Looks good and I like the premise, but I’m well past giving EA a cent for “looks good and nice premise”. I’m never gonna touch that stove again, cold or not.
Well honestly, I’ve got enough Steam games to last me the rest of my life probably. If I ever really get the urge to play Okami again and it’s still not available here, I’ll explore my yo-ho-ho options. Still, I’d rather throw them the $5 the price regularly gets down to on Steam for the convenience.
I gotta say, the SteamDeck has been a weird journey. I’m playing a lot more high graphics titles now that I can just quickly check for a ‘SteamDeck Verified’ badge.
On the one hand, mine is a first generation portable, so there’s a lot of games it is never going to run.
On the other, it keeps surprising me what gets ported to it.
It’s surprisingly capable hardware. Doom External was running at solid 60FPS on medium or high settings (can’t remember) for me. Sure, it’s a very well optimised game, but it’s a real looker too.
Maybe! There’s much bigger spaces in this one, more assets to load etc. Recommended specs are an RTX 2060 for 1080p 30fps low settings. I would say the steam deck sits around there?
When the game pitch is a cinematic trailer, then a whole bunch of name drops Directed By X, Starring Y, Soundtrack by Z, and not a single mention of what the heck the player is even gonna do in the game, when will AAA studios drop the pretenses and do what they actually wanna do and just make movies
I recently played uncharted 4, can confirm there is a lot of interesting gameplay mixed with the mastercrafted, often interactive, cut scenes. It was an excellent experience by any measure and the game is nearing 10 years old.
I swear people are confusing naughty dog with another dev or something, their worst game is still more fun than 90% of other studio’s best.
It's all relative. Mediocre is still better than garbage, but not necessarily interesting or innovative. It's just "fine" because the whole point of the gameplay in these games is to progress the narrative forward. Mastery is rarely, if ever, required and gameplay depth is of no interest to players or developers.
You ignore all of that and start comparing their catalog to Ubisoft pumping out generic trash for years (NGL that Prince of Persia game is sick though) and you get a much brighter picture that doesn't necessarily take all factors into account.
Personally, I play games for the hyper engagement they offer, which I expect from hobbies and cannot get from film or literature. Stories, on the other hand, I can find elsewhere, so I don't necessarily care for them that much in games.
If narrative driven games aren’t your cup of tea there’s nothing wrong saying that, but writing off the extensive gameplay provided in naughty dog games is silly. I think your take would be better directed at something like Metal Gear Solid, that actually locks you in for hour long non-interactive cut scenes.
You may wanna re-read my comment—I did not bring up cut scenes, or claim Naughty Dog games don't have enough gameplay sections.
My point was Naughty Dog's gameplay sections are uninspired, non innovative, and passable at best because they're more interested in telling a story than innovative gameplay.
Whether I like narrative-driven games or not is of no relevance.
I’ve seen so many terrible takes already. I made the mistake of looking at a Reddit thread on the announcement. They’re not even trying to be subtle. “Female characters are supposed to be pretty! Nobody wants to play as an ugly bald bitch who looks like a man!”. I’d consider myself a seasoned internet veteran and even still it’s shocking to me.
The most painful thing will be if the game turns out to be bad, and we have to painstakingly explain “Yes, it was bad, but it’s not somehow specifically because it features a bald female lead.”
What misogynists, I don’t see them anywhere ??<br> Ohhhhhhh; you mean people who hate games being ruined by bad writing<br> This is a rather old gaslighting technique mind you
It looks interesting, though it does feel a little slimy just how obvious they were about making sure all the sponsor logos were visible on screen. Like, it gave me Wayne's World flashbacks with how long they were holding on the logos, it almost felt like a parody.
Big, chunky logos are part of this specific vibe, though I can understand why it’s a turn-off (with a couple of the fictional ones being out of focus).
I wouldn’t mind if they were all fictional, but the massive Porsche logo? Come on, I’m not paying for a game just to see product placements. It’s like Death Stranding with the energy drinks again.
I read it in this particular cinematic as a choice that this is OUR world, dominated by brands and massive companies. And it’s still the same ones even in this future.
Kinda like how it’s a different feeling when you see a Coke ad and an Atari ad in Blade Runner rather than seeing a generic in-universe copyright free brand.
That and this feels like something that could easily change in the main game
Even if they’d take a decade from now to release it, I wouldn’t mind. If I’ve learnt anything from CDPR it’s that masterpieces take time, and I’d much rather have a masterpiece in a decade than something half finished now.
I was actually really excited by the pre-rendered cut scene that wasn't cel-shaded. I thought they were going to ditch the cartoony aesthetic and try moving the franchise in a different direction. But then it switched to in-game footage, and it looks indistinguishable from footage of any previous BL game. Something about the art direction just looks like it's stuck in 2012, and not in a fun way.
