Updates that fix bugs come to PC far earlier than Xbox sometimes never coming at all. Games, when not on gamepass, even from Microsoft, are typically cheaper on other platforms. And sometimes they just don’t even put content on the Xbox
Last fall was halo 2’s 20th anniversary. If you only played Xbox, you could have forgotten it. Microsoft did nothing on the Xbox about it. But on PC, they promoted the released E3 demo levels
Finally there’s the lack of investment in any hardware upgrades. The controllers still use the same crap alps stick modules, the vibration is still two big dumb motors, and the buttons are still just graphite pads on a PCB. Even on the $200 elite controllers. There’s no single channel wireless headset available first party, just stereo ones, and the add on storage still remains horrifically overpriced years later
Gears 5 is still a tour de force of how to do a modern game. It’s got cosmetics, customization, an acceptable (but not great) story, decent PvP, and imo the absolute best PvE. Nothing has managed to dethrone horde in 5+ years
I’d still say the Gears franchise owns the shooter coop throne. Every game in the series supports at least 2 player, with 3 & judgement being 4 player, and 5 being 3 player. And they go out of their way to make coop different than regular campaigns too; there are several points, usually one in each level, where you have to split up
It’s honestly the best of both worlds. A well built and tested hardware platform with well known specs and manufacturer support, that’s capable of running any third party software at the drop of a hat
For me the problem with AW, more than the boring gameplay loop, is the weird episodic format they shoehorned into it. You’d just be getting into the groove of the game, used to the annoying combat and stealth and such, and then it yanks you out of it and you have to watch an end of episode cutscene, and then a new episode cutscene, just to continue on
Control is awesome. I was hoping AW2 would be more like control, but from what we’ve seen in the media that doesn’t seem to be the case. Still holding out hope
Considering skylines is basically the only surviving city sim franchise, not much. But city sims have always had difficulty with performance. Sim city 4 was notorious for how badly it performed in hardware, even to this day
All the people I’ve seen playing it don’t seem to show any specific way to do mixed use, so if it does exist it’s probably just a thing that happens automatically on high density housing units