Baldur’s Gate 3 and Elden Ring are the last 2 AAA games I bought close to launch for full price. Other than that, I picked up Hades 2 in early access. The rest of my library is all stuff that I bought on sale.
I do have Monster Hunter and Avowed on my wishlist but I think I’m going to be patient. If I do pull the trigger, it would probably be for Avowed because I want more Obsidian games. On a related note Grounded is $20 on Steam right now so I stopped that up even though I beat it back when I had Game Pass.
A very fair point, but alas… for better or worse, the bar has indeed been raised, and last month only proved that. February 2025 saw the release of a new RPG from one of the most beloved studios in the genre, Obsidian Entertainment. Avowed is modest by design, but nonetheless it’s polished, accessible, and visually impressive, with a rich story from some of the best writers in the business—and the backing of Microsoft, one of the most influential and well-resourced videogame publishers of all time.
You really don’t understand that the people who throw money at Ubi’s standard crap and people who 2d Metroidvania games are mostly different people with different values? The CoD/Fifa/Assassin Creed crowd clearly don’t give a fuck about shitty, intrusive launchers and kernel level anti-cheat.
Meanwhile, lovers of Metroidvania games looked at Prince of Persia and it’s competition (games like Nine Sols) and chose one that didn’t install malware on their computer.
AI could have some pretty cool uses as an enhancement to voice actors. Imagine all of the NPCs in an RPG being able to say the customized name of your character aloud instead of everyone using a title or nickname that you were assigned. It’s a real shame that we have to use everything for evil instead.