>The Transaction will assist the Company in adapting to the changes underway in the global
business environment by establishing a more efficient allocation of resources, which will enhance
corporate value by accelerating growth in the Company’s core businesses in the digital
entertainment domain. In addition, the Transaction enables the launch of new businesses by
moving forward with investments in fields including blockchain, AI, and the cloud.
They are still making incredibly good games (FFXIV, DQXI, Nier, Bravely Default etc.) but for every single good one I swear they make 3 utter shite too + their gacha games are not even that good considering the saturation on the gacha market and what quality games some other companies can make (see Genshin)
But at least Naoki Yoshida is on the board of directors + he is producing the next mainline FF game and I think he has the trust of millions of players considering what they did with XIV. So not all hope lost as long as he is at the company.
"Investments in blockchain, AI, and the cloud" sounds like they have absolutely no idea what they should do, and will spend most of the money paying very expensive consultants who produce delirious slideware about web3 metaverse opportunities.
I think that's just pandering. The markets expect to hear this line and will punish the stocks of tech companies that don't show some kind of investments into this kind of stuff.
They'll make some NFT-based card game with advanced self-learning AI opponents just to tick all the right boxes.
Yes, precisely. Executives want to pump the stock price because it's a large part of their compensation. Many Hedge funds/VCs want to invest in "innovative" companies .
More like a race to the bottom. If everyone else is e.g. using Bahamian tax shelters, and your company explicitly states that it won't do that, then your company's stock price will go down, because the market predicts that without those "table stakes", your company is not going to be competitive with all the companies who are willing to do that. (Whether that's true or not is irrelevant; it's only about whether the market believes it's true.)
VCs reward investments into all that horse hockey, because VCs reward investments into it. It's greater fools all the way down, a weird self-fulfilling prophecy.
I still remember when companies proudly claimed their software contains XML and therefore is worth unicorn dollars
Traditional values are gossip based pseudoscience. The majority will never dig deeper, so it works, but what’s more they’ll never understand the nuance so why bother? Stick with gossip.
The most distressing aspect of the current bull run has to be that it's difficult to point to concrete examples/products that use the best buzzwords.
Web3? Show me an application which isn't just trying to sell some other crypto scam. Why can't I know simply access a web 3.0 web page, is the web 3 not the web?
AI? I see lots of ML in products these days, but calling it AI is ... extreme. Products that look like they could match the description are relatively far from commercial viability.
The market and real estate systems in FF14 are indicative that Square Enix's creative units either have no idea whatsoever about how economies work, or no interest in making theirs fit for purpose. Their efforts in this direction are easily derided as painfully limited, crude, naive, and dysfunctional, certainly one of the least well designed aspects of the experience. This stands in stark contrast to the thoughtful, detailed design evident in gameplay and world-building exhibited by much of the rest of the game. The supply-chain economies and sophisticated markets found in some other MMOs put it to shame.
The buzzword vomit from their CEO is simply a continuation of this trait.
Subjective perhaps, but I don’t think the soft soap stands up to scrutiny. Case in point, witness the absolute fiasco of this month’s “property lottery”. A shitshow of bad design, disastrous implementation, and consequently failed rollout, which somehow won’t be resolved for weeks. As for the market; anyone who tries to run a shop is in for a world of pain, forced to micromanage their listings using the clunkiest of tools, in an unstable market with limited price signals and irrational competitors. Fun? No sir. It’s a pain in the ass.
I can’t speak to GW2, but cherry-picking something you clearly think is worse sets a very low bar. I don’t accept that meeting a low standard is a reasonable expectation. A long long time ago I used to help run an Eve:Online corporation, and there the sophisticated economy and market systems made for a vastly richer player experience.
The point being, Square Enix can’t be taken seriously when they talk about in-game economic structures. Their track record is one of incompetence and indifference.
FFXI had a better economy, but it comes down to the fact they don't seem to want money to matter in FFXIV. The game hands it out like free candy but it's only really worthwhile on cosmetics unless you buy into day 1 gear. Couple that with vertical gear progression and nothing is exciting - it's all the same items with different names and higher numbers. I'm not sure how they can even improve it with the game being how it is.
Housing is another matter, they mention server strain but given their past comments on what is and isn't possible (like showing what items you own), coupled with their terrible netcode, I'm inclined to not trust them on this one. As you say they are great at the game side of things, but seem to struggle with the tech side.
Those seem like obvious areas of research for a next generation game developer. Perhaps you are overreacting because of a culturally normative skepticism toward the word "Blockchain"
Veteran game developer here: What makes "ai" and "the cloud" obvious areas of research for a next generation game developer? Games have had "AI" for decades and we've had neural net hardware on GPUs for years and years now which gets used for things like upscaling, global illumination, etc. "the cloud" has been available for ages and games already use cloud hosting extensively where it makes sense.
All I see here are buzzwords and abstract terms that mean literally nothing as an investment unless your goal is to impress investors and specialist press. The blockchain is not going to do anything to streamline game development or improve game quality, all it can do is provide new monetization options... but traditional gacha games already make a truckload of money, so it's questionable whether the cost of moving into blockchain is reasonable for a company like Square Enix that can already rake it in via microtransactions.
For AI, it's mostly machine learning that's attractive today. physically based animation will probably be the next big breakthrough to finally reign in the increasingly burdensome costs of asset production. It's been around for years in various white papers, but it's only recently starting to show up in commercial products.
Cloud is simply what it is in other media: having your device be a thin client that the developers/hardware manufacturers deliver your media to. I know it's a thorny topic for enthusiasts, but it's very likely in 2 decades' time that most players won't be using a dedicated console nor gaming computer to play AAA games. "Netflix of Gaming" is too attractive a title in this multibillion dollar industry to not pursue.
>so it's questionable whether the cost of moving into blockchain is reasonable for a company like Square Enix that can already rake it in via microtransactions.
TBF Square Enix's MO for the last 30+ years is to try and be on the cutting edge as a market leader. It may not make financial sense, but they've constantly made huge gambles. Some paying off huge, some bombing hard, and a few almost bankrupting the company.
As an engine programmer, I can't help but admire the ambition in an age where so many studios seem to instead rely on Unity or Epic to leverage that for them. But it also makes me wonder how long until the company flies too close to the Sun.
>"Netflix of Gaming" is too attractive a title in this multibillion dollar industry to not pursue.
"Netflix of Gaming" title has not aged well from years ago. Today's perception of Netflix is very negative and trend is negative as well. Tbh, negative perception of Netflix did not came from Netflix as tech company. It came from content production side. Game industry is a content heavy business and giving up IP and studios is net perceived loss. Its very strange when real value is replaced with buzzwords.
As engine programmer myself i cant pretend i understand content side of the business well. And as someone who finally cancelled Netflix subscription I am biased ofc.
I don't think the OP said those things were pointless, only that they are already actively used in industry standard approaches.
FWIW I agree with the assessment, the terms are broad, generic and have no specific connotation for gamedev. It's not oriented at anyone in industry since you'd talk about specifics and not the "cloud", "ai", or "blockchain".
Pick a hapless MBA-equipped middle manager at Oracle or IBM or some other washed-up corporate hell, and ask them what are important technology trends. The answer will be some variation of “blockchain, AI, cloud.”
