving less attention, sure; but that was a challenge to change things up and relight that spark, not throw in the towel and go back and return to dust. Right now we have a Fallout game with an online mode featuring functional PVP, but no genuine benefit to engaging in that difficult-to-justify facet of design because the main game just doesn't make it worth the trouble. Without Nuclear Winter, that is a dead angle of the core game that is now utterly redundant. Fallout 76 now has a vestigial limp carrying it down. Maybe there might be a small arena mode thrown into the game at some point, or a special PVP/PVE dungeon with cool loot down the line, but unless Nuclear Winter is due some triumphant redesign and return in the future then these will always feel like placebo for an illness that already has an on-record cure.

How to handle failure

 Babylon stirring?

We all experience it at some point in our lives, a crushing slip and humiliating fall from grace which strikes hot across the face and leaves a lingering, searing, reminder that we were not worthy. Little stings as bad as failure, because when things are done ostensibly right, and we invest the effort, and push ourselves towards an end that doesn't ultimately work out, suddenly everything you've donated and sacrificed feels like a huge waste of time. No magical 'Chris Martin' is going to fly down from the stars to guide us home and fix us, all we have is ourselves and our embarrassment to show for a gainless venture. And if you allow it to, that wound can fester, and ingrain, and someday even go so far as to scar the soul. Which is why we always want to pick ourselves up and try to make the best of a bad thing.

But what do you do when you've got nothing to work with? I've had this thought ever since I looked at the recent colossal video game failures that have been blasted all across the industry because despite myself I feel bad for them. Sure, most of the time a bad AAA game comes and endures all the hatred and ridicule only to make half of Gibraltar's GDP and rock back home with pay raises all around. Typically it doesn't matter how badly you do for some in this industry, because once you've reached a certain size, as a COD MW3 achievement once aptly stated, you become 'Too big to fail'. But somehow, against the laws of nature, two big games from massive producers haven't enjoyed that immunity to consequence, and it's become more than a little pitiful.

I already mentioned Battlefield 2042 recently, and the fact that it's failure has been so resounding that just a few months after launch this once-legendary multiplayer franchise is seeing less than 1000 concurrent players on PC. But you must acknowledge how bad this is for DICE and EA. Battlefield games are not a case of yearly releases, so that one huge failure will last until the next financial year and then be swiftly forgotten. These games take time, and that's usually why they come out so polished and content rich, winning the hearts of fans who love this distinct style of military shooter even when the overall quality is as questionable as it has been these past few entries. Battlefield V came out in 2018, and 2021's Battlefield 2042 is the next follow up. If 2042 dries up it's player base before month six; that's 2.5 years of silence until the next game during which DICE is going to be tearing out it's hair to keep their antsy bosses at EA from chewing on their limbs in mad hunger. (I don't think EA would ever destroy DICE; they rely on them too much. But you know EA prime are going to be sweating out DICE for this humongous screw up of a game.)

Now what if I told you there's an even more embarrassing failure out there? One so pathetic it makes me cringe to even think about, and one which was actually published by Square Enix, developed by Platinum Games, and directed by Kenji Saito, the man who directed Metal Gear Rising: Revengence? No, clearly I'm not talking about 'Stranger giving Paradise a reach-around in the empty parking lot of a Burger King at 3am', that game has it's defenders who just love mediocrity for some reason; this is about Babylon's Fall. The little live service that couldn't. Couldn't nail a decent art style. Couldn't sell a remotely interesting premise. Couldn't keep a player base. Both TheGamer and Tech Rader (neither site links to the other, so I can't be sure who spotted this first. And I don't believe both sites just happened to have an alert set-up for Steam Chart) reported that on April 13th the player base was less than 10 people. For an online game. That is... stunning. 

