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Game News 2.0

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Comments

  • #12092
    johnny_ultimate
    Moderators, Category Moderators, Arts Moderators, Computer Games Moderators, Entertainment Moderators Posts: 31,617 CMod ✭✭✭✭johnny_ultimate


    Yep, Tom Warren saying Ninja Theory is already gone.

    I’m on record as not having been a fan (at all) of Hellblade 2, but closing down Ninja Theory a week after unveiling their new game with big fanfare is really something else.

    https://www.theverge.com/games/950204/xbox-ninja-theory-shutdown-hellblade-senua



  • #12093
    Zero-Cool
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 31,000 ✭✭✭✭Zero-Cool


    https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/124553729#Comment_124553729

    I wonder what's the deal there. Did the poor reception to the announcement seal their fate? Did xbox already know and still put it out there in the hopes the studio gets picked up by someone else? Can someone else even continue the work or is the Hellblade IP sealed in a vault forever?



  • #12094
    J Mysterio
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2, Paid Member Posts: 12,436 ✭✭✭✭J Mysterio


    Just became aware of Star Wars Zero Company. A Turn Based Star Wars game, possibly ala X-COM. Awesome.

    https://www.ea.com/en/games/starwars/zero-company



  • #12095
    The Raging Bile Duct
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,507 ✭✭✭The Raging Bile Duct


    I wish Ninja Theory had the chance to develop a couple more games like Enslaved. It might have had a lot of flaws but it was one of my highlights from the PS360 era.



  • #12096
    Mr Crispy
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2, Paid Member Posts: 8,879 ✭✭✭Mr Crispy


    https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/124553782#Comment_124553782

    Hoping for that XCOM magic as well. There's a (threadbare) thread here.



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  • #12097
    Retr0gamer
    Moderators, Category Moderators, Computer Games Moderators Posts: 55,025 CMod ✭✭✭✭Retr0gamer


    https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/124554296#Comment_124554296

    Didn't get the hype for that one at all. Other than the baffling end sequence it was pretty much Temu Uncharted with some stinky combat. I heard the DLC was interesting.

    I always thought ninja theories games had B Tier PS2 combat which let their games down. Their DMC game wasn't great but they seemed to have learned a lot from it and almost got the combat system right. I was kind of hoping for some games from a much improved studio after that but it seems like they downsized massively and had to put out a smaller project with Senua.

    Always **** to see a studio close, especially one that's not American.



  • #12098
    johnny_ultimate
    Moderators, Category Moderators, Arts Moderators, Computer Games Moderators, Entertainment Moderators Posts: 31,617 CMod ✭✭✭✭johnny_ultimate


    Double Fine’s official comment on unfolding events - 😅

    That emoji is a direct quote btw 😅

    https://bsky.app/profile/doublefine.com/post/3moet26oza22o



  • #12099
    Cordell
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 7,636 ✭✭✭Cordell


    It's sad to see studios closed and people losing their jobs, but studios like Arkane, Ninja Theory, and apparently Compulsion Games too, can't justify their existence with what they released over the past ~10 tears.



  • #12100
    McFly85
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 4,040 ✭✭✭McFly85


    https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/124554667#Comment_124554667

    For me it really highlights the absolute incompetence from Xbox leadership as a major games publisher. Those studios have bags of talent and well received titles, so the idea that they just got worse as Microsoft studios doesn’t sound right.

    Phil Spencer loved to say that he’s hands off with his studios and likes to let developers create, but that is a total abdication of responsibility as a publisher. Studios will have issues that they will need help with and not every project gets off the ground. A publisher is suppose to provide guidance here. What’s working, what isn’t? Should we keep going with this or start from scratch? Is performance good enough? Etc.

    And I think we can see enough examples over the years that show studios simply do not get enough support in that respect. Everwild meandering in development for 10+ years. Redfall launching in a terrible state. Crackdown 3 being unbelievably dated. These are all things that Xbox as a publisher should have been managing. I know Phil isn’t there anymore but it cannot be overstated how much he failed these studios.