It’s not encouraging if high-level leaders at a game studio can’t articulate their vision any better than that.
again, you are making casual comparisons to your existing impression of companies using buzzwords. this reveals a cultural bias, as i am trying to explain.
you are not directly impugning one of the best game development studios in history in any way, despite seemingly thinking so...
what you are revealing is merely your sentiment about these terms
In the noclip documentary on FFXIV a few years back, Yoshida mentioned that he was considering leaving Square-Enix to make his own games. FFXIV is really good, but Yoshida is the soul of that game. If he left, that would be devastating.
If you haven't seen the noclip documentary, you should. It's on YouTube.
He has since stated that he won't leave FFXIV. Has re-iterated it in the face of the 6.0 launch, since 6.0 wrapped up the main storyline and there were fears of his departure following that.
It is not always a good idea to let productive people run a company. Let YoshiP make games, that's what he is good at.
And have someone who knows how to make money be the president, so that he can finance YoshiP games, preferably without too much meddling into the creative process. I am not into NFTs myself but if it makes money that can be invested into good games, by all means, let them do it.
Rather like the Jan 6 events, once people get away with one thing they will try another. And another. In this case, enough people have made enough money from pyramid schemes without going to jail that it's becoming hugely popular.
For me, Square Enix has been more of a manga publisher than a game company in recent years, and on that front I would say they are doing a pretty good job.
> but for every single good one I swear they make 3 utter shite too
That describes almost all AAA companies. I think Square takes more heat on this point because they are some of the few studios still investing heavily in the "AA" market. Outside of Avengers, most of the other projects people may point to aren't really the highest budget games to begin with. And those rough releases are something most other studios don't want to risk anymore.
> + their gacha games are not even that good considering the saturation on the gacha market and what quality games some other companies can make (see Genshin)
I mean, the entire market is trying to chase Genshin right now. It's a very arguable point that no mobile game released as of now is as good as Genshin, at least on a technical level.
I understand why. The attraction of mobile is running a relatively low budget (say, "A/AA" level) project and having it profit for a few years until they need to recycle the assets into a new project. A game like Genshin is the equivalent of trying to put GTA V on a phone. Which may be technically feasible now, in 2022, but it'd get you laughed out of a pitch in 2017 or so when Genshin started development
Remember, this would have been right before the Switch launched and had Breath of the Wild show what an ARM architecture was capable of rendering. Most other studios are too risk averse to consider such an endeavor. Console developers especially because they don't want to cannabalize their games with something that plays too closely to their $60 AAA blockbuster.
The term ass.ets is quite an interesting choice of words in this regard.
Though besides that time (including current trends) might also have been a very important factor.
I would imagine a Deus Ex game might've sold better rn (with the increased hunger for cyperpunk-ish games after Cyperpunk 2077) than in the last few years. Though with the dev times on those games planning for future trends might be unreasonable.
Nier Replicant ver.1.22... is a remake of the original and has gotten positive reviews (80+ on Metacritic.)
I did not find Nier Gestalt to be worse than any other JRPGs of its era in terms of gameplay, and it had some clever bits like switching between 2D and 3D perspectives as well as game styles. My main complaints were the tedious fetch quests (I completed about half of them before deciding it wasn't worth finishing them all), the fact that the fishing minigame was explained incorrectly, and (slight spoiler) a story that I found to be sad and depressing. Completing multiple endings can be somewhat tedious as well. But the creativity, the atmospheric graphics, and the soundtrack were exceptional.
I think Nier Gestalt and Replicant on the PS3 were underrated (if flawed) gems.
Not sure I'd say dogshit but not near as smooth as automata.
Plus the story of the original game took a looooooong time to get going combined with the ability to lock yourself out of the true ending without knowing or discovering it for like 75% of the game is definitely going to limit the audience.
The controls are terrible. The combat is super repetitive. You transition between areas very slowly. You can lock yourself out of endings without even intending to. You can accidentally throw yourself into forced events super underleveled. You have to grind like hell for some of the materials. I can go on and on.
"Dogshit" might be a bit hyperbolic, but not by a lot.
Nier: Automata is a good (not great) game from Platinum wrapped in a juicy Nier narrative layer that elevates it to a very good game.
It's not just "not as smooth as Automata", it's bad by the standards of the era it was released into.
It's a 2010 PS3 game with movement and combat and controls that feel like an early PS2 game where they are still figuring out twin stick movement and cameras.
"Gameplay" is a non-criticism. The combat movement is clunky, especially by western it-sucks-if-I-can't-cancel-everything-all-the-time God of War standards. Plenty of other stuff is amazing.
As for “gameplay” I’m not going to recapitulate the past decade+ of how we’ve learned to write about games. It’s semantically empty, say what you mean instead.
Nier is easily one of my all time favorites and as much as I try and get friends to play it, it's so hard to explain what kind of game and experience it really is. A great piece of art.
I bought it and got distracted by other games without playing it yet, I need to get back to it! Mostly was inspired by the Consolevania review (which had a truly bizarre opening minute that you might enjoy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X8jeEwL9QUM)
edit: I rewatched the review now I totally get why I picked it up, Ryan's enthusiasm is absolutely hilarious and infectious ("It's just perfect as I've ever seen you can ride a fucking boar in it")
I mean, Final Fantasy XIV has something like 1.7 million active players at the moment. That's just people paying a sub at endgame. $25m in monthly revenue at the low-end is pretty impressive for a single game.
People in the west seem to have become oblivious to the fact that Konami still makes games (and yes, by that I mean traditional video games)-- just that most of their library has become invisible from the POV of the west. Games like Momotaro Dentetsu and Pawapuro are doing plenty well in Japan.
The enthusiast gamer market is a bit too laser focused on AAA video games at times. They do make console games, but the only ones that give the slight time of day to are PES (or some remasters of games they already like).
I believe most of it is frustrated Metal Gear, Castlevania, or Silent Hill fans. Maybe even some old school Suikoden fans.
To me xiv is a horrible game and barely a mmo. Square enix hasnt done good games for a while. TWEWY is probably their only good series but they barely market it. Also their strategy of releasing everything epic game store exclusive on PC is pretty scummy.
can't agree about xiv-- i've never been an mmo guy, but have absolutely loved playing xiv. the story, esp. w/ Endwalker (the newest expansion) is fantastic. but to each, his or her own, i suppose. :)
That's what a lot of MMOs are right now. Feels like saying that modern CGI movies aren't really movies because they don't feature actors. Unfortunately the age of EQ, where you grind for hours and hours with a group as the primary way to level, has passed.
i guess that's true, but my friends and i always kind of hacked the system in a way where we were all leveling in lockstep and stuff anyway. but yeah, the individual quests themselves are mostly single player, with some weird multiplayer affordances (like sometimes if you are on the same quest as someone else you can kind of fight the same mobs / make the same progress). i found all that stuff pretty boring anyway-- the trials, dungeons, etc. are the meat of the game as far as i'm concerned (and they are the ones bookended by the cinematics that deliver the meat of the story).
>one I swear they make 3 utter shite too + their gacha games are not even that good considering the saturation on the gacha market and what quality games some other companies can make (see Genshin)
I heard from sources that the western department is doing this.
Sources: Are on Twitter, forgot the name. (Yea I know, that I don't need to "believe everything" so please add salt to my statement)
When you zoom out a little it makes a lot of sense. FF15 and FF13 were both failures, company had serious financial issues before FF14 took off. Hopefully you will get to enjoy FF16, and making that game wouldn’t have been possible without the success of 14.