And to be clear: I'm not saying that Babylon Fall doesn't deserve it! The game is, by all accounts, a joyless, soulless, messy water-finger painting nightmare, chock full of bad voice acting, terrible world building and a smear of Vaseline to make a muddy art style look undecipherable. And to round it all out, contrary to what one might expect given the development talents here; gameplay loop is dull too! Funnelling players through mostly identical levels with slow-paced combat and a combat complexity that demands a mastery no one can be bothered to stick around long enough to attain. Right now the game is sitting at a 'Mostly Negative' rating on Steam, because some people out there have this 'pity gland' which switches on in the face of absolute crap and forces them to stand up for a mess that doesn't deserve it. Try to recall this was sold at full triple A price with a painfully optimistic cosmetic store stitched onto the package.

How do you come back from lows like that? Battlefield devs are treating their game like a summer project, making incremental improvements piece by piece at such a slow rate that we should have a decently playable game here to coincide with the release of Battlefield 8. What hope does Babylon's Fall have in the face of its own, greater, woes? Coming from a property that no one has nostalgia for, struggling to break more than 200 players on it's best day? Well preppy pop songs off the latest Kidz Bop album will tell you that the first step is to "Never give up"; and indeed, Square Enix is married to the idea of sticking with this, capsized and already-sunk, ship. "There are no plans to reduce the scale of development." They affirmed on that most prestigious of platforms, Twitter. And indeed, if anything these guys appear to be blindly charging ahead with development for a game with less players than an on-pitch Football team on it's bad days. That's dedication, I guess.

Platinum Games launched this game with their planned content for the second season already completed and were about-gleeful to announce the start of their feverish work on the third season. This week has marked the start of a crossover event between this and one of my favourite Platinum Games of all time; Nier Automata (that one hurt to read) all they need to do now is beg Konami to allow them to do a crossover with MGR next and I would be buying the damn thing tomorrow! (Make Senator Armstrong a player skin; you know how much money it would make you!) And the question I have coming out all this is, will it work? I mean we're looking at a colossal failure that seemingly has no chance of grossing anything near enough to so much as break-even with development, but Square is funding the team to truck along regardless, is this all it takes? Is the solution to dealing with failure- simply forget about it until the failure becomes success?

In many ways that sort of obstinate brutalism is an ideology I ascribe to myself already; wherein I push at a medium I've no real talent for and just keep at it until I'm confident enough to either pretend I'm decent, or actually can't stop anymore. So maybe it's my own bias, but somehow I find that approach admirable. Sure, Anthem stuck around for too long and ended up costing everyone undue time on a project that was never going to go anywhere, but maybe Square will be the little studio that could. (Not so little studio, to be fair.) Platinum are crowd-sourcing solutions, so it really does lie in their hands to change things around. You know, presuming they actually take the advice of people who are turned off from the game and are offering ideas to win them over, rather than the nebulous braying of the self-hypnotised lobotomites who are trying to peddle this slop as an undiscovered gem of the industry. So how does one handle failure when they're a modern games company? Ignore it, apparently. 

The current state of Game's Journalism.

A thunderbolt breaks through the clouds.

What I do bears very little resemblance to actual journalism. I happen upon topics I like regarding the game industry, quite often stuff that's already in the news, and just try to offer my own perspective on it or spin it in my own style. There's nothing journalistic about that, it's just blogging stuff. I don't even source most of my blogs unless I have something in particular to say about those sources, so if I was to sue for a career in freelance journalism there'd be some significant steps to take, stylistic at the least, in order to match the high quality standards that publications demand nowadays. These aren't the days of ragmuffin flatcab newsboys, flogging an armfull of rolled up papers from the perch of his soapbox, we expect our news to be respectable and demure. Except according to what the crème of Game's journalism; I'm literally one email away from being an IGN Freelancer, were it only that I possessed no self respect.

And you'd have to hate yourself at least a bit to self identify as a game's journalist; because aside from a handful of genuine standout individuals, the vast majority of the profession is ruled by the accumulated grime you find underneath the maggot hovels at the bottom of a dumpster that hasn't been washed in a couple years. (Hmm, I really need to work on my synonyms; I keep grossing myself out.) What I'm saying is that it's guttersnipe rubbish. Just article after article of substance-less rage-bait or hilariously uninformed opinion pieces disguised as proper articles. (I'm still waiting for the follow article that will explain to me all the instances of great fantasy worlds without any real world basis to them. I find the prospect truly fascinating.)

