This is definitely a failure of PlayStations studios all around. Naughty Dog got too ambitious, and Bungie’s evaluation ended the last glimmer of its original concept. I don’t want a live service last of us. Literally just give us Factions 2, just a decently sized but really fun multiplayer mode that doesn’t need additional updates. I hope they revisit factions for Last of Us 3 and I’m happy to hear that SP is their focus (would definitely rather have this future than the one where they’re a live service studio), but man I just wanted another Factions
The hate this game gets is unfathomable to me. A new and sick looking Prince of Persia game by the developer of Rayman Legends got hate for being 2D? I want the Sands of Time remake as well but this is a separate team making a separate project.
This is definitely gonna be either 1. Rebooted by Disney and given to a more seasoned studio 2. The rights will be held on by Embracer Group so tightly that they throw literally every studio at it just to make it work
No matter what the original concept of the game is definitely dead
It Takes Two and DMC 5 are like, better than the past 3 months of extra/premium games combined. It’s insane how much I don’t want to renew my subscription. I’ll just grind out the remaining PS+ games I’ve wanted to play in the next couple months.
Surprised at how little love No Rest for the Wicked is getting. Ori was phenomenal, and the footage we’ve seen looks great despite being a huge departure. Metaphor was my favorite trailer but that was the biggest surprise.
I was optimistic at first, but after the major lay offs despite Sony allocating 1 billion in talent retention I lost all faith. There’s a difference between making a multiplayer mode with extra monetization and a live service, and if im Naughty Dog im mad at Sony for trying to make me do the latter.
Resident Evil 4 and Street Fighter 6 were two of the games this year I thought actually would be worth $70, so the fact that they were $60 was nice. It sucks to see it go but I believe Capcom will make it worth.
Yknow what… objectively this might be kinda mid but I honestly really like this lineup. I’ve heard great things about Sable and Power Wash Simulator and seems like good flow state games.
Kinda wish Super Mario RPG would pop off, but I feel like after Mario Wonder we’re no longer gonna see every Nintendo game soar to the top. Everything in the pipeline from now on just looks like smaller games and remasters. Definitely the twilight year. PlayStation really should reveal what’s coming up for 2024 to capitalize on the slower Nintendo year and compete with that honestly pretty decent looking Xbox 2024.
SMT in 2021, Soul Hackers in 2022, Persona 3 and Metaphor in 2024, and Persona 6 in 2025. Barring any potential delays, that seems like a good release cadence.
How much does it feel like a DLC. I know in an interview they said it originally started as one, and with how much MWIII’s campaign has been criticized while also being a DLC expanded to a game, I was wondering if the general quality felt limited as a result.
This is so weird, especially after the 1 billion for employee retention. There have been reports too that Sony is pivoting from its GaaS focus after backlash from studios. Maybe this is a part of that? Anyways, it’s incredibly bad that short sighted previous leadership decisions is now being the burden of employees, some of which seemed beloved by fans from what I’m seeing on twitter.
All the games in unreal engine 5 so far have just looked so samey. It just looks like everyone’s trying to turn up the detail with barely any considerations for anything else.
The Spider-Man games have really long legs compared to most first party Sony games, and considering immediate competition with Mario Wonder it’s doing amazingly. Hopefully these amazing sales outclass Sony’s live service push so they go away from it
I hate how sonic games nowadays just can’t be great. There’s always a bunch of caveats that hurt a fundamentally good game. They’ve had like 30 years to figure it out, but the most we can get is a great foundation that has non-insignificant issues in its execution. I’m just gonna play Sonic Mania and play Mario Wonder when it comes up.
That’s the nature of this industry now. Everyone’s seeking destructive growth. At this point, there’s no developer or publisher I trust to break into the multiplayer space. It’s also insane that they barely have Sonic Frontiers any proper funding, but they pumped so many resources into this generic attempt at live service.
Layoffs are just sweeping across the industry. I know they lost a lot of goodwill with developers earlier on in the year(? I think) when they announced NFTs. I know that internet reactions are usually hyperbolic, but with an indie publisher and the amazing goodwill Devolver, Annapurna, and now Bigmode has it makes sense that Team17 would suffer.
