Duderino

No one knows exactly how well it will do. The only debate here is what the factors are and how much they matter.

How does your argument account for Watch Dogs, Ghost Recon Wildlands, No Man Sky, Mafia III, etc? What do you make of Days Gone's current success on the Amazon charts? Seems only fair to consider all the evidence, right? I think your point is applicable to games going from bad (little to no buzz) to worse (widespread negativity), but I do question how well it fits here.

The Last Jedi and Han Solo had a bit of a muted look. They still have color of course, but the way it pops here is more reminiscent of Episodes 1-3. For me anyways. Think it’s a good thing. I like seeing some variety to the way the Star Wars universe is presented.

Well that was different from what I was expecting. A lot more colorful than the recent movies.

There are ample concrete examples in this thread of AAA tittles smeared online, far worse than anything thrown at Days Gone, that performed way better than message boards, youtubers, articles, and even reviews would indicate. If there is a strong correlation, why has it failed to make a sizable difference on soo many occasions? Which brings us to Days Gone. Why would its success be any more at the whim of internet negativity? Is a hot take like “gamers are sick of zombies” really enough to burry Days Gone’s future?

I’d agree that Streams and Lets Plays are having a notable impact when it comes to promoting additional sales. But media that is fueled primarily by criticism and concerns, whether it’s overtly negative articles phishing for clicks, dramatic YouTubers seeking self-affirmation, or drive-by comments on gaming forums or social media, very little if it ever reaches a wide enough audience to make an impact. Why? Because the appeal of this content only resonates with a very small, insular group of consumers. The negative voices collectively amount to a drop in a bucket compared to the impact of positive buzz.

I do believe with the right marketing, open-wilderness action survival horror, as a game concept, can sell plenty well.

Good reviews would certainly help, but by the day it’s becoming increasingly clear that there is a large amount of buzz surrounding the game. Days Gone has its detractors for sure, but the concerned rhetoric is looking increasingly out of touch with the game’s sales potential. For a little context Days Gone is currently the #1 selling PS4 tittle on Amazon. Comparatively MK11, the other big April release, is sitting at #10.

I guess that kinda speaks to the problem. There’s just not many AAA open world UE4 tittles out that demonstrate the engine is well suited for a world like Anthem’s. Not saying that Frostbite is either of course.

Ark and PUBG definitely have had their performance issues. Crackdown 3 ran well, excluding the apparent hitching on PC, but is far less dense of a world than Anthem’s. Days Gone looks to be the more demanding open-world UE4 tittle, but going by earlier impressions has also faced performance challenges throughout development. State of Decay 2 also clearly struggled with streaming issues. Kingdom hearts I can’t really speak to. Fortnite I’d put into a similar camp as Dice, given its built by the engine developers. There’s obviously a lot more to an engine than just how performant it is, but I do see a common thread of open world tittles that have also struggled in this department with UE4. Doesn’t mean the engine is incapable, just there’s likely a lot of modifications happening under the hood by these devs to get their games running well.

Honest question, have there been any UE4 games with Anthem’s complexities that demonstrate the game would be better suited for the engine? Something like a big AAA open world game with high speed traversal, loads of FX on screen, and online multiplayer? I’m sure frostbite came with major challenges, but Anthem’s game pitch isn’t exactly a safe bet for any engine.

Impressions from Kinda Funny at 41 min. Some points: - Impressed with the narrative and acting. Want to see how the story plays out. - Praised the UI, specifically the "Storylines", wheel, and touchpad enabled menus. - "Storylines" help connect the world activities with the narrative. There is a % complete associated with each storyline that they like. - Greg compares it to AC: Odyssey quite a bit: - Quality of Life features like looting multiple items at once. - Progression that allows players to focus on different play styles. - The world overall is pulling Greg in like ACO. - Implies that visually Days Gone makes ACO look rough. - They bounce back and forth between Horizon, TLOU, and ACO comparisons. - The bike maintenance is a natural extension of the activities in the game. Not a pain. - Didn't expect this quality given Sony Bend's history of handheld tittles. The experience working on an Uncharted game shows here. - Question marks pop up on your radar that imply something is happening near by the player may want to explore. Could be an ambush. (Lots more in the video)

Same goes for FXV’s Chapter 13. And WW’s tri-force quest. And probably Anthem too. The common thread between it all, arbitrary late game progression stalls can lead to unhappy gamers and lower review scores.