Games Journalism should be more, it should offer more to the reader. There are a wealth of great stories behind the ears of the imagineers who fuel our favourite games, and that avenue alone is largely untapped by the big three publications. There are investigative black-holes in knowledge that could be explored, you know before Paul Tassi or the other usual suspects swoop it up. Maybe these multimillion dollar organisations could actually be a little proactive in their reporting, rather than just spinning their wheels until a publisher blesses them with a story to write about? I'm not saying it's easy to find something to write about within just the gaming industry, but then I have been doing it myself for the past 3 years without break or a budget and incredibly my quality of story ideas is about on par with most modern publication staff. That shouldn't be a comparison that's possible to make, these people should outstrip morons like me, so why aren't they?

This of course spawned from a recent tweet out of a mysterious IGN employee, which I wouldn't have taken seriously given that it's not from their main account, but it's been a while now and IGN proper have seemed to have confirmed it in their response, so this is real. "IGN is looking for New Freelancers to assist with the daily flow of stories in games, entertainment, tech and science. $20 base rate per story." Now what an opportunity! Sure IGN might get bit of a bad rap but they're a big name, and I'm sure anyone who wants a start in this industry would love to get their name on a CV somewhere. Heck, I'd even be tempted to give it a shot were this the sort of industry I'd be interested. Except, hang on again- did this Tweet say '$20 base rate'? Thats- wow, do I get a slap in the face for free on top of that? Will you spit on me and call me a worthless piece of trash? Because that sort of price tag really feels like it should come with some freebies.

Now to get some sort of standard of what this price means, apart from that inherent tingle at the back of you neck telling you that this feels wrong; I hoped onto JournalResources.org which is a UK company that has done a bit of research for us to ascertain acceptable freelance rates, just so that we can pick out who's taking advantage here. I'll be honest, it was hard to find any rate this low. More reputable newspapers are looking at around £300 for a commissioned story per thousand words, and for that reputation they of course expect quality, and even SixthAxis, another gaming publication, offers £50 for gaming features. As for a $20 base rate (£15 in conversion currently) there is no real comparison. IGN, multimillion company that they are, are unique in feeding tablescraps so miniscule to their freelancers.

Now if we really break down what it is we're learning about IGN's pricing strategies, it really does start to elucidate the reason behind the... shall we say lax quality of IGN content? I mean what does the old expression say: "You get what you pay for." If IGN are paying less than is typically done by any other outlet out there, then it only fits they'll get crap for their troubles, why would anyone put in the effort for a price point like that? Now to be fair, this is a sliding scale, and IGN would be kind enough to even offer up to $300 for an fresh story with independent and multiple sources- although that appears to be for an entire high-effort story, rather than per 1000 words like proper non-gaming publications offer. Besides, establishing the bar so freakin' low lets us know what they're looking for at the $20 point. "No fresh news, probably a single bad source, and about two paragraphs long; there's your pocket money and we'll hear nothing more about it."

It all come back to ethical treatment within the industry and being willing to pay a fair wage. I can understand a scrappy start-up slapping such a small price point up on it's site to try and scout out some potential employees as they grow into the size they need to be, but IGN ain't no start-up. IGN is owned by J2 global who report around 1.4 billion in lifetime revenue. That's a decent chunk of change, and yet IGN are panhandling out in the alleys. So either IGN is really getting squeezed and what we're really seeing is a concealed call for help, or they're just being exploitative asshats, using their powerful name to try and fool young hopefuls into working for a pittance under their name. Honestly, being around the same industry as IGN for a while, I wouldn't put it past them. (Those folks get nasty.)

