I think the common denominator is a strong / immersive story and universe that appeals to me (big fan of sf), interesting mechanics and gameplay in a way that makes the game unique in its own way, and the artistic approach behind the game, so for each of those :
Outer Wilds was a fantastic experience that you can only live once, the freedom of exploration is crazy, the feelings you can go through in the span of a single minute make it so memorable, I connected with this game like no other
Death Stranding I played during one of the lockdowns, and after hiking in Iceland, it was a continuity of these two experiences that felt very personal. It was also my introduction to Kojima games. I found it to be such a premium experience and statement about video games, I loved the insanity of the plot, and once you dug deeper, you find all the artistic inspiration and process that went behind the game, it’s an insane work of interactive art
Disco Elysium I was already fully on board just learning about the game, I sympathise with the authors, the fact that it started as an rpg campaign, with immense lore behind it, love the art style, the narration, the story and its themes, I haven’t lived in post USSR Europe but the game make me nostalgic/melancholic for a time, aesthetic, struggles I didn’t know
They’re my absolute favourite but some games come close, Inscryption, Pyre, Spiritfarer…
It’s not you, I’m probably on the opposite spectrum, being overly pessimistic. I’m not criticising this acquisition in particular and you’re right, we can’t know how this will go ; it’s more of a jab at the industry as a whole : a lot of new releases are advertised as being made by ex devs of whatever studio was once praised, and turn out to be ersatz of the original material (Back 4 Blood, Stormgate, Kerbal Space Program…). This kind of marketing is super disingenuous!
Can you believe this headline? I have this weird feeling where the video game industry now only presents itself as former of former of… Everyone is referred to as their past roles, there’s no present or future anymore, just looking back at what we had and pretending to offer something similar
It’s a great game, and very healthy when it comes to fomo (it’s non existent you can pick previous battle passes and make progress on them, there’s many systems for unlocking new stuff…). The only downside of starting “late” is that you have everything to unlock, which may feel overwhelming, while I only had to unlock new cosmetics and gear upgrades as they were introduced over time (been playing since early access).
Also the whole game is designed around coop, anything you do will help your teammates, people are very chill so didn’t be afraid to join random lobbies, but if you’d rather play alone you’ll have a dedicated flying robot to help you out!
This is me, Destiny 2 has about 1000 more from when it was on Battle.Net. I’m planning to completely stop playing DRG once i hit 100 hours as I’ve pretty much finished the game (almost max level on all classes and unlocked every cosmetics).
This issue would be solved / non existent if matchmaking was not the only option for playing online game, which wouldn’t be an issue if publishers stopped being so greedy and predatory when it comes to player retention, which wouldn’t be an issue if the economic system we live in didn’t promote this toxic behaviour.
So yeah, kernel based anticheats are mostly just a symptom of a larger problem, the rotten video games industry