I’d say peak Bethesda publishing was with the Wolfenstein The New Order (2014) by Machine Games, Doom (2016) by id Software, and Prey (2017) by Arkane Austin. Bethesda managed to put in one mediocre -in comparison- game in 2015, Fallout 4.
Wolfenstein The New Order was coupled with a short but rather good prequel The Old Blood, and The New Order managed to pull in quite good semi-linear progression mechanic with weapon upgrading interjected to make a good game. Latter games marketed with “Lets blast some Nazis, HELL.YEAH BROTHER” kinda zealous and soulles propaganda machines rather than being games, imo.
Bethesda squandered the critical acclaim of Doom 2016 with rgb sales of Doom Eternal imo. 2016 was a pretty novel entry in Doom series, and they went with all the controversy of soundtrack composing, stat-based difficulty, all-color ui shit that distracts from gameplay, pretty unconnected region/planet jumping, cheesy orbital station upgrading/unlocking, etc.
Even though I had not played the first Prey game, I’d still say the most and only bad thing about the Prey 2017 is its name. The name is forcibly put into the game in one memo and isn’t mentioned anywhere else, as if the hardest part of making that game was coming up with a new name and they just gave up, using an old IP. The game was so good tho, that it really could rival Half-Life if it had a couple more intriguing elements. Other than that, the gameplay area, enemy, weapons and utilities designs are spot on. Interconnectivity and reuse of old maps with new designs were excellent. The different mechanic of zero gravity environments really shone with the outside of the Talos I, with how good they implemented the feeling of going into empty space, skirting the station, etc. There wasn’t much to do outside, but the empty scenery was breathtaking anyway. The contrast of the opening of the game and its slow connection to the rest of the game, environment design with every bit of elements fitting the current space station environments, while adding the old Soviet style that the station was taken from, the weapon and ability progress that matches the same good mechanics from Wolfenstein and Doom, how the story is well written and flows very nicely even though the game is actually open world, which in turn changes a lot with respect to the story, etc.
Even tho the game doesn’t need a sequel I want one so bad. That space station was amazing. I guess we wont be getting one, at least not from og devs. I still need to play that roguelike dlc for the game, I heard it’s very good too.
Frankly given what they’ve promised and what’s already in there it could easily go to 3x. It’s fucking bananas. I was 30 runs in, and still finding new NPCs and events.
Supergiant Games is probably my favorite studio out there but I just can’t do early access anymore. If I play it now, I know I won’t go back when it’s released to see the stuff that changed…
Feel free, I think it’ll be a great game when you check back in.
I’m a big Hades 1 fan, and played that game in it’s early state as well. Hades 2’s early access feels roughly 90% or more complete, it’s missing pictures for some items (placeholders for now), some character portraits of some of the lesser-interacted-with NPCs. I think there will be another weapon because there’s a slot for it, and there’s seemingly some more boss content. Gameplay, basically at 100%
So if you’re likely to finish and not check back in, definitely wait because the game should be in pristine condition by then, with it being this polished already. Love this studio, love this game
I hear you, but I caved lol. You will NOT be disappointed. EA is such a weird choice for this one. It’s where I’d call it well past beta (a true beta, not the marketing betas that we usually see where there’s no time to fix anything). Like it truly is “early access” but we’re so used to that term meaning “somewhere in dev”.
If they’re targeting 2025 release this thing will be incredibly polished by then.
I know, I know. Supergiant can’t miss so I’m positive I would love it…it’s just that I don’t ever replay games like this and I’d rather wait a year for the polished version than get my fix now.
Is the story or voice acting done tho? It was my understanding with the first one that basically all the story and stuff came as hades completed early access. I feel like you can’t call it even 90% if the story isn’t there or its going to change or is incomplete. And what i loved most about the first one was the storytelling. I’m pretty sure thats why most ppl loved it.
I don’t know when the person above you played, but I didn’t notice any of that (got it last week, binged it, 35ish hours). I didn’t notice any missing graphics, and yes there are some spots where you can tell somethings coming, but it doesn’t feel janky, it feels exciting. With game loop being all about upgrades, you can tell there’s a few that aren’t available, but there’s so much meat their absence feels like part of the loop not part of the dev cycle.
The voice acting is all there, the mechanics are all there. I think I had like… One line of repeated dilouge? There’s a good breadth of characters and they’ve got that same slow, well thought out progression they did in Hades I. With only one exception that I can’t mention due to spoilers, you could tell me this a complete game with free DLC inbound.
Bug wise it’s almost entirely free. I had some crashes but I think that was due to a bad HDMI cable repeatedly becoming unstable, and making the game freak out as to what screen it should be on. I haven’t had an issue since I fixed the cable and it’s the only bug I encountered.
Several characters, all keepsakes, all fish except, I think, one, at least one background element…
The voice acting is all there
I’d be very surprised if the number of voiced characters isn’t significantly higher in the finished game. And, of course, we’re missing the top end of the relationship interactions with all characters, which will definitely be voice acted.
the mechanics are all there
I wouldn’t be surprised if we get some new mini games in certain parts of the map we can’t access yet.
Apart from these minor nitpickings, however, I completely agree (well, except that I haven’t had any crashes or significant bugs); I’m already enjoying the game as much as the first one, and I definitely feel I got my money’s worth, which is sadly quite unusual for too many supposedly complete games these days.
The only crash like I said was almost certainly due to a multi-monitor display and one monitor disconnecting and reconnecting. I didn’t even bother submitting a report.
And yeah there’s definitely going to be a few extras. Its wild, like I never play games at launch, specifically because they always ship broken, and here this thing is with the stones to call itself early access when it’s so polished narcissus would gaze at himself in if.
There are parts of the story and maps we simply can’t get to because they aren’t there yet (I imagine about 30 to 50%), and there’s a limit to how much we can improve our relationship with the various characters (which means that there’s probably a significant amount of voice acting we can’t hear yet), all of this clearly indicated as provisionally cut content (“you might be able to do this in the future”, “can’t go there yet”, “what happened after this is, for now, literally indescribable”, that kind of thing).
There’s also what’s clearly provisional concept art from time to time, and plenty of placeholder character models and art (plus keepsakes, and fish, the later even having generic descriptions), and there’s almost certainly missing gods and characters (though there’s no indication of which those might be and in which number).
So, yeah, it’s not complete, by a long shot.
That said, I’m fairly certain that there’s already as much content and story as in the complete first game, if not more, or at least it feels like it. And it’s just as fun.
Supergiant is probably the only studio I’d still buy an early access from, even day one. Even when I end up not liking it that much (like Pyre), it is interesting enough to be worth the asking price.
To this day, Hades is still my most played game on the Switch (I even managed to get a physical copy), and I will probably do the same with Hades II… Maybe on the Switch 2, who knows 😆.
I’m going to use this as an excuse to go back and play Hades 1. I bought and binged it when it first released EA, and never went back to play the released version.
Edit: it sounds like they are actually delaying to ensure a more polished release. Given the massive scope of the game, this seems totally reasonable. I wish Paradox would push deadlines more often honestly, given the sorry state of their most recent titles on release day (CS2 and Vic3 in particular) Though I am still disappointed we won’t get LBY sooner.
I can’t help but think of that scene in Grandma’s Boy where JP is working on his game and it just shows a 3D animated model doing a walking animation and literally falling apart like a crash test dummy while he whines “WHY ISN’T THIS WORKING?!”
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