Long story short: IGN are a mess, and it's becoming increasingly apparent that it's their own damn fault. Games Journalism doesn't need to be a running joke like it is, but as long as it's big banner-head companies are setting terrible standards like this, nothing is going to change. Of course, this tweet in particular picked up a decent chunk of negative press, pressuring IGN to really look at it's own pitiful rates, but will anything substantial change out of this? My guess is that the next ad is going to say something like "$300 per story" with "per 10,000 words" scrawled in 8-size faded grey text in the bottom corner of the image. So if you're personally eager to jump in the journalism field, love gaming and thought you saw an opportunity here: my advice would be to shop around for a bit, see if you can't find another similar company here willing to at least buy you dinner before they decide to peg you.

Why a new Stardew Valley is so heartwarming

 There are sunny skies behind the clouds afterall

If I could have the Stardew Valley theme tune playing in the background of this blog I would, for how simply serene and rustic it is in it's woodpipe melody. In absence of that ability, however, I encourage you to find it on Youtube yourself and just slap that baby on anyway; really get in the mood for this one. Because I want to talk about the place of Stardew Valley within our group of games and why this upcoming sequel, currently in it's early stages of development as far as I can ascertain, couldn't come sooner. Of course there's probably a few years ahead of us in development right now, and I wouldn't have it any other way as I'm always of the mind that not only should games be finished before they're released (that really shouldn't be as revolutionary of a view as it is) but that more space between game releases is only a good thing in the grand scheme of things. If Mass Effect Andromeda had stuck things out for a couple more years we'd be neck deep in the tail end of a new Mass Effect trilogy right now! But enough negativity: Let's talk farming.

Of course it's no news to anyone that Stardew Valley owes it's premise and life to the Harvest Moon series of games, as do many other farm simulators. Yet somehow Stardew Valley has gone that step beyond to become the game that subsequent farming simulators want to be, even the creator of that game acknowledges how he is going up against his own success with this new game, although he isn't intimidated by it. I think space plays into that a lot, with Harvest Moon being so far from it's cultural zeitgeist that many don't have that original game as a reference point. I've never once played it myself and most probably never will. Thus Stardew can slide into that empty space in our brains and fill that sleepy-town farming fantasy spot that enchanted SNES players all those years ago.

And I am enchanted. Totally and bitterly. To a game that just seems to ooze, among other things, accessibility. Just earlier today I sat down to start playing my second proper full game of Stellaris; I'd never finished my first game but it'd been nearly a year since I'd last picked it up and so I figured it was time to start afresh. I got ahold of the controls well enough, but the actual minute of running an intergalactic Empire had quietly drained from my conscious mind, and so I went through a little bit of a crash course. And what ended up happening? I struggled trying to remember how to spend resources, I couldn't find a tech tree to plan expansions (actually, if I recall right there isn't one. Which seems strange.) and then I looked at the menu for building colonies and I just dipped. Too much information, too much to remember. So I went to my comfort food games, the one's that are instinctive enough to explain themselves. Games like Stardew Valley.

You know you have something special on your hands when a game can touch anyone on that same base level of enjoyment, and given the popularity of Stardew Valley I'd call it one of the lucky few. I'm a lover of a vast expanse of game types, although recently my fervour has turned to CRPGs like Pathfinder, Baldur's Gate and Divinity; as well as 2D Soulslikes such as Hollow Knight and, just recently, Blasphemous; but still someone like me can find time to spend an hour or two on the old farm. Not even making significant progress, which is nuts for someone as progression driven as I. Just existing and making sure the farm is organised for another solid week is enough to keep me satisfied. And that is a powerful loop to rope a player into, that's the sort of loop less reputable companies would seek to exploit. But not ConcernedApe. He just wants to make a chill leisure game.

Stardew Valley has that special kind of chill to it where you can really enjoy living that quiet farm life without getting anything really crazy done. I wouldn't call it calm, mind you; but the rush of getting the right vegetables growing so that you can hunt that specific truffle you need to fulfil the community centre in order as well as that animal produce that Lewis asked for, just melts into that automatic part of the brain. I don't find myself cursing a missed deadline like I might curse the Last Son of the Miracle everytime he summons the fireball barrage and I guess the wrong corner to wait for it under. I need that sort of game in my life, and if I could whip up a concoction and wipe all memories of Stardew from my head so that I could experience it all fresh tomorrow; I would do it in a heartbeat.

