Ainu20

@K1LLEGAL I have no idea how it was on here considering the game didn't launch on Playstation, but there was an enormous amount of sympathy and goodwill for Arkane Austin, so I'm not sure how that's supposed to be a "gotcha". They were widely perceived as being forced by Zenimax into a project they didn't want to do.

@Oram77 I've seen it now, obviously not a smart thing to do. But on the other hand, it's also my problem with social media (one of many). One person associated with a developer can tweet something and suddenly it puts the entire studio in a bad light, while we don't know if that sentiment is shared by the other devs.

I've seen several posts about how the developers have been toxic towards gamers now. What is the story here? I genuinely have no clue.

General observation but I've basically seen two "camps" when it comes to the developers: those who sympathise with the devs and those who say they've all failed. I feel like that's too simplistic, as not all of them do the same job.

The devs responsible for the technical side of the game clearly haven't failed. Those responsible for the moment-to-moment gunplay and the animators bringing the characters to life, etc. They've done a fantastic job, and Sony should hold on to them, even if it's not at Firewalk in its current form.

But the creatives who came up with visual design and those responsible for higher level design, that's a different story. Might seem harsh, but I don't think much of value would be lost if they weren't involved in the video game industry anymore. They've done a questionable job at best, and a spectacularly bad one if we're being less generous.

Whatever comes out of this mess, I hope the right people end up in the right places. Not holding my breath though.

Not sure what you expect the studio to say. If anyone should be talking right now, it's Hermen Hulst. He might or might not be responsible for this mess (we don't really know), but that's his position now.

@DarkTron "Port prioritisation" sounds like such a non-term. Either it's an actual timed-exclusive or it isn't. It might well be the case that Sony provided additional support, including financially, to ensure it the Playstation port would be ready and running well at release. But if so, it's up to Microsoft to do the same for their own platform.

It's hard to know who or what to believe at this point, so it seems best to just ignore the entire story.

@KevinDurCant Not sure how it aligned itself with Xbox. Sure, it featured in one of their showcases, but that in itself doesn't mean much. There's not even been any time to find out if it flopped, it only released yesterday. If this closure is legit, it was likely planned well ahead of the game's release.

What a time to be a video game developer.

@Vladspartan Wait, are you trying to argue that Monster Hunter hasn't been successful? That's... bizarre.

Monster Hunter World was a massive success, both critically and commercially. Over 26 millions copies sold, still has several ten thousand concurrent users on Steam alone, 6 years after release.

It's Capcom's second best selling game ever, after Street Fighter 2. Followed by Monster Hunter: Iceborn at 3 with 18 million copies and Monster Hunter Rise at 5 with 15 million sold. Just a casual +- 60 million sales in the Monster Hunter franchise since 2018.

The weird part about this story isn't that Sony would sign a timed exclusivity deal. They absolutely would, they've done it before (as have Xbox for that matter) and I also don't see that much wrong with it. The weird part is that they would keep it a secret.

What would they gain from doing that? Why wouldn't they market it more prominently, like they did with Stellar Blade and Rise of the Ronin? It doesn't really make sense to me. It seems more plausible to me that there's a lack of enthusiasm to release on Xbox.

@DDDD But you're arguing that everyone being able to play it for free is worse for the people who bought it than the game completely dying, meaning they can't even play the thing they bought anymore.

I'm just not following that logic. Not that I think anything can save it at this point, but they at least have to try.

@DDDD And how would that help the people who bought it? Because that's what you were initially saying, that going free to play would be a slap in their faces.

@DDDD It's not about what's possible, it's about what is necessary.

I find it hard to sympathise with those affected. If you spend that much to play a couple of days early, in an industry where products releasing in an unacceptable state is becoming increasingly more common, you clearly have more money than sense.

Everyone is free to spend their money as they see fit, but I really wish we'd stop rewarding these companies for their questionable practices.

@DDDD If Sony don't do something to somehow attract more players, those that paid for it soon won't have a game to play anymore anyway. Free to play seems like the bare minimum, but even that probably won't be enough to save it.

Well this doesn't seem counterproductive at all.

