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TommySoda, do gaming w Borderlands 3 community scores a big win for science: 'These players have helped trace the evolutionary relationships of more than a million different kinds of bacteria that live in the human gut'

As a person that didn’t really enjoy the borderlands games, I had no idea this was happening and this is easily the oddest thing if read all week. Before I read the article I was confused but interested. Now I’m informed, confused, and interested. But hey, I’m glad they were able to do this with a game. I’m an average science enjoyer so I’m always glad to see good news.

Postmortal_Pop,

As a bug fan of borderlands, I honestly wish they made a mobile spin off for the minigame that they’re using for this. I love playing the game they made for it, I love that it’s doing actual stuff, I just have a limited amount of time to sit down and play games at my pc and when I boot borderlands I wanna play borderlands.

crossmr, do games w Fans of Pokémon-inspired MMO Temtem are arguing with the developer about what MMO means after Crema CEO says it's 'not feasible' to keep adding content forever

Big surprise that Crema has stepped in it again. They've been pretty awful since this game started. I can still remember when they first rolled out the bans and insisted their would be no appeal because their ban process was never wrong. The CEO aggressively defended it, and it wasn't very long before community managers were walking that back admitting some people had to be unbanned.

Their discord was run by dictators as a meme that cropped up around a botched patch resulted in the mods going nuts and banning anyone who mentioned it, and the steam forums were the same. They had a gaggle of fanboys who'd attack anyone who said a bad word about the game, and if anyone talked back to them one of the developers would come along and ban them.

It was such a great idea ran by absolutely awful people.

KeenFlame, do games w 'There's almost nobody left': CEO of Baldur's Gate 3 dev Swen Vincke says the D&D team he initially worked with is gone, due to Hasbro layoffs

But what about the poor CEOs? Did they get their Christmas bonus? Think of the children!!

grayman,

Thank you! The CEOs’ children need Maseratis, boarding school, college, jet fuel to pedo islands, and so many other necessities! We can’t let them suffer!

Phegan, do games w 505 Games' parent company lays off 30% of its workforce, says gamers really only want sequels so that's what it's going to make

Game devs should unionize

scrubbles, do games w 505 Games' parent company lays off 30% of its workforce, says gamers really only want sequels so that's what it's going to make
!deleted6348 avatar

Everyone should start prepping for cheaper and crappier “AAA” titles moving forward.

deus,

cheaper

If only

Catpurple,

Cheaper development budgets, no room for QA, rushed out the door; still sold for 70 bucks.

slaacaa,

Did somebody say MW3?

PopShark,

Who needs QA when all the code and resources are just reused MW2

Wes_Dev,

I feel old. Remember when a brand new, highly anticipated, AAA game was like $40?

Not they are $70, plus $20-40 for preorder deluxe directors cut extra content bonus versions. Plus $10-30 for “season passes”. Plus online subscription services for the game itself, the online service the game runs on, or both. Oh, and don’t forget ad placement in the game. A giant billboard for house insurance in every cutscene. Drink your monster energy to refill your sprint meter…

That doesn’t include greedy mobile games that require vast amounts of money to remove artificial restriction, such as daily energy meters to act. Or cosmetic DLC that costs half the price of the game itself.

And don’t even get me start on the constant tracking, spying, or actual malware some publishers implement in their games.

mateomaui,

cheaper quality

dojan,
@dojan@lemmy.world avatar

Nah, I don’t want to pay less for AAA games. I don’t pay for them at all. They’re all mass-produced garbage.

Neato,
@Neato@kbin.social avatar

I don't recall the last AAA or major studio game I bought.

