What I want Supergiant to do is… whatever the fuck they want.

I don’t see the game getting either of those things.

Duos, you can already do, you just have to take on a rando as a third. They could scale the difficulty down for 2 players, sure, but Elden Ring’s mutiplayer scaling is notoriously terrible, in part because no amount of scaling can account for the lost potential for splitting aggro, in a game where splitting aggro is king.

Voice chat is something that FromSoft has INTENTIONALLY never included in any prior game, despite there being co-op in all of them. Making players coordinate with each other with very limited communication tools is one of FromSoft’s signature design choices. The fast pace of this game compared to prior games makes the lack of communication tools hurt a lot more, for sure, but it’s still very much playable. Anyone who dislikes this design choice is absolutely free to, but it’s not gonna change.

Normally, I’d be on board with you, but it does strike me as notable that Coffee Stain has apparently ALREADY been under the umbrella of shareholders this whole time, and is still fucking THRIVING. I’ll also note that Coffee Stain is based in Sweden, where all the things that make them great (I.E. the way devs are treated, which lets them thrive and make great shit) isn’t about to change.

So, I think it’s worth tempering the pessimism a bit, for now. We’ll have to see how it plays out.

What makes you say that? Do you say “everything else” to mean all the studios that aren’t splitting off along with Coffee Stain? From what’s here, I don’t see why Coffee Stain is in any different boat than everyone else underneath “Coffee Stain Group”.

Is the BlueSky OP here not a native English speaker? Cause, BOY that was tough to follow.

Blue Prince sure feels like it counts, our whole family is hooked, and has been playing it every day for about 2 weeks now. Even well after rolling credits.

In a similar vein, I’d have to say Hollow Knight and Outer Wilds. Together with Blue Prince, they all have a storytelling strategy of “you have to put some effort into getting the story out of it”, but the effort makes every new discovery or revelation feel super rewarding.

Celeste is the one that comes to mind for a more traditional story that REALLY hit.

Persona 5 comes to mind, too. I was ENGROSSED in that story for months. Even if it went off the rails a couple times.

I’m also gonna shout-out Tales of Symphonia. That game was formative for me.

Yeah, just like it was announced for 2023 in that one XBox showcase.

I’ll believe it when I’m playing it.

You know what else they’re not dreaming of? Games on Netflix.

Musk, an avid gamer himself, claimed

Hey, glad to know this source has no credibility.

Fuck yeah, FightingCowboy!

offers a valuable lesson to gaming’s power brokers

They won’t learn it.

For Canada, unfortunately no. Unless Microcenter is available up there, that’s my go-to these days. You could maybe try them out online, I dunno if they’d ship to you.

Newegg lost all credibility with me years ago.

Better him than Musk.

The presentation is different, but the core problem that the FTC is targeting is the same: spending real money to gamble on artificial digital goods.

I’m guessing it got a boost from the Witcher 4 announcement.

It’s rather common Knowledge that NetEase does this exact thing in Narala: Bladepoint, so yeah, not surprising, at all.

I also vaguely remember this being a thing in Pokemon: Unite, not sure if that’s also a NetEase game.

I’m not sure which ones he was into at 4yo specifically, but my son’s Switch favorites include…

Super Mario Odyssey Mario + Rabbids: Kingdom Battle Celeste Minecraft Yoshi’s Crafted World Letterquest Big Brain Academy NES Arcade SNES Arcade

Of those, the ones I would say mught meet your super-chill criteria are…

Super Mario Odyssey (yeah, you can die, but you just respawn and can spend tons of time just running around aimlessly) Celeste (normally not, but there’s a lovely Assist Mode) Yoshi’s Crafted World (there’s a no-fail mode) Big Brain Academy (if they can handle being scored on things, without taking it too seriously).

Honorable mention fir Outer Wilds, cause taking notes and keeping track of things you learn is critical to the gameplay, but the game actually provides an excellent UI already it already.

