What’s the matter? I thought they were super confident this was going to do really well. Are they getting cold feet and deciding to make changes for fear of bad reception when they don’t quite have enough time, leading to forced overtime?
EDIT: Wait. All of this was for a DEMO? How bad was the game that they needed to work 60 hours a week mandatory overtime just to finish a demo of the game??
IMO, any time a game repeatedly fails to meet deadlines, especially so early on in its development, that usually indicates the game isn’t likely to launch in a healthy state. Either the scope is way too big, or the narrative is receiving major changes and reworks, or the people working on the game just wish they weren’t working on that project and taking longer as a result. This kind of situation is rarely good, and even more rarely ends up with a good launched product.
Cyberpunk 2077, Anthem, Mass Effect Andromeda, Halo Infinite, Duke Nukem Forever, John Romero’s Daikatana (although I personally am a bit charmed by this one despite it being undoubtedly bad), and other games are examples of this. Repeated failure to meet production deadlines, lots of crunch forced on the developers, and all for what? The launch product for all of these games was horrendously bad. Some for technical reasons, some for narrative reasons, and some for both.
When I first saw the trailer for Intergalactic, I had mixed feelings. I liked the intended graphics/art style and retro styled tech, the Porsche was a little weird product placement but fine I guess, but the characters and dialogue I personally found both unappealing. The obvious Snake Plissken rip-off woman the main character talked to (blonde with an eyepatch, I can only assume she is some sort of merc job handler) seemed maybe interesting but then she spoke and the writing lost my interest. Upon learning the game is likely to follow some sort of religious theming, I lost all interest in the game. Its not what I want from a video game. So this was pretty disappointing to learn. But now seeing the game is in such a state doesn’t give me great confidence that the final product will be even decent when it launches.
Of course there are always exceptions, but I don’t count on news like this to mean that this project will be the exception.
Metroid Prime and Halo 2 both had excessive crunch and both turned out great, obviously. In Metroid Prime’s case, a management change seemed to fix it in the long term. In Halo’s case, Bungie just embraced the suck I guess, since they still wanted to make Halo 3.
Regardless, these were exceptions to the rule, and I would never expect a project to be an exception, personally.
Running games off my microsd has a lot of issues and only works rarely (legion go s, not sure if its the reader or card, heard it’s just slow in general)...
I have seen up to 80% file size reduction in some cases compressing to CHD format with chdman. Most of the time its about a 50% reduction, in some cases a little less like Metal Gear Solid 3. Is there a better format?
I do find it perplexing that other companies can also release a game like this, fix it, and then everyone basically forgets and treats the developers like buddies again (like CDPR did with Witcher and Cyberpunk, or Obsidian with KotOR2, or Hello Games with No Man’s Sky).
Bethesdas original release of Skyrim was exactly the same, and then they fixed it. Same.with Fallout 76, Elder Scrolls Online, etc. The difference is that it just seems like people really love to hate on Bethesda more than other studios when they don’t really do anything that different.
I mean, The Witcher 3 on Switch had a lot of bugs that “shouldn’t have been there” because the game was already in a good state on other platforms. But that isn’t how game development works because porting to a different console isn’t as simple as clicking one button, especially not for something like the Witcher that runs in a proprietary game engine. Shipping with bugs is bad, but Bethesda isn’t any better or worse than other beloved studios. They do seem to be publicly hated more than other studios, though.
Its a Nintendo game with a well known name. Of course some people are going to call it a 10/10 game of the year, even if it doesn’t deserve it.
People said that Zelda BotW was a 10/10, and then Tears came out and made all of those people look like idiots. BotW was really more like what I said it was, a 6/10.
I’m looking for Android games that are designed to be played vertically (portrait mode). Could be casual, action, puzzle, roguelike, or anything really. Best if it can be played one-handed....
Goddess of Victory NIKKE fits what you are asking.
It is a high quality Free-to-Play mobile game played in portrait mode and completely playable with one hand (depending on how wide your device is). As long as your don’t care about leaderboards, it also isn’t Pay-to-Win. It is playable on PC as well, which is how I play these days. As a Day 1 Player, you don’t need to spend any money to play, enjoy, or progress in the game.