SatansMaggotyCumFart,

I can’t remember the last time I got drunk.

slaacaa,

Already there, though not with the cheap part

jmcs, do gaming w You can't launch Modern Warfare 3 without first launching Modern Warfare 2

I really don’t understand CoD fans.

vlad76, do games w 'This is only the beginning': Metal Gear Solid fans lose their minds as David Hayter returns to voice Solid Snake in a new teaser
@vlad76@lemmy.sdf.org avatar

I don’t think it will be the same without Kojima. Did everyone forget how Konami completely gave up on gaming a few years back?

stephfinitely,

100% agree we should not trust Konami. Especially with a sloppy ports we just got. That being said I think they are looking at capcom and how the company is making money off single player games and high quality ones at that and want to do the same. Will it work who knows.

DaCookeyMonsta,

No, the zero effort mgs pack on steam reminded me.

NuXCOM_90Percent, (edited )

Well, they never really did. They just more or less stopped making A-AAA games and got rid of Kojima. The Castlevania remasters and the pachinko shit continued. I want to say their football game also continued?

But… they are getting back into “gaming”. So even those who “remember” no longer have anything to complain about?

The other aspect is their nasty break-up with Kojima. Which was VERY much amplified because of how many game journos are massive Kojima fanboys and how the rest more or less said “Well, labor rights are good to care about”. Because, ignoring the Kojima love fest, Konami:

  1. Stopped funding someone who wasted massive amounts of money motion capping horses and making women strip down so he could motion cap them in the nude (yup)*
  2. Finally let said problematic asshole recast the fan favorite voice actor… but didn’t give him an unlimited budget so Jack Bauer only got paid for like six lines of dialogue (in fairness, the audiologs had a LOT more Kiefer).
  3. Fucked around with security and opsec to make it really hard for staff that would soon be laid off to find new jobs on the company dime. This is fucked but “only kind of fucked” by Japanese corporate standards.
  4. Released a game without the last mission. Because The Island of Eli or whatever the fuck has no indications of being this massive “half the game” that people claim and was likely going to be about 5-20 minutes of gameplay and cutscenes comparable to when mother base got zombied.

But also? People still get super excited for a quantic dreams, ubisoft, or blizzard game. So worker abuse and sexual abuse are not factors in terms of whether a publisher/dev is “good”.

So yeah. Getting the fan favorite back is going to go a long way. The MGS1-3 remasters are god awful (and somehow worse than the HD Collection a decade or so ago?) but considering the big complaint people have with MGS-Delta is “the color balance is not warm enough”, time will tell.

*: Seriously, I think the absolute best thing that ever happened to Kojima was that he was mostly “heads down” during the phase of the pandemic. Although, part of me REALLY wanted him to get a Silent Hill just because, of the ideas we know he had, it would lead to the greatest holy war of all time as the Silent Hill fans and the MGS Fans fight it out. And Bloober would still be too stupid to stay quiet and would catch all the strays.

Satelllliiiiiiiteeee, (edited )
@Satelllliiiiiiiteeee@kbin.social avatar

The MGS1-3 remasters are god awful (and somehow worse than the HD Collection a decade or so ago?)

Konami has been clear from the beginning that the Master Collection is mostly just the HD Collection but on modern systems. It was always referred to by them as a rerelease and not a remaster. I think the announcement of Metal Gear Delta: Snake Eater got people confused about the scope of the Master Collection.

Edit: From the initial press release when Konami announced the Master Collection: "The Metal Gear Solid: Master Collection allow fans to play the games as they were, as first released on the latest platforms."

vlad76,
@vlad76@lemmy.sdf.org avatar

I feel like a lot of these problems could be fixed with proper management. Just because Kohima creates interesting worlds in video games, doesn’t mean that you should let him do everything he wants. It seems like Konami themselves creates that environment. But also, maybe they are actually going to try hard to recapture what MGS meant for a lot of people. I personally like the mixture of very serious plot with completely insane elements, like zombies, vampires, ninjas, and a white haired black guy with a monkey addicted to coca cola that sells you guns.

t3rmit3, (edited ) do gaming w Every Bethesda RPG, ranked from worst to best

Haha, PCG really hates Starfield. Calling it worse than FO76 and ES:Arena? Lmao.