    I hope the studios affected can find work elsewhere and can work with people who actually know what they’re doing.



  • #12101
    Retr0gamer
    Moderators, Category Moderators, Computer Games Moderators Posts: 55,025 CMod ✭✭✭✭Retr0gamer


    https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/124554667#Comment_124554667

    I honestly think Arkane would have been fine if it wasn't for all the corporate meddling. They had built up a following with Dishonored, they should have been left to build upon that. Instead we got a live service shooter and Deathloop which felt massively rushed and was frankly a bit poo, only getting attention for being a PS4 exclusive during a drought of PS4 games... Well the start of the long drought.



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  • #12102
    Cordell
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 7,636 ✭✭✭Cordell


    TBH I'm not sure if the talent was buried by the incompetent corporate overlords, or not there at all anymore, but the end result is unfortunately the same.



  • #12103
    Penn
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2, Paid Member Posts: 37,849 ✭✭✭✭Penn


    https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/124554776#Comment_124554776

    Arkane make such interesting, unique and fun games. I enjoyed Deathloop a lot even though the idea of there being only one way to kill all the targets in one day ended up really restricting the second half of the game. Redfall was obviously the big ol' chunky nail in that coffin though.

    As great as it would be if every game a studio puts out was an absolute banger, it's rarely the case. The industry has become so ruthless at this stage though that far too much stock is being placed on one game to deliver, and if it doesn't, even if it still does reasonably well and is generally well-received, that could be it. Curtains.



  • #12104
    CatInABox
    Moderators, Computer Games Moderators, Recreation & Hobbies Moderators Posts: 11,435 Mod ✭✭✭✭CatInABox


    As bad as MS has been, Redfall was the fault of Bethesda rather than MS, and was in development as a live service game since 2017, long before MS bought Bethesda.

    This was deep in the live service "heyday", where every second game announced was a live service game.



  • #12105
    Cordell
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 7,636 ✭✭✭Cordell


    Before that was the mess they made out of their Wolfenstein game, one of the earlies examples of games affected by the millennial writing, and bad shooting mechanics.



  • #12106
    McFly85
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 4,040 ✭✭✭McFly85


    https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/124554901#Comment_124554901

    Ultimately they were a Microsoft studio at the time of release, and allowing it to release in such a technically poor state on their flagship console is all on Microsoft imo. It beggars belief that they looked at it and thought it was acceptable as-is. And because they make the actual Xbox hardware themselves, they should have access to engineers that know the architecture back to front to help with optimisation.

    Like, I couldn’t imagine Sony or Nintendo allowing a first party game to ship for their consoles in that state.



  • #12107
    Penn
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2, Paid Member Posts: 37,849 ✭✭✭✭Penn


    https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/124554935#Comment_124554935

    Yeah Redfall's failures were on both sides; the core idea of the game which they really missed the boat on and didn't seem to have a decent enough gameplay loop, and then the condition the game actually released in with was absolutely slated.

    I'm sure MS were likely pushing to get the game released as it had already had some big delays, but I read that Spencer said delaying the game any further wouldn't have mattered as it wasn't delivering on the vision it had for its players.

    Which in fairness, you look at something like Suicide Squad, and it didn't have any big technical or functional issues at launch. It was just a bad game (and similar to Redfall was chasing a genre most people had already turned their backs on). Delaying Redfall further to address the technical side of things probably wouldn't have changed its fate.



  • #12108
    McFly85
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 4,040 ✭✭✭McFly85


    https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/124554987#Comment_124554987

    If the gameplay loop doesn’t work, and you recognise it doesn’t work, it sounds like it should’ve just been scrapped?

    It seems the worst option of all to release a game that’s a buggy mess that you’re not willing to spend any more time on cause it’s sort of crap anyway - the only thing that it will guarantee is bad PR.

