For starters they keep making mostly the same game over and over. They’re essentially doing the Bethesda shtick except their end results are better. Sticking to stuff that can mostly be made in the same engine as the thing you finished 15 minutes ago is going to shave off a lot of time compared to making a new game.
Of course that’s not to shit on incremental improvements or engine reuse or anything. That is just sound thinking as long as the games are good.
I’d like to add that from a technical point of view, their games don’t really push the boundaries and at least on PC, their games often aren’t the most polished. Elden Ring had severe shader compilation stutter at launch and a 60 FPS limit - which is a big no-no on PC if you ask me. Nothing game breaking like the state some publishers (EA) release their games in, but not great either.
Not to mention they were actively hostile towards ultrawide gamers. The engine would render it, but then put black bars overtop the sides. Kind of amazing really that level of hatred towards gamers.
I think it’s less hatred and more… Not understanding the wider audience, afaik it’s just not as common in Japan for uw to be a thing in general. Also it adds even more complexity to performance tuning which… They’re not known for. They clearly make games targeted for consoles over PC, the Bethesda comparison is pretty apt in engine reuse and odd decisions to limit fps/uw gaming, Bethesda is at least more open towards modding, but they also don’t make multiplayer games mainly, and while the MP aspects of FromSoft games are unusual, it’s definitely a large part of the appeal/design process and does inherently limit modding due to cheating.
I guess that makes sense, if it’s not that common … but then … why go OUT OF YOUR WAY to make the experience worse? It’s like, why didn’t they just say “oh hey, they have a wide monitor, nice!” but instead they said “oh hey, they have wide monitor, GO FUCK YOURSELF”
The three games I was most interested in last year were Kerbal Space Program 2, Cities Skylines 2, and Zelda Tears of the Kingdom. Two of them had newly designed game engines. The third used the engine from the previous game.
Guess which one I enjoyed playing the most?
In software development sometimes you do have to rewrite some code to improve things. But if you have something that functions really well, it’s better to be just continually making improvements. A lot of what makes a game great is going to be artwork, story, creative level design, creative enemy design, etc. But all of that work can be wasted if the software is buggy, which will happen if most or all of the code is written on a tight deadline.
I love the Dark Souls games. I use two moves in those games: swing big sword, dodge.
In Sekiro, there were many more moves I was forced to use, with precise timing, and split second reads to know which moves I needed to use. My aging brain cannot do that. So I didn’t enjoy Sekiro.
It looks fun as hell if you can get it down, but it was just too difficult for me. I really didn’t enjoy dying repeatedly until I figured out the rhythm. The other soulsborne games felt more fair somehow, and often give you a way to make the boss fights significantly easier.
There’s a candy you can use to reduce posture damage so you can start out just holding block instead of trying to parry. That can make learning attacks and timings much easier.
Almost every mini boss can be backstabbed
Most can be made much easier with the right prosthetic tool
The mechanics are pretty different. Grappling (both terrain and enemies), high vertical jumping, less equipment (but strong diverse builds) and very different combat mechanics with deathblows.
I don’t know if it could be much different without literally changing genres.
I mean, make no mistake, it is fundementally different in lots of ways, but in terms of what the engine needs to do to work, what the character needs to do, how the player interacts with the world, at those basic building block production points Sekiro is almost the same as Dark Souls, I so can agree there.
Sekiro can jump, climb, grapple and swim. Those kinds of more agile behaviors add a lot requirements and considerations to the engine and content makers.
Definitely, but I’m also agreeing that a hugely significant chunk of what they’d already accomplished could save time when moving on to Sekiro. They did of course have to work on the engine and new mechanics as well, but it was far from starting from scratch.
It’s the same gameplay concept on a basic level, but that simply comes with the genre. I don’t think you could really change much more than they did without changing genres.
You’re totally right. I’m a fan of the Xenoblade series and it’s obvious that they use the same engine with some slightly different tweaks and mechanics.
All of the 2D Mario platformers are the same format with unique aspects on top. The same can be said for the 3D games, but it couldn’t be said about the Super Mario series as a whole.
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For starters they keep making mostly the same game over and over. They’re essentially doing the Bethesda shtick except their end results are better. Sticking to stuff that can mostly be made in the same engine as the thing you finished 15 minutes ago is going to shave off a lot of time compared to making a new game.
Of course that’s not to shit on incremental improvements or engine reuse or anything. That is just sound thinking as long as the games are good.
I’d like to add that from a technical point of view, their games don’t really push the boundaries and at least on PC, their games often aren’t the most polished. Elden Ring had severe shader compilation stutter at launch and a 60 FPS limit - which is a big no-no on PC if you ask me. Nothing game breaking like the state some publishers (EA) release their games in, but not great either.