@Iamcardboard I haven't tried it yet, but I googled it a while back and it should be fine. Buying it on Steam is risk free anyway, if it doesn't run well on the deck I'll just play on pc, but I definitely prefer the comfort of the Steam Deck.

@KillerBoy Strange indeed, but not so strange when you consider that the Switch 2 is also planned for 2025, which could make this a launch title for that platform. That would make a lot more sense.

@dardel I'm in the same boat, was planning on playing through the original Sky trilogy on Steam Deck since it's not playable on modern consoles, to get me started on my Trails journey. This announcement is nice but who knows how long it'll take for all three games to get remade.

I'm going to stick to my original plan and maybe, who knows, revisit the remakes once I've completed all available Trails games. So I guess, in many years time!

@Arxagelos Well that looks pretty bad but on the other hand, I will never forget how Sir Alex Ferguson once claimed Phil Jones could become the greatest Manchester United player ever. Everyone is allowed the occasional error of judgement.

I will admit I'm being extremely generous to Hermen Hulst here.

@Arxagelos Do we know it was Hermen Hulst who pushed to acquire Firewalk? Or Jim Ryan, as part of his grand live-service plan?

For now I'd like to give Hermen Hulst the benefit of doubt. Let's not forget he led a studio that gave us Killzone and Horizon.

@AndyKazama And a remake of the first Trails in the Sky as well.

That section about one dimensional characters who endlessly repeat their motivations is unfortunately all too accurate for modern JRPGs. Even in some that I enjoyed, like Tales of Arise, you get a lot of that in the numerous skits. Persona 5 was another.

It's as if these writers don't trust their audience to "get" something unless they beat it into your head over and over and over again.

I suspect that if you go in with moderate expectations and don't get it at full price, it'll be just fine. That's basically true for most open-world Ubisoft titles.

Don't over-expose yourself to them, get them at a discount and treat them like the occasional guilty pleasure. I've found that's a perfectly good way to actually enjoy them.

@Jacko11 You've managed to use more words to say the same thing, but that's still no justification. Calling other people's understanding into question when you fail to properly explain your reasoning is not a good look.

The idea that we need to support live service games because they will fund future single player titles is still just as absurd as the first time I read it. If we want to guarantee the future of single player titles, we need to keep spending our money on those. Not on something else.

Obviously they're doing that in an attempt to increase their overall financial situation, but you can say that about basically anything they do. You might not want to accept it, but the more revenue a publisher makes on live service games, the more they will move their focus towards that and away from single player stuff. Money is the only language executives understand.

@Ludacritz That was never a spoiler. While Kojima never confirmed it during the early marketing around the game, we all knew we were going to play as Big Boss.

Such a strange choice, unless this episode is simply a form of marketing funded by Sony - which calls the artistic integrity behind the entire endeavor into question.

Best case scenario it slightly increases interest in the game. Worst case, and probably more likely scenario, is that the game is already dead and buried by then and this only invites more ridicule.

@Jacko11 I don't know what sort of bizarre reasoning has led you to that conclusion, but no. Live service games don't exist to fund single player games.

Those are pretty insane numbers, it's good to see that offline single player titles can still have this sort of impact. Let's hope more Chinese studios follow their example.

There seems to be this narrative that the game is only doomed to fail because it "panders to a modern audience". Have we really reached these levels of delusion and stupidity?

If the game is going to fail (which it looks like), it's because it's a paid title in a crowded genre where the standard is free to play, that no one asked for, with fine but generic looking gameplay, and because its characters just look like a bland GotG copy.

Just like with the success of Black Myth: Wukong, all that other tripe has nothing to do with it.

Even though I've got zero interest in these types of games, I have to feel for the developers here. They're surely aware of how much their game is getting ridiculed right now, and how little hope they have for any sort of success. Must be incredibly discouraging.

@ChrisDeku It's interesting that this game has seemingly managed to resonate with Chinese gamers where many other single player titles have failed to do so, despite it not necessarily looking like an exceptional game. Maybe it's the Journey to the West theme couple with a Chinese developer that did the trick.

Whatever the reason, hopefully it encourages more Chinese studios to consider developing single player titles.

