Elden Ring has the deepest, most complex worldbuilding of any game ever made, and it’s not even close. For anyone interested in worldbuilding I strongly urge you to watch some Elden Ring lore videos from The Tarnished Archaeologist to learn about the techniques that the Elden Ring devs use to put incredibly deep and subtle worldbuilding into their games. It’s changed the way I think about worldbuilding in any context.
Someone talking about how a bunch of employees who weren’t invested, oh hey that’s me! Gamasutra has since gone belly up, but I found an archive of the interview with Frank O’Connor, halos franchise development director (at the time? Idk if that’s still the case). On this page specifically, we open with the quote “We hired people who hated halo” web.archive.org/…/making_halo_4_a_story_about_.ph…I didn’t reread the full article, couldn’t say in 2025 whether it’s worth a full read, but that sentiment did stay with me all these years later as a strange choice
I almost considered referencing you when I mentioned that, but I know some people aren’t cool with that.
Thanks for the source too. I was thinking to myself last night “I should look for a source for this” but decided to put it off for today lol.
Hiring people who hate the franchise seems like a horrible move. I suppose I can see what the idea was, but I still can’t believe nobody higher up thought “wow. This seems like a horrible idea. Why are we doing this?”
SpoilerThe trap bench in Hunters March. After the absolutely grueling effort it took getting there, the relief of finally coming upon a bench, only to see the trap come swinging down. All I could do was laugh.
Cyberpunk 2077, you have to save two of the most incompetent cops that exist. For such a dark and depressing universe, whenever there are hints of humor those always get me.
That “Big Grey Guy” is one of the major reason I haven’t tried the game. And well the fact that I don’t like horror, but I am going to blame the Big Grey Guy!
I feel that lol. He really is a terrifying threat. I’m not used to my horror games basically throwing a big invincible enemy at me, especially for such a long period of time
Always wanted to play it but i don’t really play multiplayer game is it a game playable solo? I know it possible but i’ve seen it mostly presented as a co-op game
It’s playable solo (and only solo in the current beta branch), but the devs have been nerfing that playstyle for years in the name of multiplayer balance. There are artificial limits on what one player can learn and do, with massive penalties to anything you didn’t start the game with. They include those nerfs in single player because they intend for NPCs to pick up the slack after they’re introduced.
(Note: NPCs have been a promised upcoming feature “after the next set of changes” for nearly fifteen years at this point.)
Fortunately they include settings to undo the learning speed nerfs, and hopefully will add more to make the upcoming crafting rework less of a pain for solo players. The litany of tweaks available at world creation is one of my favorite things about Project Zomboid, right after all the stellar business name puns.
Don’t forget the thousands of mods, too. And like the other reply said about server/game world settings before you start playing, there are mods that add even more settings to tweak, or they make gameplay smoother (or harder), or they add new things like weapons and vehicles. There are even entire new maps to add to play in.
It’s very doable solo, but it’s kind of a slog if you want to do anything significant in a playthrough, plus it can get very lonely and isolating.
I might give it a try next time i see itnon sale then thanks
I already play lot of survival game that feel lonely or isolated like valheim i do find it fit the genre and sometime add a little something lol my main problem was is the game was “balanced” for solo vs coop
It is playable solo. I have the most fun playing with friends, but there’s a great deal of fun to be had playing Single Player too. It has different vibes single player but id stills recommend it
Really looking forward to this one. I loved that last game and really appreciated how much they did with a little, leading to a much-appreciated brevity that helped its pacing. ACG had some reservations with the opening area, but we’ll see how I feel about it when I get around to it.
I played Tekken 3 in PSX when i was a kid. One CD had everything, many modes, many characters, ton of fun.
Ffw to 2 years ago, i think to play with a friend Tekken again, searching in Steam Tekken only to see that it has 24 DLCs, many of them that are fighters (game has 16 unlockable characters, and 14 more being paid DLC)…
I think that fighting games are in a much better place with the season passes(character DLC) than previously.
They are a much more long term game, with better balance patches and additions through mechanics to the game. Tekken 7 for example was supported for 7 years and you can jump in with just the base game. This also applies to other games like Street Fighter 5 and 6, Guilty Gear Strive and so on.
Where as if you go back to Street fighter 4 as an example, The support was limited and then they added more with a new game, Super Street Fighter 4, which then got replaced with Ultra Street Fighter 4, and you could not play someone who had Super if you only had Ultra which sucked for the online community.
I do think there is a lot of issues with where Fighting Games are going, but that is more an industry thing. Like battle passes, avatar clothes and other shit as micro transactions.
Well, maybe you are right. But still it feels wrong putting fighters that exist since 1995+ as paid DLC content (or almost half of your fighters are paid locked). Also if you want the whole package it costs you almost double money. I don’t need support, i need a fine product from day one that has everything like BG3, E33, and many indie games. They just want to make games like a service and not products.
While you may not need support for the game. The games would not do as well as they do without it. They are predominantly an online multiplayer game. I am no the biggest Tekken fan, but I am a pretty big fan of Street Fighter, I have over 1000 hours on SF6. If it didnt have the good online multiplayer, and just had just had the offline and single player stuff, I would have something like 100 hours maybe and would have moved on to other games.
And that makes a big difference, to how much I am willing to buy into both characters and costumes, and also the next game.
