A lot of things, but most of them stem from the expansion being very clearly rushed to release. The narrative was also incomplete, and Bungie had to add a bunch of supplemental lore to the seasonal missions instead of putting them in the main campaign where it belongs.
Traditionally, Bungie keeps the seasonal storyline separated from the campaign story, because they're technically separate purchases the player has to make, so it makes sense to keep those stories apart from each other, so that a player who only buys the expansions but not the season passes won't be missing out on any narrative threads that they haven't already invested time and money into.
Unfortunately, that wasn't the case with Lightfall. The campaign didn't finish telling the story, and spent about half of the campaign time sending the player on a search for a MacGuffin that the game never properly explains, and the other half was spent awkwardly learning how to use the new Strand subclass. Except all the campaign missions where you get to experiment with Strand gave you a super-boosted version of the subclass which isn't available in normal play, so players were disappointed with how Strand performed in the endgame when it felt so overpowered during the campaign. A lot of the unanswered questions from the Lightfall campaign got explained in seasonal cutscenes, instead.
Now, granted, the seasonal and campaign stories are part of the same over-arching plot, so it's expected for there to be some overlap. But it's not supposed to go to the point where you literally can't understand the point of what you did during the campaign until 3 months after the campaign was released, and only if you also bought the season pass. They introduced "The Veil" in the Lightfall campaign, and it was never made clear to the player what it actually was or what it meant as far as the story goes, until some Season of the Deep cutscenes came out.
There's also the issue of Strand being completely reworked from whatever "poison" subclass it was originally going to be, and there's a lot of evidence from the Witch Queen campaign that suggests that the subclass was originally going to be poison (some unredacted text in the game originally referred to poisonous status effects for Strand that are not in the final version). Strand was originally going to be included in Witch Queen, but was cut and pushed back to Lightfall, and in its place in Witch Queen was a really half-baked mechanic called "Deepsight", which reveals hidden platforms for the player to use to progress through the stages (in places where it's clear that the player was originally expected to use the Strand grapple mechanic to progress).
To Bungie's credit, they've made some improvements to Lightfall since release, and it is in a much better state than it was when it launched. But the narrative issues are still there.
It's that sort of feeling that the game is this weird, organic beast that feeds on the "subscriber base" that caused me to leave in the first place.
Sad it worked out that way with Lightfall's release, but if Destiny wants to be such a good game that the ideal player buys everything, then it has to be that damn good to do so. And it can be, but not always.
Yeah, I'm remaining cautiously optimistic about The Final Shape. I'm still going to end up buying it, because despite a lot of the game's flaws and the poor release of Lightfall, the storytelling is still fantastic 99/100 times, and I really want to see how the story ends.
But post-Final Shape is going to be a really hard sell, even for players who are sucked into the game like myself. They've made some decent progress at fixing some of Lightfall's downfalls so far, so it's evident that Bungie does genuinely care about the game still. But they've definitely damaged our trust, and are still gonna need to work really hard to earn that back.
Wait, they finally got around to explaining what the veil was? What was it?
And yeah I 100% percent wish we had gotten poison instead of janky parkour. (I will admit that baiting the Sorrow Bearer into lunging off the map with Strand jumps was fun though.)
Wait, they finally got around to explaining what the veil was?
Well... sort of. There's still a lot of unanswered questions about it, but basically it's another cosmic entity that's somehow linked to the Traveler. We end up finding it on Neptune at the end of the Lightfall campaign, and it basically looks like a giant fungal growth. Aesthetically, there's some similarities to the Egregore that took over the Glykon and Leviathan, but I'm not too sure that they're really the same thing.
They released this cutscene which goes into a bit of the Witness's origins, and it briefly talks about the Veil.
That’s the worst part to be to be frank. Incomplete story and lore with the answer of….another $12 every 3 months. ….or pay 50 more dollars to get the story that you already paid…$50 for.
Fuck. That. Also Joe Blackburn had a hard on for player engagement so almost everything got nerfed when lightfall launched… so you have to play longer and shoot things longer.
Shortly before lightfall came out, I dropped the game and haven’t been back.
The writing was bad. I played through the campaign four times (three normal, one ... whatever the hell hard mode was called) and I still have no idea what "the Veil" even is, why we cared about it, why we did literally anything that we did, etc.
