Gaia093

So a multiplatform game has sold 21% less units across Europe than a PS5 exclusive which itself (unfortunately) underperformed.

Is the world now done pretending that Veilguard was a success, or do we have to wait until EA begrudgingly admits they lost over $100 million on it?

I can't imagine something much worse than a western company in all but name taking control over a good chunk of the manga being created.

Piss off with that money and go make Concord 2 or something.

It's just a cheap excuse to fill up GOTY nominee spots with DLCs and keep the likes of Wukong or Stellar Blade out of the running. Nothing more, nothing less.

@nomither6 Yasuke is not Japanese whatsoever, the historical person arrived in Japan on board of a slave ship. Oda Nobunaga made him one of his vassals and gave him the name.

But re-reading what I wrote, the "American" bit actually doesn't make sense in this context, so I'll amend that.

"When the work they pour their hearts into is twisted into a symbol of division"

"We put an African samurai in the game because we cannot relate to a Japanese person"

Sounds very much like intentional division to me.

Not that I have a horse in this race, but a peak of 70k concurrent players isn't a whole lot for a game with such a huge budget, no? Typically you can estimate the actual sales number to be several times the peak amount of concurrent players, but even then we're probably talking about something in the ballpark of several hundred thousand sales on Steam.

For comparison's sake, Metaphor sold 1 million units on its first day across all platforms and peaked at 85k concurrent players on Steam. Metaphor visibly had a far lower budget than Veilguard so it might well be a commercial success if it gets two or three million lifetime sales, but Veilguard needs a lot more than that.

Granted, as the article points out, that 70k number will probably go up during the weekend, but I don't think it'll be enough to make a difference.

They've barely been showing OR telling anything for a while now, though.

@Czar_Khastik Sony will give you material for ages.

Unfortunate to hear, but I guess you can't win them all. While replicating the setting for this series is relatively easy, replicating its soul is a different matter entirely.

I might still tune in to watch (some of) it just to form my own opinion, since I've got access to the show anyway.

I'm looking forward to the new game modes and story content, but in terms of character banners this is where I'll start saving.

Zero interest in Yanagi, and I like Lighter but he basically fills the same position as Koleda, who I'll never replace. Also not interested in Harumasa nor Miyabi, which are most likely coming up next.

So yeah, a long period of hoarding tapes ahead of me. Would rather wait for something like an Ellen rerun, or another new character I'm truly into.

Yup, just as I thought.

They're doing everything right for this release so far, and I really hope it'll be a success for them.

@GeeForce How would that even matter to anyone who isn't a rabid fanboy, given that it's a multiplatform title anyway?

It's in pretty poor taste how every other similar game in recent times has gotten its fair shake, yet somehow everyone's decided that this one specifically gets to be the universal punching bag for people who are "tired" with the subgenre. This whole narrative feels manufactured and ill-willed, and PS actively enhancing it is pretty unprofessional.

And it's all the more annoying because the project looks high effort and it's been known about for a while. The likes of Wukong and Phantom Blade Zero get their praises sung at every opportunity, but now Wuchang comes back with another trailer after months since its reveal and suddenly it's all about soulslike burnout? Gross behavior.

It's their first project as an independent studio, with an entirely new IP. Regardless of quality or level of polish it makes sense to give it a more accessible price so that it won't struggle to find an initial audience, an issue which many full price games these days suffer.

It does surprise me, but only in a good way. I think it's a humble approach as newcomers that too many devs are not willing to take. And I was going to buy the game no matter what, so this is just a plus.

Watch them turn Death Note into yet another arena brawler somehow. I would laugh so damn hard.

It'd be pretty cool if we got a new Expedition 33 trailer out of this as well, but Like a Dragon + Wuchang is enough to make me check it out.

Appreciate the heads-up. This one is on my wishlist and it would have sucked to miss the demo.

Got it on the mail a few hours ago, already installed it. I'm trying to wrap up the TLoU remake before getting into it since I probably won't touch another game for weeks once I do.

Can't wait.

Sounds like a textbook example of a frog in the well. Or lizard in the well, if you'd prefer.

Ironically, I think its historical failure gave it enough "publicity" that more people might check out an F2P re-launch out of curiosity, compared to the open beta.

That still only means a couple days of passable player numbers followed by another ghost town after said curiosity wears off, though. There's no salvaging this project, in my opinion.

Good. The less time I spend looking at guides to make sure I didn't miss anything, the better.

Lengthy games should prioritize keeping your attention on the screen at all times, and getting rid of easily missable stuff goes a long way in achieving that. I love booting up a big JRPG and knowing I can explore its world and activities at my own pace without fear of accidentally skipping content.

I'm sure this will go down well with everyone who already thought this entry was way too safe, cartoonish, etc.

