xMightyMatt14x

I’m actually a little deflated at this point. I figured Fable, Perfect Dark and Hellblade would be absent. Avowed? Ok. But no Compulsion game? No project dragon? What’s even left? I’m hoping Halo, Forza and Starfield all show well but they’re all expected. Are there any surprises at all Or is this pretty much gonna be it of the heavy hitters?

@RedShirtRod I agree. Avatar was strange. I know zero people who really got into that universe. Everyone thought the movie was fine but it faded rapidly. Must have some deeper fans out there though somewhere.

And yeah I thought the show was soood even though there were only a couple things that interested me. Mario Rabbids looks great! The first one was awesome and this looks even better. And riders republic catches my eye. Rock smith is a cool system actually. Not into Far Cry though. But looks good for its fans.

Overall a solid B, maybe even a low A if I could get past my preferences.

@LtSarge was thinking the same about a Ryse sequel. That’d be awesome!

@Dezzy70 no one knows for sure but most think it’s a negotiated flat rate.

What’s interesting is multiple developers have said that after going on gamepass it actually increased sales, as opposed to what everyone thought would happen, which would be to see less sales. I’m sure this wouldn’t work for mega titles that sell millions anyway, but for smaller developers who get (probably?) a flat rate and many seeing increased sales on top of that due to exposure, it’s a pretty good proposition!

@Senua we could take that in different ways. The optimist in me sees that as Bethesda size purchases being so minimal they may do even more and are willing to let money fly at experiments, some of which might land. I’m down for being nonchalant about major purchases and moves to build the Xbox brand.

@Gr81 I didn’t notice that at first but that’s a great point! We could be reading into it too much but most people seem to agree an announcement of an acquisition is coming soon. I’m excited to see who it is. If it’s Asobo that would be cool considering what they’ve built with flight sim. I’d be curious to see if it’s an out of the box acquisition though. Someone we wouldn’t expect.

What if this is the rumored halo infinite beta?

@Dezzy70 that’s fair. My gut on the lack of new games (at present) has been that they really have been investing in growing their studios to prepare for a future where they can have mostly AAA funded studios as opposed to pushing their new studios to create and release quickly and end up with a few AAA funded and several small studios. We gotta remember too that many of the recent purchases were finishing projects, which have released to pretty solid acclaim even as multiplat as (Wasteland 3, Outer Worlds). There’s still plenty of great games to play it’s just they’re multiplat. We’re all waiting until 2022 for the long cycles to start paying off but after that it’ll be a steady stream due to their current investment in building up studios and growing new teams. It sucks not having the exclusives after 3 years (or less in some cases) but at the same time if all of them had been pushed and were releasing game’s now they would be probably smaller in size and scope, or poor quality. I’ll only be upset if the fruits don’t pay off in 2022 and after.

@Dezzy70 I get it that we all spend our time more often on new games. But there’s something nice about having my back catalogue available on the latest device so I don’t have to keep multiple things hooked up. When movies transferred from vhs to dvd and later blu-ray and streaming, I never said “Well if I wanted to watch old movies I would just keep my vcr with the vhs’s I own”. Like, I may not go back often, but when I do it’s nice that the movies I want to go back to are available to watch using the latest system (with some maintenance upgrades in sound and visual quality). I see games the same way.

This was one of my favorites of my childhood. I hope they do justice by the remake but I also wasn’t as mad about the reveal as others. It was a unique art style even for its time. It could’ve definitely looked more crisp for sure but I thought the art direction was reminiscent of the original and I liked it.

@clvr I should have just said “what he said” to your most recent posts lol I totally forgot about all the effects of the environment from lightning to the sun generating heat and the effects of cold and altitude on link. The chemistry stuff was bonkers! The basic difference between BOTW and other open word game’s for me is Other games have a stale sandbox with storied npcs (which is why fallout 76 was awful before npcs. People realized without characters the world itself was stale). But BOTW has a literal living sandbox with all the environmental features. And it’s hand crafted for interest and exploration apart from a mini-map like you said.

