Rich33

I opened this article expecting the title to be a complete over exaggeration clickbait like all those stupid youtube videos with "They actually DID IT!" splashed across them...

So, sorry Pushsquare for doubting you...

And, sorry I live in a world that is even weirder than i thought it was...

@AinsleyE @KahnArtizt07
This game needs to be called "Nuclear Armageddon", because if certain leaders are not OP, or lose too many times playing as themselves, this will be the result of their strop.

@WhiteRabbit
According to Street Fighter 6, here in the UK, London is powered by steam! Lol

@AinsleyE
"At least it's given me a want for a world leader fighting game."

You have reminded me of an old spitting image game, back on the Speccy (I think). As i remember it, it was not fantastic, but was funny.

Jim Ryan deserves all the crap thrown his way for his moving towards GAAS, but in the case the article describes, I think he was just being honest (ie not sustainable), and didnt deserve the loud minority outrage.

All game pass does is reduce the quality (or size) of games - after all, why bother spending extra time and money on something better or bigger (or complete) if you are just going to put it on a subscription model.

Game pass and microtransactions are the worst things in this industry (as well as 30fps!).

@GamerDad66
Digital/physical shouldnt make a difference as both install the entire game to the ssd.

Ive never had rebuilding database make any difference to performance - i suppose its possible if you download/install and delete a lot, or dont do it for years, but unlikely to make much difference. Tbh how full your ssd drive is will make a bigger difference, particularly if over 90% i think.

Fixed a BUG where weapons could cause damage... wespons can no longer do damage.

Possible Unstable Performance Fixes: Please buy a PS5 PRO or VERY HIGH spec PC... because we dont have the ability to tone things down a little bit to solve the problem.

Rebuild database has never made a 1fps increase for me!

@KundaliniRising333
If they stay true to form, they will get to the main nerf list next patch.

@B0udoir
Nah, they like to make things as challenging as possible (and have plenty of form nerfing things into the ground.

From have a weird habit of nerfing into the ground anything the playerbase doesnt want nerfing, and ignoring plees to nerf weapons etc that really need it.... so, those that dont want a nerf should ask for one?!

@CrashBandicoat @sonicmeerkat

I agree - I dont think this was review bombing (certainly not in a negative way anyway).

Difficulty - The problem most forget, is that Elden ring was marketed as more mainstream, plus as From tweaked the difficulty down it sounds like complaints were justified.

Performance - poor performance is always a 0/10 in my opinion.

At least with a free trial I can look and see exactly what the "low" graphics and 120hz mode actually do for the fps in reality.

Will download and play in next few days.

I love what insomniac has been doing these last few years and im not surprised they are too busy - wolverine will mark their 4th PS5 game.. (im not counting remaster but MM easily deserves to be counted).
Some studios havent even put out 1 game in this time.

@ThunderFunk
Yeah, i thought that - 120hz mode can be used for 30, 40, 60 or 120 locked fps or literally anything above 48fps with VRR (or 24 if they use 2 refresh cycles per frame, and cap at 60fps).

They (capcom) havent exactly been forthcoming with exact details and numbers have they?!

Sadly, i very much agree with you.
Since the dumpster fire that was jedi survivor, the only games i now pre order are Sony 1st party, games i have played a demo of, or in the event tech reviews are available pre launch (rarely happens, but it has in the past).

Doesnt this just prove the point that they launched it too early / half baked!

Will have to keep eye out for demo or full blown tech analysis tho before i trust how much it is improved.

The quality on show for this one with what i think is a smallish development (?), is excellent. Plus we already know from hands on that performance is good.
The only game this year I have pre ordered.

My guess, GTA6 starts locking things behind GTA+ for the single player game too - they will do anything they think they can get away with because they will think the GTA name alone will keep people hooked.

MTX/Subscriptions need (another) massive customer backlash (eg battlefront 2 / EA) to set them back - maybe this will be it, or maybe the casual gamers will pay up because its GTA.

@Sweetz

"literally all that you'd need to make most Souls games "easy" is just a simple global damage reduction percentage"

Funnily enough, i was explaining this to someone yesterday as an easy fix for this problem (it should of course be calculated after all defence and other damage reductions have been applied, but I think this is what you meant anyway).

They could even have it as a slider, to allow people to adjust to their capability, including increasing damage taken as an option, and only pop trophys if no reduction (or increased damage) was selected!

