I think a big part of this sentiment has to do with Bungie burning a lot of bridges with their fan base in recent years. I'd played Destiny 2 for several years (from Shadowkeep through The Final Shape), and in that time Bungie had made a lot of very unpopular moves. From things like the "Destiny Content Vault" (where old content was removed from the game to make room for new content), expansions getting delayed by several months, massive studio layoffs, apparent mismanagement of an entire expansion (Lightfall), more studio layoffs... It's just really hard, as a player, to back a Bungie project right now. I no longer feel like their priorities line up with mine.
Meanwhile, I've also been a huge fan of Embark's previous game, The Finals. It's a totally different type of FPS compared to Destiny, yet they managed to capture my interest by doing correctly all the things Bungie did wrong. They nailed the monetization of the game and it doesn't feel predatory, they listen to their community, and they constantly show a commitment toward making The Finals into the best game it can be (and not necessarily the most profitable game it could be).
So while Marathon looks like it's got all the makings for an amazing game, I just don't feel like Bungie fans have enough faith left in Bungie anymore. For a lot of people, myself included, The Final Shape was the "end" of Destiny; not because Bungie stopped making it (they're still releasing content), but because we got the closure we wanted out of Destiny's story and we're just done with Bungie's antics.
That said, I just don't like extraction shooters. I played a bit of Arc Raiders to see how it is, and it's just not for me. Honestly, I hope both games do well, because it's clear that both studios put a lot of heart into these games and I'm interested in learning about both games' stories. But right now, Bungie has to overcome their reputation if they want Marathon to succeed.
This sounds similar to another game I’ve seen (never played) that you are trapped in a security closet and trying to assist another person in both freeing you and escaping the dungeon you both find yourselves in using the door locks and CCTV cameras and things of that nature that you have access to in your prison. I think it even came before Five Nights at Freddy’s, but I don’t remember the name of the game.
In a way, the game play ends up being like Lemmings or ICO, where you’re solving a puzzle indirectly for another character to get beyond.
Most recently it’s Clair Obscur Expedition 33. There’s an actual overworld map but you need to get your bearings in area maps and dungeons because there are none. You’ll have to use local landmarks to get around, find clues for hidden areas, and the direction you actually need to go. I’ve spent hours in single areas just getting lost admiring the design and artwork.
So far for me the game has done a great job of having recognizable landmarks at least. I might not always know where I am, but I’ll frequently come across something that orients me again.
I despise being lost in video games, but claire obscure has been fine because I never feel like I get lost for too long. Just long enough to appreciate the gorgeous and very weird world I’m in.
I still sometimes wish there was a map but it would probably be a net negative.
I haven’t played Marathon, but I did get into the ARC test. This will mostly be some ramblings…
I’m still waiting to play ARC with some friends. I only did some solo stuff.
I’m coming from this as a big Hunt Showdown player (1,200+ hours) and someone that’s played a bit of Forever Winter (~20). I still like Hunt better; I think it’s the only extraction shooter that didn’t take a ton of influence from Tarkov.
I wasn’t crazy about the marathon art style, but I’m not ready to pass judgement on it until I’ve been in the world.
ARC’s art style I found beautiful but also perhaps too sparse. There were so many wide open spaces … I just don’t see that being a good thing for an extraction shooter. The world felt vast and empty … I prefer Hunt’s more cluttered and dense design.
ARC does seem to have a lot of potential in like how it’s designed its AI, Hunt’s is very primitive in a lot of ways and kind of secondary. I think the AI is going to be a bigger deal in ARC.
Third person also feels worse to me than first person. I hope they add a first person mode to ARC, but I kind of doubt they will.
I definitely agree that ARC felt like it was being set up to tell a story and felt very cinematic at times.
The UI also felt like the best extraction shooter UI I’ve ever encountered.
I’m concerned about the long term health of ARC. The progression system seems like it will certainly lead to established players dominating newer players. The lack of a primary objective that’s shared by all the teams on the map … I’m not sure how I feel about that. On the one hand, it may lead to a more relaxed experience, on the other hand, it doesn’t curate players towards each other like Hunt does; it seems looting and crafting are the primary motivators instead.
The fights that I did get into, they lacked the complex environment and buildings in Hunt so I didn’t find them nearly as engaging, they were much more straight forward gunfights than leveraging the map to use it to my advantage. I think that aspect will ultimately hurt the game as it makes it feel like a bit of a generic shooter.
Overall ARC felt very middle of the road from what I’ve played of it so far. I had a similar feeling about The Finals. Embark seems like a talented studio and I wish them the best as they go up against Bungie and Crytek.
Yeah for me, it’s the variety of tales that you author. Every game feels a bit like a new adventure, after a while similar to ones you’ve been on before, but still new.