Also, Elden Ring and other FromSoft games are a contender, cause when you meet a random NPC that says like 3 lines of dialog and doesn’t repeat them, you’re gonna have trouble remembering any of that 20 hours later when yoy meet them again.

Love detailed shit like this.

It actually took me multiple trues to get into Stardew. The whole “track down everyone” quest is intimidating for a lot of people.

Up to you if you think it’s worth keeping at it, for the possibility of getting hooked later.

So, the scheme is basically to have you, the publisher, invest some money into marketing the game, to get potential players aware of it, then have them pay a one-time premium to actually play it, if they’re interested.

I mean, I don’t even particularly think it looks bad, not with the riser sections actually being enclosed, but how on earth do you get that to connect?

Please tell me those splitters are just cosmetic and don’t actually work with lifts clipped that far in…

Because Nintendo made one. They published the “official” timeline like a decade ago, and then made a TON of references to it in Breath of the Wild. Not our fault they then decided to shit on it with Tears of the Kingdom.

Yeah, you need a way to specify what you want with a high degree of both flexibility and specificity. We have a term for that in the industry, it’s called “writing code”.

Shit, this is a cool idea. I might have to steal this.

For one, Ōkami was supposed to have a bigger story, but the team ran out of time and ended midway through what Kamiya wanted to do.

WHAT?! The game’s campaign is already obnoxiously long.

If they get friends, I get friends.

Fuck every last person who gatekeeps the way someone uses intentional game mechanics.

The only negative aspect of FemShep is that she can’t romance Tali.

friendly reminder that the game developer himself said this game ‘needed no female players’" and claimed “some things are made only for men”

I anticipate this game dying in a hot fire.

Article for reference. Unfortunately all the original source (twitter posts and whatnot) seem to have been deleted.

That game’s still around?

I remember when Toonami gave it a 10/10 and I agreed wholeheartedly.

I’m probably a lot more willing than the average person to forgive the occasional part that sucked. All games have them, so I try not to hopdbthat against a game that has plenty of non-suck to offer.

Lord knows Sunshine has a few. Fucking Plinko.

Gotta be Breath of the Wild, for me. Taken together with Tears of the Kingdom, the series’ storytelling and immersion has never been better, I think, and as a game, Breath of the Wild was the tighter, more-satisfying experience, overall.

Wind Waker is a veeerrrrrrry close second. I think it’s the most-polished entry in the whole series, in both categories. I’m really not sure what I would change, if given the chance.

Diablo 4’s what now?

There was a Payday 3?

Unpacking.

I don’t. I don’t think you can grow to that kinda size without engaging in growth and profit chasing. We don’t need a Blizzard that behaves like Larian, we need lots of Larians.

I can’t decide if Kojima is putting the acid industry out of business, because his games are enough of a trip already, or singlehandedly propping the industry up because he’s obviously consuming it all himself.

The SteamLink experience within the Shield has only gotten worse over the years, and a LOT worse recently. Examples include:

• The app often fails to launch big picture mode, or launches it, but without focus, requiring me to go walk to my desk in the other room to fix it.

• Connecting to a PC with a game already-in-progress no longer puts the game in focus immediately, again requiring me to walk over to the desk and fix it.

• The app is prone to having the video completely freeze within any of the Steam UI, requiring a disconnect and reconnect. Like VERY prone. Like, it’ll take 5 tries at connecting and reconnecting to actually make it into a game.

• Some games that used to be able to play well remotely now have an unplayable amount of input lag.

• The app will occasionally get drop to si gle-digit framerates within a game, for which the only fix seems to be to completely reboot the Shield.

As a media player, I’m still overall happy with the Shield, and I know there’s a rather large community of custom OS enthusiasts for it, but with the degradation of Steam’s performance, and the slow addition of ad gabrage in the home UI over the years, the Shield is NOT sensible for a new purchase.