Again, this is symptomatic with the larger issue with acquisition happy companies. If one thing fails, it seeps down into all of the things they own. Embracer’s merger failing led to them pulling the plug on things that were struggling that they owned. There’s a world where Volition listened to feedback and made a great modern Saints Row. There’s a world where Embracer finally figured out what to do with KOTOR besides just cancelling it.
@naruball eh depends. Mario Kart just had a $20 DLC. It’s like calling BotW live service cuz it had an expansion pack. Splatoon 3 is closer to the idea as it gets recurrent updates, but it doesn’t have any extra monetization except for 1 DLC pack and both that and Splatoon 2 have had endings to support, not in a “this is a failure and we’re moving ship” way but a “this package is done” way
This year really feels like the year the AAA live service model is crumbling. So many games have been shut down, games are getting cancelled before release. Microsoft’s entry with Halo is suffering. PlayStation’s entries are either in development hell (Factions) or are getting mass disliked (FairGame$). The most successful of the big 3 (Nintendo) doesn’t have an explicit live service and has way lower budget games than the other two. This isn’t sustainable and companies need to realize this.
It feels like Jim just got here and he’s already retiring. I don’t know how much some of the more controversial decisions these past couple of years have been were directly a result of him, but I hope the company turns out better from this instead of worse, and I hope he has a good retirement.
Makes sense. They definitely want this game to be competitive, but the vast majority of events use PS5s cuz of PC issues. I am a bit worried that because there’s only 3 USB ports it’ll be hard for teams who all use stick to play
Eh, Namco is still probably my least favorite of the big Japanese publishers (not counting Konami). I mean yeah they have good 3D fighters like Tekken and Soul Calibur and they distribute FromSoftware stuff most often, but so many of their anime games (which is like 80% of their modern library) feel so samey or underwhelming. They have so many cool IPs they aren’t using, like cmon is it that hard to crank out a Pac-Man World 4?
Man cmon ArcSys. I was excited for this, even moreso than Tekken. But there’s no way I justify buying a pretty similar looking fighting game sequel when it’s a week away from Persona 3 Reload, and the time I’m finished with that it’ll be Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth.
It’s so upsetting that the games industry has come to a point where one failure can rank a ship. A Callisto Protocol sequel had potential, but corporate just demands it be cut off already.
The thing I’m concerned about is having to restart without any of your abilities. How are they gonna balance the beginning to where you don’t feel as limited as you did at the beginning of FF7R, but not as OP as to trivialize future progression?
This is really unfortunate. The game doesn’t seem bad, it just released at a very wrong time and with way too little marketing. EA has had a pretty great lineup this year (Dead Space, Wild Hearts, Jedi Survivor, this), so it’s really unfortunate that this positivity is now soured by this to an extent.
Honestly these games aren’t that bad, especially as a JRPG fan. The issue is, however, is that this is the month directly following the price increase. If you want to justify that release, you need bigger and more widely appealing games than NieR Replicant. Again not all that had games, but bad considering the new price.
Comments 506
Re: The Last of Us Multiplayer Project Is Officially Cancelled
This is definitely a failure of PlayStations studios all around. Naughty Dog got too ambitious, and Bungie’s evaluation ended the last glimmer of its original concept. I don’t want a live service last of us. Literally just give us Factions 2, just a decently sized but really fun multiplayer mode that doesn’t need additional updates. I hope they revisit factions for Last of Us 3 and I’m happy to hear that SP is their focus (would definitely rather have this future than the one where they’re a live service studio), but man I just wanted another Factions
Re: Critical Darling Alan Wake 2's Sales Seem Soft, But There's More to the Story
Genuinely the only reason I haven’t bought it yet is the lack of a physical edition. As soon as they do so, I’m buying it.
Re: Preview: Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown Brings Back the Series with Style
@Snick27 Bros never looked at a map of the Persian empire
Re: Preview: Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown Brings Back the Series with Style
@OldGamer999 I sure do love how this comment is relevant to Prince of Persia
Re: Preview: Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown Brings Back the Series with Style
The hate this game gets is unfathomable to me. A new and sick looking Prince of Persia game by the developer of Rayman Legends got hate for being 2D? I want the Sands of Time remake as well but this is a separate team making a separate project.
