So this game is landing with a solid Metacritic, but it seems like this is coming from all the blogspam AI-gen sites being overly generous with their scores. Some of the more reliable sites (VGC, Eurogamer) are landing more in a 3-star range. Seems like critics are very split over how to receive this game.
Well, neither of us have played it, so neither of us is really in a position to say whether the game is great or not. But that trailer seemed pretty damn spooky and unsettling to me, seems like the dev knows what they are doing. But again, I’m just going off that trailer in the article. Totally fine if this brand of horror is not your cup of tea, though.
to me it feels more like the other shoe has dropped on the censorship stuff that was hitting Steam a few months ago. I understand how that scene is controversial, and even in a film context I think that one might be too much for most studios. But if this was November 2024, I think Steam would have greenlit this game without a second thought.
it is insane out there for indies. The Steam issue is only part of the picture. Your big indie names like Supergiant and Landfall will keep trucking along because they have enough momentum and cache to ink deals with investors. But the smaller studios that are just getting off the ground? Investors have become very averse to signing with those teams, because they only see things in terms of ROI. It’s such a risky bet, and even if everything works out, the tiny payday is not worth it to these types. It is more lucrative to just invest that money in index funds.
Everyone says “it’s okay if AAA gaming collapses, we’ll still have indies to save us”, but we won’t have indies to save us for much longer if there is no funding out there for new studios.
Sure, “it doesn’t have a main quest” is a splashy way of saying “we’re doing a BOTW-style game structure”. But I’m totally down for a dark and gritty BOTW, that sounds like a fresh take to me.
most of my Skannerz memories are of scraping the thing back and forth on the back of tissue boxes until the barcode rubbed off, bc the things were not great at actually scanning barcodes.
If no one is buying new games, that is bad for Sony and bad for the industry. Part of Sony’s business model is built around the revenue from digital game sales and PS plus memberships. You ain’t makin money from those if no one is using the consoles they bought.
it feels like it’s winning, but it doesn’t feel as successful as the numbers show it is. Everyone has a PS5 but a lot of them are collecting dust already.