I got some good hours out of Inkbound, but something rubbed me the wrong way about how they handled it. It’s as though following backlash on their monetisation they decided to wrap the game up and push it out the door and essentially abandon the game.
I loved MT, and that’s why I grabbed Inkbound, but I’m optimistically cautious about MT2. The demo for MT2 was great, I’ll just have to wait and see.
I believe the initial intention was that it was going to be a live service game, where they would add more content and cosmetics over time and continue to support it, but after the backlash of their monetisation method (after people had already purchased the game) they got it to a 1.0 state and moved on to I’m guessing Monster Train 2.
It’s a shame because Inkbound had an interesting foundation there and I believe they could have figured out a better model to keep the game alive.
Huh, this is the first time I’m reading any of this (although I also don’t personally know anyone who bought Inkbound). TL;DR: Inkbound’s replayability sucks. Is that what you mean? The MT2 trailer says it has endless mode so that should already fix things if it’s done well.
Not a fan of limiting winch to only scout, I guess driving the rigs will be more important since you can build your own roads. Being able to stack a mountain of cargo in the back is fun though
Our second Major Update has arrived, featuring the final confrontation of the surface route, one last Olympian and all his Boons, a new Animal Familiar to bond with, streamlined resource gathering, plenty of new music and artwork, and more! We’re excited to know what you think, and will be monitoring feedback in the coming weeks to ensure these latest additions are working properly.
Not full release. Just an update, bugfix and balance pass.
For what it's worth, this game was formerly "Monolith". Fantastic twinstick bullet hell shmup roguelite. Difficulty is somewhat on the hard side but it's learnable.
As someone who loves the freedom of games like TES:Morrowind, Fallout: New Vegas and the Outer Worlds this was a great way to make me lose interest in Avowed. That friendly NPCs doesn’t react at all when you steal in front of them or when you shoot them in the face sucks big time.
There are very different goals between these games. This is an action RPG where your whole character sheet is focused on combat, not unlike Dark Souls even in level design. The systems of Bethesda’s games have sounded good to me on paper in the past, but in execution, they’ve always felt like they aspired to be what Larian is doing now and had very few actual benefits. They let you steal anything you want in this game because it was more relevant to this game’s loop.
There is something that feels off about avowed. I only played it for a few hours, and it’s like eating generic brand chocolate.
I can’t quite put my finger on what it is about the game. Now that I think about it, the land seems kind of empty. In Skyrim, there is always something around. Even if it’s just a goat.
This game has little patches of enemies here and there. It also feels a bit linear so far. I’m probably not going to play anymore as everyone I play this, it just makes me want to play Skyrim again.
Maybe I can find a mod that gives me an avowed style want weapon. I really like how the want looks and works.
I’d say mid too about Outer Worlds, but the first half is above average IMHO. It’s the second half which felt half baked and lowered my appreciation.
I’d prefer some developers set their mind on a good/great 20h experience if they don’t have the budget for more, instead of trying to align themselves with the big players.
I didn’t get that far to be honest, the first world felt so by the numbers that I just kinda never picked it back up and looked up the rest of the story online.
I can’t say I missed much and my expectations for the next one are about as low as they can get at this point.
It’s interesting to me how divisive reactions seem to be on Avowed, some people loving the hell out of it and some being very lukewarm. It’s not even falling along the usual IGN reviewer love vs indie reviewer scepticism divide like Starfield or Veilguard. I wonder what’s driving the difference?
The difference is what people want from their games. If you want a living open world with NPCs who react to stuff. You’re going to have a bad time with Avowed. But if you don’t care about that stuff. Avowed is the game for you.
yeah that’s the problem, when people (myself included) see a game label itself as “RPG” we kind of expect the world to be living, a world that feels like you could go anywhere and find amazing treasures, friends, enemies, anything and everything on your journey! A world where talking to any character could send you on a quest you’ll never forget
in avowed NPCs are static, there’s like 2 non-hostile animals, if something doesn’t have a healthbar your attacks phase through them, every chest has the same 4 ingredients in it, you can’t interact with the enviornment unless it’s a box, an urn, or specific vines, you can’t tell your companions to fuck off ever, if an NPC has a quest for you they’ll have an exclamation mark above their heads - which completely takes away the reason to talk with anyone else but them and vendors, and just sigh it doesn’t feel like an RPG at all to me
after i got a plot breaking bug (plot dialogue wouldn’t progress) i uninstalled it and downloaded skyrim again, which though flawed, at least it’s an RPG
youtube.com
Najstarsze