Re: Disney Says There's 'Still a Lot of Demand' for Knights of the Old Republic Remake
This is definitely gonna be either
1. Rebooted by Disney and given to a more seasoned studio
2. The rights will be held on by Embracer Group so tightly that they throw literally every studio at it just to make it work
No matter what the original concept of the game is definitely dead
Re: Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora (PS5) - A World We Don't Want To Leave
It sure is a Ubisoft Avatar game
Re: PS Plus Extra Loses 9 Great PS5, PS4 Games Next Month
It Takes Two and DMC 5 are like, better than the past 3 months of extra/premium games combined. It’s insane how much I don’t want to renew my subscription. I’ll just grind out the remaining PS+ games I’ve wanted to play in the next couple months.
Re: Poll: What Was the Best PS5 Game Announcement or Reveal at The Game Awards 2023?
Surprised at how little love No Rest for the Wicked is getting. Ori was phenomenal, and the footage we’ve seen looks great despite being a huge departure. Metaphor was my favorite trailer but that was the biggest surprise.
Re: Poll: Was The Game Awards 2023 Worth Watching?
Decent announcements, horrendous handling of the awards
Re: Feature: Predict The Game Awards 2023 with Our 20 Question Quiz
I think Spider-Man 2’s only win will be for Yuri Lowenthal’s performance. Every other category I feel like it gets outclassed.
I think Alan Wake II will win narrative and art direction and that’s it. It’s not impossible for it to win GOTY tho imo.
I think Baldur’s Gate 3 is gonna win the most with 4 awards: Best RPG, Best Community Support, Best Direction, Game of the Year
Re: Poll: What Is Your PS5, PS4 Game of the Year 2023?
1. Pikmin 4
2. Street Fighter VI
3. Spider-Man 2
4. Final Fantasy XVI
5. Tears of the Kingdom
Re: Talking Point: Is Bungie Really the Right Developer to Aid Sony's Live-Service Push?
I was optimistic at first, but after the major lay offs despite Sony allocating 1 billion in talent retention I lost all faith. There’s a difference between making a multiplayer mode with extra monetization and a live service, and if im Naughty Dog im mad at Sony for trying to make me do the latter.
Re: Dragon's Dogma 2 Ushers In New Age of $70 Capcom Games
Resident Evil 4 and Street Fighter 6 were two of the games this year I thought actually would be worth $70, so the fact that they were $60 was nice. It sucks to see it go but I believe Capcom will make it worth.
Re: PS Plus Essential Games for December 2023 Announced
Yknow what… objectively this might be kinda mid but I honestly really like this lineup. I’ve heard great things about Sable and Power Wash Simulator and seems like good flow state games.
Re: UK Sales Charts: Hogwarts Legacy Apparates Back to the Top Spot
Kinda wish Super Mario RPG would pop off, but I feel like after Mario Wonder we’re no longer gonna see every Nintendo game soar to the top. Everything in the pipeline from now on just looks like smaller games and remasters. Definitely the twilight year. PlayStation really should reveal what’s coming up for 2024 to capitalize on the slower Nintendo year and compete with that honestly pretty decent looking Xbox 2024.
Re: Rumour: Persona 6 Targets 2025 Release While Metaphor's on Track for 2024
SMT in 2021, Soul Hackers in 2022, Persona 3 and Metaphor in 2024, and Persona 6 in 2025. Barring any potential delays, that seems like a good release cadence.
Re: Mini Review: Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl 2 (PS5) - A Tighter, More Focused Platform Fighter
Media outlet review a platform fighter without taking off points for it simply existing in a genre where Smash bros exists also challenge.
Re: PS Store Sales Charts: Marvel's Spider-Man 2 Glides to Number One on PS5
Would you look at that, Alan Wake II didn’t even get into the top 10.
Hmmm maybe you should’ve made a physical edition as well Remedy.
Re: Sony Will Help Fund and Distribute a Live-Action The Legend of Zelda Film
The director of The Maze Runner, the producer of Morbius, and the writer of Jurassic World.