The new Darkness element was fun but the way it was introduced made it REALLY OBVIOUS it was supposed to be in Witch Queen and just got delayed.
Game balance went out the window, to the point where people were getting one-shot mapped by Cabal rocket launchers in patrol zones.
They introduced a new raid that, while thematically fun and visually gorgeous, was un-fun to play.
Eh... the more I Think about it the more everything Chozo said covers it more eloquently.
Edit: I don't remember if it was with Lightfall or Witch Queen but they managed to make Gambit worse. Gambit was already neglected and damn near unplayable. They made it worse.
I quit playing when they started sunsetting planets,
I vowed never to spend another dime on Bungie products until they give me back the $60 campaign I paid for.
I don’t know how this game is still going after they consistently make unpopular decisions that turn people away. Maybe being dumbstruck by that is why Sony bought them.
Edit: Like I straight-up paid them full game price only to be treated like an F2P player because they’re apparently incapable of doing what 343 did with all of their older games in the MCC and allowing players to install specific parts of content. I’m still annoyed that I’m being punished for their incompetence.
Same here, I literally paid for Red War. That was a full campaign, and I want to be able to play it along with every location that was included. DCV was a big fat giant middle finger stuck right in my face, and I don’t care how cheap future expansions or season passes get. I want everything I paid money for back, in addition to access to all the new shit.
Until they do that, not another cent. I won’t even play the game until that stuff is back, even if new content is free.
I believe it was a desperate attempt to get a new source of revenue. His upcoming Sokoban game is taking forever to make, so it’s not going to bring them any new revenue anytime soon. In large part because he made the arcane decision to create a new programming language for it (as a replacement for C++), because apparently Sokoban is the type of game where you really need that high performance.
Yes, but read that again, he’s making a new language, not a new engine… To put it in terms of food, using things like Unity is equivalent to eating industrialized food, you have absolutely no control and you get what you get; Using other engines like Unreal or Godot that have open source is like cooking at home, some work but you can get it just the way you like; Building an engine yourself is like having a little farm in your backyard and doing everything from start to finish, it’s slow, you’ll face problems that have nothing to do with cooking that were handled by the farmers before and at the end you’ll get something only slightly better than what you could using store bought products; Building a language from scratch is the personification of the saying “to make an apple pie from scratch first you have to invent the universe”.
And you know the worst part? It won’t be any faster or better in any mensurable way, large groups of developers spend decades to develop the languages we have today.
I think his use case is that the new language allows for more rapid iteration in development. Years ago now, I saw his demo of the language, and it compiled so quickly that it may as well have been done by the time he pressed Enter. For all the gains he got from that, it still hasn’t helped him release a game by now, but I do see the problem he’s trying to solve, and I do think it’s worth solving.
Faster compilation is probably nice, but making a new language with all its tooling from scratch is a huge endeavor. Props to him for actually doing it.
The problem is that all this work takes away time from the actual game development. I’m not sure about the scope of his next game, but from what I’ve seen I don’t really understand why his Sokoban adventure game can’t be made in Unity. I don’t think he’s pushing any hardware limits with it.
Unity also got hot reloading nowadays, which is about as fast iteration you can get.
I’m just armchair guessing, but I believe he would’ve been done with his game by now if he just used Unity.
Hollow Knight: Silksong is a Unity game, last I checked, and it’s not getting done any faster. As per The Witness, it’s probably far more about how he’s retooling puzzles rather than his language, if I had to guess. Plus, it’s not just iterating within the editor; this thing exported a build in well under a second. I worked on a Unity game a few years ago, and it definitely took me far longer than that. It even had a bug for a bit there where we couldn’t see the game when run via the editor on Linux, so the only way we could test it was by exporting a build until we got an update to Unity.
A pretty terrible one. Remasters are for games that are high on replay value and deeply nostalgic. Braid was cool and innovative and I enjoyed it when I played through it the first (and only) time, but I have no desire to play it again.
I swore off early access after Phoenix Point. It sucks to already be bored with a game before it has the major kinks worked out.
Dead Cells is kind of a counterpoint, though. I’m not sure if I got it as “early access” per se, but since I bought it, they made some major balance changes that completely changed the meta, and those changes got me playing way more enthusiastically than I was before.
