I hung around their Discord for ages and the pace of development seemed glacial. It's not that I don't think it will ever come out but it's definitely going to be a while. Gave up following after a few months. Love the aesthetic though and I really hope this one doesn't fizzle out like other titles in my wish list (Road Diner Simulator, B-17 Squadron, Solarpunk, Kerbal Space Program 2 etc.)
Scope creep: The game. Trailers do look marvelous, but one has to question how realistic it is that all of these complex systems not only work well on their own, but also manage to form a coherent whole. This could become a trendsetting Indie darling - or more realistically end up as a highly flawed niche title that only manages to find a few dedicated fans that are willing to overlook its issues (if it ever releases).
The developers are entirely unknown - possibly unproven - and the publisher’s only successful games on Steam are an RPG (Tale of Immortal) with just over 50% positive reviews that doesn’t even work if you don’t have your system set to Chinese, an action tower defense game (Outpost: Infinity Siege) with a OpenCritic average of 58 and a 2.5D Cyberpunk RPG (ANNO: Mutationem) that is probably their highest-rated title with an OpenCritic average of 74 and 80% positive reviews.
Before I sound too negative, I hope this title succeeds. I would definitely play it a lot if it manages to deliver on even half of its promises. Art style, perspective and setting remind me of the last classic city builder Emperor: Rise of the Middle Kingdom, building mechanics are reminiscent of various Minecraft-adjacent titles and the multi-genre concept isn’t too dissimilar to The Guild series. All of this is very exciting, but this is exactly the kind of ambition, possibly overambition, that tends to kill studios.
I had fun with it. Can be a bit slow and grindy, as forming a build involves finding the right (randomly generated, periodically refreshed) techniques and studying them. And there’s a big power jump in each area so this process has to be repeated regularly.
I initially got into it when looking for something like Wandering Sword, but as a M&B- or Kenshi-style open world, which it’s not exactly that.
More like it’s a shitty headline. The article shows there’s a little more to it, specifically that it was going to go over budget and they hadn’t figured out what they were gonna do.
The title is a bit missleading considering that the actual article mentions a lot other problems that plagued the development.
Project 8 faced both progress and challenges. The COVID-19 pandemic made team stability difficult, but some quality improvements were achieved. However, critical issues persisted, causing delays and budget increases. The latest review revealed unresolved problems needing more time and money, along with revised sales forecasts, raising doubts about the project’s profitability.
– TLDR by Microsoft copilot
While there’s still demand for “narrative-driven story-rich games” one should keep realistic expectations. For this genre I feel smaller scope and indie developers work much better.
“The COVID-19 pandemic made team stability difficult,”
Makes me suspect they were woefully behind the rest of the field in development practices. My team, and many others, gained productivity when all the wasteful manager ego stroking in-person meetings stopped.
Alternately, it tells us they rely on a weird dev kit with a lot of esoteric hardware. Though I would still call that out as being super out of date. Nothing is particularly hard to emulate today, for teams that prioritize having rebuildable test environmenta.
Just wild.
Bummer about the layoffs. Probably won’t fix their agility problem, though.
I think it’s probably true though. I pitched my game to them and they graciously responded and said they are looking into publishing narrative driven games but rather mechanically complex games.
I’ve a love/hate relationship with Rogue Trader 40k. I fucking love it, literally everything about it, but I also hate it because it will end at some point.
Divinity Original Sin 1 and 2, if you haven’t played already. Think of them as the stepping stones for BG3.
Spec Ops: The Line is a 3rd person shooter with an incredible story, I think it takes 4-6 hours to go through the campaign. Short when compared to RPGs, but worth the time. People also talk about Titanfall 2’s campaign being great, I haven’t played it yet.
Mass Effect trilogy is also very good, mainly the 2nd game. The first game is the jankiest of the bunch and the 3rd is much better after all the DLC, though I still don’t like how the optional Paragon/Renegade prompts from 2 became obligatory QTE in 3.
Currently sucked into Kingdom Come Deliverance, which is similar to TW3 in that it’s a first person story driven game, but set in IRL 1403 Bohemia instead of the fantasy setting. Very good historical storytelling, I think.
Since The Witcher 3 came out, my favorite video game stories have been Disco Elysium, Cyberpunk 2077, 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim, Alan Wake 2, Citizen Sleeper, and Metaphor: ReFantazio. I also really liked Death Stranding, but Kojima’s not for everyone.
You know, maybe i dont know enough about games as i am a casual these days, aside from baldurs gate 3 which is a fucking masterpiece, i really like the 2 (soon to be 3) star wars jedi games outcast and survivour. They are like a much easier souls mixed with the 3d prince of persia (sands of time, warrior within, two thrones) games but are very story driven. I am very excited to see what will happen in the final game in the trilogy qhen it comes out.
If you liked the story driven elements of TW3 you might like Cyberpunk 2077. Its very similar story and engine wise since they’re both made by CDPR, but obviously very different thematically. God of War is another story driven narrative driven game I enjoyed.
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