    I think a proper publisher would have made these decisions. And it’s a fair point that redfall was well in development so he couldn’t have overseen it from the beginning, but I’m not sure that matters so much when so many Xbox exclusives were under par under his watch.



  • #12109
    Potential-Monke
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 15,095 ✭✭✭✭Potential-Monke


    Hasn't the Xbox CEO come out and said that the reason Xbox is failing is because they failed to monetise everything. Maybe that's the real reason behind these closures, could have been closing games that couldn't be easily monetised.

    Post edited by Potential-Monke on


  • #12110
    Penn
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2, Paid Member Posts: 37,849 ✭✭✭✭Penn


    https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/124555017#Comment_124555017

    I think that's the curse of Gamepass though. While most publishers might pull a game which clearly isn't working, given the sunk cost of development so far and how much MS had been hyping and promoting the game, they were probably more amenable to just let it release knowing most players would play it on Gamepass and therefore not be out any money, and then refund anyone who did pay full price for the game if needs be.

    And ultimately, Xbox needed to be continuously releasing games on Gamepass to justify the subscription. Better to take a hit on a game releasing but being bad than having a big gap between releases and making people rethink their subscription.



  • #12111
    johnny_ultimate
    Moderators, Category Moderators, Arts Moderators, Computer Games Moderators, Entertainment Moderators Posts: 31,617 CMod ✭✭✭✭johnny_ultimate


    I had quite a few issues with Deathloop in the end, but it was clearly an Arkane Lyon immersive sim in the spirit of Dishonored. It seemed to do fairly well too so not exactly ‘last game the studio will get to make’ territory, even if I didn’t love it. Given the irony of it being a first party Microsoft game that releases exclusively on Playstation due to pre-acquisition deals, it wasn’t an Xbox game in any meaningful way - so Microsoft may have the dubious distinction of not having Arkane Lyon release a single game under the stewardship before closing it down.

    Anyway, **** Microsoft. Already had stopped buying first party Xbox games or subscribing to any of their services (only played the excellent Keeper and the solid Ninja Gaiden 4 due to a free month of GamePass from a past controller purchase), but would potentially waver when one of their smaller studios released something of interest. Looks like that won’t be a concern anymore as they focus on reboots and sequels to hits from the 360 era only. Other than the further job losses, very little would be lost if Microsoft exited gaming entirely at this stage - hell, half the big games they’ll likely release in the coming years (like the next Elder Scrolls or Fallout) would’ve been released anyway had they not been acquired.



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  • #12112
    Retr0gamer
    Moderators, Category Moderators, Computer Games Moderators Posts: 55,025 CMod ✭✭✭✭Retr0gamer


    https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/124554919#Comment_124554919

    Millennial writing 🤣 I guess as a gamergater you didn't appreciate the fascists being the bad guys.

    That's where we are people. Nazi's as the bada guys being an issue.



  • #12113
    CatInABox
    Moderators, Computer Games Moderators, Recreation & Hobbies Moderators Posts: 11,435 Mod ✭✭✭✭CatInABox


    https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/124554935#Comment_124554935

    Oh yes, MS definitely have some here, not trying to dodge that or defend them or anything.

    I guess I'm trying to make the point that Bethesda took Arkane Austin, a company with an amazing reputation for making immersive sims, and told them to make a live service game. Almost everything that befell Arkane Austin afterwards came from the decision. MS should have cancelled Redfall as soon as they realised that it was shite, but that would still have resulted in the closure of Arkane Austin.

    The deep dives on Redfall are interesting, showing that they weren't allowed to advertise that they were making a live service game, they couldn't hire live service specialists. Anyone they hired was joining thinking that they had just landed their dream job making immersive sims, only to be told to read up on making a live service game.

    MS, when they bought Bethesda, negotiated that they would be very hands off the company. They're still run as Bethesda, a separate entity. Todd Howard was in charge of the call on Redfall. I would hazard a guess that most people here would have been happy enough with MS saying that they wouldn't overly interfere with developers.