Which is kind of why I see the similarities of this Haunted Chocolatier to Stardew Valley as a good thing, not a crutch. I understand why some might deride the label of this new game as 'The new Stardew Valley' or 'the Stardew Sequel', but I mean that in all the most positive light when I assert it, because anygame that can capture that serene spirit is every bit worthy of the sequel title. To this day the game holds up to it's spirit and hits just the right now, only now weighted with the sadness of nostalgia. More of the same is like honey nectar to my ears, like Fallout New Vegas to my Fallout 3: you can't go wrong with a winning formula like that! Of course this game will have different mechanics, a new premise, a fresh setting; but that's just fine by me as long as ConcernedApe remembers how to tune into that sweet Stardew Soul.

Of course I still love my blockbusters. My immutable beings of hype and spectacle, adorned in lanyards and ribbons and prestige as they strut their path across the marketing stage; but am I going to come to Elden Ring when I'm having a tough day and need to fully unwind the knots of stress in my aching joints? Maybe- but Stardew Valley, and games like it, are typically a more surefire bet. I may lack the equipment, and the gumption, to actually move out to the middle of nowhere and become a farmer living the simple life of the land myself, but I'll escape there in my dreams anyday! (Besides, I'm familiar enough with farming in my general day-to-day. Making my virtual avatar suffer my work day is kinda therapeutic in a twistedly unhealthy way.)

So let this blog serve as a reminder to you that The Haunted Chocolatier is announced and being made by one very talented lone-wolf developer with a vision on his mind and a taste I find enthralling. Should this game be a successor or just a sister to his last, I'll be more than happy to gush all over it, just as I'm happy to give as much money as possible to an indie developer who deserves it.  In the grand feast that is the modern gaming landscape, Stardew is the gentle, subtle mashed and sprinkled herb that is imperceptible to my own mundane palette, but which makes the whole dish worth sitting down for when you're scraping up that plate. And do I want chocolate desert on top of all that? Yes please!

Guessing the next big gaming trend

 Scrying orb, don't fail me now!

Games are a medium of constant iteration upon perpetual reiteration, but that doesn't mean they're beyond the ol' preceptive glare. In that, were I a cocky man I'd even go so far as to say that the whims of the industry are really rather predictable when you break them down, compare and contrast with the past and draw a set of simple rules with which to extrapolate. So I say: let us do exactly that! Draw boxes and fill them in to tell us just exactly how our favourite little hobby is likely to expand in the coming years, let us get ready for the tribulations of the future industry and maybe snatch a healthy chunk of 'I told you so' to throw in the faces of everyone else. Hmm? I'm the only one petty enough to lord something like this over anyone else? Well, I'm also the only one who reads these blogs, so I can say with accuracy that 100% of the people reading these words are exactly vindictive enough to gloat!

When we look at the trends of the industry leaders that rule the majority of modern game design today, it's really no great revelation to point out that their history stands glaringly bright in past industry successes. And on an anecdotal level as well as an analytical one, we can track a lot of trends to their genesis rather nicely. Monetisation, and the way in which the industry flaunts it today, is something of a hotbutton issue, and I think if we can track this particular brand, the microtransaction flood and beyond, we'll have a winning formula for predicting what comes next. So with that supposition to guide us, where do you think the idea of microtransactions originated? Well, first we'd have to define what we mean by microtransactions. Rather distinct from DLC, microtransactions are defined by being small snippets of game items that don't typically offer whole new experiences themselves, but rather small advantages and cosmetics that are inexpensive in the grand scheme of things, and totally supplementary. No stand alone experiences are typically listed under this heading.