I think part of the problem is down to how a lot of games come out as “Early Access” which implies it’s more bare bones and will get fleshed out over time.
If a game releases as EA then the expectation is you will get more content until release, if a game just comes out without EA then it’s assumed it has all content and anything new is dlc/mtx/expansions.
I’m not gonna bother addressing Live Service games, wish they would go in the bin with most other MTX.
Absolutely. I will never buy another Early Access game - it’s buying something that is clearly unfinished, and you the player never get a second chance at the first impression. There’s too many other games to expect us to come back and try it again once there’s more content and the bugs are ironed out.
I’m not against early access as a whole, if devs want to get player feedback earlier on in the life cycle and players are happy to be pseudo testers then it’s fine.
I get some people would rather wait and buy when it’s finished, and some studiosd/devs would rather bypass EA and just release the game outright, but I feel both paradigms can exist as long as both parties (devs/consumers) continue to benefit.
Early access definitely has its place. I’ve bought several EA games I really enjoy, and it’s kind of rewarding seeing something go from basic and threadbare to a more complete picture, and knowing I was a part of that is satisfying. I’ve also been burned by EA too, so it’s a double sided coin.
Rogue Legacy 2 was a standout example for me. I was happy to support the developer while they worked on the game, and all progress carried over to the finished product. Granted, roguelikes in particular are really well suited for EA because they’re meant to be played over and over with no real end.
Ground Branch for me. Love the old Rainbow Six games, and I find that newer tactical shooters in general just don’t hit the mark for me. GB still has a long way to go but actually has some original R6 devs at the helm and has an excellent core experience so far, and it’s only getting better.
I think when they fixed all the obvious jank, went all in on the world building and strong storytelling, and timed it with the incredibly excellent Cyberpunk Edge runners series… Everything turned around.
The game is still pretty crappy as a open-world, loot still feels halfbaked and honestly combat is so dumb that I have to gimp myself and refuse to pick certain skills just to have some challenge.
But I ignore it because when the story pulls you in, you’re hooked!
That’s funny, I feel kinda the opposite lol. The story just feels ok to me (I thought the story of PL was a lot more interesting though) but I just love the setting and just blasting through enemies
I loved the world, enjoyed its story but didn’t like the combat as it felt a bit messy and I felt overpowered as a hacker.
After two playthroughs, I’ll probably do the expansion at one point but I don’t know if I should play it from one of my playthrough or from a new save.
Given how modern AAA games are and Bethesda's recent track history, it's not negative to be skeptical, it's smart.
Especially since despite Microsoft watching over them and helping them to have the most "bug free launch in history" it's still probably going to be a hot mess for weeks to a month after launch. I want to be pleasantly surprised, but I'm not getting my hopes up.
Plus, the recent release of Baldur's Gate 3 with no microtransactions or season passes, etc. has gotten peoples' standards up, and given that Microsoft paid a lot of money to buy Bethesda, we're aware that they're going to have to make that money back somehow, and will probably give into the temptation to do some really player unfriendly things to do it.
Bethesda's been going all in on surprisingly expensive microtransactions for really tiny amounts of content, like in Fallout 4 and 76, and it wouldn't be shocking for them to continue in that direction. People aren't being mindlessly negative, they're looking at current and past trends and making an educated guess about the future.
Bethesda’s been going all in on surprisingly expensive microtransactions for really tiny amounts of content, like in Fallout 4 and 76, and it wouldn’t be shocking for them to continue in that direction.
This isn’t even new. Bethesda literally set the standard for overpriced MTX with the god damn horse armor in Oblivion for $7.50. That was the first time in history the microtransaction was used and it garnered much the same response as they do now.
Then you should know the content quality of their games have gone steadily down since Morrowind, as they have prioritized trend-chasing over, pretty much, everything else.
It culminated in 76’s concept and I highly doubt they are done with it.
Their games have gotten wide as the ocean and shallow as a puddle. The mechanics and quest design are so simplified and shallow. Skyrim and Fallout 4 are more like action games with some light RPG elements. As noted by the comment below, they’re chasing trends. Newer games can’t compare to options you have in New Vegas or even Morrowind.
