Yup. And I wish more AAA titles took more risks in gameplay and storytelling, but those seem to be few and far between.
Starfield is a fantastic example. If you asked me to describe a Bethesda game set in space, it would look a lot like Starfield (but I probably would’ve missed the procedural generation). Usually AAA games are pretty much as expected, with one or two surprises on the side, and that’s it.
BG3 basically delivers on Cyberpunk’s promises (branching storylines, mocap, great visuals, etc), and it did so on launch, which is really rare.
The Deck’s AMD Van Gogh APU can’t be had in any other device and is substantially different to any other chip AMD produces.
Is it really that different? I thought it was basically Zen 2 CPU cores and RDNA 2 GPU cores. It’s not an off-the-shelf SOC, but it’s also not that custom. So this seems a little hyperbolic to me. I’d say it’s pretty similar to the XBox Series S SOC (and Series X and PS5), which uses the same cores, just a different amount of each.
I also think it’s kind of interesting that they’re jumping to a VR Headset. If it’s a standalone, it’s probably not “low power.” If it’s not standalone, I think they’ll have issues transferring data fast enough to be practical. So my money is on some kind of accessory, like maybe a Steam Link 2 or a controller. Those are low power, wireless, and seem to fit the bill a bit better.
Then again, maybe it is a VR headset. But I really don’t see them competing at the low end on VR.
The game seems (to me) to essentially be FPS, Sci-Fi Skyrim, with some space fight minigames. There’s a lot of stuff you can do, but the main storyline is pretty short, the AI sucks, and most of the appeal is side content and looks.
That’s what I expect from Bethesda, and that’s what they delivered. It’s only really “next gen” in the procedural generation department, so it’s basically a regular Bethesda game, with a little bit of experimentation thrown in. That’s what Bethesda delivers, and they deliver pretty consistently.
I’m guessing there will be a ton of cool mods in the next few years for a deeper story, interesting space combat, etc.
And this is why I didn’t buy Starfield. I loved Morrowind and was disappointed with Skyrim, and I think it’s because I prefer a tighter, more linear story and don’t like “messing around” as much. I watched a gameplay video, and the things that player got excited about (all the side content) really didn’t grab my attention, and the story itself seemed a bit flat.
I probably would’ve loved it as a kid, but that’s not what I’m looking for these days.
So for me, BG3 is the better game. But younger me would’ve preferred Starfield. They’re both great games, just for very different audiences. And I could totally see someone having exactly the opposite opinion as me, which just shows how great both are.
I don’t really understand the decision here, wouldn’t it be better to just put out a notice saying that it won’t see any more updates, discount it, and then move on? A lot of people like it, so I doubt it would require any real work.
Then again, if the OP actually did steal assets, I can understand taking it down to limit liability.
I’m not saying the game needs to be perfect, but it should be a great experience beginning to end without applying any patches. As in, I should be able to take the game disk and install it without any Internet connection and play through the game with only minor bugs here and there.
This is really important for game preservation (the patch servers will eventually go offline), yet many AAA games are almost unplayable without day one patches.
I’m a huge fan of software updates for games, but those updates should merely improve an already great experience, not be the method to fix a broken game. A broken game should never leave QA.
Having a day one patch doesn’t make a game broken, but it is a symptom of a bad internal process. Here are the patch notes for BG3 Day 1 (not sure if 100% accurate, but this is the best source I could find). To me, that doesn’t sound like anything game breaking.
I’m not saying BG3 is the gold standard for AAA game releases, I’m merely saying it’s what we should expect for an average AAA release with some being a little better and some being a little worse.
I’m not saying every bug needs to be fixed. Even older games before SW patches were a thing had a ton of bugs. I’m just saying, the game should play well even if users never patch the game. This is really important for game preservation, so you should always be able to take the game disk and install it offline and play through the whole game and have a great experience. That’s not the standard many AAA studios hold themselves to.
Agreed. But I’d much rather sacrifice AAA features like mocap, voice acting, and RTX if it means a higher chance of playing a game with a lot of passion put in. Those are nice to have, but not the reason I pick a game.
I think it would be interesting to be able to hire a merchant NPC to loot for you. You’d lose a bit of the value (say, half), but the merchant would reinvest those profits to carry better items, and they’d give you a discount.
You’d have an incentive to look through the loot to take what you want, as well as an incentive to ignore the stuff you don’t. That way you get the immersiveness of an encumbrance system, without most of the tedium.
And that’s why I generally prefer indie games. Many indie games are made with passion, with money being down the list of priorities. AAA games are made with money first, though there is certainly passion as well, it’s just not the top on the list. As studios and budgets get bigger, so will their expectation of profits.
So if you want better games, buy from smaller studios. Show them that you value passion over high budget.