They sold over 20 million copies of the first one which puts it on top 50 lists of best selling games of all time, so apparently they are doing something right.

I think a part of that is fatigue towards overly formulaic open world games

Yet for some reason here sticking to what would otherwise likely be derided as clunky, unoptimised, or otherwise antiquated is “part of the charm”.

That is just lame.

See I’m playing through RDR2 on PC atm and when it’s great it’s really great but there’s just so much bullshit you have to get through. The game swings terribly between forcibly holding your hand and not giving you any information whatsoever as to how to do something it expects you to know, and the controls and…

RDR2 was praised despite the clunkiness of its Havok engine remnants (GTA V had already scrubbed most of GTA IV’s best mechanics already so it’s not like there was much left of the Havok engine in RDR2 other than walking animations).

I just disagree. I’m sorry. When I listen to giant bomb cast, fire escape, etc... They seem to have exactly the same reaction. Nobody has any idea of what is happening, what the motivation is, why the npcs matter etc...

“Being sympathetic to the characters or understanding the plot doesn’t have anything to do with the world.”

I’m a Demon’s/Dark Souls vet who has mostly gotten bored with the formula and what I consider inferior combat mechanics at this point (which Sekiro kind of resolved, albeit briefly). So, I will say I’ve been pleasantly surprised at Elden Ring, not because the gameplay is particularly good, but because the exploration…

See but I love that about Forbidden West because it does a different style of open-world RPG/action but does that style extremely well (more dialogue/defined-character based). It’s just fascinating how we see CoD (a series I haven’t played in a decade) described as tired for being like past entries, then RDR2 (which…

This is the first From game I’ve enjoyed, at all. I have about 40 hours in, and I’m looking forward to more. The game is best when you’re wandering around the bespoke universe, and every corner has something to see.

That’s Elden Ring without the learning curve, a process that sees FromSoftware essentially throw players into the deep end and encourage them to swim for safety. Could the user interface be a little more descriptive? I suppose so. Could the devs make a concerted effort to further evolve the combat mechanics past the…

But the conceal makes sense because of exactly that. The studio don’t specialise in body horror or horror games and knew they wouldn’t be able to match others, so why do that only to have a damp squib of a flailing blob and instead let people imagine him with, as another comment here suggests, with tentacle powers.

I’m seeing a lot of people talking about how they thought that mission was pointless or that it needed the visual confirmation that he was indeed a gnarly monster... but I personally agree with the creative team, I thought it was kinda brave to pull off that twist and for them to say “no, aloy wouldn’t actually want…

“Before Zero Dawn and the Faro Plague, the Earth was on its way to baking itself to death. Sure, he was more of a spokesman and financier than anything, but his efforts were instrumental to solving climate change.”

That whole Thebes section was completely pointless and unnecessary but it kind of worked anyway. It was incredibly stupid but also a very Ted Faro-like thing to do so I was okay with it even though it was completely bonkers.

Jimmy Zemus? Any relation to Jerome Zeromus?

I can’t wait until FFV, the best game in the series (fight me), gets a similar treatment featuring Tony Exdeath.

As someone who used to play a lot of point-and-clicks, was 16 at the start of 2000, and has never heard of Meredith Gran or Octopus Pie, I’m intrigued. I think this one’s going on my wishlist for when I’ve thinned out more of the massive time sinks in my backlog. I think I’ve played through all my previous William…