As a person that worked at BioWare for 10 years. This is my theory. They just laid off 50 people src: theverge.com/…/bioware-layoffs-dragon-age-dreadwo… Based on my current knowledge, Dragon Age and Mass Effect are still on; however, kotor 3 was pretty early. Some people suggested the 50 people were from swtor, however, BioWare Austin was sold to another publisher Broadsword: …swtor.com/…/929816-an-update-on-the-development-…
When i was at EA, support orgs were moved to internal EA and only the game team was specic to the studio. 50 people does not equal support, 50 people is a new project.
I theorized they cancelled kotor 3 then laid off a bunch of people, then transferred a bunch of people to mass effect and dragon age. I’ve been through 2 layoffs with EA and this is exactly what they do. It’s a shame because it was a long held passion project for a lot of the devs.
It’s kind of a nebulous definition, but typically they’re games in which you have a variety of options and systems to complete objectives. So things like Deus Ex where you can stealth, fight or hack your way through the plot. Usually the games will have a robust amount of physics or interaction with various objects so there’s always a variety of things to do in a level.
Typically, the thing that sets ImmSims apart is that they have a number of interlocking systems that allow the player to solve objectives in different ways.
Stealth, Speech, and Shooting are the usual suspects, with hacking, gunplay and conversation trees well represented in the genre.
But generally, it’s a philosophy about designing for extreme player agency.
On one end you have something like, say, Tetris. As the player, you can direct blocks, but you can’t stop them from falling. The game gives the player little autonomy to direct. Blocks arrive and the player places them (or doesn’t) until the game ends.
On the other, you have something like Dishonored, where you can choose to kill everyone or no one. You can choose to accept and make use of the magical powers available to you - or reject them all and fight with only human strength and your own wits. The world itself then reacts to these choices and the flow of the game changes accordingly.
I think Larian’s Baldur’s Gate 3 can arguably be called an ImmSim thanks to its insane level of player reactivity.
Basically, if your choices as a player can actually alter the game world and your path through the story, thanks to the emergent interactions of interrelated systems… It’s probably an ImmSim.
The part that makes it confusing is that all of that also applies to a stiffer open-world western RPG like Fallout or Elder Scrolls. Nobody’s calling Skyrim (or more recently Starfield) an immersive sim. Half-Life often gets included and that game is completely linear and your three interaction choices for combat are “shoot with gun (including wacky woohoo gravity gun)”, “whack with crowbar”, or “sneak/run past”.
Is Elden Ring an immersive sim?
Honestly, the defining thing that modern “immersive sims” have that “rpg shooters” don’t is usually just “physics gun”. Gravity gun from HL, goo gun from prey, telekinesis in Dishonored. Sure it lets you “use the environment” instead of just shooting the zombie with a bullet, but you’re often just using the environment as a bullet.
We knew this was happening a long time ago though. This is probably just Sony making it “official” in an unofficial way. This project has been dead for ages since the dev team was pulled off it long ago.
It's not that long ago that I played both KOTOR games for the first time and I have to agree that the game might not be that intuitive by today standards. But now after a lot of people played BG3 it might be not that hard anymore to figure this game out.
As someone who loves RPGs and Star Wars, it took me about 10 attempts to actually get more than an hour into the game before turning it off. It’s just that dated. I did eventually power through the first few hours and then the non-aged moments (story and writing) became good enough for me to stick around. I can definitely see how most people wouldn’t want to play it for the first time at this point though.
I do. The originals were locked behind an anti-consumer EULA once Disney got ahold of them. Since I won’t agree to their EULA, I was holding out hope for the remake.
I’m not sure if id trust the remake to have a more reasonable EULA tbh, and frankly with the originals if you want to play and don’t like the EULA i’d say pirate it, KOTOR is 20 years old now at this point.
A damn shame. KOTOR 1 & 2 are still, IMHO, one of the greatest Star Wars stories/experiences. I’d really love for something to revisit the time period.
Not a shame, imo. Any remake would ruin it by changing things, I’m glad this has happened as you are right that the games are the best star wars stories. They’re also my favourite games in general, especially TSL.
No, I doubt it. Because they wouldn’t keep it true to the originals. They’d change the characters and the story and cut out sections and add in new things and replace the combat and make it fundamentally not the same game anymore. Especially when it’s not being made by the original makers.
Also, graphics aren’t a selling point for me in games.
Even if the remake was worse in every way, why would it matter when you can still buy and play the originals without any issue? The KOTOR games are some of my favorite video games so I can understand not liking a remaking that (hypothetically) changes some things, but I don’t know why it’d be a positive to not get a new version of it that might have gotten more people interested in the originals.
You can argue half life, but Deus Ex and Thief are the quintessential "immersive sim" forbearers (along with system shock 2). When they say sim, they mean the game reacts to play action in ways that aren't predetermined or scripted. The idea is they value player agency and their impact in the game world over pre-set events
It’s not a super descriptive term for sure, but I have no idea what it would be called otherwise. It’s similar to things like Metroidvanias or Soulslikes in that it’s a very specific niche without a clear delineation of what it is, but fans will know it when they see it
Sometimes I feel like I’m the only gamer that doesn’t give a fuck about review scores. I’d rather see for myself or hear about it from someone who I know has similar taste. Especially when it’s pretty common now for people to brigade those scores into oblivion or to massive new heights on a knee-jerk reaction to absolute fucking bullshit.