In terms of negatives:
Some people may not like the anime art style (game is playable in various language dubs, including Korean, Japanese, English, and depending on region, Chinese, which are optional downloads to reduce filesize) or the character designs, which have huge… personalities
If you don’t care about time limited events or being at the top of leaderboards, its not hostile to your playtime and mental health. Go at your own pace.
It is a gacha game for characters and skins, but the game gives players a lot of options, so unless you’re trying to be #1 on the leaderboards in your server, having every character max level isn’t that important.
They recently added a “Story Mode” for the campaign, which significantly reduces the difficulty of all the missions in the 40+ campaign chapters so that players can enjoy the story without needing to have as powerful characters. I think you get reduced rewards as well, but its a nice addition. You can also get photo film rolls to unlock past time limited events (not licensed or collab ones though) so you can enjoy the stories of those as well. You don’t get the rewards for them as they were running, but still can experience the stories and minigames. You get plenty of free currency for free character rolls, no money is needed. Unless you really want a skin or really like a licensed collab and want to buy an IP specific bundle or something.
Basically, for a free player, there is A LOT of story content available to keep your busy for a while. Play at your own pace, and don’t worry about leaderboards and you’ll be mostly fine. The biggest advice is to try to get 5 characters 4 times each. If you are playing the regular difficulty story, there is a point where it is required to progress, and is often referred to as the only “wall of progression” in the game.
Looking for people your own age to game with? Over 30 Clan has been around since 2010 and has grown to over 1,500 members, and for the last 6+ years it’s been my home base. Any given night you’ll find folks jumping into everything from Battlefield 6 and Arc Raiders to Overwatch 2 and more....
I hate this. Not because it exists, but because it reminds me how old I am, lol.
I used to know people that would all join up for Quake II, CounterStrike 1.5/1.6, and Diablo II LAN events, but it’s getting harder and more expensive to travel these days. Playing online just isn’t the same for me, so I won’t be joining, but I do hope that the community continues to thrive and remain as drama-free as it can.
Hear me out. A few games have shader installations that will usually apply any new settings you put down AFTER you restart the game, and a lot of other games have graphics settings that will only apply after you’ve rebooted the game....
I don’t give a fuck if some pretentious asses “artistic vision” requires the player to backtrack half way across a level on every death or thinks a shitty minigame should be played no less than 153 times every play through.
Then just don’t play that game or use cheats (if its a singleplayer game)?
I don’t see why a game developer needs to intentionally provide an option to remove mechanics they designed a game around just to please someone that doesn’t want to play the game as they designed it.
Lets talk about QTEs as an example. Because for QTEs, a developer can easily add an option to entirely circumvent them, with just a single boolean and a single line of code in the QTE input method.
I think that, for accessibility reasons, it is perfectly reasonable to ask for an option to switch between tapping a button and holding a button to complete a QTE. I think it is unreasonable to ask developers for an option to completely remove QTEs from their game (such as auto-succeed/auto-complete). For many games, this would turn an interactive part of the game which is normally followed by an uninteractive cutscene into an uninteractive cutscene immediately followed by another uninteractive cutscene. Players that disable QTEs could easily be sitting through very long stretches of uninteractive parts of the game instead of interacting with the game, leading to those players complaining about long cutscenes since they usually completely forget they disabled QTEs.
Shenmue has Quick Time Events. A lot of them. If someone hates QTEs, it would be better for them not to play the game at all than to play without them. It is a core part of the intended experience that enhances the player’s time with the game. You get to interact with the cutscene instead of dropping the controller and turning off your brain. As a player, you pay more attention and keep your controller ready because at any moment you could be hit with a QTE and you want to be ready for that. You as a player have anticipation, excitement, nervousness, fear, etc that the developer makes you feel using mechanics like QTEs. You are more engaged with the game than someone that wants those deleted from the game, and in the end that means you will get more enjoyment out of the game. Someone that wants that turned off wants to play a different game.
Not every game is made for every person. And thats okay, thats good even.
I try to be careful where I play it because the character designs are pretty uh… well the characters have huge personalities, usually. That’s not why I play the game, but I recognize some people have more of a problem with that than others so I try to be respectful about it. Also, NIKKE is a mobile gacha game, which a lot of people dislike. So I would say it counts as a guilty pleasure, although I don’t really feel guilty for playing the game.