ARC has those elements, but something feels off so far for me…
Also typically the progression is in terms of variety (Roguelike) instead of straight power (Roguelite). That keeps things fair because even a new player, if they trade the aim, can pose a real threat to a seasoned player of similar FPS skill. ARC seems like it’s decided to go for a sort of Roguelite experience and that seems risky.
Abiotic Factor, survival in a facility like Half-Life with crafting, survival and exploration. Really great game and it’s pretty hard understanding where to go
This is an extremely specific situation in a game, but…
In World of Warcraft, back in the day, there was a dungeon in Outland, I believe it was Helfire Citadel. It wasn’t particularly hard, but if you died, you were screwed. The way dungeon deaths worked was your spirit would spawn in a graveyard out in the regular world, and you would have to run your spirit ass back to the dungeon entrance to respawn. But finding the entrance to Helfire Citadel was so difficult I told the group if they don’t rez me, they’d have to just kick me, because I’d never make it back in. It was awful.
Lots of the vanilla WoW instances was like that. Often the way to the entrance was populates by the same level elites as the dungeon so you had to run a gauntlet just to get in.
The Deadmines and Uldaman comes to mind. And since you spawned at the entrance you had to dodge and sneak past patrols avoided on the run. Gnomereagan and Maraudin and parts of Dire Maul was very maze like if my memory serves me right
Blackrock Depths was fucking big, too. Later on, with the LFG tool, it was separated into 2 or 3 parts, I think. I mean, running alone back in WotLK days, where you could easily kill everything side, would still take you 2 to 3 hours to fully clear the place
They’re both going to be dead in less than like 2 years because they are both PvEvP Extraction Looter Shooters. Combining the top 10 playercounts on Steam in this genre adds up to only like 10k more than the peak player count of Helldivers 2, which is a PvE Extraction Shooter. This genre of game, without a PvE only mode, is dead. Its only good for streamers and content creators, because it is fun to watch someone crash out after losing gear they grinded to get for 50+ hours, but the viewers don’t want to play the game because feeling that themselves is not fun.
This genre of games is basically a wet dream for toxic people. Because the PvP players know that the PvE players dont want to fight them, and take advantage of that to camp, grief, etc. What other genre of game rewards a player intentionally ruining someone else’s gaming experience?
I am grateful the toxic sponge exists so I dont have to deal with those players in other games, but these development studios keeps trying to make this genre popular, and it literally can never be popular.
I get past the first dungeon no problems, and find the heart container, but as soon as I meet that old guy with his kite in the tree I’m lost. I think I need to craft a slingshot or something but I’ve no idea where to get the rubber for an elastic band.
Metroid 2 was really bad for this too. If I hadn’t been on a very long and boring vacation all those years ago, I probably would have never finished it.
Everyone should feel free to start their Metroid journey with Super Metroid.
I would say many games with procedural generated worlds, like Minecraft, No Man’s Sky, etc. Where the main task is deciding where do I go next, where do I settle down, maybe there is some better place over the next hill, next planet, etc.
There are other games, where it is also sometimes not quite clear what to do next. Like games have a lot of progression and rebuilding of stuff that was done before because of it. Like Satisfactory, Factorio, etc.
And on a more literal sense, where you actually redo the game over and over to progress, like The Stanley Parable or Outer Wilds.
Some games have a very labyrinthine level design, where it also isn’t really clear what to do next, like Dark Souls, Subnautica, etc.
Or environment puzzles, where you have to figure out how to progress, like the Myst series, Riven, etc.
Open ended games, like Minecraft and NMS , can be really hard for people who only play ‘on rails’ type games to wrap their minds around. ‘Whats the point?’, the same one as in living your life.
Also, personal opinion, Stanley Parable is NOT a game. It is a walking simulator with a bunch of bad philosophy thrown in.
Wherever Stanley Parable is a game or not, isn’t really important. Someone could make the argument that open ended games, without a clear winning or completion state aren’t games, but instead simulations.
Someone could argue that the winning or completion state of Stanley Parable is seeing all endings.
Other people say that to be a game, you need some kind of adversary or challenge to overcome, but that would depend on the definition of challenge. Is figuring out what to do in order to see a ending you haven’t seen before a challenge? If not, that would exclude many other genres.
So I just do not want to down the road of making useless distinctions, and be liberal in my understanding of words, and just ask if something is not clear.
I just call Stanley Parable a game, because the creators call it a game, you can buy it and games similar to it for game consoles and on Steam under the game category. Wherever you can or cannot find enjoyment in experiencing it, does not depend on wherever it is a game or not.
Came looking for someone to say Minecraft. If I’m not good about intentionally placing landmarks and the like I can get myself lost very easily. And sometimes even when I do place landmarks and write down the coordinates of my starting place! I have to tryhard on keeping directions, placing markers everywhere, on crafting maps with a little icon that shows where I am, to prevent getting lost when exploring. Admittedly I am not the greatest with directions in real life.
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