I can understand the complaints. Good on Bioware for tweaking it, but for some players this is still going to be an arbitrary progression blocker. As endgame content though it would probably be fine. People might even appreciate it. Same could be said for Wind Waker's Triforce Quest, FFXV's Chapter 13, Shadow or War's Nemesis Grind, etc.

I never quite understood why some thought the Metroid 4 announcemment was such a home run for Nintendo during their E3 direct. Sure, it gave fans something to get excited for, but compared to just about any other game shown at the press conferences and show floor, the MP4 logo was as low effort as it comes. To put it into perspective, we’ve seen more of the FF7 remake.

So EA canceled the tittle, then gave Motive only 2 years to cobble together a new, smaller game?.... yeah, good luck with that. I bet Viseral could have shipped a much better game by 2020 if EA only saw it through.

Visceral and Motive would have had their hands full with a 3rd party engine as well. EA as a publisher just lacks the the patience to see these games through while sticking to a vision.

I agree that politics in gaming don’t have to be topical, but when part of the gaming press wants to draw parallels to current affairs and starts to stir up those expectations, it clouds up the game intent dev’s are trying to communicate (locked down years in advance) and sets the stage for some really odd criticisms in reviews. Politics may not be the focus of every big budget tittle, but it has been a large influence over the years. No disagreement there. Curious though, since you brought it up, which tittles do you think have crooks at the helm suppressing a political message? You might not be wrong, but it is a heavy accusation so I hope you have examples. I do think it is the responsibility of the reviewer to set aside articles trying the label a game prior to release and evaluate it, to the best of their ability, on their own experience. Politics can certainly play into that, games (and reviewers) don’t exist in a bubble, but that is not what I view as the issue here. It’s the click-bait, frequently misinformed, hot takes that are hardly grounded in game itself getting repeated in reviews and previews as a point of criticism. Not always related to politics either. Hope that clears up my view. I really don’t care to get into a philosophical debate over what is or isn’t truly objective.

While video games are in no way removed from politics, they are perhaps the worst medium in the entertainment biz for making a political statement on current afairs. Games just take too damn long to make. Outlets that choose to grade tittles on their ability to draw parallels to modern trends are basically weighting their scores on the ability of developers to predict and provide commentary on the future. Unfortunately with a lot of reviews I’ve read that talk politics this context is completely lost. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a good discussion to have, but it requires a degree of objectivity on the reviewer’s part that frequently doesn’t exist.

Played for several hours offline today. The game’s pace stops just short of Melee thanks to quicker attacks and faster movement than 4, but what the game gains in speed it lacks in responsiveness. I’m assuming the 6+ frames of input lag have a lot to do with it. Here’s hoping that Nintendo can improve it, because the game could (and should) feel soo much better. The level 9 CPU’s do put up a good challenge, but it doesn’t feel like they are working with the same handicap at all. Overall I’m enjoying it more than I thought it would, but it is rough around the edges at the moment. Here’s hoping a fix is in the works.

I’m just hoping Smash Ultimate’s gameplay is a bit more open-ended than its predecessor. Smash 4 was definitely an improvement on Brawl, but at the same time the physics and combos felt very pre-deterministic for a Smash game. Ready for more variability and unpredictability again.

Ready at Dawn just opened an office in Portland a few weeks back. Clearly they’ve aquired lots of additional funding to extend their operations like that. Microsoft makes sense.

Not to mention the ps1 also had that polygon wobble. Wish the PS1 classic included methods emulators have developed to combat the problem. Here’s hoping the eventual n64 classic takes more liberties with the emulation. N64 games can actually hold up relatively well with a resolution bump, AA, and some texture filtering.

The biggest challenge for Microsoft to expand their AAA portfolio will be having the patience to see it develop. Playground needs time to build their character pipeline for the rumored Fable title. The Initiative has to hire a new team, develop their process, and find their identity. Undead Labs, InExile, Obsidian, etc require investment and time to make the visual, performance, and presentation leap into modern AAA territory. Even Ninja Theory, while arguably in the best position of these new acquisitions, has historically relied on outside studios to fill in their manpower gaps. Just like Sony’s internal studios, it will take years to see the same kind of leap forward. I agree with others that “AAA” is not the goal for many of their new partners. Content is.