Before it released I remember their articles about how it wasn’t going to be as good as BG3, despite no one inviting that apples-to-oranges comparison but them themselves, and now they’re out to do their best to convince everyone they were right.

Personal note: in that last linked article, they compared BG3 vs SF to Disco Elysium vs Outer Worlds, and I think this is hilariously just showing how much this is about their predilection for narrative-core games.

  • I like Disco Elysium. I like BG3. They are much better narrative RPGs. I also feel absolutely no desire to go back and replay them.
  • I go back to Outer Worlds and Starfield. They are much better open world RPGs.

Like, chill PCG. It’s a good game, enjoyed by lots of people. If your staff is more into narrative-core RPGs with linear progression, that’s cool, but you don’t need to demonize Starfield to enjoy BG3. The worst Bethesda game? Worse than '76? Come on.

lemillionsocks,
@lemillionsocks@beehaw.org avatar

Lol yeah this is suffering from a lot of recency bias.

ampersandrew,
@ampersandrew@kbin.social avatar

despite no one inviting that apples-to-oranges comparison but them themselves

Eh, Larian invited it by counter-programming Starfield's release date with BG3 on PS5.

Vodulas,

FO76 had a rocky start for sure, but they have made a ton of updates. It is easily better then Starfield now. If you compared them release to release then FO76 would be worse, but I think they are comparing current state.

t3rmit3,

Personally, hard disagree. I don’t find FO76 fun at all. The world feels small, the characters are boring, and finding zany houses sprinkled around breaks any versimility of the world, which is the cornerstone of Bethesda’s games.

Vodulas,

I think the houses fit in the world, but the world is definitely small. I still enjoyed my time in it a lot more than my time in Starfield, which is mostly open fields with the occasional settlement/work site/lab dropped in. I don’t think Starfield is a bad game, just not an exciting one.

Renacles,

Fallout 76 is a lot better than what it was at launch but it’s still nowhere near close to Starfield. It’s a weird mesh of ideas that don’t really fit together but are still enjoyable separately.

Vodulas,

See that is how Starfield felt to me. Different strokes I suppose

Ashtear,

I like Disco Elysium. I like BG3. They are much better narrative RPGs. I also feel absolutely no desire to go back and replay them.

Really? This is crazy to me. I get Disco, but outside of intentionally regenerative games (such as roguelikes/lites), I don’t think I’ve had my hands on a more replayable game than BG3 in years. There’s so much you don’t see in a given playthrough.

t3rmit3,

I don’t doubt it has new events, new ways that things can pan out, etc… but it’s the same characters, the same goblin camp, etc.I am very big on exploration, and without a world large enough to find places I haven’t seen, or at least places that it’s been so long since I saw that I don’t remember it, I bounce off games very fast.

Ashtear,

Yes and no. My second play had countless new characters–three of them playable–several new zones, and a ton of new gameplay. I was constantly finding new places, new encounters, new conversations. I know there are still several zones I haven’t poked around in.

The main story beats don’t change much but there are still a lot of branching paths to get to them. Hell, you could even completely skip the goblin camp if you wanted.

Game studios just don’t do the kind of extra work to cover player choice like Larian did here. It’s why the game made waves in the industry. I’d say unless you really went over it with a fine comb the first time around (125 hours or more), it’s absolutely worth revisiting at some point.

Paranomaly, do games w Leaked email reveals Phil Spencer's damning verdict on AAA games: 'Most publishers are riding the success of franchises created 10+ years ago'
@Paranomaly@sh.itjust.works avatar

So make something new. Microsoft is in desperate need of defining series rather than Halo and Gears of War, both of which are the types of games he’s criticizing here.

arefx,

I like both, especially halo, it’s very nostalgic for me, but the excitement for new games in the series’ are gone and they need new exciting IPs

chiliedogg,

343 has also made some pretty terrible decisions with the franchise.