    Personally, I think that a lot of the problems with MS is that it is always just one division in an unbelievably large corporation, one that is tangental to the core missions of MS. There's no overarching vision for what Xbox is, and it has been pushed and pulled with the winds of whatever was blowing through the corporate board room.

    There's no way that Sony would have released a game like this, because they have full and total control over what gets authorised, and have no problem with pulling the plug early. There's downsides to that approach, what with almost all of their games essentially being the same game, in different settings, but I can't argue with the results of it at all.

    MS new strategy seems to be more blockbusters, with greater control over what their developers are doing. Sounds kinda like the Sony approach really.



  • #12114
    johnny_ultimate
    Moderators, Category Moderators, Arts Moderators, Computer Games Moderators, Entertainment Moderators Posts: 31,617 CMod ✭✭✭✭johnny_ultimate


    I think the key problem with Microsoft’s supposed shift to ‘blockbusters only’ approach is that a lot of their series are creatively spent. To be frank Halo and Gears of War should’ve wrapped up after the original development teams signed off on the series, but Microsoft is insistent on bringing them back again and again despite no subsequent entry living up to the originals (E-Day pending, but that game feels really like a very obvious attempt to summon the original trilogy energy again). They’re assets to be exploited, not because of any real creative imperative to keep making them. I’d argue even Forza Horizon is just churning out the same game again and again at this stage, even if it’s still a hit series in the way the others aren’t.

    Fable at least looks like an interesting and more creative revisiting of an older series, but we’ll see how that turns out. Other than that it’s really just more sequels from Bethesda in series that are only ‘Xbox’ titles due to a large cheque rather than any creative stewardship of the same.



  • #12115
    Retr0gamer
    Moderators, Category Moderators, Computer Games Moderators Posts: 55,025 CMod ✭✭✭✭Retr0gamer


    https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/124555120#Comment_124555120

    It really feels like Shane Blackley and the other original Xbox team members worked their asses off to get the Xbox from nothing to the heights of the 360 to hand it over to corporate morons to mismanage it into the ground by trying to chase the latest trends rather than treating it as a games console.



  • #12116
    Cordell
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 7,636 ✭✭✭Cordell


    https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/124555102#Comment_124555102

    No, it was the endless quips and sarcastic "dialogue" between the sisters…



  • #12117
    Retr0gamer
    Moderators, Category Moderators, Computer Games Moderators Posts: 55,025 CMod ✭✭✭✭Retr0gamer


    https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/124555195#Comment_124555195

    I liked the dialogue. The two girls were Gen X idiot nepo babies. They're supposed to be dopes.

    Turning the game into a shlooter was the big issue I had with it.



  • #12118
    The Raging Bile Duct
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,507 ✭✭✭The Raging Bile Duct


    https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/124555102#Comment_124555102

    I loved the other Wolfenstein reboot games but Youngblood was absolutely atrocious. I only lasted a couple of hours before giving up.



  • #12119
    Cordell
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 7,636 ✭✭✭Cordell


    https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/124555211#Comment_124555211

    Good for you, but there's nothing gen X about them sisters. Probably we both are gen X, at least I know I am. In any case it's good that at least it's clear that nazi bad in a Wolfenstein game was not the problem.



  • #12120
    Retr0gamer
    Moderators, Category Moderators, Computer Games Moderators Posts: 55,025 CMod ✭✭✭✭Retr0gamer


    https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/124555263#Comment_124555263

    Well it was more exaggerated MTV Gen X try hard dialogue than anything you'd hear in real life.

    But the game was bad on a lot of levels,nno saving it.



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  • #12121
    CatInABox
    Moderators, Computer Games Moderators, Recreation & Hobbies Moderators Posts: 11,435 Mod ✭✭✭✭CatInABox


    https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/124555171#Comment_124555171

    Honestly, I thought that Gears 4 was great...



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