@MrMagic The person you're replying to didn't even say anything negative about the game. You're behaving like a child.

@naruball It's pretty incredible how many in this comment section alone are pushing that narrative. And when I say incredible, I mean depressingly predictable.

I'll probably tune in on a secondary screen while playing a game. As a main course, it's a bit too long to keep my interest, but it's perfect as a side course.

A couple of others have already touched on this, but I don't get why people would vote for Astro Bot, when that game is out in a couple of weeks. We've seen plenty of it and we'll get loads of reviews soon. Don't need Gamescom for that.

Stuff like Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is much more interesting, as we've only seen it briefly so far.

Good, a chance for more people to experience it. It's not for everyone, but despite all its flaws I still have very fond memories of it. The excellent cast of core characters does a lot of heavy lifting, but that's not a bad thing.

I wouldn't say my concerns with Bloober Team have anything to do with them "poorly handling sensitive themes", but more with the actual quality of their games.

The Medium had an interesting premise but was just a bit dull. Beyond the dual world gimmick, it had very little going on and was lacking in tension, which isn't exactly ideal for a supposed horror title.

In this case, they have a template to build on, which should in theory make it easier for them, but it doesn't make me any less skeptical.

@atthegates Yup. On consoles, where you can't throw a 40 series with DLSS at every problem, the best combination of graphics, image quality and performance is still going to come from bespoke engines. Just a shame there are so few left these days, but I guess games already take long enough to develop as it is.

UE5 games with this level of visuals are not going to play nice on current consoles, that's almost a given. I expect we're going to see ridiculously low internal resolutions to get it close to 60 fps in performance mode, as is the standard for these kinds of games nowadays.

Just look at Lords of the Fallen, that dropped down to a quite frankly absurd 648p on PS5 at launch. I could see this going a similar route.

This series really doesn't strike me as one that needed a VR conversion. Just too wild.

Also, this trailer for a VR game is all clearly traditional, flat vision. Strange announcement.

@SleeplessKnight No, admittedly I have no idea how much MS still makes on 360 games. I'd love to see verifiable numbers on that, but for now I'm going to be extremely skeptical that it's more than a footnote in their financial reports, and I can't imagine it being much better on Playstation.

@SleeplessKnight It's easy to point at Sony and call them lazy or inept because they haven't figured out PS3 emulation but the simple truth is that the PS3's architecture was just so bonkers that it makes efficient emulation a nightmare. Even modern high-end PCs can't brute force their way to acceptable performance in all PS3 games, despite the emulation community's best efforts.

Obviously Sony's developers are better placed to know the ins and outs of the PS3, but is it worth the significant resource commitment that it would take to build a proper emulator that would support the majority of the PS3's library? Almost certainly not, or at least not on PS5 hardware yet.

Uh, god no, why? Just release a remastered trilogy for modern consoles. A good remaster with additional QoL features is more than enough, these games still look perfectly fine despite their age.

I haven't played too many of these but Returnal is a bonafide 10/10. Still easily the best PS5 exclusive for me and I will never stop recommending it to people.

Hades is the next best game on this list. I sadly bounced off Dead Cells, a game I was convinced I was going to love but found a bit boring.

@RagnarLothbrok It's not an upgrade if it's completely rebuilt from the ground up though. Regardless of how we feel about the necessity of this thing (which is dubious, to say the least), a free upgrade isn't a realistic expectation. Nor is a €10 upgrade path for that matter.

Still sort of baffled that this exists. Was there really that much demand for a PC release that it justifies a complete remake? Because I can think of another PS4 game that also released in 2015 that would surely sell significantly more if it was released on PC today...

That's a pretty unusual and unexpected development, but a welcome one. I do wonder how much of the team they've managed to keep together and what we can expect from them without Mikami's creative leadership. But for now, a talented and creative studio lives on to fight another day, and that can only be celebrated in this industry.

@Frmknst Bit over the top. When I read "everything wrong with games", I expect microtransactions, battle passes, loot boxes, mandatory online, perhaps open-world, etc. Not a bit of harmless, dumb fun.

@trev666 Well then they'll just have to fix the playtime counter. Can't be rocket science.