For me, I don’t really spend money on it. Except for their two collabs with Neon Genesis Evangelion and one collab with NieR, because for me it is literally the law that I pay at least a little for IPs I really like. I am not a Whale (Richard Nixon impression lol), I am not even a Dolphin(?) I think I am called a Minnow. Whatever they call a basically F2P player that spends so rarely they might as well not spend at all. Besides, I have played for 3 years and only spent $60 total, I think that’s a pretty good deal so far.
Anyway, I like the gameplay. I realize to some people this might sound like I am saying “I read Playboy for the articles,” but hear me out.
When I was younger, I really enjoyed going to arcades. In the tail years of the arcades, newer games started to pop up, among them being lightgun games. I really enjoyed playing Time Crisis and Lethal Enforcers, and later on playing Silent Hill The Arcade, Alien, Terminator, and others. It was fun while it lasted, but now arcades are dead and game developers don’t really make those kind of games anymore. Beside my home arcade cabinet where I emulate the older games (and get a worse experience because I have neither the pizza grease and cigarette smell, nor the different shaped controllers), I don’t have new options for lightgun games these days. Then NIKKE came out and the gameplay was close enough for me that I felt that same fun of a lightgun game. I enjoy my time with the game mostly because it reminds me of the fun I had in actual arcades with lightgun games.
As a Stellaris player, nothing is more infuriating than Paradox putting out an update that breaks the save of your 2 month multiplayer game when you havent even reached the endgame lag yet. At least we can downgrade versions.
If it is priced higher than $600 they won’t sell enough to justify their existence. It will just be a repeat of last time.
This is perfect for people wanting a new console with a large games library, but Valve seems to be trying to force the square block in the round hole by placing it in the PC market space.
Well, it technically is if you remove the current RAM chips, solder on new double density RAM chips, and flash the BIOS. But compared to a regular PC of just plugging the RAM sticks into the Motherboard slots they belong in, trying to expand RAM on the Steam Deck might as well be considered not possible. Even if you do expand the RAM, there is no noticeable performance gain.
Yeah, I said that in the second part of my comment. It requires desoldering the RAM chips and soldering on new ones, a step most people aren’t going to do.
Windows was built on IBM compatible MS-DOS, not regular DOS. The term “DOS” was so ubiquitous with IBM compatibility specifically, that it almost exclusively referred to MS-DOS, and not any other variant. Windows 95 does not run on top of Atari DOS, for example, and therefore trying to run any Windows 95 application in Atari DOS would not be possible.
Software natively compiled for Windows 95 will not usually run in any other variant of DOS than MS-DOS, and in some cases, even MS-DOS itself.
Quake II released in 1997 natively for Windows 95, but was not compatible with other DOS based operating systems at the time. Over the years, fans have tried to “backport” it to other variants of DOS, most notably Q2DOS. But its original PC release does not natively support any OS other than Windows 95. Many games of this era are like this, and a game released in this era usually said it was compatible with “Windows 95/98/ME,” not “DOS.”
I don’t know if I would call mandatory facial recognition for children online “the right thing.”
I would say it is the parent’s responsibility to know what their child is doing and what platforms their child is using. If something horrible should happen, my first finger to point at would be the parents not doing anything to prevent it, usually out of negligence, not the Roblox company. A company can only do so much before they begin to assume control of responsibilities a parent has, and I would prefer governments and businesses have as little control over raising children as possible.
This is why many parents used to restrict children’s access to the internet to only when the parent can directly monitor it until they were an adult. Sometimes a “family computer” in a common room with the screen plainly visible was the one a child could use. Sadly, it appears this is no longer the case, and more and more parents are ignorant of what their children do.
If someone’s dog eats all the pills they left out on the counter and dies, it isn’t the fault of the dog and it isn’t the fault of the medical company that made the pills, its the fault of the owner for being negligent by not watching the dog and leaving the pills out. This is my opinion.
I don’t agree. I think that the responsibilty a parent has to keep their child safe and teach them how to navigate reality has always been hard.