This is gonna be so bad
Re: Like a Dragon Gaiden: The Man Who Erased His Name (PS5) - 'Smaller' Yakuza Game Is Still a Damn Good Time
How much does it feel like a DLC. I know in an interview they said it originally started as one, and with how much MWIII’s campaign has been criticized while also being a DLC expanded to a game, I was wondering if the general quality felt limited as a result.
Re: Reminder: It's Your Last Chance to Grab Three Great PS Plus Essential Games
Idk if I’d call Callisto Protocol great
Re: Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 Really Is Just DLC, Says Its Trophy List
In a year with so many bangers I just do not understand spending $70 on essentially an expansion of a game that came out a year ago
Re: PS Plus Essential Games for November 2023 Announced
Nothing for me. All the Alan Wake 2 hype got me lamenting how I didn’t pick up control when it was released for PS+.
Re: Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl 2 Gets Roguelike Story Campaign in Latest Trailer
@Shad361 every single fighting game removes characters, people just have too high expectations from Smash Ultimate.
Re: Bungie the Next PlayStation-Owned Dev to Suffer Layoffs
This is so weird, especially after the 1 billion for employee retention. There have been reports too that Sony is pivoting from its GaaS focus after backlash from studios. Maybe this is a part of that? Anyways, it’s incredibly bad that short sighted previous leadership decisions is now being the burden of employees, some of which seemed beloved by fans from what I’m seeing on twitter.
Re: UK Sales Charts: Spider-Man and Mario Trade Places in Battle for Top Spot
How far did Sonic Superstars plummet?
Re: Poll: Do You Like Metal Gear Solid Delta's New Graphical Style?
All the games in unreal engine 5 so far have just looked so samey. It just looks like everyone’s trying to turn up the detail with barely any considerations for anything else.
Re: Marvel's Spider-Man 2 Is Already One of the Best Selling PS5 Games of the Year
The Spider-Man games have really long legs compared to most first party Sony games, and considering immediate competition with Mario Wonder it’s doing amazingly. Hopefully these amazing sales outclass Sony’s live service push so they go away from it
Re: Marvel's Spider-Man 2 (PS5) - A Familiar But Fantastic Superhero Sequel
@Quintumply 0/10 throw this entire game away and liquidate Sony as we speak
Re: Marvel's Spider-Man 2 (PS5) - A Familiar But Fantastic Superhero Sequel
Biggest question I have, and is vital to know to know if this is truly GOTY.
Is there haptic feedback when spider sense goes off in combat?
Re: Like a Dragon: Gaiden Won't Have an English Dub on PS5, PS4 At Launch
This, plus the lack of a physical release, really makes this seem underbaked by Sega. Don’t expect much
Re: Sonic Superstars (PS5) - A Solid 2D Sonic Game, If You Play It Solo
I hate how sonic games nowadays just can’t be great. There’s always a bunch of caveats that hurt a fundamentally good game. They’ve had like 30 years to figure it out, but the most we can get is a great foundation that has non-insignificant issues in its execution. I’m just gonna play Sonic Mania and play Mario Wonder when it comes up.
Re: Now Cancelled, Hyenas Was Reportedly SEGA's Biggest Budget Game Ever
That’s the nature of this industry now. Everyone’s seeking destructive growth. At this point, there’s no developer or publisher I trust to break into the multiplayer space. It’s also insane that they barely have Sonic Frontiers any proper funding, but they pumped so many resources into this generic attempt at live service.
Re: The Last of Us Multiplayer Game Is 'Basically on Ice' Right Now
Imagine if Sony never spent 3.6 billion on Bungie and we actually got this game, but now we probably aren’t cuz it was live servicey enough
Re: Worms Publisher Team17 the Latest to Suffer Layoffs, CEO Exits
Layoffs are just sweeping across the industry. I know they lost a lot of goodwill with developers earlier on in the year(? I think) when they announced NFTs. I know that internet reactions are usually hyperbolic, but with an indie publisher and the amazing goodwill Devolver, Annapurna, and now Bigmode has it makes sense that Team17 would suffer.
Re: PS5's Console Exclusive Knights of the Old Republic Remake Is Being Nuked from the Internet
Again, this is symptomatic with the larger issue with acquisition happy companies. If one thing fails, it seeps down into all of the things they own. Embracer’s merger failing led to them pulling the plug on things that were struggling that they owned. There’s a world where Volition listened to feedback and made a great modern Saints Row. There’s a world where Embracer finally figured out what to do with KOTOR besides just cancelling it.