Paranomaly,
@Paranomaly@sh.itjust.works avatar

Both have places existing sure. There’s nothing wrong with old series existing, just that new ideas should be tested and used.

CluckN,

Why take risks when I can dig up an old IP and jingle it’s corpse around for a quick buck?

dual_sport_dork, do gaming w The Switch 2's super sluggish LCD screen is 10 times slower than a typical gaming monitor and 100 times slower than an OLED panel according to independent testing
@dual_sport_dork@lemmy.world avatar

They’ll release a “New!” version in a year with an improved screen as one of its bullet points, in a bid to get you to buy it again. And people will. See also:

  • The Gameboy Advance SP/New SP
  • The DS/DS Lite
  • 3DS/New 3DS
  • The Switch/Switch OLED
Gerudo,

Granted, all major gaming consoles do this now.

Tarquinn2049,

New 3DS was actually a pretty huge upgrade over the original. Despite the name, it was effectively the next generation of the console. Or at the very least a half-generation.

TachyonTele,

I agree. There's no reason this new console shouldn't have the oled screen by default. Other than planned obsoletion.

Bosht, do games w Nexus Mods' new owners promise they won't monetise the site to death as users panic at the whiff of venture capital

If there was one god damned example of any company saying this and sticking to it I might believe them. But I have yet to be proven wrong. Sucks too as they were my go to for mods.

atticus88th,

All the examples I could think of have been recent acquisitions… which means they just haven’t soured… yet. Sadly its inevitable.

Hadriscus, do games w Even Starfield's community patch modders are growing 'disenchanted' with the sci-fi RPG, as volunteers depart in droves: 'If nobody comes forward, we may have to retire the project'

I bought it on confidence when it released. That was the last time I ever did this. I played 25 very boring hours and uninstalled it. It’s very difficult to figure out how you can fail so spectacularly with such a budget, such a long development time, and such a carte blanche with making a new universe from scratch

finitebanjo,

They changed the recipe. Skyrim, Fallout 3 and 4, Oblivion, and Morrowind all had something in common: handcrafted environments densely packed with points of interest.

Starfield used procedurally generated content. It generates abandoned mines and outposts from a tileset and then drops you in the literal desert between them.

kalpol,

And still Star Flight did the same thing and was a all time great game, oh and it fit on two 360k floppies.

mnemonicmonkeys,

Which is just frustrating because there’s some real improvements in mays of their usual systems elsewhere in the game. The I think the persuasion mechanics are a real step up from previous games and I’m amazed the system hasn’t been ported into Skyrim. They got flight mechanics to actually work in the Creation engine. Zero-G and low gravity works great. Gunplay and combat is even more improved over Fallout 4 (though it’s an incremental improvement over the revolutionary leap made with Fallout 4).

Imo, Starfield is mainly lacking in only a few (though critical) things. They need more than 4 fleshed-out companions, and have them for different factions; there’s a couple of NPC’s that I expected to become companions. Since they insistend on having procedurally generated content, they needed to add way more pieces to their tilesets and, more importantly, have an algorithm to stitch things together and have some actual variety. As it is right now, you get the same exact facilities copy-pasted as whole spaces with no variation. And they needed to not force you into the main storyline, or at least pull a Fallout: New Vegas and have multiple paths through the main storyline.

There’s a lot of good bones to be had in Starfield, which just makes the cock-ups more disappointing since they’ll lead to those imprpvements being abandoned

finitebanjo,

IDK, I still think about how the dufuses added recoil to laser guns in FO4. And the fact that land mines and similar traps change every time a save is loaded is super dumb because it’s just like “OH DID WIDDLE BABY GET BLOWN DA FUQ UP? LET ME FIX IT FOR YOU (Removes the landmines)”.

I enjoyed the combat in FO3 more.