FFXIV also has the least addictive qualities of any MMO I have played in my experience. There’s very little FOMO & you’re encouraged to play at whatever pace you enjoy. Many players just play through the story and treat it as a mostly single player game.
I wouldn't call FF13 or FF15 failures from a sales point of view; they both performed strongly. From a "brand damage" point of view, though, they were catastrophic. I think the development of FF16 speaks for itself: they gave the development of a mainline single-player title to Creative Business Unit III, their FF14 studio, because they have a rep for making consistently good content and delivering it on time. Meanwhile, no one expects Nomura to reveal anything about the inevitable FF7 Remake sequel for at least the next 3 years.
FF14 is great, though, as a non-MMO player. The community is largely helpful to newcomers, the story content is very accessible and requires little to no grinding, and the game as a whole doesn't gate important plot developments behind high-tier endgame content the way most MMOs do.
> they gave the development of a mainline single-player title to Creative Business Unit III, their FF14 studio, because they have a rep for making consistently good content and delivering it on time.
I think it's simply because the other CBU's are swamped with work.
- The old business division (what they called Creative Business units before the restructure 5 years ago) that made FF15 split off into Luminous Studios, and went straight from FF15 DLC into Forspoken
- CBU1 (AKA, the Nomura division) handles FF7R as well as Kingdom Hearts. Two huge franchises. Adding another FF onto the pile would be overwhelming
- CBU2 is "The Bravely division". I wouldn't be surprised if they get to try their own hand at a Final Fantasy one day, but it would have been too early for FF16. FF16 was likely being worked on before Octopath Traveler.
- CBU4 was always a smaller sort of "spinoff" studio. Nowadays they focus more on the mobile market. Very little chance they were ever considered.
I don't think Square Enix sees the last few FF games as damaging as fans do. They simply have a lot of work and some teams have more or less room for that work.
Funnily enough, it may be a possibility of FF17 having a mobile client given Genshin's success, but this is just random conjecture
From a sales standpoint alone no, but from a profitability standpoint definitely. A lot of time and money was poured into developing a game engine from the ground up that ultimately ended up not being very good and thankfully is being replaced by Unreal in FFXVI.
Crystal Tools was supposed to make development for several games easier & faster, but instead it took more effort to complete than expected & was still difficult to work with after it was complete.
In the space of MMOs FFXIV tries to do most things right though. There is hardly any "you must log in every day to progress", you can still experience all the old content at your pace (with some limitations, of course), even the seasonal events are usually done in 10-30 minutes and are available for a whole month. I know, it's easy to just name the things that are done better than in e.g. World of Warcraft, but YoshiP has said repeatedly (and this is very very rare for MMO studios): You don't have to play every day, and if you're done playing the content from the latest patch, go out and play other games, then come back when you like. It's basically the antithsis of FOMO. The only other example that comes to my mind is Guild Wars 2, which is actually some "come back 3 years later and continue where you left off".
You can basically engage with the entire story of XIV without touching the MMO part at all. Especially now that they're going back and enabling NPC party members for the story dungeons.
Pretty please can we have the final installment of the Adam Jensen Deus Ex trilogy now. Left us hanging in the middle of what might be one of my favorite neo noir, cyberpunk series because open world story driven games were losing out back then. There's clearly an appetite now given recent releases and their success.
I think Deus Ex is done. A finish to the Jensen story would rely upon Eidos Montreal being able to produce more than one game every 5 years. Since Mankind Divided, they've released only a Guardians of the Galaxy game.
MD was a great game, which was according to Eidos Montreal kneecapped by "Square rushing it out". Human Revolution was an even greater game, but still slightly kneecapped by "Square rushing it out".
People say that every time and (thankfully) so far we have kept getting Deus Ex games. For all their flaws I have enjoyed every single one q uite a bit.
Mankind Divided I thought was highly underrated. Cyberpunk 2077 was sort of close to what I think some people wanted out of the ultimate Deus Ex game (depending on your playstyle) but obviously had problems as well.
Personally I would like to see something massive and not just another boring "open world" focused game - Deus Ex really shines with a strong story driven plot. I have always wanted to see a true co-op functionality in a Deus Ex game and I think that could be hugely popular online especially if they regularly released new missions and content.
I should say, I feel strongly that Eidos Montreal would like to make the game, but will be unable to produce it in >5 years, and this new parent will not like that.
Embracer bought lots of things, not just Deus Ex. Companies acquire IPs in bulk buys all the time that they never do anything with (Gex being a good example).
That said the linked article says that Eidos Montreal is working on a Deus Ex game, so you might be in luck.
They released a new expansion to Titan Quest last year. I’ve talked to their leadership and they will 100% release content and new platform support for every IP they buy. It’s their whole MO - buy somewhat stale IP and take care of it to generate easy revenue. For almost every big IP they buy they fund a sequel
Yeah, neither of which were small games, for the record; SotTR was a huge effort, if not the high point of the new TR games. And Guardians of the Galaxy was well-received, and even won a Game Award for best narrative (I won't comment on the relevance of awards shows; let's just call it "peer recognition" for their efforts).
Guardians also failed to meet Square's sales expectations, though Square is notoriously hard to please. Tomb Raider (2013) moved 3.6 million in its first month, and was considered a disappointment... but not so much of a disappointment that they didn't green-light 2 sequels.
Whenever this game is mentioned, I still think about and regret my actions during my first playthrough of the very first mission in the second? game. You have a choice in how to do it and I was lazy and just killed everyone, and IIRC it's revealed that it's a test with your comrades guarding the objective and I felt awful!
The newer tomb raider games are the most AAA games I’ve ever seen. Not saying they’re good, or bad, but every other moment is a handcrafted moment. It sort of works. A lot of it is platforming through crumbling environments. Which is pretty cool. It’s sort of overdone too.
The original Tomb Raider was almost Minecraft-esque. It was composed of blocks of different heights and slopes in a 2D grid. This allowed the developers to create all sorts of scenarios from simple tools to put Lara through and really test all her abilities.
I played through the first "new" Tomb Raider and it was very much "walk on the path marked walkable, climb the ledges/walls marked climbable, shoot the specially marked doors to create a scripted zipline", etc. Oh, and "waist-height walls mean upcoming combat sequence". Based on that I decided to skip the other two. Uncharted was better able to mask the on-rails nature of its experience, at least.
That's what I hate about it, its like a bad interactive movie. I also feel like the new Tomb Raiders focus way to much on combat and almost none on exploring.
exploring with modern AAA assets is hard, and sandbox style games like Elder Scrolls or GTA take a huge hit in both graphical fidelity and level design to facilitate that (okay, maybe not GTA V, but it's a "console game" with an MMO built into it. The profit margins on it are incomparable).
I imagine that that may have been a huge grind to the people at Eidos who were once at the top of their games in terms of visual fidelity. Sacrifice that exploratory feel but still achieve best in class graphics like the old days
It's kinda a shame that we're loosing the exploration side of the gameplay for set-piece focused linear adventure with loads of combat, which are dime a dozen nowadays, unlike exploration/platformers with a side of combat
I've been playing the Mass Effect trilogy again and man...I really do appreciate how cinematic the game is while also having very satisfying/dynamic combat. Especially ME3.
