The previous section hints at something pretty important, but maybe non-obvious: I assert that MetroidVania is not a genre, it’s a framework - a way of structuring games and most specifically the worlds they take place in.
And
This realization that ‘MetroidVania’ is not a genre helps explain why a game like Batman: Arkham Asylum can be thought of as a MetroidVania where its sequels wouldn’t be, even though almost all aspects of the gameplay are very similar.
Really not convinced that you can’t call something a genre because it wouldn’t describe different games in a series.
I’d argue the Wario Land series has mostly changed genres between 1 and 2. First one is a straight platformer that’s basically Super Mario Bros with different abilities, following games are exploration puzzle game things that have a platforming element, but in which platforming is not the main point IMO.
Resident Evil really forgot it was survival horror for a while.
Breath of the Wild/Tears of the Kingdom are almost nothing like the classic Zelda formula. Free-form puzzle solving, free-er movement, almost zero dungeon structures, consumable weapons…
Those are significant, because when it happens it’s very likely some people would be more invested in either the old or new games, which incidentally explains why it doesn’t happen that much in established series.
I know I was initially very disappointed with new Wario, because all I wanted back then was more Mario-style platforming and the intentionally frustrating design of Wario Land 2-3-4 wasn’t for me.
Your example about BoTW is really good. I never played the earlier Zelda games and had near-zero interest in them. Then a friend let me borrow their BoTW cart and I absolutely fell in love with it. Still no interest in playing the earlier ones though.
I happen to like both, but they’re very different. Like a lot of fans of the rest of the series, while playing BotW I missed the classic dungeon experience. A whole divine beast and a dozen shrines stitched together would be maybe like one dungeon in the main series, and it’d have a new item, it would rely on it a lot with clever riddles and it’d have a unique boss, not just another flavour of Ganon.
Of course, a classic Zelda game is also a lot more linear in structure, with a world you can only explore bit by bit, and in a set order (mostly, there is a couple of exceptions).
The worse take i have read in a while, you can say the same about anything, fps, tps, rpg and even visual novels or action adventure, they are more frameworks than genres by their definition, even racing or sports games.
I’m sorry, but Unity is just not a viable entity. They have consistently lost money since 2004, and in 2022 reported nearly 1 billion in net losses. Just close it down!
The first new paying model was also targeting games that were old(er) and already out for some time. That was one reason the backlash was so terrible. They backpaddled now because of the backlash, but I am sure this developer was sweating a lot in the last weeks.
No. Previously if you used unreal but didn’t ship any engine code to end users you didn’t have to pay anything (games obviously ship engine code, so they’re already paying once they pass a certain revenue threshold or upfront if they want a support contract, and the announced pricing changes explicitly don’t effect games)
Unreal has been pushing hard into film and virtual production workloads, but they weren’t getting paid anything due to the existing license terms.
Now if eg. you’re using a virtual set (like the Mandalorian) or doing in camera previs (basically previewing approximately what a scene will look like with CGI, either between takes or even viewing it live on a second monitor attached to the camera as you film) with unreal you’ll have to actually pay.
As depressing as it is to ask, I feel I should kick off the brainstorm: Given that this personal information has been doxxed, is there anything that individuals could do to help the affected developers in any way?
UT2004 Onslaught is still the best game mode ever btw. Haven’t played in a long while but like ten years ago there were still a good number of servers around. Not enough players for the big maps, though, those need like 20 people per team and good luck convincing a server full of deathmatch players to play as teams.
The agreement wasn’t made with the Internet Archive but with OldUnreal so that they can distribute an installer that automatically downloads the games.
But hopefully it can be expanded to the later games as well.
I think the larger issue here is that you can’t compare music or TV shows to games, at least not in how people interact with them.
TV has always been a subscription model, the only difference with streaming is getting to choose when and what you watch. Games have always ether been pay per play or pay for a copy, with the notable exception of free to play or MMOs that require a subscription. Music is an odd case because it’s split between two models historically, radio and records/CDs.
I generally watch a show or movie once, maybe I’ll rewatch it if I really like it, similar for music. If i loose acces to it because a streaming service drops it, shame, but no big deal. But I’ll often go back and play a game for hundreds of hours, loosing acess to a game is a much bigger deal. People generally put a lot more time and effort in when they play a game, owning it makes more sense in that context. Personally, I don’t buy that many games over all, having access to thousands of titles doesn’t mean much if I’ll only ever play a handful. Something like Game pass is more expensive than the rate i buy new games at and loosing access to a game that i routinely play is a legitimate concern with a streaming model, ether because i stop paying the subscription or they decide to take a title off the service.