Tattorack,
@Tattorack@lemmy.world avatar

That’s not the only issue it has. They could’ve made procedural generation work, with having a combination of hand crafted and procedural environments. But it doesn’t seem like they have the skill to pull it off.

Issues this game has, and probably one of the major reasons why it’s so dead feeling, is how the world doesn’t react to you.

Tell me, what happens in Skyrim or Oblivion if you walk around town with your sword drawn?

What happens if you start randomly casting spells where the guards can see you?

What if you managed to get a certain artefact, wear a certain kind of armour, or work on upgrading a certain skill tree?

See what I mean? See what’s missing?

The dead, empty, open world tiles only compounds this. And how everything feels even more limiting because of how the game is strictly chopped up with loading screens.

ICastFist,
@ICastFist@programming.dev avatar

Very true. So long as your shots don’t hit anybody, or your powers affect anybody, you can show them off all the time on the big cities and nobody gives a fuck. Using the whirlwind Sprint shout on Skyrim makes everyone around comment and a guard desperately asking you to stop.

Hadriscus,

And some of them are duplicates ! I discovered THREE identical locations just roaming about ! the same dungeon layout ! but different loot. Can you believe that shit

iAmTheTot,

The thing for me is that it’s a game about a guild of explorers, and the game is all fast travel. The bits you do “explore” were soulless.

scrubbles,
!deleted6348 avatar

God how did they fuck that up? Who thought I’d want to fast travel there? Sure sometimes, but honestly I’d love it if it showed how many minutes to destination and then you started jumping.

You’re in the pilots chair, you see 10 minutes to the other side of the galaxy where your mission is. You hesitate because that’s far, but 2 minutes away is your home base anyway so might as well swing through and drop off some stuff, make sure the pumps and extractors are working. 6 minutes past that is that side quest you’ve been putting off, I guess we can do that too. You hit the jump button, stars whizz past. You go talk with your crew, get caught up on conversations. You jump back in the chair when the 20 second warning goes off. You jump out and arrive, but there is a weird signal on a nearby planet in this system…

Now THAT’s the game i wanted. Altering one mechanic right there completely changes the entire style of the game. I will forever be annoyed that everything in the game is instant fast travel. Sure have a button there to skip if people want to, but personally I prefer to lay back and fully immerse myself

trash,
@trash@lemm.ee avatar

It could have been so good and the game genuinely has some cool environments but for the most part there is just nothing to do. I’ve stumbled on some cool places like the Mantis hideout and stuff but the game is so repetitive and 98% of the planets are devoid of life.

scrubbles,
!deleted6348 avatar

And they wanted it that way. They were like well that’s what it’s really like! Which like yeah great, but that’s terribly boring for a game.

Another game like that was Mass Effect 1, where they had the undiscovered worlds, but even those were more entertaining. They gave you a mako, and each planet had at least one faction with at least some backstory to it so it wasn’t a complete waste. Starfield is like, nothing. I encounter the exact same building structure and camps multiple times on my single playthrough. Absolutely uninspired

trash,
@trash@lemm.ee avatar

Yep! When I saw that Todd said that I was kind of dumbfounded. I get that that’s how space is but like, that shits boring. They really could have had something special but they severely missed the mark.

Hadriscus,

Exactly. What made Morrowind’s sauce was discovering all these places on foot

ICastFist,
@ICastFist@programming.dev avatar

As other people have complained, it’s a space exploration game without the space nor the exploration

Dremor, do games w The Hundred Line: Last Defense Academy has 100 endings, and it's pushing the creators to the brink of bankruptcy | PC Gamer
@Dremor@lemmy.world avatar

Could you please reword the headline for it to be less clickbaity ? Thanks.

Fallstar,

Done

Dremor,
@Dremor@lemmy.world avatar

Looks good.

