Okay, that's pretty lame. According to several spots (all quoting an RPGsite writer and an emoji response from a Sqenix dev) square Enix actually brought in a third party company specifically to improve Steam Deck support. Honestly makes sense, the steam deck seems like their largest potential new customer base.
Do you have any documentation on this you can link because it doesn't really make sense what you mean and I love learning about these things. Most of the cutscenes will be rendered in engine so nothing special there, and the pre-rendered ones if they used an unusual codec I don't get why the codec isn't baked into the game files which would render that also a moot problem.
My gaming groups (both tabletop and video) are leaning into experimental phase of trying new stuff. Count me in if I ever come across your release in the wild.
On the music and visual side. If at all possible I highly recommend finding or hiring someone to at least review what you have and advise, if not doing all the work. There's so much to both that it takes ages to get right but they can have such a huge impact as you seem to know.
Halo infinite multiplayer is free. The forge community has created a battle royale mode I've heard. Maybe give it a shot? I don't know anything other than it exists.
I personally can't stand battle royale games, so sorry, but I hope the next isn't. It's just not what Halo is. If they released a mode, or a side game as a Battle Royale I'm all for it, but not a full main game.
I feel the burnout though. My normal gaming friends and I are in a mode of trying new games right now and don't play together as much.
It's possible people won't accept a new game just because of the name attached, but that's not what I'm seeing.
I still play Infinite pretty heavily and most of the people I chat with there are saying the same, thank the lord leadership changed, let's give it a year or two and see.
Most of the upper eschalon of 343 have left or were kicked out over the last year, including some of the worst offenders who drove the creation of the crap we've had recently such as Kiki Wolf kill.
It seems like they're internally rebuilding 343 because they know how much of a powerhouse that IP can be if done right. I'm not optimistic about the next Halo, but cautiously hopeful now at least.
I'm really open to anything. I tend to lean towards RPGs or story games (Life is Strange, Dear Esther, and Stanley Parable for instance) but I play most anything.
Do you have any examples of smaller studio made games with flashy imagery and effects to match the good story? Really I'm just looking for game recs and want to get away from the usual "big" names for a bit.
I tried 2, 4, and 76. Only for like five hours each maybe? I can't even pîn point what it is I don't like. I don't mind on rails if the story is good, I don't mind open world or plot if it's rich, I've played other post apocalypse games and enjoyed them (Metro 2033 springs to mind).
Just something about the package that is Fallout I keep bouncing off of. I like Morrowind and Skyrim, so I really don't know.