Parents in the 90s probably had as hard of a time with smartphones as parents do now with smartphones. When smartphones were brand new I remember many parents did not allow their children to have them at all, if the child even had a mobile phone. Not because they don’t love their child, but because they do. They want to protect them from having access to material children shouldn’t have. But children are smart, and they find a way around it with the iPod Touch or PSP that their friend has or other means. But in those cases the parents can say they did everything they could to protect their child.
The most fault obviously lies with the nefarious person grossly mistreating children. If they didn’t exist at all, none of this would even be necessary. Unfortunately, that cannot ever happen, because humans still do not know what causes them to be the way they are, or how to prevent it/treat it properly.
Now, Roblox certainly should be doing something about it, but the amount of fault they have in the issue is the least among other parties. But using mandatory facial recognition for that? I think that is way too far. I don’t see why DMs aren’t monitored. Seems like the perfect use case for AI: have an LLM scan DMs as they are sent and "flag"messages of potential suspicion for a human to then read the DM chain for context to verify. Or just remove messaging from the platform altogether.
Geoff Keighley and company are back again, revealing the nominees for the 2025 edition of The Game Awards, which will stream live from the Peacock Theater in Los Angeles on Thursday, December 11, 2025. This year the one to beat is Sandfall Interactive’s Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, which has received 12 nominations, and the...
I agree. As a Silent Hill fan, Silent Hill f was just a random action horror game skinwalking with the Silent Hill name. It was mid at best and had a lot of moments where I didn’t feel like I was playing a Silent Hill game at all. Which is extremely disappointing considering f was the one Silent Hill project I was actually excited about when Konami showed their other offerings (like Silent Hill Ascension, lol what a disaster that was).
Except the music. It was really cool music, so I can see it being nominated for that. I mean, it wasn’t really a Silent Hill OST, but the quality of the music was still good. Akira Yamaoka always makes bangers. At least it wasn’t Korn this time.
I don’t know if that is true, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it was.
To me, it had the same feeling as Star Fox Adventures (which was actually Dinosaur Planet before it got the Star Fox branding). To me, The Legend of Zelda Breath of the Wild also had the same feeling, as if it was deigned as a new game but Nintendo felt it would sell badly / was too close to Zelda so slapped the Zelda name on it.
Its not a bad game on its own if you ignore the title. But without the title, I would never be able to say it is a Silent Hill game.
I am only saying I got the same feeling when I played it as SF Adventures, which did turn out to be a different game originally. I can’t say for certain it is true about BotW, only that the feeling I had while playing the game was the same to me.
Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is up for 12 awards, making it the most nominated game in the awards’ history, followed by PlayStation titles Death Stranding 2: On the Beach and Ghost of Yotei with eight nominations each, and Hades 2 with six.
Must have been a really slow year given nearly every category has Expedition 33, Death Stranding 2, and Ghost of Yotei. Or the people that came up with the nominees only heard of those 3 games all year and decided to sprinkle in a few randoms to make it look like they have heard of more than 3 games this year.
Can everyone please stop claiming and speculating that Valve’s new hardware will be loss leaders? If you watch LTT and Gamers Nexus’s first videos on the announcement, they actually spoke with Valve’s engineers. And the Valve representatives already said that the new hardware WILL NOT BE LOSS LEADERS....
For Valve it would ideally lead to a new Steam account being created. Which would make sense if someone got one as a gift or something, naturally they would set up a Steam Account if they didnt already have one.
I guess that would depend on the front end and game support. If it is any less user friendly than Xbox or Playstation, people wont want to use it Johnny Joe and Little Timmy don’t want to fiddle with a bunch of settings and constantly change stuff to get games working. The Steam Deck does okay but I still find sometimes it needs some… coercing… to get some games to work right.
If they dial it in right, everything should work properly out of the box without needing settings changes.
Just minutes before it was set to deliver its financial results for the first half of its 2025-26 fiscal year, Ubisoft mashed the brakes on the whole thing, postponing the release of its results to an unspecified future date. The company also requested that European exchange Euronext halt trading of the company’s shares and...
It's not a digital foundry video, but this article talks about some of the differences. Bit disappointing that while the Switch 2 version is good as an upgrade compared to the Switch 1 (and the original games), it doesn't even have 60FPS, nevermind 120.