The studio has changed. Just because Fallout 4 wasn't a "true RPG" doesn't mean I didn't have nigh on 400 hours of novel joy with it, maybe even because it wasn't just another core Bethesda RPG but because it was something new, a new kind of looting and crafting experience in that same large, dynamic open world that Bethesda could bring through. Morrowind was over 20 years ago. Bethesda isn't the one making those kinds of games anymore.
Have the games gotten shallower as RPGs? Sure. Fucking pac man is shallow at this point, does that mean everyone should hate on it en masse? If you don't like the direction Bethesda is going that's completely understandable, but it just seems absurd that people come out of the woodwork in these threads to just poop on a game that isn't even out yet. Save that for when it releases and it does or doesn't meet your expectations, as of now it just sounds like everybody is trying to get as entrenched as possible in their prejudice.
Bethesda games are buggy, what an old meme. It's more of a meme than a true criticism now because most games have bugs, especially ones as large as Bethesda games, and even on launch I've played other Bethesda games and enjoyed myself just fine. It's good to be cautiously skeptical and not pre order, you should be skeptical, but swinging all the way past that to being hard-line negative is not the right answer either.
And I know you personally are not reflecting all of these views, your comment just comes off as supportive of both genuine and over the top memetic criticisms due to replying in a seemingly justifying manner to someone confused about the buggy game comments. When it comes to those sorts of comments I'm talking generally about what I've seen from people on this platform.
I'm not saying Starfield will be an old Bethesda return to form or bug free on release, I'm just saying be cautious, not completely pedal to the metal negative, and accept that Bethesda as it was is dead.
At the risk of sounding like a cynical bastard, I’m gonna address some of your points.
Just let me start off with: If you enjoy the games, great. More power to you.
The lack of depth isn’t just reserved to the RPG mechanics. The story, the dialog, the characters… everything is lacking in depth. All the “Environmental Story Telling” in the world can’t make up for the neglected writing.
And everything that has been added isn’t new by any stretch of the imagination. It’s all borrowed from other current franchises, then half-assed and shoveled in by Bethesda. The loot system being one of the few things that actually works as intended.
Pac-Man is old as balls and I haven’t seen anyone trying to pass it off as something new. Hell, even The Legend of Zelda series still follow the exact same premise of the very first game on the NES. The sequels get bigger, smoother and more beautiful. But it’s still the same game at it’s core, because it actually works.
Next point: All games launch buggy. Yep, and it has become a bit of a meme with Bethesda for a reason. Their newest games still have the same game-breaking bugs in them as Morrowind did. Some have even gotten worse. The modding community are literally fixing the same stuff, every title. Which is amazing, as Beth keeps updating their crappy Engine, but at no point in 21 years did they take the time to iron this shit out.
I do agree that we shouldn’t be shitting on a game before it comes out. But it’s not like people have zero idea what they are in for. From what has been shown, Starfield just looks like Fallout 4 with a fresh coat of paint. And there is a bit of a track-record to back most of the assumptions up.
As i said: If you like the road they have been taking with their games and you enjoy them. Keep enjoying them.
I think there’s just a general sense of disappointment from a lot of old players. And it builds up fast in the echo-chambers of the internet and can come off as aggressive even when it wasn’t the intention. And it works both ways. Dear lord, have I met some angry people defending games, simply because they can’t fathom the idea that they might just like playing a ‘bad game.’
I understand your position as well, I think we just need to have more moderate discussions and less going to extremes.
I didn't address the writing and dialogue of the games because those are absolutely getting the short end of the stick in terms of what Bethesda is spending their resources on, but I found the systems that they put work into in Fallout 4 worthy enough of that time spent instead, and I think that says more about my preferences of what I like in a game than it really does about if Bethesda games are "better" or not this way.
I tend to prefer moment to moment gameplay and I found Fallout 4's complex interlocking loop of wanting to build a settlement and modify my equipment, leading to tracking down certain materials and identifying where they may be logically found, to going there on foot, to looting the place systematically and engaging the enemies with the weapons and armor I modified and have personal attachment to, to managing my inventory with an investment and thought that never mattered as much in previous Bethesda titles, etc.
That whole loop and set of mechanics that play into each other added an incredible wealth of what I consider more moment to moment gameplay depth than just enjoying the wider possibilities of dialogue options in past Bethesda titles.