@LtSarge here’s where perspective comes in. I’ve said on here before that I’m playing through Skyrim for the first time right now and I’m really enjoying it. However, where you say Skyrim seems more alive, I actually felt like the world of BOTW was more alive. What I don’t mean by that is characters. Obviously Zelda was minimal on npcs and the lore was mostly a mystery, whereas Skyrim had voice acting and fleshed our stories for multiple quest lines. (I just finished the civil war quest line myself.. pretty fun). My issue is more with the world itself. Skyrim has a ton of quests, and you can go anywhere, but it very quickly becomes a game of chasing map-markers, pressing RT and killing enemies... rinse and repeat. I’m not saying that’s bad, but I’ll say playing it I don’t take much time to look around because it may be a huge world, but the mission system you figure out quickly enough and actual travel and exploration become a chore to get to the next marker. This is what every open world game does and it makes the environment itself less important, and subservient to the next dialogue option.

What, to me, makes BOTW unique was that the environment itself come alive in a way that makes you look more at the world around you than the mini-map. There’s no other game I know of where you unlock world elements by being miles (game miles) away and in the perfect position to see a certain rock formation, or something at a certain time of day to unlock something way over on that mountain. The environment was hand crafted for this style of exploration and observation and none of it was done through mini markers. It makes the environment almost like a character itself whereas most other open world games the environment is a chore or just in the way of getting to your next mini map marker. This, along with the climbing element, which isn’t revolutionary in theory until you realize that what they did was employ the old metroidvania/Zelda/Metroid prime style of you can get there eventually but build yourself up and come back which always added to the mystery of the environment in a way that is truly unique and different from the go to this mission marker and press a for every minimal quest. I actually cared about looking at the world itself for more than just a aw that’s a beautiful scene moment. Whereas I’m Skyrim, it’s open world and I can go anywhere, but I’m really not going anywhere. I’m focused on talking to people and chasing markers.

This is why BOTW was different than every other open world rpg. (Highly suggest playing BoTW without a minimap on. It’s an amazing experience you can actually do that you really can’t do the same way in a game that has you chasing markers and dialogue).

So to summarize, to you it seems the important part of what makes a world alive is the stories of the people within it. To me the fact that BoTW actually made the environment itself come alive in a mysterious, creative way never done by other chase marker games actually made BOTW feel more alive than others as the environment itself became a character.

@BlueOcean it was the first open world rpg that utilized all of what you said (climbing, shrines, etc. ) as well as employing other creative systems (cooking system for example I liken to the crafting systems of other games but some in a simpler, more fun way) in a way where you felt like you were actually exploring the world and not just given a checkpoint to run to. The climbing is the obvious one because it took the typical Zelda/Metroid gameplay of limiting access to new zones until you gained a new tool/skill but did so in an open world. That, to me, was remarkable. (I’m referring to the simple system of being able to climb anything but having to build up stamina to reach certain areas). No game, to my knowledge, had ever been able to pull off this metroidvania/Zelda/Metroid prime style of exploration in a true open world game and it work so well. It was the first game in a long time I remember feeling like exploration was more about discovery than most other games where in a short time you can gather what areas are accessible/not (either through maps or basic diagnostics of the terrain and limitations of your characters jumping or abilities) and you usually spend the game following specific markers for every mission, looking at the minimap or radar more than the environment itself after a while. This, to me, is what made BOTW distinct. The main missions had markers, but everything else you really had to look for and discover. They were super creative with some of the shrines being unlocked by looking at mountains from far away at a certain angle at certain times of day and so on (like the missions given by that singing bird). And none of that was go to this marker and press A to do what they say. You actually had to seek out a random bird you saw, figure out its riddle, and utilize the environment. It made a mostly barren world (npc wise) come alive in a way other open world games don’t. Any game where I’m chasing markers makes giant worlds feel like chores to cross. BOTW was more than just look this is pretty and was genuinely whats over there... whoa I can get there? And there’s a secret cave that opens when lightning strikes this area? And there was no mission marker to tell me this I had to explore for myself?... aw man I can’t get over there yet though, I’ll come back later. This change to how the world was traversed, how puzzles were solved, and how you could acces everything, but at the same time had to progress to do so (metroidvania/classic Zelda style) is, to me, what made it unique and remarkable.