I mean, we are talking about a Japanese business. That kind of thing is expected (and normal) in the Japanese market, is it really that much of a shock?
Winter burrow on steam is being released today, (Nov 12th). I went to the forums to see complete chaos. People arguing and calling out the developers about using sweet baby inc. and hiding it, others wondering what the big deal is like myself. It could just be the anti woke gamers, but there were other complaints. I got the demo...
I don’t understand why they feel the need to hide it.
I can liken my opinion on it to that of Generative AI: Consumers have the right to be informed. Hiding whether AI was used (or SBI/other similar agencies in this case) is not a good look. If a consumer doesn’t want to buy games that SBI has worked on, it is the consumer’s right to know if a game has been worked on by SBI so they can make an informed decision. In just the same way a person would want to know if Generative AI was used in a game, some consumers want to know if SBI or other similar companies were used during a game’s development. And this of course works opposite too. If someone wanted to buy a game specifically because SBI worked on it (which I personally can’t see being a real reason to buy a game, but to each their own) then they too should be able to be clearly informed on the matter.
Basically, hiding something like that is anti-consumer. It gives the impression that the developers are trying to trick consumers into buying something they don’t want.
For example, if there was a video game which directly funded something you didn’t like, let’s say something like directly funding Russia’s war against Ukraine, you would want to know that before you bought the game, right? When you find out where your money went, you probably wouldn’t be very happy, would you? If you had known that information before you bought the game, that likely would have changed your decision to buy the game, right? Now of course, war is a bit more extreme compared to social politics, but the idea is the same. You would feel tricked. You would feel upset. Its the same idea. Consumers want to be informed, and hiding information from consumers is not friendly to consumers. The developers should have just updated the game description to include that SBI worked on the game and left it at that. The drama would likely not have reached its current level.
People have a right to know if a company worked on the game or not, just like they have a right to know if Generative AI was used, or if it funds something they don’t like. It doesn’t matter if you or I think it’s stupid or not.
This Tuesday, we’re bringing you a special episode of State of Play running for more than 40 minutes, focusing on games created in Japan and across Asia, alongside a few other exciting updates.
Comparing scope of Skyrim, Oblivion, and Morrowind, there is very little difference. Really the only difference is an added feature here or there per iteration, and graphics. There is no reason a studio today couldn’t make something like Morrowind, as it was developed by like, 50 people. Unless the employees and management colossally screw up. No, modern game failures are not ONLY the fault of management.
I tried it whenever it was like brand new. I think I tried the demo before the game even launched on Xbox 360, though I can’t be certain. I don’t really remember much about what I played except the main character had pink hair I think and there was a lot of blue or like, ice on the screen.
Also tried FF 7 (the original on PSX) and FF 4 on SNES. I haven’t tried Crisis Core, but I did have it on the list of games to try, even though its not a mainline game.
Sony's Naughty Dog Studio Orders Employee Overtime on ‘Intergalactic’ (www.bloomberg.com) angielski
Resident Evil Requiem - 3rd Trailer (www.youtube.com) angielski
Set to release February 27, 2026
The Game Awards begins 11 hours from now. What are you looking forward to? angielski
The game awards begins roughly ~11 hours from now. what announcements are you hoping for?
What are some lower size games that work well on linux handhelds? angielski
Running games off my microsd has a lot of issues and only works rarely (legion go s, not sure if its the reader or card, heard it’s just slow in general)...
If your username were a Scrabble word with no bonuses, what would it score? angielski
Just the basic letter values, no double word, no triple letter. Add up your username like it’s a Scrabble play and post your total.
Skyrim on Switch 2 ships with severe input lag and a huge 53GB file size despite being capped at 30FPS (spilled.gg) angielski
todd, you’ve done it again
Hell Let Loose: Vietnam - Official Gameplay Trailer (www.youtube.com) angielski
Capcom Looks to Grow Mega Man, Ace Attorney, Devil May Cry with New Projects (www.rockman-corner.com) angielski
Games you played inside video games. angielski
Share your own game rules you have made up that are not the way the game was originally meant to be played....
Marathon Art Controversy Resolved As Artist Reaches Agreement With Bungie And Sony (thegamepost.com) angielski
Metroid Prime 4 | Review Thread angielski
Game Information...