I'll upgrade to Premium when I've got a couple days left and play Dino Crisis. Always been curious about this one.

Planning to wrap up The Plucky Squire today and start either Bully or The Last of Us Part 1.

It's definitely going to affect the game negatively and it sucks.

Finally Atlus is trying out something new and exciting, and they get the unending failure of the generation that is Xbox to market it?

I honestly wouldn't have guessed there were that many lines dedicated to hints or battle indications. Regardless, that's a mod I definitely would have installed during my playthrough had it been possible.

When for years you get players used to not expecting quality at launch, they also get used to waiting a few months to buy the thing on a deep sale... or used to just ignoring your output period.

Gaming is too broad and varied a hobby for just one type of experience to ever define it.

Something obvious to anyone who actually games, but outright incomprehensible for corporate clowns like Timmy over here.

I'll re-read Doki Doki today. Already played through the original version on Steam way back, but this is a good chance to finally see the new content.

There was never a chance they'd remove Yasuke. People who actually think it's that easy to replace the entirety of a protagonist for such a big game in a matter of a few months are helplessly moronic.

Yeah, that Warhammer page looks dreadful.

On a similar note, I also hate it when a game app's background changes to some crappy screenshot representing the current area or story chapter that you're in, instead of whatever the default art for that game was. It never, ever looks good.

ZZZ actually did that briefly too, during the 1.0 patch. I remember playing through the story and at some point that beautiful background art featuring Ellen, Zhu and the gang was replaced by, again, a crappy shot of an in-game statue. Thankfully, from 1.1 onwards we just get the art for the current update and it's always a pleasure to look at.

A fool and their money are soon parted. Zero sympathy for anyone falling for this new scam.

The push may be no joke but the overall results certainly will be.

I predict Horizon will end up being their only live service project (besides Helldivers) not to crash and burn.

@AdamNovice Yeah. Keeping up with just Zenless is very doable, it's like 15 minutes of daily activities and then some more time when there's an event or at the start of the week. But if you keep adding other gacha games to juggle on top of that, to me it'd just end up feeling like work.

The artstyle of Genshin and Honkai doesn't really do it for me, though, so it's not like I ever considered putting time into them anyway. All I needed was Caesar and I got her.

Sounds like the perfect situation to make a scummy company actually acquiesce to workers' demands - they need people working more than ever, zero leeway to refuse remote work.

Since data carries over, I'll give it a go. I was already convinced to get it at launch, though.

They're just hard at work on their next highly offensive WW2 figurine.

@KundaliniRising333 Oh I see. You probably hit the nail on the head, this will basically be just a bunch of titles that are getting "improvements" on the Pro, nothing else.

Thank goodness for that PS5 Pro version of Shredder's Revenge man, the original PS5 just couldn't deal with those graphics.

With the way the PS5 gen is going first party game-wise, handheld or not there's a 0% chance I'll buy anything PS6-related.

To quote Like a Dragon director Horii Ryosuke: "If there's no healthy fighting during development, you can only make a lukewarm game at best".

Love it.

This is exactly what Majima needed - an unhinged adventure just for him. I was so, so damn tired of having him be reduced to just a part of that bum trio with Saejima and Daigo.

For the longest time he hasn't been able to just be a character on his own, and instead was there just as a 'yakuza legend' figure, to pop up for a bit, do some quick fighting, then fade back into obscurity.

That all changes now. Let's go find the One Piece, Majima-san.

Utterly pathetic.

A lot of this sounds like a recipe for failure to me, especially the ultimatum-like pressure to deliver a hit this time and within a strict deadline.

Unfortunate as I love both games and I'd have liked to see them perform much better, although to be fair you can count on one hand how many titles have "met expectations" when it comes to Square.

Fingers crossed the devs for the remake trilogy will still be able to craft the final game exactly the way they want to, without budget restrictions or corporate meddling.

Can't wait for this to be the focus of the next presentation alongside Fairgame$ and Marathon.

PlayStation-related news feel like they're selling me a whole line of toasters with no bread to put in.

Games, please.

@nomither6 Probably because they're the ugliest, most soulless series of figurines to ever exist. Doesn't help that they're seemingly everywhere so you'll end up looking at one even if you don't want to.

More power to you if you're into them, though.

The Plucky Squire, Night in the Woods and Chernobylite are all games I might want to play next time I've got Extra, so this month was fine as far as I'm concerned.

Frankly, does the distinction between State of Play and PlayStation Showcase even matter that much? The last "Showcase" was so underwhelming I can barely remember what was on it.

1.2 looks like it's got a lot more content than 1.1, so I'm looking forward to it even more because of that.

Caesar cannot get here soon enough.