Even at its best good old days Bethesda writing doesn't really compare to other games much more focused on writing (not going to mention New Vegas here because Obsidian is one of those devs better at writing than Bethesda). Bethesda games are always more than the sum of their parts.
My point about Pac Man is more that you don't dislike the game's lack of depth in certain areas just for its own sake, but because you're comparing it to the studio's past. When Pac Man Championship Edition and DX released, those
had favorable receptions because they took the arcadey roots of the franchise to their logical conclusion instead of swapping to more accessible gameplay trends as Bethesda did.
Not an invalid criticism, but not the only thing people should be mentioning in some of these comments as if that's what makes the game "bad".
And if you really think Starfield is going to be Fallout 4 with just a new coat of paint... That's just disingenuous. There's already more than enough changes in new mechanics and systems that didn't exist in FO4 aside from the entire new universe and premise that's more than simply a coat of paint.
I do hear what you're saying though and I appreciate acknowledging some of the parts people skip over thinking about just to hit the low hanging fruit that have been brought up in every thread about a Bethesda game since time immemorial, adding nothing new to the discussion.
In my personal opinion, I think what irks me the most is that all of Bethesdas missteps are fairly easily fixable. They just seem to refuse to do so for some reason.
A bit more focus on the overall writing would go a long way and wouldn’t have to interfere with the gameplay in the least for people who don’t care. It’s an intricate part of world-building for those that do enjoy it and serves to drive the player forward. Also helps the ‘suspension of disbelief’ and all that.
They don’t need to reach the heights of the old CRPG makers of the 90’s. Just make sure your “Antagonist” has a proper response when you put in an option to ask him Why he’s doing what he’s doing, you know? Stuff like that. As well as maybe not retconning the timeline of the universe just to fit an inconsequential quest-line and then recon it again in the next game… Stick to the established lore.
Secondly: Better implementation of a few new/borrowed features, like base building, that might fit the game. Instead of haphazardly throwing everything currently trending at the wall in the hope that some of it sticks. Take one thing and do it proper, otherwise just don’t do it at all.
Then there’s the Radiant-Quests in F4. This is just a poor excuse so as to not bother with making actual side-quests. There is a limit to how far they can execute their motto of “Keep it simple, stupid.” This is one of those limits.
There’s probably a couple of other things I’m forgetting. But I feel these little changes would help elevate Beth’ just a bit out of the meme-pit they’re currently in.
I agree with everything you said. Though that's certainly not everything, that's a lot of the major issues that hold Bethesda games back from their potential.
I am actually glad that with Starfield radiant quests have been expanded to dynamically place quests in different locations. I think that, if it's taken advantage of, will go a long way towards the potential criticism of "1,000 planets and nothing to do on most of them" that I see as a possible issue with their scope.
Bethesda continually evolves and changes their radiant system with each release, but from Skyrim to Fallout 4 we saw the felt effects of that system stagnate and become padding instead of adding dynamic experiences as its original intent.
And since I didn't specifically mention the bugs in my other comments, Ive played plenty of non-bethesda open world games with plenty of bugs long after release, I feel they're a part of the whole deal and I excuse most of them unless they truly cant be worked around (things like losing your companions or getting stuck on geometry if you're a console player). I cease to excuse those bugs as soon as the gameplay requires things of you that the bugs prevent, such as the game being too janky to support the strict save system of vanilla FO4's survival mode, which is inexcusable.
I also worry, though, about mods. Because of how many players use mods extensively in Bethesda games it becomes tricky to know which bugs are inherent, which are from poorly made mods, and which are from conflicting mods. It muddies the waters of really pinning down what's going on. Just something that contributes to the bugginess of those games in a way that isn't very calculable, unless you're unmodded on console.
But if anything remotely as problematic as the survival mode stability is a factor in Starfield, I'd be much much less willing to forgive some bugs here and there. We'll just have to see.
Bethesda makes well liked games, yes. But they have a track record of their games coming out as complete buggy messes that need 6-12 months to be in a decent state.
Could be in this case that Microsoft has realized how important this game is to their console efforts and the delays have been an effort to avoid a repeat of Bethesda’s typical. I wouldn’t be too surprised. I’d recommend being wary until the game is out. Waiting won’t hurt anyone.
