From the reviews I’ve seen, it actually seems like they listened to complaints about three and have toned down the cringey dialogue.
Of course, nobody can get the damn thing to run, so hard to independently verify, but it seems like this entry was meant to be a triumphant return to form, far closer to BL2 in tone and style than BL3.
It’ll maybe be worth checking out once the inevitable Game of the Year edition goes on heavy discount in like four years.
I mean, good creators don’t? There are still AA and indie devs pouring their heart into stories they want to tell?
This article is basically just bemoaning that AAA develops for the lowest common denominator, which I can understand as a gripe, but it’s a very old gripe. If you start really digging into AAA, you’ll get other similar ones like “Why are these gameplay loops made for people who don’t like gameplay” or “How come perfectly serviceable story focused games get mandatory crafting systems added onto them.” When you’re trying to make something to broadly appeal to as many people as possible, you stop making art, so I don’t know why people keep expecting AAA to produce artistic experiences.
I started out using an old Nvidia Geforce 1060 TI and an i5 whose model number now escapes me. My experience was terrible, on Mint, Ubuntu, and Bazzite. Most games didn’t work, and researching the error messages I found in my logs just directed me to Nvidia forum posts from 6 months to a year ago where a user described my exact issue and received no response.
Then, I purchased a new pre-fab computer with an AMD Ryzen 5 7600X3D processor and a Radeon RX 9060 XT GPU. I still had a handful of issues on Ubuntu, so I switched to Bazzite and it’s been smooth sailing ever since. I can run the vast majority of games through Steam, and use Bottles for anything else.
The lesson I learned was fuck Nvidia. Team Red 4 lyfe.
There’s two issues with this thinking. The first is the assumption that the additional money is going to the developers. Considering Microsoft continues to layoff developers, I think we can safely rule that out as a possibility. It’s going to the c-suite and maybe marketers.
The second is the assumption that games are more expensive than ever to develop. This is beyond untrue; games have actually never been cheaper to develop. That’s a big reason why indies have exploded in popularity, and in many ways have supplanted AAA as the primary drivers of innovation in the industry. AAA games are bloated because business executives want to chase infinite money, and put ludicrous amounts of man hours chasing the dragon of graphical fidelity. I strongly believe that more mid-budget titles focused on solid gameplay fundamentals with good art direction would result in greater success, but since that won’t make infinite money I doubt the shareholders will ever take that route.
Dark Souls 1 is like a nice palate cleanser after Elden Ring; much easier, much quicker to go through, really only like 1-2 really difficult encounters by modern standards.
Dark Souls 2 has kinda become more interesting over time. You can start to see the bones of what would eventually become Elden Ring with mechanics like powerstancing and armor sets with bonuses, but the differences in healing and the mistake of Adaptability turn a lot of people away.
DS3 is honestly just “another one” in retrospect. It introduced what would become weapon arts and simplified magic to use a mana system, both things that would continue through to ER, but I very rarely return to it.
If you can find a way to access it, I’d also highly recommend Bloodborne. It plays the most different to the rest of the franchise, while still retaining a lot of the Soulsian trappings.
Tbh, I actually think this ends up being a win for Skyblivion. I think a lot of first-time Oblivion tryers were hoping for more dramatic changes, as opposed to basically unchanged Oblivion with a weird facelift running on top.
Even if they can’t get the rights, it’s not like there’s anything stopping them from making a new original “boomer shooter.” I don’t need it to be called Blood 2, I just want them to make something high-octane and kickass again.
That’s fair, I only knew Zaslav had been pushing hard for live-service games and will likely be the death of Rocksteady. Fuck Haddad too then. Why does Warner Bros employ so many execs with Batman-villain ass last names?
Same reason Skyblivion is allowed to exist; they’re making all the assets from scratch. Usually, the issue developers have with in-engine remakes has little to do with the modification of the engine, but everything to do with the mod team basically stealing assets from a different game. In truth, there’s no difference between Skywind and your favorite Skyrim overhaul mod besides the scope and scale of what they’re trying to do.
I really hope these teams are able to stay together. Monolith was absolutely getting wasted by Warner Bros. Games, they’re way too good a studio to get stuck making brand tie-ins. Just more dogshit mismanagement from Zaslav though, Warner Bros keeps seeing flops but won’t address the problem.