As soon as they said they were trying to copy the combat in the new God of War games, I just had the same sinking feeling I had when they announced one world in Andromeda would be bigger than all the zones in Inquisition.
BioWare long ago lost sight of who they are. Now they’re just chasing trends and doing it badly.
I’m willing to bet a cool $100 we’re getting a Bioware ME in the coming 5 years but I’ll concede it’s far more likely to be Andromeda “quality” than ME2.
If you argue BioWare is already dead after some big names leaving and thus doesn’t really exist anymore then sure. Like a Ship of Theseus line of thinking that too much has changed already. I could accept that.
But if you honestly think EA will kill the brand of in 5 years time I think you’re delusional. Sure they haven’t delivered in some time but their legacy still gets games both hyped and sold. ME Legendary edition sold very well and SWTOR has been very profitable as well.
Have you looked at the list of studios - big name ones, like Visceral - that EA has shut down in the past? EA absolutely will close BioWare down if they decide they aren’t profitable enough anymore. Look at how many of BioWare’s substudios they’ve already shut down (BioWare Montreal made the Citadel DLC. Then they made Anthem and POOF, now they’re gone), and all the layoffs they just announced at BioWare Austin and how they’re shifting SWTOR to a completely different, outside studio.
Visceral didn’t have even 10% of the name recognition BioWare has. As for the substudios that happens all the time when expansion plans fail due to poor releases, it’s extreme to think that spells the imminent death of BioWare. But sure, EA has that kind of track record. Westwood was a huge name way back when and they got killed. Though they didn’t manage like BioWare to get known for multiple things. They really only had Command & Conquer which still “lives on” in a Frankenstein’s Monster kind of sense.
It’s be so great if they all formed a new studio and just started a new franchise as the spiritual successor. After the disaster of Andromeda and the middle of the road game that inquisition was compared to its predecessors, I don’t have much hope about the fantastic writing of previous games coming back.
If true, I hope that they leave some of the goofy bugs and ai in the game. I think the weirdness of the interactions between NPCs is part of what made me love the game so much before.
O: “Heard any news from the other provinces?”
M: “Nothing I’d like to speak about.”
O: “Good day.”
M: “Go.”
O: " heLLO! "
M: “Hi.”
I also loved how the guards would try to attack through through space and time, with a lively “Beuaregeh!” as they hit absolutely nothing.
Other times, you’d see a guard kill someone, only for that same guard to go up to the body, gasp and shout “there’s been a murder!”.
Would be interesting to know what positions they’re firing.
I bet it’s yet again none of the project and management level staff. Since they’re talking about “saying goodbye to a number of incredibly talented and dedicated team members”, after they said “we made the difficult decision to restructure our studio to ensure our long-term sustainability”.
So you have to fire people, but you fire the “incredibly talented and dedicated” employees. All this tells me is that projects they’re working on aren’t going to improve, if they ever get wrapped up even.
It felt like most non-fromsoft clones in terms of the map, though. No one else manages the feel of opening up the map like they do. Elden Ring is much more focused on the open world, so it approaches the use of space differently, but the way you can look back over some areas and see what you just spent hours battling through gives a similar feel of intentionality to the map design.
Lords of the Fallen not giving that feel is part of why I didn’t spend as much time with it as the combat quality would imply.
Nobody should ever play the first Lords of the Fallen. Probably one of the worst non-indie Souls games (and I played Code Vein…) with mediocre world building and even worse boss fights. Iron Pineapple has a great video where he basically tears into it and points out why it is bad.
Ah, fair enough, suppose I could have checked that myself. For some reason I thought I remembered the old version being delisted and replaced. Suppose I’m just going crazy.
I played this when it came out because some people were hyping it up. It’s solid and a fun game, but I didn’t feel it brought anything whatsoever to the table that other shooters hadn’t brought 15 years ago. It isn’t even the first free game to provide a similar experience. Not surprised it isn’t a huge hit.
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