I just started my replay of the Legendary Edition with some mods and having a blast. I love that it hits that sweet spot of narrative and gameplay. For a decade old trilogy it definitely holds up.
The QoL improvements to ME1 are a welcome change. Very impressed with how seamless they are/how well they integrate with the gameplay.
I'm also impressed with the upscaling/visual improvements. The game looks how I remember it looking, though I know full well it didn't look this good. Still, it wasn't a massive overhaul. Light is a little better, edges have been sanded down, etc.
I've never really liked those franchises, even though they do have AAA production value behind them. Uncharted and God of War in particular just feel like button-pressing simulators to me; they feel like 8 hour long cutscenes with a few QTEs and points where you can wiggle your joystick. Maybe I'm just spoiled by gameplay-heavy titles as of late, but a lot of Sony franchises feel like they'd be better as movies instead. That being said, the new Uncharted movie bombed at the box office so I don't know who's at fault here...
I've never played Uncharted, but I had a much different God of War experience from what you described. There's really quite a lot of gameplay there, and some of the optional combat encounters were ridiculously tough -- certainly not QTE-ridden cutscenes. Some of the puzzles were repetitive and there was certainly quite a lot of dialog, but I never felt like I was in a button-pressing simulator.
Maybe OP is considering the earlier games in the series? I agree with you that certainly compared to Uncharted and Tomb Raider the latest God of War has far more engaging world design and combat.
The latest God of War just needed more actual bosses.
Feels like the queen bitch valkyrie was the only encounter where they actually decided to push the combat. Imagine if Sekiro or Souls games only had a couple of bosses that felt like real bosses.
We must have been playing different games, or I’m just terrible at them. I found the non-queen Valkyries immensely difficult, certainly boss level, and some of the other boss-like encounters took me a few tries.
Ah, I think there's an important distinction here my original comment didn't properly touch on: it doesn't mean the bosses weren't punishing.
Consider fighting a normal high level draugr with an under leveled/geared Kratos. Assume we are on the highest difficulty.
You'll basically have to dodge a lot (or spam ranged attacks), your attacks won't reliably stagger them, you'll tickle their health bar and getting hit once or twice will kill you. That is punishing and hard if there's more than one of them.
However, if your levels are similar you'll be able to count on staggers, there will be certain attacks that cannot be blocked, certain attacks that will stagger you if the block wasn't perfect, you can freeze one of the enemies.
The hard case is far simpler and less involved than the normal combat.
I consider the normal valkyries hard, but individually they don't really have lots of tricks that require hyper focusing both on reading them and executing the appropriate counter. They are fairly simple to understand for the most part.
You need to have cached a butt load of movements and their appropriate counters to fight the queen valkyrie. You might even find some non obvious openings for poking.
Most valkyries are straightforward when you get their 1-3 special attacks. That's not much more than regular enemies.
This Uncharted film seems like it really succeeded at the box office. $120M budget. Even if that gets bumped to $200M with marketing and say a bit more for more rev sharing, Sony will still come out with a profit. It’s at almost $150M in the US and might hit $400M worldwide with almost none of it coming from China or similar regions where their cut of ticket sales are much less.
I’m not an expert, but my rough understanding is that you have to take the nominal budget, double it for marketing and other incidental stuff, then halve the nominal revenue to account for the cuts taken by distributors and theaters and whatever. So to break even that means you need about 4x gross revenue over the nominal budget. In this case, just taking the numbers you gave, they are about $80m short of breaking even.
Uncharted the game series is as far as I know, an Indiana Jones movie except they made it into a video game by having Nathan Drake kill 100000 mooks constantly.
Are the movies the same? Just like an earlier movie but weirdly way more violent?
Actually, I greatly prefer Tomb Raider 2013 to any of the Uncharted games I've tried (2, 3, and some of 4). TR2013 is laser focused on cinematic platforming and awe-inspiring set pieces, with much less conventional shooting. I've played through the game several times over the years, and I always come away thinking it's an underrated title.
TR2013 doesn't push any boundaries, but it does execute a standard formula more effectively than anything else I've tried. I did not think the two sequels were anywhere near as good!
(I haven't played The Last of Us though. I hear it's incredible, but I can't deal with the subject matter.)
IMO 2 and 4 are easily the best Uncharted games. I wouldn't recommend 1 or 3 at all, despite 3 having a plot that should have really appealed to me. The first one mostly suffers from unrefined mechanics making it a slog, but they fixed that in 2.
But, 2 and 4 are very different. 2 is a solid 3d action-platformer, while my favorite parts of 4 were when it basically just became a "walking simulator"-type game for long stretches, with most of the action and platforming just feeling tacked-on and superfluous.
> (I haven't played The Last of Us though. I hear it's incredible, but I can't deal with the subject matter.)
I should have loved it, but bounced off hard. The prologue had me, but a little while into the game proper I just wanted all the main characters to die, including the one you're really, really not supposed to want to die. They're all horrible and I didn't like or care about them a single bit, to the point that I wanted them to fail. The protagonist in particular, I had to root for him to fail because clearly this humanity-on-the-brink would be better off with one fewer self-interested mass-murders around making things even worse. That's... not a great way to motivate the player.
> I had to root for him to fail because clearly this humanity-on-the-brink would be better off with one fewer self-interested mass-murders around making things even worse. That's... not a great way to motivate the player.
Isn't the question of the players morality vs the "enemies" core to the entire concept of the game though? I think the lesson the game is trying to teach is exactly that: by what standard is the protagonist actually any "better" than those he regards as enemies? By the end of the game, I think doubting the main character is hopefully exactly the point - he isn't a good person either. In a completely lawless world such as that inhabited by the characters, I think this makes sense to explore.
Make the central character a likable, non-mass murdering fellow and this huge central theme of the game disappears - The Last of Us is harrowing by design, I'd argue, and its commitment to being harrowing is what sets it apart as a game in a sea of relatively emotionally shallow "AAA" titles of the same era.
Maybe, but it was kind of a problem when I was already like "is there a way to progress the game but have this guy not accomplish what he wants?" on like mission 1 (past the prologue)—there was no build-up to it, I thought he was wrong and should fail immediately. And they might have gone for some kind of turn-around on that when the girl comes into the story, so that I start wanting him to succeed, but then, I also didn't like her and didn't care if anything involved with that worked out, either.
I think I quit right after the game had me murder a couple soldiers for bad reasons. I already have several GTA games I can play, which, thanks to tone and expectations, aren't frustrating when they ask me to do that kind of thing. My head-canon is that the soldiers instead shot everyone there and that was the good ending for the story.
...if you haven't already heard of it, I feel like you'd enjoy Spec Ops: The Line. Go in completely blind if at all possible, and don't be turned off by the fact that it seems like a generic dudebro war shooter. It does start out that way.
Yeah, Spec Ops: The Line was really good. Really good like some movies I've seen where I was like "that was great—I wish I hadn't seen it", but still, really good.
Dunno about this recommendation, it feels like the parent poster would have the same issues with Spec Ops as with TLoU. But still they can forge their own opinions about it.
Without spoiling too much, the difference to me is that Spec Ops is aware of and addresses people's actions, and even more critically lets the player make different choices.
