I feel like Nintendo on the whole is a little better about this than a lot of publishers, but I could be misremembering things myself. The latest example was Fire Emblem Engage which I believe was announced only a few months before the actual drop. That’s tolerable for me. It feels like it’s almost here as opposed to…

Darktide would probably be a good example of another AA-ish game, Pentiment maybe a single A, but most of those are indie games. We’ve swung way far in the opposite direction. Which is again, great, but is also kind of the point I’m making.

Indie games have exploded recently. There may be discoverability and…

I picked big, polished action games from smaller studios rather than price. But you could replace them with some of these games that released in the last couple months: Coral Island, Dreamlight Valley, Ghost Song, Warhammer 40K: Darktide, Chained Echoes, Hello Neighbor 2, Immortality, and Pentiment. There’s probably…

I feel like pretty much any time this happens with Nintendo it’s either a DLC, a port, or the game releases to middling to poor reviews indicating the stealth release is more of a desperate attempt to generate hype for a game that would otherwise flop.

While I agree that Game Pass has helped open up space in some neglected market segments, I don’t know that I would call it “full of them”. High on Life, Atomic Heart, and Wo Long are all full $60 titles. The upper bound on AAA is in outer space when we talk about multinational 7 studio releases from Ubisoft, but Wo…

honest question... hasn’t Nintendo done this a few times? I swear I remember that they had a surprise game that released right after a Direct on multiple instances, but most of the titles are escaping me. Maybe nothing this high of a pedigree, but the Zelda Necrodancer spin-off pretty much did this, yeah? Or are we…

Definitely don’t feel silly. The deluxe upgrade is kind of like DLC. It just gives you the extra bits missing to be playing the Deluxe Edition (or whatever they call their version with DLC), because the Game Pass version is usually the standard edition. I don’t mind this too much, you’re right the games are…

I took the inbetween route and just did the Deluxe upgrade. I often do that for games I am really enjoying. I wonder what the stats are on others doing likewise.

The fact they managed to pull-off a same-day release without the game leaking aside, is anyone else impressed at how close the cel-shading in this game looks to real 2D animation? Seriously, this is the first cel-shaded game I’ve seen where it can be genuinely hard to tell at times!

That was one of my favorite things about my favorite console, the PS2. Yeah the heavy hitters were great, but I also fell for stuff like Metal Arms, Bombastic, The Mark of Kri.

I would add, the other thing this is a rare example of is the mid-budget AA game.

It’s going to be a harsh couple of months when marketing teams attempt to replicate this, but god damn does canning lightning hit good. I didn’t even watch the trailer or Xbox direct and only read word of mouth from others. It’s amazing to play something that I didn’t have any expectations on and no experience in (with…

Makes me kinda pine for the days where Rare sprang Diddy Kong Racing on the press like three months before release as they scrambled to fill the holiday window Banjo-Kazooie was going to miss. Hell, it was still RC Pro-Am 64 five months before it hit shelves!

To Kotaku’s and your point, Chai’s first line in the reveal “Yup, that’s me!” is such an overused trope that I already got worried about the tone from the get go. I told myself, maybe they’re being tongue-in-cheek about it, and I had the luxury to try it out on Gamepass. The “trial” ended up being a 9-hour complete…

Single and double A titles are one of the most healthy things for the industry. They allow experimentation and a creative refresh for large studio’s for that are usually locked into making the same thing over and over again for a flag ship franchise. For smaller studios it allows them bring innovative ideas and train…

Friend this game is only on PC and Xbox Series.

I think this is spot on.

It’s really weird how that style of trailer making has taken over. It would be one thing if it accurately conveyed the tone/spirit of the media, but these days it feels like more than half of them are cutting up scenes that aren’t even remotely representative of the actual product. Just trying to contort them to fit…

Imagine being subjected to Chai’s worst lines as part of a character reveal trailer on YouTube, instead of warming to his Fry-From-Futurama-esque charms over the course of the game’s opening hours.