Tekken 8 and SF6 still have good(for fighting games) single player stuff, but you are looking at a simple story and some arcade modes. SF6 has a bit more of a single player RPG almost for its single player, and I have managed to sink around 80 hours into that, they add more with each new character and I believe it is free.
And to go back to Tekken, Tekken 3 had 22 characters, While Tekken 7 had 36, which then increases to 51 if you add in the addition characters, Tekken 8 currently has ~40 with more being added. They are fine games, with all the content that you want(mostly) in the base game, but the biggest difference between Tekken 3 and Tekken 7 or 8 is it isnt being replaced in a couple years by a new full priced game, it is getting patches and support, additional mechanics and moves, new characters. And the online/competitive community can thrive.
I don’t know. I prefer to unlock characters through playing the game, not with my wallet.
Also you can have 2 different games with 25 fighters each every 4 years, versus having 1 game with 50 fighters for 7 years with the same money as 2 games. I just prefer the 1st option.
Just support the game for 2-3 years and make a better one after. If you need money for the support put DLC with soundtracks and artwork.
Ah it’s very simple, you would buy this if you’d made your whole personality about being a GAMER, where you believe that the only real games are FPS PvP War Simulation, and everyone that plays anything else is a poseur.
And they don’t understand why people pirate, run away from AAA games and go for indie games instead.
They completely understand… the numbers saying that they’re making money hand over fist and the number of people who care is sadly minuscule.
These games have hit a critical mass where people will casually buy them because they’re friends are and so its a common ground game to play with buddies.
I don’t think we can ever rely on consumers pushing back on anti consumer practises because of the reality of people.
Not everyone can afford to care about every issue.
As a result, boycotts are very unlikely to work in the modern world. There is just too much all at once for any one person to care about all of them, so even if you, lets say, care about 1% (a really high estimate) of things that are wrong in the world, and are willing to act, if we extrapolated that out to the whole population, the only things that would move would need to have double digit percentages of peoples care overlapping before anything stuck.
Really, the answer is that you simply need a government that cares about its people/consumer rights.
The USA and Canada, both are very far away from having governments like that.
Europeans are a lot luckier, but yet still, there is plenty to go.
What I’m reading is use crowd funding with boycotted “would have been sales” funds to lobby government to regulate predatory game monetization 😅 but alas regulatory capture is a bitch and as long as number go up the world be damned so I guess I’ll go back to this ftp Chinese p2w warborne above ashes shenanigans that hits the PvP fix lol
I think Europeans have a chance, and Canadians would have so many chances with so many things if we just got proportional representation, but that’ll happen when Pierre Poilievre stops being a racist alcoholic aka when pigs fly.
I want a Call of Doody game where you're running around downtown of a major city looking for a public bathroom while prairie dogging a big old shit kind of like Far Cry 2's malaria mechanic.
I want to see a game where you have to pay rent on a server and you need to spend all of your time working to make in game currency to pay the rent otherwise you’re kicked out. But when you’re sick and can’t play, they will kick you out anyways. And the rent keeps getting up, but the monthly income does not. And when you need customer support they put you on a waiting list and when it’s your turn they say “wrong department, we’re putting you on another waiting list” so you will never get the mental help you need. Yeah, I would definitely play that game, I know I’m good at it.
I didnt read your article (I did goto their page on the device) but I was wondering to anyone that did, did they disclose what type of sticks they use. For this price if its not hall effect and we get drift (even tho I am sure they would give us better access to the sticks and we could map a custom dead zone to fix it) I would be upset.
Been enjoying Pokémon Odyssey, which is a bit like Made In Abyss crossed with Pokémon. It’s got a full quest log and a huge dungeon and great story to explore. I haven’t played too much of this, but I have loved the hour or two I played through.
I also enjoyed Pokémon Scorched Silver, which acts as a Johto sequel and has a huge dex of mons up to Gen 9.
Because I’m a huge Emerald fan I have to shout out Pokémon Seaglass. It’s got a retro artistic feel to it. All the sprites are basically demakes and go back to the classic Gen 2 style. There are also battle backgrounds, following Pokemon, dexnav, and some balance changes, such as letting the Light Ball work for Raichu and Pichu.
Odyssey is the most unique, but Seaglass is really polished. Scorched Silver feels like another mainline game just with a huge dex. It still retains some of the level cap issues for the original GSC games I believe.
Link to the Past Randomizer - Generates a shuffled ROM with all chests and items swapped around, sending you on a wild goose chase through Hyrule trying to find everything required to beat Ganon. Has a LOT of settings to play around with.
Link to the Past/Super Metroid Combo Randomizer - Like the above, but with both games combined into a single ROM using some elaborate witchcraft. Certain doors take you from one game to the other, and the item pools are shuffled together so you'll have to go back and forth between Hyrule to find Metroid items and Zebes to find Zelda items. It's a bit imbalanced by the fact that LttP is a much bigger game than SM with far more items and locations, but I recommend playing through it once for the sheer novelty.
Celeste Mario's Zap & Dash - A metroidvania running in SMB1's engine. As the name suggests, it's heavily inspired by Celeste and ports in mechanics from that game.
Standalone fangames:
Panel Attack - Open source clone of Panel de Pon/Tetris Attack/Puzzle League/Puzzle Challenge/oh my god Nintendo please pick a name and stick with it featuring netplay and modding support.
AM2R - Another Metroid 2 Remake. Do note that I've heard a big 2.0 update is supposed to be coming soon, so you may wish to wait for that.
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