Because - and this is the only real answer you'll get - Starfield is "cool" and "normies" are looking forward to it. Therefore, the "real gamers" must hate it, ESPECIALLY before actually playing it.
Same shit you see in any niche community. Buncha nerds hating on anything too big or popular.
No, you can measure it in things like sales and review scores. Sure, they also put out games like Fallout 76 and Wolfenstein: Young Blood, but two decades is enough to capture Skyrim and Fallout 3.
I really didn’t like Skyrim, Fallout 3, Oblivion, Fallout 4, or 76. Still playing Morrowind and New Vegas though. I could go on about why for a looooooooong time but really don’t care to. Suffice to say there are plenty of people (obviously) that are not happy with those games. I bought them all too so that would show up in sales data. Shame on me, I guess. I’ve been burned enough times that I’m not even going to bother being excited about this one.
But there are also tons of people who've been plenty pleased with those games, as you can see on the long tails of their sales and how many concurrent players they retain to this day. You're the odd one out on those heavy hitters. Not so much on 76, and to a lesser extent, 4.
The context of this discussion is that the top post claimed that people only are shitting on starfield because “normies” like it so none of that is relevant. All I’m saying is that there are legitimate reasons to have low expectations. The people who like those games aren’t the same people complaining about Bethesda/Starfield, they are people like me who have been disillusioned with bethesda for years after a long series of disappointing releases. It is especially frustrating because we KNOW they can do better, because they have in the past. They just don’t. The amount of people who will end up loving Starfield has no bearing on my ability to enjoy the game.
With that said, I’d be plenty happy for this to end up being another Morrowind or New Vegas. Now I feel I’ve proved my point so I’m gonna go play some Morrowind. 😜
I just think you would have made your point better if you had said maybe one decade, because two decades catches some certified bangers in the public consciousness.
two decades is enough to capture Skyrim and Fallout 3.
So a decent but by no means amazing game and a complete turd? Not really helping your case here very much, IMO. The last truly great game Bethesda made was Morrowind, and I will die on this hill.
Successful and good are completely different and unrelated metrics. Fifty Shades of Grey was extremely successful, but no one in their right mind would ever call it good. Psychonauts was met with universal acclaim, and is widely considered to be one of the best games of all time, and yet it was a complete flop and needed more than a decade to get a sequel.
Bethesda games are extremely successful. They are not good games, and their success is not a good thing. Bethesda kicked off microtransactions in 2007 with Horse Armour. This decision completely fucked the wider industry. Not a fan.
So...that's your personal taste. Fifty Shades of Grey wouldn't have been successful if no one liked it, and we can quantify some form of quality via review scores. Some of Bethesda's games have reviewed phenomenally well, especially in as large of a bucket as the past 20 years of their history. If I was the sole dictator of what was good, no one would be playing the latest Assassin's Creed game or Hades, but plenty of people love those games; the majority would say they're great, and we can measure that to some degree.
I’m sure that drives a good chunk of it, but it’s more likely that there are a lot of people that have had their fill of Bethesda games that all basically play the same, just in different settings, and those people tend to be in nerdier spots like this. Feels a little dorky to just blame it all on fun-hating nerds haha, what a coincidence that all the people that disagree with you are just mad losers!
Edit: Going back to this comment after Starfield came out and yeah, it’s about what I expected. Skyrim in space lol. Can totally understand why people are underwhelmed or annoyed.
Honestly mate? Not at all. I’m concerned about Starfield because of Bethesda’s track record since Fallout 4, and in particular, their constant attempts to introduce paid ‘mods’ to their games through the creation club (which are always overpriced for tiny amounts of content) as well as how broken their games have been at launch since Morrowind. When my PC, which can run Baldur’s Gate 3 on max settings, can’t run Oblivion without mods without regular crashes, then there’s a big problem.
I want Starfield to be good. But Bethesda do not make good games. They make broad games, but there’s no depth, and what is there is fairly consistently buggy. They have the Pokemon problem though, where people are willing to give them a pass because of the big name. I guarantee you, if a smaller developer released games in the state that Bethesda does, their games would be (rightfully) panned.
