This sounds a little like the AC formula. In those games, I don’t really feel like I’m in the animus, so I think direct control over the hero should be thrown out, otherwise the bits where you’re not controlling the hero will feel out of place.
Inscryption is a very different game and I certainly felt more trapped, especially in the first third of the game. In that one, there’s an ever present reminder that you’re trapped, and there’s interesting stuff to so outside the main gameplay loop.
So you need to play as the princess and make interaction with things other than the hero fun, but not so fun that you don’t want to be rescued. I think you also need some kind of peril to give urgency as well. Some ideas:
elements from Prey - hide from your captor when helping your hero
puzzles and whatnot in your prison
periodic checkins - i.e. need to be in certain places at certain world times
I’m also not a fan of the symmetrical sticks, but it doesn’t bother me a ton, and having gyro aiming as an option is a big value add. I definitely don’t pay full price though, I’ll only pick it up on sale.
I would love it if they sold some of those IPs so another studio can run with them. We really don’t have a lot of Asian crime games, and those have a very different feel than western crime games.
Anyway, thanks for the recommendations! I’ve wishlisted them and will check them out when they launch. The mafia series is great, and MindsEye could be awesome if it’s done well.
Rockstar’s delay announcement may result in numerous other studios confirming 2025 releases for their own games. Earlier this year a Bloomberg report claimed that rival game publishers were waiting as long as possible to commit to their release dates for next Fall, because of GTA 6’s planned release.
Or they could, you know, make a game that rivals GTA VI. Come on Square Enix, make a Sleeping Dogs successor, I know you have it in you!
Eh, each game had a very different feel. I didn’t play GTA 1 or 2, so I’ll start after that point:
GTA III - caricatures the mafia and the FBI, but otherwise is somewhat light on satire (good setup for the franchise though)
GTA VC - lots of satire about the 70s and mafia in Miami
GTA SA - lots of satire about a wide range of topics, from 90s gang culture to the burgeoning tech scene in San Francisco
GTA IV - lots of statements about the immigrant experience, with satire along the way
GTA V - satire about middle class life in LA, the excitement of tech getting stale and turning bad, etc
Each has a fair amount of satire and something to say about the world, I just found GTA V a lot less interesting than previous titles. GTA IV is my favorite for a playthrough, GTA SA is a close second (I love exploring SA).
Still, there’s very little overlap in GTA Online and Madden/COD. GTA Online is still very much sandbox-y, caters somewhat well to playing alone, and has a team gameplay loop. People tend to play this periodically but probably don’t have it be their main/only game.
Madden and COD are both highly competitive games with pretty much no sandbox, and their appeal is pretty limited after a couple years when the next one comes out. People tend to stick to these franchises as their main game, playing very little else.
The main similarity is that they’re AAA games, but that’s really it.
I hope they have at least two cities like Miami (beaches and organized crime) and Orlando (Disney and big business). Could be cool to have a three like SA to add in either Daytona (racing and rednecks) or Tampa (ghetto Miami).