@LtSarge I gotta go with @clvr on this one. For one, BOTW didn’t review poorly (it’s a 10/10 game) so to pretend like someone besides Nintendo could do it better is an argument you really have to stretch (and have an injection of preference). Secondly, @clvr is right in that all of the other elements of BOTW (besides story) were groundbreaking in an open world game which is why it got a 10/10 in the first place. I just don’t see anyone doing what Nintendo did. Instead, if somebody else had it, it would’ve been more like everything else in the open world rpg genre with a Nintendo story coat of paint.

Also, to expand on this idea more, Horizon was a great game, but was not that different than most typical open world RPGs in how it’s story and missions worked. I wouldn’t exactly call it a groundbreaking game that surpasses the innovation of BoTW. HZD was a great game, but fans hold it to some lofty heights because it’s an exclusive game (I’m not gonna use the word overrated because it is great, but it gets the fanboy rose tinted glasses score rather than it’s already great more realistic score). HZD is a well made game that has received the bonus adoration of what I call the fanboy phenomenon bonus. The basic idea is, “if a game comes out and it’s exclusive to my preferred console, then it gets bonus points In how I rate it”. This happens all the time. But the reality is HZD is an awesome 9/10 game that would have lost attention more quickly had it been multiplat and available on “enemy systems”. While BOTW was critically rated near the top of the best open world rpgs of all time (it might be the top I’m not sure).

Basically, Nintendo would make the better Zelda game and they did.

@CrazyJF I’d definitely be down for that. Played through the first one last year for the first time and loved it. I’ve been looking forward to the release of 2 for a year. I’d love a shadow drop!

Wait. That’s a Wednesday. That’s an odd day for release. Not typical.

Never touched destiny even though I’m a huge Halo fan. Not into games that basically need to be jobs to keep up with. Bungie might make “better” games than 343 (yes I’ll say 343 hasn’t been great at all) but the studio sounds like culturally it’s a shell if it’s former self. Marty should go to 343.

@Krzzystuff that was it? They gotta have more than that

So wait is Sony not doing anything? Like not even their own show around e3 time but separate from e3?

@LX_FENIX respectfully I disagree. I thoroughly enjoyed last years game. The down part was the third act but the beat em up action was well done, the story gave me Saturday morning cartoon comedy vibes (in a good way) and I enjoyed the co-op action.

I’d be down. I loved the first one! Still have to do the dlc though.

Side note. What in the world is project typhoon??? That sounds interesting.

I would say e3 2006 when Halo 3 was announced. Even though everyone knew it was coming it was an epic trailer. The other would be 2018 when all the studio purchases were announced.

@LtSarge and @Jacko11 what’s weird about e3 2013 is arguably Microsoft had better game announcements (including the likes of Sunset Overdrive, Dead Rising 3, Titanfall and Ryse) but all that was overshadowed by the system price announcement. Even the drm thing is basically a thing today on both consoles. It was ultimately that moment, though, that sealed the deal for the x1. I remember feeling like I had better exclusives on my x1 for basically the first year and a half before things really started to turn. I’m glad it all happened though because Phil has done an excellent job righting the ship so at least we got rid of Don.

@elpardo1984 we don’t know for sure but it’s only been out a year. I imagine it’ll have at least another year of development before a true release.

@Carck could it be a deal for something though?