Generally, I like cel shading. I think it's maybe the issue I have is more related to artistic choices; a lot of the designs are very chunky and low-detail. It still looks very distinctly, unmistakably like Borderlands, but it doesn't look like there's been any significant improvement since BL1. If you told me this was a DLC pack for the original 2009 game, I'd probably believe it.
The newer visuals in the cinematic had me thinking that maybe Gearbox is trying to do a soft reboot after how poorly the movie was received.
This reminds me of how I felt about starfield, where I needed to endure boring sci fi game so they can finally work on elder scrolls 6. I do wish though they’d wrap the story of last of us before moving to a new franchise
REALLY annoyed that Ciri is quaffing potions since I thought a big deal was that she never had the witcher mutations since Triss (?) realized it was a really bad idea to give a menstruating young girl all those mutagens. So those should basically leave her in horrific pain on the ground after she chugs them.
One of the things that made her segments Work so well in TW3 was that she very clearly was NOT Geralt… she was something simultaneously less and massively more powerful. Which is why her wandering off to become a Witcher in all the good endings was so powerful. She is not a Witcher but she IS someone who can fight like one and who can do some good in the world.
But very excited. I think there is a LOT of room for Ciri to call out the misogynistic bullshit of the average medieval-ish fantasy culture (and we saw shades of that). Not entirely sure I trust CDPR for this though. Sometimes they do real good and sometimes it feels like the joke is that that woman has a dick. Time will tell.
But a few people noticed that Bluesky has Austin Walker listed as part of CDPR Boston (?). I suspect that is just an anomaly or maybe some contract work but… I trust Austin to speak Truth and convince people just how much power they have to write a ridiculously powerful female character in medieval-ish Europe.
Also, I assume CDPR is reading this because of course they are. So here is something free. Ciri is not the Butcher of Blavikan like her father. She is the “Butcher of whatever fucking town this is” if people don’t get out of her way and let her help people.
We’ll just have to see what explanation they give. Did she get herself mutated eventually? Are the potions diluted/weaker? (I remember a quest where Geralt feeds a normal human a small dose of one of his potions.)
Would it be more interesting to have a Ciri that specifically doesn’t have most of the Witcher powers? Maybe, but I can understand them wanting to keep most of the gameplay staples. It looks like they are trying to keep most of Geralt’s moves and then adding some new ones.
Whatever happens, it should be interesting! I think what I’m most excited about is Ciri has a slightly different morality and worldview - I’m excited to see how that ends up affecting the writing.
Of course I’m not taking it for granted it will be good, but I am hopeful.
Sadly, none of this denoted a happy ending. Though the wounds on Lena’s body healed, the toxins in the witcher’s brew had melted her mind. This was not the first time a cure had proven worse than the disease
Regarding the potions, I haven’t read the books, but the wiki alludes to “Children of Destiny” not needing the trials, of which Ciri is part of. Even if that’s not it, I don’t think a grown woman choosing to undergo the trials is comparable to forcing it on a child. Pretty badass, tbh.
Not sure if it was optional (I THINK I missed it my first playthrough at launch?) but as part of TW3 you put someone through the trials as an adult. And it basically liquifies their body and causes immense suffering so that magic can be used to turn a pile of Clarence Boddicker back into the person’s real form.
It wouldn’t be the first retcon or outright ignoring of lore in the CDPR series (or the author’s books for that matter…) but it just feels particularly egregious because Ciri very specifically is NOT a Witcher and her choosing to live that life was her rejecting destiny and taking control of herself. But also? She can never truly escape that destiny.
As I remember, the liquification was more so part of the curse than the trials. The immense pain and risk of death is true either way, though.
And I don’t see any conflict with Ciri here. That would be her continuing to fight to make her own life, no? The destiny she’s running from isn’t about her being a witcher. More so the opposite, as I understand it.
I always imagined a Ciri game as a more action-oriented and somewhat more over-the-top spin-off based on how she played in Witcher 3. But honestly I’ll be content as long as it’s a good game
I think they’re Witcher potions. Based on her eyes, I’d guess she underwent the mutations.
I agree the “women cannot be witchers” thing always seemed sexist, but making her a witcher is a nerf more than anything. She didn’t teleport once in the teaser. A weird but welcome flip from ‘the female character didn’t earn it’ to ‘they took away everything she earned’ that we’re seeing in the social media reactions.
Somebody pointed out to me that the witcher medallion that Ciri is wearing is feline, so possibly from the School of the Cat, which according to the wiki was known to train women as witchers. I wonder if they had a different trial than that of the grasses. She might be a full fledged mutant, like Geralt.
Yeah, my sticking point isn’t the female witchers. It’s how much less powerful she is now. She was damn near a god last game.
I remember crashing my ps4 my piling up a ridiculous number of corpses during her escape scene. Just such a badass. Hurt my heart to watch her struggle in the fight in this teaser.
Or they wanted to play off that kneejerk reaction to get you engaged. Ciri studied under Triss, Yen, and Avala’ch and knows actual magic. They could just be the more powerful actual versions of what witchers try and emulate.
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