Definitely not the only one. But it’s not just games either, it’s cinematography too. Or even food, really. When you watch 500 movies a month, everything looks exactly the same. Not to mention that half of these critics companies are completely untrustworthy, and often post either uneducated reviews, or just plain garbage. Think of something like IGN’s Redfall video. The game is obviously horrible, but the person playing it didn’t know how to hold a controller. Or the one with Cuphead, where they failed the tutorial.
tldr: I only really trust opinions of my friends. These review sites have no value
The cuphead one was a self deprecating joke based on the fact that he wasn’t really used to that kind of game and wasn’t in the best conditions either to do that, bu he was the only one who could review that in that moment. It’s been years and you still bring that up…i can’t see why
Not only that, but the journalist extensively praised the game, too. Shawn touched a bit on the subject during his Cuphead video: Cuphead: The fake outrage.
The truth is, most gamers (and most people online, nowadays) parrot lies they hear on the internet without checking their source.
Interesting video, thanks! There’s so much to unpack, but i’ve had that feeling before, that those arguments are often built from scratch. As for many hard games recently published, they have indeed been appreciated at a critical level as well. As for me…I played hard games in the past. Everyone can do it, but we don’t always have the time. I appreciate difficulty in a game, but i can’t play these games at times…
User reviews tend to be far more reliable than professional critics. Critics have so much incentive to go against the orthodoxy, there’s no trust with them. The big review sites like IGN are meaningless to me. The numbers have also gotten inflated to the point of meaninglessness. Like I don’t think there are very many games I would describe as “10/10, perfect”, yet that is a common score from reviews sites for any new game.
Sometimes there will be specific critics whose reviews I trust, but almost always those come with a lot of examples of actual gameplay. Like, I used to really enjoy TotalBiscuit’s reviews (rip), but he always published his review as a video where you could see exactly how something looked when he talked about it. He wasn’t trying to tell you if a game was good or bad, he was simply telling you “what is it?” And “what do I like about it?” Then you could decide for yourself if you thought you would like it too.
Great article and it sums up my feelings pretty well. I’m incredibly grateful for the XAC. What it has allowed me to combine together to play games, it’s wonderful. But it’s been a bumpy, expensive road to get here. I bought it on launch and the accessories that Microsoft offered at the time of launch were laughable. I only bought a single $60 big red button for it. I get it and the button is so sensitive I think I could set it off by breathing on it. I needed to use it with my feet so that’s no good.
The whole thing sat for a good year or more collecting dust until I came across Logitechs adaptive gaming kit. A great selection of buttons and everything you need to mark and manage them. It’s $120 (ughhhh) and to get all the buttons I want for how I use it, I’ll need 3 of them. My whole setup for it is over $400, ridiculous. Thankfully I am able to work with my disability and can afford that, but back when I was on SSI, no way in hell. I guess it’s cheaper than all the controllers I have bought in the past trying to find one I really enjoy using.
Some general rambling, the Xbox Accessories app needs a major overhaul, it’s a mess. Last time I checked Microsoft’s support site for the XAC was a bunch of broken links. Also the XAC stopped working shortly after the warranty expired. It has an internal battery the failed. Opening it up and disconnecting/removing that battery got it going again. Couldn’t find the battery anywhere for purchase, so it only works hardwired now but that’s not really a problem.
I was incredibly sad to see that Sony decided to launch it’s own product instead of just allowing the XAC to work natively on their device. While I’m sure Sony’s will work for some people, I just don’t see how and I’m not interested in buying another device. I’ll just stick with PC. It’s also weird how Sony has yet to show anyone using it, disabled or not.
Hi Termus, I've worked in a non-profit that dealt with this kind of thing; half of our focus was on people with disabilities. What I like about the XAC is that it has a 3.5mm jack for every button that the XBox controller uses, and the advantage of that is that you can use ANY accessible input that is available under the sun. You didn't have to buy the MS or Logitech accessories for them. I'm wondering why you felt you had to do that?
I agree that Sony's effort is not as good. I feel like it was created for marketing and coolness first.
At the time of launch, Microsoft was the only vendor that had buttons in stock. All the accessibility sites that sold custom ones were sold out. I did buy a mix of loose arcade buttons with the idea to create my own. I gave up on that once I saw the Logitech kit. It’s built nicer than what I would have been able to build myself, with way less effort. I’ve bought one joystick off Etsy to use with my feet. It’s custom made with a 3d printed shell, it’s nice but it was also $45 for a single input. Ughhhh.
Ah, I see. I'm quite sure we're in different parts of the world and I guess my experience with parts availability was different. Here the problem is more of cost, as I'm sure your experience has shown, these do get expensive very quick, sadly.
I don’t think it has a place in a work of fiction like Cyberpunk 2077. Maybe a small reference somewhere. The Russian government is a bunch of cunts, but not every piece of media needs to reference that constantly. I could also imagine that it would be could annoying if you’re playing Cyberpunk to distract yourself from the war as an Ukrainian and then you’re still constantly reminded of it
It can make political points, but the war in Ukraine does not exist in that timeline. So it makes no sense to directly refer to it. And forcing it into only the Ukrainian translation without the developer being aware of it is just unprofessional.
Anything negative about the Russian government is probably accurate and deserved. Extending that to the Russian people is iffy at best.
And remember this game is rather explicitly fifty years in the future, so anything current will be as relevant as Vietnam references are today. Not even counting the alternate history and corporatocracy of the setting.
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