Go to Google and you'll be told that Oblivion and it's horse armour are the first microtransactions, but honestly this practice dates back to the Arcade days, as most video game trends do. The American version of 'Double Dragon 3: The Rosetta Stone' featured an ingame store which sold in game items you could buy for credits, pushing the envelope of monetisation all the way back in 1990. But what about microtransactions as we see them in online games today? Where cosmetics and simple reskins are are about $15 a pop and listed in the thousands? Anecdotally, this was a trend I started to see and hear grumblings about around the time of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3. Back in 2011, that was a game absolutely rife with camo skins for every gun lining up in the dozens, and though anyone could see how far out of hand the sheer number of 'DLC' this game toted (due to the way this content was all listed on the 'available DLC' tab of most console stores. Before devs learnt to hide these lists through ingame only stores.) the popularity of COD and the novelty of the apparent endless customisation led to a huge financial success for Activision.

Season passes are another big trend, although one that is actually seeing mass phasing out in recent years. This one actually started in sports games, hence the name which actually makes sense in that context because of the already established IRL vernacular defining a year of play as a season. (Particularly in Football.) This of course just swept up the dollars as it spawned from the ultra successful FIFA brand and those games could sell the smoking remains of their recently slain fans and still make a buck off the deal. (I'm not saying FIFA fans are mindless automatrons who'll waste their money on anything but... wait, no that's exactly what I'm saying.) This success made the concept irresistible to others in the industry, and thus they lifted it into their games no matter if the concept translated effectively.

We can see the pattern which might seem like an obvious assumption, but the scientific method demands evidence and so here it is. Despite being an industry ostensibly defined by the fickle whims of artistic desire, a lot of the big game-forming decisions are informed by what has already worked for someone else and simply absconding with that idea, sometimes without the effort of even adapting the name. ('Season Passes' should never have kept their moniker, that was stupid.) Which is the same reason why new genres become popular. The easiest path to success is to witness what everyone else is doing and just copy that. Of course, some studios like Ubisoft take that concept little too literally, but by and large even the big studios who still have something resembling pride in their brand are still engaged in an industry wide game of musical chairs; only with game features.

As such, we can probably make pretty accurate guesses about what mechanics are going to bleed into becoming the next big trend by observing what the successes of today are doing and following the predictable trail of envy. Success as defined by distinction and critical recognition in a more muted sense, and commercial sales and monetary incentives in a much more real sense. It's hard to pretend that series' which are constantly racking up poor review scores, like low-effort sports titles, aren't still unfairly influential in the industry. Heck, they forced Season Passes and Lootboxes on the rest of us, when that latter deadly sin had been exclusive to the mobile realm of gaming for years beforehand. Sports games are the Pandora's box through which an inordinate amount of the industries woes originate. Which is why it always pays to watch what the Fifa's and 2k Sports' are doing with their games; their influence is wide.

That's why I can say with confidence that contrary to Ubisoft's head of innovation's assertations; NFTs are not the future. They aren't received well, and more importantly they haven't made a legitimate buck since Bored Ape Yatch Club. And now the US government is cracking down on their antics, they're just going to shrink into obscurity. So what is making money and headlines? Simple: Elden Ring. A usually niche title from a niche developer has ruled every gaming headline, every guide article, every gaming meme. No maidens? Well at least you've got FromSoftware's latest banger to keep you company! And traditional developers, those who've made games exactly like they were taught to by their predecessors under the perception that there is no better way, are shook. We've seen it from the public reactions that have be mocked, but the heart runs deeper than that. And you can bet, just as in the wake of GTA III, and Fortnite, and every industry changer, copycats are a'coming.

But what are they going to copy? Exploration based world design, intentionally sparse UI elements, the building blocks of what made the experience of Elden Ring different to theirs. Maybe some of the really ambitious developers out there will nick those cryptic dialogue directions too, though I expect the majority find that so deeply repulsive to their sensibilities that they wouldn't dare. We can expect this shift to further push us towards the sorts of open worlds that Breath of the Wild exposits, where exploration for secrets is placed naturally in the way of the player and not pushed upon us with icons, and the tutorial wheels will be taken off the industry in general. And in a much more speculative guess, based more on what isn't working rather than what is; I'm noticing that subscription based games are becoming more of a trend, so I foresee member+ subscription models becoming steadily more prevalent. Those are my predictions, let's reconvene in a year and see where it lands us.