Am I the only one that can't stand these games? They are so restrictive in their gameplay, so linear! It feels like watching an interactive movie more than playing a game.
When it's done well, I'm willing to embrace the cinematic nature of these games. Like a movie, the game is taking me on an adventure, but unlike a movie, I am responsible for whether my character succeeds or fails. If I don't jump at the right time, or deal with the attacker coming up behind me, my character will die and it will be my fault.
Sure, I'm aware somewhere in the back of my mind that everything has been laid out for me, but in my favorite games, I'm able to suspend my disbelief. However, if I can't figure out where to go, or if the game is too hard and I die too frequently, or if the game is too easy and I don't feel a threat, or if the pacing gets bogged down by optional side quests and bullshit skill trees... it's very easy for any of these things to break the illusion.
I'd actually hold up Portal 2 as the best example of a linear cinematic experience done right. The pacing is perfect, the difficulty is perfect, and there's no distracting side quests or experience points. Combined with the first person perspective and the mute protagonist, I really feel like I am Chell, trapped inside Aperture Science and talking to Wheatley.
So, I actually suspect that this was intentional, and kind of clever.
When games don't have a penalty for dying, players will sometimes fall back on a trial-and-error approach, where each individual attempt stops being meaningful. Some experiences, like Celeste, are designed around this type of gameplay loop, but it usually doesn't work well in a cinematic experience.
The most common penalty for dying is lost progress, but this also doesn't work well for cinematic games, because the experience looses its magic once you know what is going to happen.
So Tomb Raider takes a different approach. Checkpoints are frequent, but the death animations make you really, really not want to die!
I'm very squeamish, so I always had to close my eyes when I died. But even the chance that I might see something was a good incentive!
Linear games are better in my opinion. Linearity isn’t the problem though. Mario is linear and very fun. Tomb raider just sort of takes away you doing anything. You have no real agency for a lot of it. Just told what buttons to press indirectly and then you do it.
There's linear gameplay and then there are linear games. Linear games are preferable, for many games, because there is a story that you can impact in meaningful ways, but with 'an' outcome. That outcome will morph or change based on inputs you make and decisions you make throughout the process. Linear gameplay is boring, in that you don't get any agency. You are simply completing a series of steps to feel a sense of accomplishment, when in reality all you have done is push the approved buttons at the appropriate time.
Linear game that's awesome: Pillars of Eternity.
Linear gameplay that's not awesome: Tomb raider games.
Or maybe different games are made for different people. That could also be an option.
I like the distinction you make. Though I don't think Pillars of Eternity is a very strong example of a linear game that's awesome -- I played this game for a good 20 hour at one point without following the main storyline.
They require different design skillsets or experiences. Elden Ring and Zelda are designed to be more non-linear and they work, but have completely different strengths and focuses vs. a linear approach. More based on creating an engrossing world and mechanics that allow you to play most sections out of order and create your own adventure vs. the control you have over story nuances when you make a linear title (e.g. Half-Life 2).
I feel elden ring really failed on the non linear aspect to be honest. It was frustratingly open ended up front, and then very linear at the end.
I started the game, went to margit, found him too difficult, and then, with no particular alternatives, pretty much explored the entire map aimlessly, wishing for a clear direction on level appropriate content. It was hard to find the next thing to do. I didn’t want to skip through things with ashes or multiplayer. I didn’t want to farm.
By the time I actually found this content there was nothing left to do besides warp to bosses and murder them, or look up the obtuse quest lines and warp around to complete those. A huge floor on character progression is finding the flask upgrades. But since they’re just lying around you just go from having none of them to quickly finding more than you need for 80% of the game.
Like… dark souls would just be a worse game if every door and elevator was open from the beginning. It would just be confusing and frustrating if you started making “wrong” explorations.
I would greatly have preferred elden ring with pretty much the entire open world cut and instead just a tour of the legacy dungeons. The open world just compounded on some of dark soul’s weaknesses. Like finding even more cool weapons that you can’t practically try without farming a ton of upgrades and changing your build.
Playing through Elden Ring made it clear to me how impressive Breath of the Wild was in retrospect. Even without any meaningful awards (or because of?) the exploration in BotW is just so much more memorable and dynamic.
I think I could not get past this after a couple of cinematic sequences in Uncharted 2. I just wanted to go to youtube and watch the cinematics stitched together uninterrupted.
There was this point in game development where a big technical goal was to make the transition from cinematic to gameplay and back seamless. Now that it's a given in games I personally am not wowed anymore. Maybe for each of us the balance of challenging gameplay and rewarding cinematics/feel of accomplishment lies on this spectrum and these type of cinematic heavy games went too far on the spectrum towards interactive movie and just don't appeal to some of us. I am reminded of Dragon's Lair in arcades which was all quicktime events and was appalling to me for the 2-4x the price of other arcade games but other people I went with loved this type of challenge.
You're not alone. These sort of games offer very little opportunity for players to creatively express themselves. This is more like watching a movie than playing a game.
It can be fun to express yourself, and some games get plenty of mileage out of offering people various opportunities to do just that. But sometimes you want to "play" a movie, and there's not necessarily anything wrong with that. I had a lot of fun with the Tomb Raider games despite the lack of creative expression -- the mechanics were fun, the story was dumb but entertaining, and there was a lot of spectacle to soak up. I don't need to engage every part of my brain all the time.
Hmm, I like them. The only times in TR that I do not like are the ones in which you have been completely kicking ass, and then inevitably get knocked out during a cutscene.
I found it annoying in Uncharterd, but The Last of Us made it work somehow. They had just enough freedom and side content to have it be a game while also telling a compelling story that very much demands linearity.
Yeah I’ve looked at the games catalogue before. It doesn’t seem like Enix brings that much to the table. It seems like they got real lucky being there financially for Squaresoft after their massive film losses.
Dragon Quest is more important than any Squaresoft game in Japan and for a while was a better series.
They have a kind of weird approach to releasing it in the West where they give everyone British accents (which are totally real but Americans think are made up) and make it kind of kiddy, but even the new ones have a lot of quality. If you ever wondered what a game made by old people would be like, it’s that.
It was believed Square’s choice to put Final Fantasy on PlayStation killed the Sega Saturn, and dented N64 adoption. But this is console war mythos, not sure if anyone really dug into it.
The power of Square once upon a time may have been truly legendary, but who knows for sure?
Maybe it’s just my filter bubble but for years Sony had such good marketing that I knew their flagship games and random facts about their consoles even when I didn’t own them myself.
I couldn’t tell you a single game on the PS5. I don’t know about other countries, but it’s like they’re not even trying in Japan
Cartridge price played a big part for N64. MSRP for new games was about $60 compared to most PS1 games @ $50. Worse, retailers often marked them up a lot, which didn't seem to happen for PS1 games. I'm pretty sure I paid $80 for Ocarina of Time, while I snagged FFVII for the $50 MSRP. And IIRC price drops were pretty rare, especially for 1st party games. (Still true today).
It made me much less willing to take a chance on a games I might not like. These days with Steam I can at least see if I hate the game immediately and return it, so much better from that perspective. Of course I can resell when I'm done, which is less good.
One of the ex rare Goldeneye Devs said in an interview that the N64 not having a cd drive lost them that generation. I think he's probably mostly right.
Cartridges were not only an anti piracy move, it saved on cost of console manufacturing (the N64 was still sold at a loss).