@LifeGirl @mariomaster96

I sort of agree in principal.
Im not the best at games, but have completed everything in this game (not the dlc yet as i still have concerns about performance), including melenia on about try 30 (no guide says it but she HATES Ancient death rancor), and also Demon Souls, DS3, Lies of P (mostly pre nerf), Nioh 2, including all dlc for these games where available and at least to NG+1 for all.

However, I do sort of see the issue here is that they have always marketed elden ring as more mainstream, then suddenly (and without warning that I recall) dialled up the difficulty much more for the dlc than normal (from what I read).
Even then, why should someone just expect such a jump in difficulty in dlc unless they have played a previous From software dlc.

The cant really have it both ways - either they are niche or mainstream (offering a difficulty slider), not both.

Damn, was like many others still hoping to see a 60fps patch....

I didnt think much to the / some of the main characters but it was a good game, and it deserves to do well.
Still prefered the similarly non AAA budget Lies of P overall though.

Performance and graphics wise for semi open world it was excellent, and one of the best non-1st party games in the last few years in this regard (The only games I can think of that run better are Hogwarts (easily, but this was big budget), and Lies of P).

@themightyant
I wasnt sure where the "average" PC was in terms of power

• All I know is with a few recent games on PS5 with sub 60fps issues / low resolutions and blurry images, some devs have decided to target the top 5% of PCs only it seems!

I like the one with Astro covered in Poops!
(Bottom middle)

@themightyant
First thought i had was similar to yourself - small studio, so needs to complete the larger install base 1st (with just the single spec to cater for)- not to mention that a decent number of those with series consoles only use game pass and wont buy a full price game.

"Additionally will it be 'excessive' when developers develop for both PS5 and PS5 Pro, or do different rules apply?"

I imagine it will be different. If we look at PS4 Pro, games were never optimised as much as on PS4 e.g. if a game was pushing PS4 to 90% utilisation, the Pro might only be at 70% - it was a case of whats the best we can achieve with minimal extra optimising.

Where Series X / PS5 are the target, series S requires a lot of optimisation work given its much weaker specs.

That all said, I would have thought a better plan would be to design games around SS and upgrade for SX and PS5 (and Pro) - that way you know the game will 'Work".
You will have the narrative "series S is holding this gen back", but i dont really hold with this in any major way - its not like any of these consoles are complete powerhouses.

Played the demo - performance outside of battles was p### poor, so for the 1st time in a long time for FF i skipped.

Square are really in trouble if this is what they are capable of - it didnt look that visually good either - Hogwarts in its highest performance could hit 100fps, do more, and look better.

Make huge savings developing a game using AI which is bad or mediocre and it wont sell - You might as well not make it at all and save even more money!

I do think that this year we have seen that it is not just how good the game looks, its also key to present the game well (eg well made trailer, key info given etc).

Forgetting the games quality for a moment (which does look fantastic) Astro was one of the best designed and made trailers ive seen in a while, where certain other games had bad or just boring trailers.

When your own platform customers are disappointed in the lack of 1st party major / new IPs,
or considering PC because you will port your big games there anyway (and powerful PCs seem to be the only thing these days that will run 3rd party games properly),
and your off making lego games (primarily)for Switch.....

@DennisReynolds
Maybe im wrong - it was a while ago - but im sure that they said the hack (and reworking of the story/game to make it different from the hacked version) was going to put them back a considerable while, so 2025 may not even be the target any longer.

"a quality product"
"and [the developers] went all in to deliver on that"
"it didn't catch enough consumers out there willing to engage again in that IP and product"

Surely the fault lies with the management who decided this IP and direction is what people wanted, NOT the dev team they have just closed.

@DennisReynolds
From what ive heard (not seen), its probably still too early for them to show anything decent yet - I take the point that they showed it too early, but with this game they unusually (for recent sony) teased it way early, listening to that part of the fan base who want reveals 4yrs out.

Agree that they are sat on their hands while finishing widly loathed GAAS (I hate these games), and relying on the not really needed until dawn remaster and Lego game.
However, Astro bot is an oddity - remember all their talk about no major games / IPs this year - they either A didnt have faith astro would be popular, or B forgot it was due this year! (Im really looking forwards to it tho).

Adding to what you have said though, Wolverine when it arrives will be the 4th major game (counting MM but not SM remake) Insomniac have put out this generation - usually i dont care for early teasers but what on earth have some other studios been doing. Count me in for SM2 dlc - i didnt care it was similar to the previous game(s), sometimes thats a good thing and i loved it anyway!

