Fascinating read. It’s wonderful to get some perspective from one of the performers who isn’t one of the “big names” yet still does SO much work to bring a game like this to the screen.

Psst.

If THAT is a “big ask,” maybe we need more of these “pie in the sky” types.

The gameplay we saw was running on a PC, actually.

I’m not a comics guy so I know this is blasphemous to a certain group of people, but seriously, in the big picture, who actually gives a shit about hawkeye?

Yeah part of what I’m getting at is that I’m baffled as to why they dedicated a measly six minutes to their flag ship launch title for their new console (hell, the flag ship title of the entire Xbox brand).

Yeah the fact that Remedy is doing this just makes it worse. Such a dumb misuse of their talents.

I am so beyond over the “dudes with goggles and backwards caps firing military assault rifles” genre. Is there a more boring aesthetic under the sun?

Yeah there’s definitely stuff I like about it. The minimal art direction is a cool choice, and this looks much more inviting and interesting than anything I’ve seen from 343.

This has super basic archetypes of guns, a deployable shield, and a grapple hook. Destiny has literally 150+ unique exotic weapons and armor pieces that all have unique functions. It’s got three distinct classes that each have three (soon to be four) subclasses. If you’re talking about variety of weapons and tools…

Yeah I already said the high resolutions and framerates are cool.

Eeeeeehhhhh, I mean whatever floats your boat. I think Doom nailed that vibe much more than this seems to. No reloads, no ADS, no sprint, etc... but they still made it feel fresh, whereas this just looks exactly like stuff I was playing 15 years ago.

I never said Sony’s showcase was amazing; I thought it was serviceable, but nothing mindblowing. With Microsoft I just don’t any exclusives that make me go “wow.” They are so, so dead set on continuing to milk their staples and it just doesn’t seem like they’re as interested in branching out. When Sony decides to go…

Probably. It’s just a bummer because video games are cool and I like them, but I am so utterly unimpressed by Microsoft’s offerings. I want them to be making stuff that looks cool, but almost everything they’re doing feels so obligatory and uninspired.

They implied an open world by showing a map screen. I’m talking about actually showing how that open world impacts the experience. Show me some actual traversal through this large space, show me how the structure of the game is different from something I would be playing 20 years ago.

It’s certainly not ugly by any stretch of the imagination; very pretty, semi-minimalist art direction. I think people are seeing the minimalism as “bAd GrAfFiX” but I think they’re nailing the look of Halo: CE in a really cool way.

Eh, I love Destiny, though I definitely have a rhythm with it where I jump in for a few months and play almost daily and then take a few months off as I play other things. I’m currently in an off-season as we wait for the new fall expansion. It works for me, it’s a great hobby game.

I’ve literally been asking “why the hell would I ever buy an Xbox” for like seven years and they continually fail to provide any sort of compelling answer.

It’s practically impressive how boring Microsoft’s output is. Halo Infinite could have been marketed as a remake of Halo: CE and I wouldn’t bat an eye. “It’s a new Xbox, so you get a new Halo and you’ll LIKE it, even if it doesn’t look even half as fun as every other modern FPS on the market!”

I just CAN’T get over the fact that they’ve been hyping the living shit out of this for months now and the day has come to see the next grand evolution of the Halo IP, the next epic chapter in the story, a reinvention of a classic franchise aaaaaAAAAND.....