As you point out N64 games were originally a lot more expensive than playstation games.
Also Nintendo were really restrictive with who could develop for the N64, remember the whole "dream team" thing? Mean playstation had way more favourable licensing and you didn't need silicon graphics workstations (I think I'm correct in N64 dev requiring them?)
Somehow the pros of N64 carts (mainly loading times and onboard game saves) were never really talked about. I had an N64 (which I purchased together with Goldeneye circa 1997). I can remember a feeling of thinking I had made a mistake because PS1 seemed much bigger and I had a feeling that it must have been better. But looking back, I feel like N64 had the better set of games. But maybe that's just because it's what I know. Honestly Goldeneye and Perfect Dark were probably enough to win that war all by themselves in my mind, but Mario Kart, Mario 64, Smash Bros, and Star Fox also got a lot of play time from me.
There were definite advantages to cartridges. I remember a few occasions where PS1 memory cards ate my save data, which never happened on N64. And I remember tedious disc swapping and long load times on a few games: Riven had a few discs and you'd have to switch when traveling from one area to another, and those were always fraught with the potential for game crashes.
On the other hand discs allowed much larger games. There was a crazy amount of variety on the PS1, though as a result also a lot of crap to sort through. I was a Nintendo-first fanboy at the time, but when the PS1 dropped in price to about $100 I picked one up, trading in N64 games I no longer played to help fund the purchase. I think it was around the time FFVII came out because I remember reserving it for day-1 release.
Ahh simpler times, working manual labor while in school. Sometimes I'm nostalgic for those days of unskilled (relatively) non knowledge-based work. It was much less stressful, even if the pay was crap.
The N64 controller did Nintendo no favors, particularly with games like Goldeneye. The original playstation controller didn't stand the test of time either, but once the analog sticks were added it became an instant classic.
The controller was weird then and is even weirder in hindsight but as I recall:
1. This was the first console controller with any analog stick at all.
2. Goldeneye, though it controls differently to modern shooters, was an excellent use of the single stick at the time. You could also use dual sticks by using two controllers at once - groundbreaking!
3. The Z-button was the first trigger-style button on console controllers.
4. The rumble pack was one of (if not) the first force feedback options for console controllers.
So obviously very many of the concepts in the N64 controller laid the groundwork for what became the standard controller design later, with dual triggers, dual sticks, and built-in force feedback.
Personally I think the N64 controller was less weird than:
1. Gamecube controller
2. Wiimote
3. Dual Screen handheld with touchscreen and stylus
> Goldeneye, though it controls differently to modern shooters, was an excellent use of the single stick at the time. You could also use dual sticks by using two controllers at once - groundbreaking!
Wait, what!!? Can you really play dual-stick Goldeneye on original N64 hardware this way?
The Gamecube controller may have looked a bit funny, but it's at least recognizable by modern standards. I recall it being quite comfortable to use at the time. If you gave both it and the original N64 controller to a young person today who had no idea about Nintendo's history, I daresay she'd call the Gamecube controller the less weird of the two.
Also, it wasn't Nintendo, but I'd call the Dreamcast controller a bit weird. Gigantic, weirdly shaped, a dinky LCD smack dab in the center ...
I'll give them a pass on that one. In the era of the N64's design stage I don't think anyone knew what a good controller setup with (an) analog stick(s) would be like. Even the original Xbox came with an awful controller, though at least they got the layout right.
> [T]wo original IPs, Tomb Raider and Deus Ex, have sold AAA units of ~88M and ~12M, respectively. Embracer sees an opportunity to invest in these franchises, as well as the additional acquired IPs such as Legacy of Kain, Thief, and other original franchises.
It's pretty much Tomb Raider, Deus Ex, and footnotes. Looks like Embracer picked this up for cheap because the business has been mismanaged, the base case involves running at breakeven for at least 2 years before they have new releases:
> Embracer’s base case financial plan implies that the combined acquired companies will be breakeven or have a smaller Operational EBIT contribution to the upcoming two financial years driven mainly by sales of the back-catalogue titles. This could change positively if the company decides to enter a deeper strategic relationship with one or more platforms around the upcoming pipeline. When the product pipeline matures in the years thereafter, Embracer expects the acquired companies to generate on average at least SEK 500 million in operational EBIT per year with notable upside potential.
So 6X multiplier a few years out if they turn it around. Notably, they're financing this at 1% interest, and seem to have extremely low debt ratios. Still, I'm surprised it was this cheap, especially with the gaming IP land grab going on these days. Makes me wonder if there's weird additional commitments like not firing anyone, or if their recent financial performance is much worse than implied.
They have been mismanaged badly and have lost LOTS of money on recent flops. I'll bet the new owners intend to completely write-off substantial chunks of the in-progress work and start clean.
> Square Enix says the transaction (which was only $300 million) "enables the launch of new businesses by moving forward with investments in fields including blockchain, AI, and the cloud."
"In addition, the Transaction enables the launch of new businesses by moving forward with investments in fields including blockchain, AI, and the cloud," Square Enix said.
You're not going to underprice a sale because of that. Even if you believed that you could take the money and "100x itself in the cryptospace"", why not 100x $500M, instead of 100x $300M?
(Unless you disagree with the parent's point, that is, and think that that is a fair price for what was sold. I'm not commenting on that, only that "investing the proceeds in crypto" doesn't make sense in this argument.)
The Embracer Group's portfolio is becoming scary big. They're really scooping up development studios left and right. I appreciate that they're not doing much with them right now, but it makes me concerned for the future.
In comparison to other recent sales of big studios and publishers the price just seems absolutely and insanely low. Gearbox 1.3B, Bethesda 7.5B, Insomniac $230M, Wth is Square thinking.
Letting Eidos and Crystal Dynamics go for about the same price as Insomniac? Wild just wild.
I was never sure how much of the $7.5B is Bethesda vs sister and parent companies . This deal makes it seem like it’s over $7B of it, but there were a decent amt of sister companies making thing.
Epic Games was just valued at $31.5B in their latest funding round last month.
Heh. This is not to call you out because I absolutely did the same up until last week (and I'm certain a high percentage of others are the same). I've recently decided to make it a habit of reading articles first (directly from the publisher website) before even visiting Hacker News or Reddit. And after you do that, you start to realize how much discussion is based entirely around headlines.
Anyway, from the article:
And shortly after the announcement went live, Eidos Montreal confirmed in an Embracer conference call that its next major game would be set in the world of Deus Ex
And if you would've read the article that linked to that quote you would see that: "Update: This was an out-of-context quote in reference to Eidos Montreal's beginning. Shacknews and the author regret this error in reporting." [1]
Yikes, thanks for pointing that out! Read a few articles about this and multiple of them referred to the press conference announcing a new Deus Ex - disappointing that none of them verified for themselves and shame on me for not following the rabbit hole.
I would take anything EM says with a grain of salt.
I think they have no desire to make another Deus Ex game. MD was released in a "rushed" manner according to them, despite having over 5 years of dedicated development :/ But maybe a new parent will breath some life/money into their development cycle.
The thing about Deus Ex is that there's nothing particularly special about the "IP". Anybody could make a near-future cyberpunk conspiracy-oriented immersive sim, and call it whatever.
The modern Deus Ex games were really average, and (as detailed in the recent hbomberguy video) failed to grasp the key principles of level design that are required to make games like that work.