Im sure they said something about re scripting parts of the story in light of the leak.
So sad we live in a world where data beaches and hacking exist as a thing.

@Zeke68
It was in performance mode (tbh i didnt need to see it as he has similar issues with sub 60 as i do, but he did the show and tell thing anyway). He got rid of it soon after - had only just bought it too - thats how i know it was after the big performance patch as he only bought it cheap after/ because of this patch - i would have waited a bit longer, so still hopeful i kept an eye on patch reactions for the next few patches until i think it was 1.50 (whatever the big patch was that added stuff for new playthrough settings).

@Zeke68
Played on a friends ps5 a couple of patches before 1.50 - it was after the patch that seemed mostly to address performance issues - and framerate was still all over the place, with stuttering issues evident.

Didnt play it after, but kept an eye on reaction to the patch notes on the reddit articles the PS5 news (on console) articles linked to.

I say apologists in this case (which is unusual for me as i understand there are people who cannot see / are not bothered by framerates less than 60 through 30 (person dependant)) due to some of the behaviour i saw on these reddit articles.

They all get paid enough its quite acceptable banning them from anything that might, even in a tiny way, put them off during tournaments - late night PS5 included!

Its not a good look - starting work on a sequel whilst the original game still is in a bad way.

I kept the original on my wishlist a long time as I really like Soulslikes, each time reading the patch notes and reactions only to find out performance was still broken - and worse, apologists were still trying to push "I never had a problem". I finally gave up at 1.50.

@Fakeplastictree
Lol
And to be fair the fact that the writer included this info is very good, but also they may have had the same alarm bells ringing!

Think I will wait for a full tech analysis on this one. It looks like fun, but UE5 and the fact a PC version was shown as a demo to a Playstation site rings MASSIVE alarm bells!

To be fair, Im on the fence about dlc...

Hard areas - Not a problem - level up a bit and try again.

Obtuse objectives / npc stories - irritating, but guides helped.

Melenia - defeated after a few tries - spamming Ancient Death Rancor melts her with the right build and almost stun locks her (though ive not seen it mentioned in any guide).

Hard Bosses - Lies of P was harder.

DEVS KEEPING NERFING THINGS IN PVE - almost unbearable...

@JokerBoy422
PS5 version has its fair share of stuttering and frame rate dips, so it depends on how tolerant you are to this.
VRR helps a bit, but these frame dips and stuttering are odd and feel more like issues caused by loading, rather than rendering - it hits in odd places for about 5-10 seconds then clears.
When it happens it can be quite jarring, but it doesnt last too long.
If im right its silly really as the PS5 has tech in it to stop most loading issues but I dont think it was used (a lot of 3rd party games dont).

Pity I cant add all 3 of my votes for Astro Bot - the more I see and hear the more this sounds like an easy GOTY

I tend to use guides for these games to make sure i dont miss anything, they can just be so messy in terms of "miss this npc in this hidden spot and they will die if you reach point x" or "now you have messed up - you shouldnt have done objective A until you have done hidden objectives X and Y".

If its Lego calling the shots here:

If you cant make the game PS5 exclusive - Dont make it at all! Make a different PS5 exclusive!

Putting your IPs on other formats kills your platform - just look at the mess MS are in now.

@rjejr
Lol
Sounds right to me.
Frog farming - say that to most people and they will give you a nasty look - but say it to someone who has played elden ring and they smile, praise the devs for not patching it out, and mumble something about fingers and holes...

"Running in flawless 60 frames-per-second"
Thank you for including this.

Game pre ordered.

Sounds logical that if they did both either Normal or VR would suffer, and with the very low number of VR2 units sold compared to PS5s it makes perfect sense.

Im in 2 minds - im very pleased because if it had been aimed at VR (even if it had a bolted on non VR mode), I wouldnt be looking forwards to it, and Sony already have a massive drought of 1st party games. But i can also see that one of the main reasons VR2 isnt selling well (aside from the extra cost involved) is lack of major games.

@Quintumply
Thank you - didnt cross my mind that they could be using some mega PC - i will hope they get it right for this game.

Just waiting for them to fix those framerate issues before I buy....

@quintumply
Hi, Any lead on framerate from what you saw?
(Thinking after DD2 this game would be a 100% no-go)