I love an open world game that is done well - Horizon: Zero Dawn, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt. But so often it is just done because thats what they think is the hot thing, and it does not work
I wanted to love La-Mulana a lot. And I do love it for building some of the foundation that some huge greats like Fez and Tunic and Outer Wilds stand upon. But holy shit, the game doesn’t want you to love it. The combat and movement are so punishing in an entirely unfun way. I stopped playing after getting what I understand to be like 70-80% of the way through the content the game has to offer and by the last ~20% of that I was dreading playing.
It is a game I have to thank for making way for the existence of some of my favourite games, but I hate it nonetheless.
I’ve been digging fucking deep with disco elysium this long weekend, started fresh after having dipped my toes in a tiny bit some years ago. 20 hours logged this weekend with more to come today.
The writing, worldbuilding, and atmosphere are actually just obnoxiously good.
I played the pico-8 version for the first time after the full game including all the B/C sides and farewell, so it took around 100 deaths, but thats with a significant amount of experience for the type of platforming Celeste offers and the type of level design Maddie and co tend toward.
But you see how this is different right? I boycott the vast majority of AAA publishers too, for the same reasons. That doesn’t mean I cheer when they do mass layoffs. It doesn’t sound like you do either.
Of course there are innocent people, what the fuck.
Be gleeful about it failing to sell, yes. But don’t be cruel. Don’t be glad that people who did their jobs have lost their jobs because a CEO wants to preserve investors’ profits. All the bad decisions that made the game what it was, in a huge company like EA or Ubisoft, were probably because of upper management and not because the people who lose their jobs did their jobs poorly.
Dunk the game on reviews, tell your friends it sucks, hell even laugh at the grumbling of the pre-orderers or the captive audience of fans who will die on the hill. But don’t be cruel.