It's true that you can make an immersive-sim without the "Deus Ex" title, but over the course of four games they've built a sort of cohesive universe and storyline and many people - myself included - would really like to revisit that universe. DXHR and DXMD weren't the same as the original, but I didn't get the feeling that they were trying to reproduce it. I think they wanted to do a sort something in the same style but in a way that appealed to a broader group of people, so it was necessarily simplified (and hamstrung further by being the first game the studio made, the Eidos/Squenix turmoil and finally the rush to deliver).
HBomberguy's video hammered on a few points to deliberately make it seem more stupid than it was, and he knows it because he pulls back and calls the game "fine". I have a fairly unique perspective on this because by pure chance I'd played through all the Deus Ex games in the months before the HBG video dropped so I had an extremely fresh perspective on it. I'd also played through the original Deus Ex as a kid so I got to experience it when it was new and shiny. The video is very careful about emphasising DXHR's weak points while downplaying or ignoring many of the original's issues (or flat-out lying about them). The latter two entries in the series were troubled for sure, but they were more than "fine".
Edit: Actually I just remembered I wrote up a list of issues with the review because my friends were talking it and I wanted to share them in a way that didn't blast a wall of text in the group chat. So just in case you're curious what specifically I meant you can check it out here (content warning: I am a bit sweary) https://gist.github.com/smcl/666a0156b13d7a681e0378b836b36e4...
Edit 2: Oops I am a liar actually, I didn't play Invisible War :-O
I think Human Revolution mainly fucked up its infamous boss fights. Beyond that, it's a decent Deus Ex game. Like it's not the greatest ever, but hard to say it's worse than Invisible War.
A lot of what made the original good was unraveling the conspiracy. That's a trick you can only do once, and I think in large, that's why the sequels (including IW) don't have the same impact.
Yeah the boss fights in DX:HR came as a kick in the groin for players who focused on stealth. I'll just note that the Director's cut release revised the boss fights, expanded the arenas and added ways for stealth players to deal with them.
The Director's cut can also be played with commentary which I think was implemented really well.
Ooooh I'm gonna have to play thru with the commentary after I'm done with Elden Ring (and Nier Automata, and System Shock 2 and Ghostwire Tokyo and some other things I have lined up). What's the experience with commentary like?
The game prompts you when there's commentary to be heard, and it's presented as like a radio transmission. It's basically a bunch of the leads talking and giving behind the scenes insight into things. It's been a while since I played through with commentary, but I remember it being a great experience - in particular if you're a big fan of the game (which I am).
Human Revolution excelled as a stealth game, which was fine for me because that is how I (and, judging by the critical reception to DXHR, many others) usually play immersive sims. It's almost as much of an underserved genre as the immersive sim.
Mankind Divided improved on a lot of the criticisms in DXHR, but ended up being too ambitious for its own good, setting sales goals (and production budgets) in a somewhat niche genre as if it was Call of Duty. It's good, but short and ends abruptly.
Hard disagree. While newer DX games are simpler and more accesible in some ways they are still great playgrounds. Old games may have had fewer loading screens but their jank wasn't worth some of the more subtle bits that weren't carried forward.
Yeah, it's trippy and looks like a low-effort meme game, but it has surprising depth both in terms of gameplay and arguably also in terms of philosophical consistency.
The sensory assault that is the audiovisual aesthetics are very intentionally crafted and fits with the world and the message.
It has near-universal critical acclaim though. I've been putting it off because of the visual vomit ever since Steam recommended it to me before Civvie, Yahtzee et al boosted it ... but sooner or later I'm gonna have to give it a go.
Quite possibly, I'm definitely keeping an open mind though. Just for context, I had written off the FromSoftware games because I disliked the idea of a game tormenting me, and I've given Elden Ring a shot and I love it. This might seem a bit silly but I'd previously been playing it safe and only trying things I think I'd like rather than rolling the dice and leaving my comfort zone. So I'm now in the state of mind of having zero preconceptions and just trying stuff, even if my initial impression is "it looks like their main graphics guy was drunk and only used MS Paint"
It's honestly fairly similar to From's games in several ways, except it's a first person shooter.
At face value, it's ridiculously hard, everything kills you almost instantly. The game is figuring out how to cheese the game, the more you cheese it the more the game unfolds. The game expects you to do this, and rewards you for it, arguably even more so than FromSoft's games do. Jank is a core gameplay mechanic. If you manage to bullshit your way into a location where you really shouldn't be able to go, odds are it has a super powerful weapon or a secret or whatever.
It really forces you to engage with the game as it is rather than going through the motions of playing a first person shooter.
Cyberpunk was pretty revolting ... Cyberpunk 2077, that is. I kid, I kid. It actually did a good job of presenting a future that's not the slightest bit appealing, I suppose.
The cyberpunk game that covered its expenses, made a profit, and is slated to receive DLC was made by a studio that disproved that theory how, exactly?
While it technically "made a profit" it's sales after launch where massively under expectations.
They where expecting to sell upwards of 30+ Million copies in the first year. They sold 14+ Million before launch, and an additional 4 Million since. For an AAA game of this size that is a crazy dropoff, and it is unlikely to ever reach the original goal, even if the expansions manage to turn the massive PR hit to CD Projekt around.
(And thats ignoring the fact that CD's stock absolutely tanked after launch, and is unlikely to recover until The Witcher 4, if ever.)
So it's not a smash hit, but it's not a failure either. In game development, any game that makes a profit is a success; that's just how our business is.
Square always did best Japanese style games, and maybe this lets them focus more on what they're good at.
Eidos is such a good game studio, but I feel Square was just not letting them shine. Crystal Dynamics is also pretty descent, but that Avengers game what the hell happened? I think they're just not the right studio for a game like that.
Now I don't know much about Embracer, but they seem to want to make good quality games, and I'm happy about that.
There's so many hands in the pudding of avengers between SE, Crystal, Marvel, and Disney, and so many industry fluctuations that there's probably no one party at blame. These were dealings happening right at the crux of when Games as a Service was hitting full swing, during production Infinity War became a cultural phenomenon on top of the already existing cultural phenomenon, the fan reaction to the initial avenger faces, a revolving door of talent during production, And ofc some COVID to throw everything in disarray in the 11th hour, but still needing _something_ to take advantadge of the software surge as the movies were being delayed.
it's a perfect storm of business meddling and plain ol' unfortunate circumstance. At this point, I'm just baffled by how lucky Insomiac was to basically time everything just right while under 80% of the same conditions.
I don't think there is a right studio for a live-service game with micro-transactions etc., etc., etc., and I blame Square for taking what could have been a tightly-focused game and making it into something big, bland, and expensive. Not to say that Crystal Dynamics couldn't have done better, just that I think Square is obsessed with making a live service game happen (see also: Outriders; Babylon's Fall) and they're letting that blind drive hurt their studios.
Executives at Square-Enix have been saying for >ten years now that video gaming consoles and AAA games are getting less and less interesting to them, especially in Japan.
If they can release new Deus Ex game that keeps the spirit and best aspects of the first games, uses the best of Cyberpunk 2077, and a dash of the amazingness that was Prey we could have an absolutely EPIC game.
Yes, but it's only after Sakaguchi left (and with the SE merger) that they had full creative and management control of the big Japanese projects. The FF13 era was a massive disaster and they've never really recovered from that.