So how does that lead to so then there’s only negative things to say? It is, once again, not out yet. I’m starting to dislike being in any community around games, because everyone appears to just hate games. It’s exhausting.
I own every game they’ve ever released, but the expectation they’ve built over the last 20 years is that their games spend a year being trash, at least
In addition to what others have said I also suspect that being a console exclusive has made some people be very critical of it. I’m not a big bethesda fan but what I have seen so far looks great and I’m looking forward to play it.
I liked BZ, but I LOVED the original. The original is an 8/10 for me, and BZ is a 6/10 (not in shitty game reviewer numbers, for me a 5/10 is a game I thought was fun to play. And 8/10 is insanely good and almost no games get a 10.)
Don’t get too excited. The studio was been acquired by the publisher of PUBG, and their stated plans are to release subnautica 2 as a live service game with possible coop. I don’t think subnautica 2 is going to be anything like what you’re expecting. They’ve CLAIMED there will be no subscriptions or anything similar, but they’ve been conspicuously silent on microtransactions.
Unknown Worlds Entertainment is currently making another Subnautica game. They are publicly referring to it as “Subnautica 2.” So apparently they consider Below Zero to be a standalone expansion to Subnautica a bit like Half-Life: Opposing Force rather than a full sequel.
A few things that I have heard the developers confirm about this new game:
It will take place in the same universe as the first two games.
It will not take place on planet 4546B
There will be swimming in it
There will be submarines in it. Plural.
It will be co-op capable. If I understand what they’ve communicated right, it is going to be a single-player game that will have a “join game” button so you can invite a small number of buddies to join you.
From the screenshots they’ve shown, there’s going to be colorful ocean wildlife in it.
According to the Wiki, one of the original concept artists and the composer for Below Zero’s soundtrack are working on it.
They’re playing a lot of details close to the chest for now, very few gameplay or story concepts have been discussed. It is very likely going to be an ocean survival game with a nonzero chance of having your submarine bitten off by a 300 foot scream eel.
BZ was never Subnautica 2. It was a spinoff produced by a different team. It was originally supposed to be an expansion for the first game, but it got big enough they decided to release it standalone.
That’s why the top management should never be listened to. The CFO saying that means literally nothing because they will turn around and put MTX in single player games if they feel like they can get away with it. Their word is worthless because their goal is money.
The story’s been basically the same since the first game anyway: Gannon bad. Zelda missing. Kill Gannon; rescue Zelda. Oh and there’s maybe a triangle to find depending on the game.
Definitely true. But I liked the renditions from the last two 3d games before BOTW. It’s just the gameplay that was rough in those. The next round needs to put the two together.
You haven’t had to rescue Zelda much in the past 25 years.
In Ocarina of Time, Zelda was a badass ninja warrior that was constantly helping you.
In Majora’s Mask, Zelda didn’t appear.
In Wind Waker, Zelda was the leader of a gang of pirates. She had their respect and undying loyalty despite all being twice her size, because of her toughness and bravery. IIRC she actually kills Gannon in this one by bouncing an arrow off Link’s shield.
I don’t remember Twilight Princess enough to speak on that one, tbh.
In Skyward Sword, you think you’re saving Zelda, but she’s actually totally fine the whole time. She’s working with a Sheikah to restore seals to prevent Demise from returning.
In BotW, Zelda is fighting Gannon for 100 years (!!!) to buy time while Link sleeps and then later cooks food in his underwear.
In TotK, Zelda makes the ultimate sacrifice, trading her humanity to give Link a chance to beat Ganondorf. She makes herself immortal, but trades away her individuality and ability to think. She spends eternity crying because of what she lost to give Hyrule hope. I think she’s particularly brave in this one.
Zelda has not been a damsel in distress for a very, very long time. Both Zelda and Link play critical roles in saving Hyrule. Their roles are just different. Link saves Hyrule with a sword. Zelda saves Hyrule in other ways. Their roles are different but equally necessary.
Ocarina of Time, Zelda was a badass ninja warrior that was constantly helping you.
And is then captured by gannon toward the end of the game and you must rescue her.
Doesn’t appear in Majora’s Mask
I am not even counting the games she doesn’t appear in at all. Link’s Awakening and pretty much all the GBA games are like that. But they aren’t the main series, either.
