Halo is going multiplat...end of an era

[dhaabi]

The new Vampire Bloodlines 2 game intrigues me a lot, but a lot of folks again are whinging about it and saying it sucks. Is it me, or is there a pattern here?

I think it's maybe not entirely just the industry itself that has a problem, I think gamers are a very fickle bunch who don't know what they want, or when they want it. Which is why all we get now are re-makes. They predictably reward sameness and shun risk, and I've seen it time after time. It can't be that it's really that hard for an underdog team to put together an ambitions new game, but almost every time it ends in bad reviews and financial failure.

Not that it's overly important, but I will mention that Vampire: The Masquerade: Bloodlines 2 is generally regarded as a bad game for good reason and is, at minimum, a game that few fans of the original game wanted in its current design. It's a game based on the TTRPG, but its RPG mechanics have been considerably lessened for a sub-par experience. That is bad enough alone, but coupled with a fair amount of content that's barred behind an additional paywall and its initial price point, they come together in a way that warrants a much deserved negative reaction from the franchise's fans.

You're not wrong that the issues within the industry are two-sided. When players have a limited budget to play, or even the option to play hundreds of games at the whims of subscription models, they'll play and pay for what they know they like. It's no different from publishers who play it safe: force developers to design a game with trends they know are successful to presumably ensure their game's success.

It's still ashame that nothing approximating the final build of the game is ever on the disc from any major publisher, not even thoroughly bug tested. That's the version we get to own down the line.

That's a bad generalization and something that's mostly a known concern with certain publishing companies like Bethesda and Electronic Arts. Meanwhile, companies like Capcom, Koch Media, Sega, Square Enix, and even Take-Two Interactive generally provide an offline-friendly printed disc or cartridge. Of course, there are few publishers who operate perfectly in this regard, but some certainly acknowledge consumer needs more than others.

[Warmsignal]

Not that it's overly important, but I will mention that Vampire: The Masquerade: Bloodlines 2 is generally regarded as a bad game for good reason and is, at minimum, a game that few fans of the original game wanted in its current design. It's a game based on the TTRPG, but its RPG mechanics have been considerably lessened for a sub-par experience. That is bad enough alone, but coupled with a fair amount of content that's barred behind an additional paywall and its initial price point, they come together in a way that warrants a much deserved negative reaction from the franchise's fans.

I don't know anything about the first game other than it had a very troubled history itself, but none of that even matters to me. I just like what I see as the game that it is. I've seen a lot of mixed reaction, there are those who are enjoying the game. I considered buying at launch, but physical copies sold out on GameStop and Target's websites already. There seems to be a lot of interest in the game,  but there's also a lot of noise coming from the detractors.

[BinaryMessiah]

Most disc based games are glorified CD keys now. They possess a relatively small amount of data on disc, while the majority of the game requires a 20+ GB download. I've played a few games this year that were a 100GB+ download just to play the game. The PS4/XBONE suffered from this also, but not to this extent. It's not a problem now (other than constantly having to manage internal storage space just to play a new game), but it will be when Sony and Microsoft inevitably shut down their content servers on these systems. It essentially takes ownership away from you and either forces you to buy the game again on a newer, supported platform or accept that you now have a PS5 or series X/S collection that are more or less unplayable paperweights.

This is just not true. The large data files you're talking about are data being installed to your machine from the disc. It is not being downloaded from the internet. Pre-installing the game data from the disc to the console has been pretty much standard since the late PS3 era. The Wii-U was the last home console to load all data from the disc actively while playing. Wouldn't make sense for RDR II and Last of Us 2 (for example) have "data discs" in the physical package if the data comes from the internet.

Google any PS5 or Xbox game you want on DoesItPlay. The vast, VAST majority of games on both PS5 and Series X (85% for each) contain all major content on disc and can be played without downloads. Where this gets complicated are the updates needed to make the games run smoother, which highly depends on game to game.  Pretty much every game has some update that needs to be downloaded, you just need to check which ones have the more serious problems. Some games do need updates from the internet or else they are unplayable, but it's still about 10%.

The only games that you're really talking about are online-only games, of which only comprises about 3% of the PS5's library and 4% of the PS4, at least everything that's been fully tested so far.

Thank you. I was going to say something similar and you beat me to it. I'm tired of this misinformation being spread. I don't know where people get that ALL or MOST games are CD keys. Every single PS4 and PS5 game I own installs off the disc and I can launch them completely offline.

[randomstranger]

I can't say I care much. Aside of a few years during the X360 era I was mainly a PC player. Halo 1 came to PC, then Halo 2 was backward compatible on the X360, for 3, ODST and Reach the main platform was the 360, then Halo went shit so there is nothing to be sad about.

As for Xbox, they self destructed with Xbone.

[bikingjahuty]

Well, things just even worse over at XBOX. Phil Spenser "retired" as head of XBOX and former president Sarah Bond has left. In their place is a woman whose career has been defined by AI. I'm not going to pretend like the XBOX brand hasn't been in a rapid downward spiral for years under Spenser and Bond, but I can't imagine someone who specializes in AI is going to turn the brand around.

I've read a lot of speculation as to why the new AI boss was chosen, ranging from she plans on replacing a lot of the people at XBOX with AI to she's essentially the fall person for the brand failing and becoming exclusively a third party studio. Only time will tell, but I'm not feeling optimistic about this news. To be completely honest, I barely care since I haven't cared about XBOX since the 360 days, but I still think it would be even worse for the industry if all we had was Nintendo and Sony. There really needs to be more competition in gaming, if for nothing else than to slow or even reverse the continuing stagnation of gaming.

Uh, but yeah, more big L's for Microsoft and XBOX.