Nomura was literally just a monster designer on FF5. I have no idea how it's relevant that he was the monster designer on FF5 to what he's done to the company in a leadership role in the past 20 years.
>The FF13 era was a massive disaster and they've never really recovered from that.
I think they've recovered from that for at least 6 years now, minimum
>I have no idea how it's relevant that he was the monster designer on FF5 to what
he's done to the company in a leadership role in the past 20 years.
well first of all, we're talking about Japan. Seniority trumps a lot of things over there, and Nomura being around for longer than 99% of the company would give him a lot of sway regardless of his named role.
But even leaving that aside, being the creative force behind a major franchise that bolstered the relationship with one of the most powerful companies on earth would get you some sway in any company. Even so, he's not necessarily the end all be all behind any grievances you may have with Square Enix. He's ultiamtely a director first and businessman 10th.
in what way? A huge sprawling turned based JRPG experience, or a big-budget Japanese-style game with a more "universally resonant" style of dialouge and narrative?
If you don't mind some indie jank, Light fairytale[1] is very much a fan's attempt to capture that FF7 feel in the modern day. And then there's Edge of Eternity[2] that tries to do the same with an ff10/12 feel. if you want something more AAA, Yakuza Like a Dragon has that sense of exploration and scope while being a turned based game (but the tone is completely different).
For the latter: well, Sakaguchi still makes games, and his latest one on IOS called Fantasian has been getting praise. Lost Oddessy is an older, Xbox only title that more or less feels like "what if Sakaguchi made his own version of FF13?". not in a thematic sense, but more in the fact that this was a big budget HD game that feels like it was cut from the same cloth as FF12. The downside of his post Square games is the platform availability.
FFXIV is not addictive unless you want it to be (there’s not much need to grind or talk to other people to do the story) and after the so-so ARR has one of the best stories of any of their games.
It is running on an old engine with unimpressive graphics but that’s all.
No idea why companies in trouble always fall for the Marvel collab trap. Never seen it actually work out just seems to bleed out the last of the money then completely flop in the marketplace.
My bet is that this is a more useful maneuver for getting acquired by Microsoft than Sony in the current marketplace. Microsoft doesn't need much more "Western IP" (not after Bethesda), but everyone knowns Microsoft needs a much bigger Asian IP footprint as the last big hole in their "global" catalog.
At current TSE prices it'd cost Sony at least 5% of their entire market cap to acquire SE so I think we'd hear a bit more about it if something like that were in the works. A trillion yen is nothing to sneeze at.
Sony did invest close to or exactly $1B into Fornite last month. It wasn’t stated outright but they were one of two main investors with the Lego parent company investing $1 of $2B raised.
Though yeah an SE acquisition would be a far bigger deal even without being over 5x as much.
Frankly they lost their magic not long after buying Enix. Both companies were amazing, they had some great games for 2-3 years after the merger, then it was just drivel. No I didn't like the dizneee meets final fantasy installments.
I'd be interesting to see the full list of IP they've sold.
The article only gives three examples, one game I've never heard of, one recycled shooter from the 2000s and then there is Tomb raider - a series with twenty instalments, already milked to dust for pre-sequels, squeals and reboots more times then seems fair.
Clearly someone thinks they can squeeze a few more dollars out of people here but personally im not seeing it.
If you are curious, the game you’ve never heard of is definitely in the realm of “cult classic”.
The Legacy of Kain series is flawed in many ways; its reach exceeds its grasp in every installment, but there is a lot of solid vampire angst in between the places where the budget ran out. When it comes together it’s great IMHO.
Start with Soul Reaver, where you are a vampire who is killed in the opening cinematic, then resurrected as a Double Vampire who eats vampire souls in a dying world while railing against your Inevitable Doomed Destiny. Which, just so you know, is not resolved until Soul Reaver 2. Which IMHO you should play before either of the Kain games if you enjoy Soul Reaver.
These games are goth as fuck. If you do not have an inner goth then it’s probably going to feel like a bunch of pretentious whiny shit. But if you have an inner goth, she will eat this series up. My inner goth is quietly vibrating and squealing at this tiny, vague possibility of more Legacy of Kain.
It’s too bad the newer White Wolf/Vampire games are in complete development hell, and the rest of the series can’t figure out how to balance adding current events, being modernly inclusive, and being as edgy as possible.
(Also, it seems like all their series that aren’t Vampire are kinda boring.)
The three Crystal Dynamics Tomb Raider games sold 38 million units, so probably something like a billion in revenue. Plus whatever value in Film/TV income, plus some decent mobile games. They can probably recoup the cost with effective management of Tomb Raider, and then the other IP is where they can mine for some value and make the deal look good. They got two great AAA studios with Crystal Dynamics and Eidos Montreal. One Tomb Raider game + one Deus Ex/Thief/Legacy of Kain Reboot + 50 game back catalog remaster/re-release is a solid strategy.
I can't speak for the intention of the purchaser, but in their position I'd be looking to just unlock the teams. My impression of Square-Enix is that they've frankly just never been a company comfortable with being international, and it has shown for a very long time now. Just let the teams go produce something without the Eastern and Western design, management, marketing... heck, nearly all the philosophies clashing and producing much less than the sum of the parts.
(Since I know how things work nowadays, I'm not saying the philosophies necessarily intrinsically clash or that they can't be reconciled by other entities, just that to my eye, Square-Enix in particular is a company with a multi-decade track record of failing to do so.)
Specifically, this is Enix. Square had a considerably more international outlook and viewpoint, but even a lot of that seems to have been squeezed out since the merger.
You can look at the spun-off/second-party studios to see - from Square Monolith and AlphaDream consistently pushing formal boundaries of the JRPG, vs. from Enix tri-Ace's extremely conservative approach to Star Ocean and... I can't think of any other studios.
Enix was I think a smaller company which is now notable because their remaining people are still working even though they’re really old.
That can be good (Yuji Horii has a game sensibility nobody younger would) or bad (they were stuck with their composer who was mainly known for being a far-right Japanese nationalist).
This is the correct take. SQEX has a pretty poor reputation when it comes to outside studio management in general (both domestic and international). Their in house development has produced the most hits.
Also, SQEX desperately wants a Destiny style live game that they can run for many years, like the domestic mobile titles that keep them afloat. Marvel Avengers, Outriders, and Babylon’s Fall were all attempts at this model but none of them captured a significant market.
They’re also pushing harder in the mobile space, trying to get at least one international moneymaker. We’ll see if their bets pay off in the next few years.
Eidos Montreal's recent work with Guardian's of the Galaxy is really well done and I think overshadowed by the absolute failure of Crystal Dynamic's Marvel Avengers game.
I think they'd succeed with a GotG 2 or another 3rd-person action adventure game with a different IP.
https://www.hd.square-enix.com/eng/news/pdf/20220502%20A_Pre...
They are still making incredibly good games (FFXIV, DQXI, Nier, Bravely Default etc.) but for every single good one I swear they make 3 utter shite too + their gacha games are not even that good considering the saturation on the gacha market and what quality games some other companies can make (see Genshin)
But at least Naoki Yoshida is on the board of directors + he is producing the next mainline FF game and I think he has the trust of millions of players considering what they did with XIV. So not all hope lost as long as he is at the company.