In Wind Waker, Zelda was the leader of a gang of pirates. She had their respect and undying loyalty despite all being twice her size, because of her toughness and bravery.
And she is kidnapped at some point in the game, and you must rescue her.
Don’t remember Twilight Princess
Like Link to the Past, OOT and WW: Shes kidnapped toward the end by Ganon, and you must rescue her.
Skyward Sword
Zelda is literally trapped in a crystal and must be rescued by killing Demise. Sure, she put herself in that crystal, but you still save her from being imprisoned forever.
BOTW
Like Skyward Sword, Zelda is trapped as energy in a constant battle to keep Ganon at bay. Since she comes back in TOTK, you obviously rescued her.
TOTK
I haven’t beat the whole game yet, but either it’s the only main series one where you don’t rescue Zelda, or Link finds a way to turn her back to normal, which would be like rescuing her, much like Skyward Sword and BOTW. And please don’t spoil it for me; the big twist was already spoiled by all the memes and it’s impact when seeing it happen in the game wasn’t nearly as cool as it would have been otherwise.
As a lifelong Zelda fan, I’ve never cared much for the stories of Zelda games anyways. Like Mario games, they’re always incredibly simple placeholders that boil down to “princess gone, defeat evil that took her”. These games got their start when that was the only story that you could fit on the cartridge anyways, so I could see why Nintendo would want to keep that spirit alive.
Plus, in an open world game, is story really that important? I’d rather have the excellent gameplay of TOTK than something like Red Dead 2 which is a great story with excruciatingly boring gameplay.
I really enjoyed the writing of the side characters in the N64 games. Sure most only had two maybe three things to say outside a side quest but they all had a nugget of commentary on the human condition.
Personally I thought that N64 and the beginning of GC had the best cadence of Zelda games; a retelling of the main “legend” (evil ganon, triforce power corrupted, magical princess captured to use towards ultimate evil plan, hero appears, master sword, open path to ganon, defeat, time/space/existence saved) which was OOT, followed up by “here’s another adventure the hero went on that has almost nothing to don’t any of that, and it’s more character driven” which was Majoras Mask. It looked like we’d repeat that cycle with WindWaker (and to some extent I guess we did with Phantom Hourglass and Spirit Tracks) but then we got TP and nothing and SS and nothing and they got so bogged down into turning Zelda into a lore dump. Now we don’t even have dungeons and item anymore. Dungeons and items were the core gameplay! Imagine being able to hook shot around in BotW?
The sort of alternate universe I yearned for once upon a time was Zelda continuing to be about time gimmicks. OoT had two points in a timeline, MM had the groundhog’s labor day weekend, and there was oracle of ages/seasons by Capcom. I guess there’s only so many ways to spin it though.
The stories in most Nintendo games are weak and mostly pointless. I loved BOTW but strrrrrrrruggled to enjoy TOTK. It just felt too gimmicky. And I adore RDR2, story and gameplay.
Software updates can take quite a bit of bandwidth though. Call of Duty updates are significant events on the network, at the scale of streaming major sporting events.
Still not a big deal. Literally why CDNs and bitorrent tech exist. Ads, spam, and crawlers totally eclipse this traffic. This is just the ISPs posturing to raise rates.
Neither of these reduces the amount of bandwidth an end user requires to download a 120gb file. If anything torrenting makes it more problematic because the upload is spread amongst a dozen low density residential users rather than a single high throughput datacenter
This is just the ISPs posturing to raise rates.
Ya absolutely. Doesn’t change the fact that ‘gaming uses very little bandwidth’ is only considering the UDP packets sent during an online gaming session and ignoring all the other sources of usage.
I literally have 5-10gb of updates queued up the first time I open steam nowadays
That’s still not that much data. Advertisements and crawlers constantly use up far more bandwidth. Fight the real problems instead of blaming the users.
Gaming is 10-20% of the ISPs total network load, and the MW3 launch constituted like a 110% increase over base network load, so yes it’s a lot of data.
Advertisements and crawlers constantly use up far more bandwidth.
Crawlers rely on private connections between datacenters, very little of that traffic touches residential ISPs
Fight the real problems instead of blaming the users.
Literally no one is blaming users - There are plenty enough reasons to hate most ISPs, we don’t have to make up facts to find new ways to be mad.
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