Re: Epic Games Laying Off Almost 900 Employees, Fall Guys Dev Hit Hard
@naruball eh depends. Mario Kart just had a $20 DLC. It’s like calling BotW live service cuz it had an expansion pack. Splatoon 3 is closer to the idea as it gets recurrent updates, but it doesn’t have any extra monetization except for 1 DLC pack and both that and Splatoon 2 have had endings to support, not in a “this is a failure and we’re moving ship” way but a “this package is done” way
Re: Epic Games Laying Off Almost 900 Employees, Fall Guys Dev Hit Hard
This year really feels like the year the AAA live service model is crumbling. So many games have been shut down, games are getting cancelled before release. Microsoft’s entry with Halo is suffering. PlayStation’s entries are either in development hell (Factions) or are getting mass disliked (FairGame$). The most successful of the big 3 (Nintendo) doesn’t have an explicit live service and has way lower budget games than the other two. This isn’t sustainable and companies need to realize this.
Re: Jim Ryan Retires as PlayStation Boss in March 2024
This is wild
It feels like Jim just got here and he’s already retiring. I don’t know how much some of the more controversial decisions these past couple of years have been were directly a result of him, but I hope the company turns out better from this instead of worse, and I hope he has a good retirement.
Re: PS Plus Essential Games for October 2023 Announced
I mean these games are either generally mediocre, good but very niche, and decent. It’s fine, but again really not justifying the price increase.
Re: Statue Manufacturer Accuses Sony of Forcing It to Destroy All PlayStation Products
How are you gonna say that they’re controversial and then not elaborate. Is this the only controversy they’ve had or has there been prior incidents?
Re: League of Legends Fighter Project L Seemingly Confirmed for PS5 Through PlayStation's Social Media Mistake
Makes sense. They definitely want this game to be competitive, but the vast majority of events use PS5s cuz of PC issues. I am a bit worried that because there’s only 3 USB ports it’ll be hard for teams who all use stick to play
Re: Preview: Bandai Namco Is a Publisher Quietly on the Up
Eh, Namco is still probably my least favorite of the big Japanese publishers (not counting Konami). I mean yeah they have good 3D fighters like Tekken and Soul Calibur and they distribute FromSoftware stuff most often, but so many of their anime games (which is like 80% of their modern library) feel so samey or underwhelming. They have so many cool IPs they aren’t using, like cmon is it that hard to crank out a Pac-Man World 4?
Re: Under Night In-Birth 2 Will Add to the Already Insane January Release Window on PS5, PS4
Man cmon ArcSys. I was excited for this, even moreso than Tekken. But there’s no way I justify buying a pretty similar looking fighting game sequel when it’s a week away from Persona 3 Reload, and the time I’m finished with that it’ll be Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth.
Re: Callisto Protocol's Glen Schofield Announces Departure from Striking Distance Studios
It’s so upsetting that the games industry has come to a point where one failure can rank a ship. A Callisto Protocol sequel had potential, but corporate just demands it be cut off already.
Re: Final Fantasy 7 Remake PS5, PS4 Save Data Gets You Bonus Rebirth Items
The thing I’m concerned about is having to restart without any of your abilities. How are they gonna balance the beginning to where you don’t feel as limited as you did at the beginning of FF7R, but not as OP as to trivialize future progression?
Re: Poll: Was Sony's Latest State of Play Worth the Wait?
There is no Stellar Blade on PS5
Re: Poor Immortals of Aveum Sales Leads to Significant Lay-Offs
This is really unfortunate. The game doesn’t seem bad, it just released at a very wrong time and with way too little marketing. EA has had a pretty great lineup this year (Dead Space, Wild Hearts, Jedi Survivor, this), so it’s really unfortunate that this positivity is now soured by this to an extent.
Re: 20 PS Plus Extra, Premium Games Coming Next Week
Honestly these games aren’t that bad, especially as a JRPG fan. The issue is, however, is that this is the month directly following the price increase. If you want to justify that release, you need bigger and more widely appealing games than NieR Replicant. Again not all that had games, but bad considering the new price.