Their games have always been dreadful performance wise. Frame pacing issues and stutter galore.
Not to mention they were actively hostile towards ultrawide gamers. The engine would render it, but then put black bars overtop the sides. Kind of amazing really that level of hatred towards gamers.
I think it’s less hatred and more… Not understanding the wider audience, afaik it’s just not as common in Japan for uw to be a thing in general. Also it adds even more complexity to performance tuning which… They’re not known for. They clearly make games targeted for consoles over PC, the Bethesda comparison is pretty apt in engine reuse and odd decisions to limit fps/uw gaming, Bethesda is at least more open towards modding, but they also don’t make multiplayer games mainly, and while the MP aspects of FromSoft games are unusual, it’s definitely a large part of the appeal/design process and does inherently limit modding due to cheating.
I guess that makes sense, if it’s not that common … but then … why go OUT OF YOUR WAY to make the experience worse? It’s like, why didn’t they just say “oh hey, they have a wide monitor, nice!” but instead they said “oh hey, they have wide monitor, GO FUCK YOURSELF”
The three games I was most interested in last year were Kerbal Space Program 2, Cities Skylines 2, and Zelda Tears of the Kingdom. Two of them had newly designed game engines. The third used the engine from the previous game.
Guess which one I enjoyed playing the most?
In software development sometimes you do have to rewrite some code to improve things. But if you have something that functions really well, it’s better to be just continually making improvements. A lot of what makes a game great is going to be artwork, story, creative level design, creative enemy design, etc. But all of that work can be wasted if the software is buggy, which will happen if most or all of the code is written on a tight deadline.
They also had great success with Sekiro, which was (and still is) very different from their other titles.
It really isn’t except it has a decent and intelligible story
I love the Dark Souls games. I use two moves in those games: swing big sword, dodge.
In Sekiro, there were many more moves I was forced to use, with precise timing, and split second reads to know which moves I needed to use. My aging brain cannot do that. So I didn’t enjoy Sekiro.
You’re only forced to use one move: parry. The moves you can’t parry, you just dodge. You can finish the game just with that.
Give it a try again! Sekiro is a rhythm game, and when it clicks, the combat becomes one of the most fun of all FromSoft games.
It looks fun as hell if you can get it down, but it was just too difficult for me. I really didn’t enjoy dying repeatedly until I figured out the rhythm. The other soulsborne games felt more fair somehow, and often give you a way to make the boss fights significantly easier.
There’s a candy you can use to reduce posture damage so you can start out just holding block instead of trying to parry. That can make learning attacks and timings much easier.
Almost every mini boss can be backstabbed
Most can be made much easier with the right prosthetic tool
Consider giving it another shot someday!
I used parry on like 2 bosses across 3 Dark Souls games. And each time it was a pain in the arse.
The mechanics are pretty different. Grappling (both terrain and enemies), high vertical jumping, less equipment (but strong diverse builds) and very different combat mechanics with deathblows.
I don’t know if it could be much different without literally changing genres.
I mean, make no mistake, it is fundementally different in lots of ways, but in terms of what the engine needs to do to work, what the character needs to do, how the player interacts with the world, at those basic building block production points Sekiro is almost the same as Dark Souls, I so can agree there.
Sekiro can jump, climb, grapple and swim. Those kinds of more agile behaviors add a lot requirements and considerations to the engine and content makers.
Definitely, but I’m also agreeing that a hugely significant chunk of what they’d already accomplished could save time when moving on to Sekiro. They did of course have to work on the engine and new mechanics as well, but it was far from starting from scratch.
It’s still the same engine and general gameplay concept though. The combat was the big difference.
It’s the same gameplay concept on a basic level, but that simply comes with the genre. I don’t think you could really change much more than they did without changing genres.
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Ac6 is “basically” the same game as ac 1 through 5 or whatever. Elden ring is “basically” the same game as the dark souls saga.
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Played and have beaten them all. Youre not seeing what Im trying to say
All the Mario platform games are basically the same. You have the 2d ones and 3d.
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“Yeah I won’t bother replying”
Goes on to write a couple paragraphs why.
Yes Mario games are fictional the same thing over and over again. I’m collecting sunshine rather than stars this time and I have a new hat!
You’re totally right. I’m a fan of the Xenoblade series and it’s obvious that they use the same engine with some slightly different tweaks and mechanics.
All of the 2D Mario platformers are the same format with unique aspects on top. The same can be said for the 3D games, but it couldn’t be said about the Super Mario series as a whole.
If he hasn’t played them, he’s managed to get the right answer. I have played them, and AC6 is to AC1-5 as Dark Souls 3 is to Dark Souls 1 and 2.