@mousieone that’s probably totally right. It’s just interesting that it’s popped up more than once in a serious enough way. Makes me think at the very least there’s talks for something. Even if it’s just an exclusive game. The vf5u thing is definitely something but deathloop and ghostwire Tokyo were also ps exclusive right before the Bethesda purchase.

So someone help me out here. I know it’s all speculation. But what’s the latest news on the rumored SEGA deal/acquisition? Like I know it’s probably not legit but we’ve heard these rumors for long enough (that there are at least talks of something between the companies) that, to me, where there’s smoke, there’s fire. It’s gotta be SOMETHInG brewing. What’s the latest on this?

@Grumblevolcano smart and thoughtful prediction. After a while those of us who see these every year pickup on the patterns of presentation done in these.

@Stocksy that’s fair. I get that it’s not world changing news. But I think it’s still something to be excited about. Hopefully 1 or 2 of them are soon.

@Stocksy 5 for this year is a bit ridiculous as an expectation. Along with Halo Infinite and Psychonauts 2 (I know not exclusive but an XGS game) that would mean 7 XGS AAA games. Sony literally only has 4 AAA exclusive games “for sure” releasing this year, 2 of which are being finished by Xbox (Tokyo Ghostwire and Deathloop) and are timed. The other two I’m referring to are Returnal and Ratchet and Clank. God of War and Horizon 2 have that vague “2021” tag line and I highly doubt that both are this year and neither has been impacted by Covid delays. That means fundamentally Sony would only get 3 games of AAA funding this year that are on PS and won’t appear on Xbox and you’re asking for 5 plus Halo from Xbox in the last 6 months of 2021? I get what you’re going for but that’s way unrealistic.

Really enjoyed this one. I need to go back and play the dlc.

@SegataSanshiro that’s fair. I agree with the idea of being positive. I was just mainly saying the bad perception lingering hasn’t only been on MS. But also I feel their efforts don’t give them as much recovery credit as the others in the eyes of those who make the narrative.

@The_New_Butler the hard part is mainstream gaming media hasn’t given MS a fair shake on that. They’ve tried investing in new series even back to the early XBOne days (Sunset Overdrive, Ryse, Quantum Break, Recore, Titanfall 1, Ori, State of Decay, Super Luckys Tale, Sea of Thieves) some of which weren’t great but some of which were criminally under appreciated. Long term they were never given credit for their efforts because their top tier stuff wasn’t on the same level as Sony’s.

Perfect example would be like Ryse or even Sunset Overdrive compared to something like Days Gone. In focusing on the attention that was given, Days Gone was built up for years and constantly discussed as an up and coming great game. Though many enjoyed it it ultimately didn’t pan out amazingly. Compare that to the attention given to Sunset Overdrive. It garnered okay attention until its release, was an awesome game, but long term was nearly forgotten in the conversation (or at the very least under appreciated). In fact it wasn’t important again until recently with the rumors Sony might make a sequel. It felt like every time MS tried to invest in something new, even the ones that panned out great as fun games were minimalized and everyone kept pushing the Halo/Gears/Forza narrative, ignoring those others. Whereas Sony’s investments that ultimately rated at about the same level seemed to carry more weight and attention for whatever reason... to the point where Sony got the reputation that even if it didn’t work they were “trying new things” and MS wasn’t.

Basically, it’s not all on MS for that perception. To me I always felt like it was just that the age group that dominates gaming media (30s/early 40s) just seemed overwhelmingly like they naturally leaned Sony and the attention they gave showed it. The narrative leading up to Sony releases was always excitement regardless of how the game was (see Days Gone, Destruction All Stars, Bugsnax, original release No Mans Sky) and the narrative leading up to Xbox games was always skepticism , even if the games turned out solid to great (see Ryse, Sunset Overdrive, Sea of Thieves which was bland at first but always fun).

This still continues today. The narrative for Fable is skepticism because it’s a new team, but then Sony announces some unknown studio is working on a new exclusive game a few weeks ago and all over people are like “See everyone! Another great game on the way!” We don’t even know how either will turn out but the narrative is already written for these games at least until release.