MyDarkestTimeline01, do games w Apex Legends writer gets laid off 24 hours after the character she wrote is revealed, because that's what the games industry in 2025 looks like

On the one hand it sucks that a writer lost their job. And it’ll never not suck. On the other hand I love when Apex Legends looks bad. I lost Titanfall 3 for that?

Baguette,

In a better universe apex and tf3 could have existed at the same time

Unfortunately we live in the universe where games as a live service is the only model that big companies run on, which means all resources must go to just that one game

ampersandrew, do games w Ubisoft patch Splinter Cell Blacklist after 12 years to add achievements
@ampersandrew@lemmy.world avatar

They ought to patch out the need for Ubisoft’s launcher. Same goes for EA’s back catalog, for that matter. At least EA’s newest releases don’t come with the launcher.

leave_it_blank,

Doesn’t EA still require the steam launcher?? I’m not up to date anymore. What kind of DRM do they use now?

ampersandrew,
@ampersandrew@lemmy.world avatar

Even when you buy their games on Steam, there’s an EA launcher there in addition to Steam. This is the case for It Takes Two, for instance, but not for Split Fiction. Split Fiction only uses Steam if you bought it on Steam.

any1th3r3,

You’re right, they do - this Steam DRM-free games list shows Jedi Fallen Order is the most recent DRM-free EA published game on Steam afaict.
Same goes for DRM-free games on the EA app.

ampersandrew,
@ampersandrew@lemmy.world avatar

Jedi Fallen Order says right on the Steam page that it incorporates EA DRM.

any1th3r3,

I can’t confirm for Steam, since I only have the game on EA app, but the game’s wiki page on PCGW shows the same DRM-free info (with correct launch steps).

ampersandrew,
@ampersandrew@lemmy.world avatar

I believe it was added after launch. I distinctly remember trying to play this game on the Steam Deck on a train with no internet, and the EA app complained about it and wouldn’t let me launch the game. It’s quite possible that this can be sidestepped by specifically putting the Steam Deck in offline mode, rather than just severing the internet connection, but I didn’t know to try that at the time, and it’s definitely DRM.

leave_it_blank,

So just that I understand this correctly: I need steam to buy it, but after that it launches without steam after I download the installer? Like on gog?

If yes, holy shit, I would have never expected this from EA!! Last time I checked this company was pure scum, but this is a surprisingly nice move!

any1th3r3,

Not exactly, you need Steam to install it, but then per PCGW’s wiki:

DRM-free when launched directly via <path-to-game>\SwGame\Binaries\Win64\SwGame-Win64-Shipping.exe while EA app is not installed.

leave_it_blank,

Bummer… Thank you, I was seriously considering buying it this evening, thanks for the heads-up!

Bezier,
@Bezier@suppo.fi avatar

Wait what, I can play EA games without their shitty launcher now?

ampersandrew,
@ampersandrew@lemmy.world avatar

Only the newest ones. They haven’t gone back to remove the requirement from their back catalog, but Dragon Age: The Veilguard and Split Fiction don’t require it now. Meanwhile, Madden 26 still requires it, so I guess it isn’t universal.

Bezier,
@Bezier@suppo.fi avatar

Oh, that sucks. I’m only interested in their back catalog.

NutinButNet,

I think that’s why they’re doing it only for the new ones lol. Nobody cares to play their new crap so nobody is noticing

ampersandrew,
@ampersandrew@lemmy.world avatar

Split Fiction is definitely a game people care about, and disappointing numbers for a Dragon Age title is still several million people.

pycorax,

EA’s games that released on Steam after Origin was a thing still launch a mini EA launcher when you press Play on Steam, much like how Ubisoft’s does on Steam. That’s at least how it seems the last time I tried it with Fallen Order.

ampersandrew,
@ampersandrew@lemmy.world avatar

Right, but that extra launcher causes problems, so I tend to avoid games that still have it. It’s why I still haven’t played A Way Out but played Split Fiction.

pycorax,

Yea I get that, just wanted to say that EA has the same issue too.

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