Best vertical games on Android? angielski
I’m looking for Android games that are designed to be played vertically (portrait mode). Could be casual, action, puzzle, roguelike, or anything really. Best if it can be played one-handed....
A chill gaming community for the 30+ crowd angielski
Looking for people your own age to game with? Over 30 Clan has been around since 2010 and has grown to over 1,500 members, and for the last 6+ years it’s been my home base. Any given night you’ll find folks jumping into everything from Battlefield 6 and Arc Raiders to Overwatch 2 and more....
Settings you believe ANY game should have? (This is me advocating for a restart/reboot button on ALL games) angielski
Hear me out. A few games have shader installations that will usually apply any new settings you put down AFTER you restart the game, and a lot of other games have graphics settings that will only apply after you’ve rebooted the game....
What game is a guilty pleasure of yours? angielski
What game do you absolutely love that you know yourself is bad, but love it anyway?...
Valve confirms Steam Machine will be priced ‘like a PC with the same level of performance’ (www.videogameschronicle.com) angielski
Gaming Pet Peeves angielski
What are some things that just get under your skin about games?...
Return to the year 2000 with classic multiplayer DOS games in your browser (arstechnica.com) angielski
16 minutes of HyTale gameplay (www.youtube.com) angielski
This is the first time we have gotten actual uncut gameplay of Hytale, and it looks great....
Roblox to block children from talking to adult strangers after string of lawsuits (www.theguardian.com) angielski
From next month it will start enforcing facial age estimation to allow children to chat with strangers only if they are in their broad age group....
'I've had so many projects that have been discontinued lately': Nier creator Yoko Taro says he's been working on plenty of games—but they keep getting cancelled before he can announce them (www.pcgamer.com) angielski
“I think it’s better not to release something than to release something weird, so I don’t have any negative feelings about that,” Yoko said.
‘Clair Obscur’ Leads The Game Awards 2025 Nominees With 12 Nods; ‘Silent Hill f’ Has Four Nominations (bloody-disgusting.com) angielski
Geoff Keighley and company are back again, revealing the nominees for the 2025 edition of The Game Awards, which will stream live from the Peacock Theater in Los Angeles on Thursday, December 11, 2025. This year the one to beat is Sandfall Interactive’s Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, which has received 12 nominations, and the...
The Game Awards 2025 Nominees (www.videogameschronicle.com) angielski
Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is up for 12 awards, making it the most nominated game in the awards’ history, followed by PlayStation titles Death Stranding 2: On the Beach and Ghost of Yotei with eight nominations each, and Hades 2 with six.
Valve's new hardware will NOT be loss leaders angielski
Can everyone please stop claiming and speculating that Valve’s new hardware will be loss leaders? If you watch LTT and Gamers Nexus’s first videos on the announcement, they actually spoke with Valve’s engineers. And the Valve representatives already said that the new hardware WILL NOT BE LOSS LEADERS....
Uh oh: Ubisoft postpones its quarterly financial report at the last minute and halts stock trading (www.pcgamer.com) angielski
Just minutes before it was set to deliver its financial results for the first half of its 2025-26 fiscal year, Ubisoft mashed the brakes on the whole thing, postponing the release of its results to an unspecified future date. The company also requested that European exchange Euronext halt trading of the company’s shares and...
Atelier Ryza Deluxe graphics/platform comparison (www.rpgsite.net) angielski
It's not a digital foundry video, but this article talks about some of the differences. Bit disappointing that while the Switch 2 version is good as an upgrade compared to the Switch 1 (and the original games), it doesn't even have 60FPS, nevermind 120.
Winter burrow SBI controversy angielski
Winter burrow on steam is being released today, (Nov 12th). I went to the forums to see complete chaos. People arguing and calling out the developers about using sweet baby inc. and hiding it, others wondering what the big deal is like myself. It could just be the anti woke gamers, but there were other complaints. I got the demo...
PlayStation State of Play Japan airs this Tuesday, November 11 (blog.playstation.com) angielski
This Tuesday, we’re bringing you a special episode of State of Play running for more than 40 minutes, focusing on games created in Japan and across Asia, alongside a few other exciting updates.
What's a recent game you've tried playing that isn't worth the hype? angielski