Sonic. Always been a sonic fan since I was a young kid in the early 90s. A SEGA purchase/exclusive deal would be epic for Microsoft.

@IndoorHero I was gonna say the same lol

@SegataSanshiro I would be okay with any of those doing Banjo!

The challenge here is even though logically I believe there should be a slew of game’s coming in the next 18 months (There’s too many studios with multiple teams and too little that’s been released from these relative to the number they have for there not to be), sadly I believe Covid has caused delays that we haven’t really grasped yet (ex. I bet without Covid Starfield is ready to ship this fall). Also we’ve heard reports of several studios moving to unreal 5 and/or starting new teams and extra projects which means a longer development cycle because those teams are on their first go. I feel like we will experience some underwhelming feelings as a result of these and the BIG shows are gonna be 2022 and 2023.

However, thinking optimistically, I feel like they have a couple in house surprises up their sleeves, like Banjo for instance. Similar to how Battletoads was a surprise last year. Also like @SegataSanshiro said, Compulsion is a studio that has been eerily quiet for not having released a game since 2017. Theirs could be about ready to go. I do think a Hellblade 2, Forza, Fable, Perfect Dark, and Gears will all be absent because of shifting to UE5 and long development cycles.

Some things that might show up:

Obsidian stuff (Outer Worlds 2 announcement. Avowed gameplay. Grounded major expansion)

Compulsions surprise game

Banjo surprise from a second party studio

One of InExiles rpg games teased

Minecraft Dungeons, Sea of Thieves expansions.

What I am pretty sure we will see:
Everwild gameplay for first time, Halo Infinite, Starfield, Psychonauts 2 alongside surprise release, and a State of Decay 3 (the one I’m most excited for next to Halo).

Notice I mostly didn’t touch Zenimax stuff. I don’t know much about them. But I do feel like if it’ll be an amazing show this year it will have been Zenimax carrying them.

I loved the Outer Worlds. I’m really hoping for a sequel.

I guess I’m truly the odd one out here. I have never touched this one.

I’ve played several hours and here’s what I’ll say. You’ll notice right away it’s a remaster, as graphically (talking me1) it shows some it’s age. However it plays very smooth with no issues and is still an amazing, timeless game experience. I’m playing on series x to be clear.

Played 1 a few months after release. Loved it so much I replayed it multiple times. Then got 2 and 3 day one. Despite its ending, which I settled with but a lot didn’t, it’s one of the best experiences in gaming I ever had. This will be about my fourth or fifth time playing through it

ME Legendary edition all the way. One of the best sci-fi stories ever.

I was 12 years old. Went to a friends house where they were playing halo multiplayer (blood gulch no less). I hopped in and was like “so what do you do I’m this game?” And they were like “it’s... it’s halo! ... it’s just... it’s halo! That’s what it is!” I’ll always remember this reaction and my journey with the Xbox and halo series after.

I thought this canceled?

I’m down as long as long as the story isn’t too full of divisive story turns. A strong, fresh narrative in a classic style would be great.

@mousieone the sad part is this could be said about the movie industry as well.

This doesn’t seem great. But honestly all I want is a great story with fun gameplay. Maybe they were too ambitious with the open world. But even last years e3 demo to me looked fun to explore and other than the graphical issues made me excited. If they can at least nail the story and gameplay it’ll be an improvement on 5 and I’m good with that.

Well. This is something. Literally right after the show comes to Xbox.

Republic commando is in my top 3 shooters of all time. I know that’s crazy but I lived that game so much. I played a ton of multiplayer. Brings me back to my days in high school.

Sunset overdrive was awesome. Since I probably won’t get a ps5 I will definitely miss out on this one which sucks. (If it’s a sequel)

13 of 20. I switched the force unleashed games and several lego games but did okay with the rest.