I’m curious to see how the combat mechanics will be accepted. Reads like Mass Effect in a high fantasy setting. Could be cool, but at the same time, Dragon Age fans will come to expect something more strategic.
My impression from the trailer was that the combat lacks any weight. The player character floated all over, the attacks looked like they didn’t even make contact, and the enemies seemed to be on the spongy side. That makes it look and feel bland. If that is the case the reaction won’t be great even from players who like action games.
And yeah, I think making this the first Dragon Age game after so long is a mistake. People will expect a game that follows on with same or similar gameplay. This feels like a spin-off game. That’s not inherently bad, but you do want mainline games to also release to keep the main fan base happy. Right now it’ll just be judged compared to mainline expectations and will obviously not meet most of those.
Seriously, good writing doesn’t happen with “lifehacks,” that’s how you get worthless shit like Max Landis writing Bright. (Don’t you love white people trying to write about racism… without writing about racism? Just plop in any old fantasy race and it works, right? Right!?)
I recall almost two decades ago I got into it with a woman who was going to school at Digipen, and she told me what Digipen taught students about writing a game.
She said the point was to create the most everyman main character, so you could have the most customers identify with them, and be able to sell more units.
Which I basically said “They’re teaching you the worst writing techniques possible. Literature students would faint at this idea.”
She didn’t care, she claimed this was “good writing.”
No wonder so many games have such dogshit writing if this is how we’re teaching game writers to write for fucks sake. Pick up a god damned book and get thoughtful, people.
Like seriously, let’s get game adaptations of weird, interesting books like Steppenwolf or Naked Lunch.
Rush your development, causing network issues, bugs, missing QoL features
Push ahead with monetization schemes despite problems
Players vanish
Surprised Pikachu face
Congratulations Starbreeze, you made a game so shitty that it’s not even worth pirating. They will practically have to relaunch the game to reclaim the playerbase at this point.
Don’t forget taking forever for an initial patch release, despite there being multiple game breaking bugs.
The state the game was at release was absolutely awful.
The only folks who kept playing that I know were folks grinding for the final levels/achievements/weapons. Which consisted of playing in unenjoyable ways like using bad load outs, doing stupid crap like tagging a billion guards, etc. Who wants to pay money for an unenjoyable grind?
They released a decent patch, some new content and DLC but everyone has already moved on. They totally screwed themselves, sucks it’s an IP that I like, but more games need to fail like this so publishers stop doing the same bullshit
Way too late to form a strike team, are they even working to fix it?
Years ago the CEO put comments to the media about wanting to make a game to run over the long term. If you want that then don’t put out a game that flops at the start.
The developers have full on ignored player feedback, and just putting in what they feel like and maybe a handful of Payday 2 brought in as a bonus. Infrequent updates on the Steam Community, never responding to users, releasing a DLC people couldn’t play and saying “have a nice weekend” on X.
A patch finally comes but it introduces new bugs, many big issues still unaddressed, game still dropping frames and unoptimized.
Are the devs shitfaced drunk while making this game? If they can get money while hardly doing work I’d want to work there.
I uninstalled the game, and even if the game were to massively improve, I wouldn’t return as the studio treats players like nothing but money generators.
Stop blaming Devs and blame corpo above them. Can’t guarantee that’s the case here but it’s almost always their fault rather than the Devs when things go wrong on a launch like this.
Maybe they should unionize or walkout or something, costumers can’t fight their fight.
As proven with Volition, if we don’t buy their game in protest they are closed down anyway instead of getting another shot at something we actually want, nothing can change from this side.
Man, was this game a disappointment. So many privacy agreements just to install the bloody thing. The entire experience was a letdown. PD2 was so so so much fun and this game arrived just wobbly and with pre-shat pants. What a damn dud.
Reading through it, his suggestion seems rooted on the idea that Metroidvania carries implications in terms of setting, perspective or combat, which is a complete fabrication of his mind not grounded in reality. It's 2024, the people that would know and care about the Metroidvania tag know very well what that tag implies; your "revelation" that Arkham Asylum is also a Metroidvania has been commonplace in discussions for a decade.
This addresses a confusion and an issue that don't exist, and the tag is so standard at this point that changing it would not catch on and would create way more problems than it would fix.
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