They‘ve been so successful with singleplayer stuff but would somehow rather burn billions failing live services than sticking with them. They could‘ve put that money into several offline experiences and made at least SOME money but yeah, rather lose MOUNTAINS of money, I guess.

How did that game pan out? Last I heard the hype died down pretty fast, I didn‘t follow it further.

I have successfully (?) played (sometimes semi-suffered, cough, Sekiro) through a buncha popular hard games and have a way less „strong“ opinion on this but also think that an „easy mode“ as an accessibility feature is a good thing.

If, for example, a parent wants to connect with their child and also experience that game they‘re playing, it‘s really no big deal to me if they could turn on easy mode in, say, Sekiro to stand a chance. Not like it‘d impact my own experience at all, and I don‘t feel the need to force them to go through my own experience either. In Celeste, for instance, you can literally fly through the whole game if it makes you happy, and yet I still grabbed all strawberries the normal way and don‘t care if others did as well or just flew to them.

It‘s less of a demand from me and more of a „if you can you should definitely include it,“ though. Obviously doesn‘t work for full on competitive multiplayer titles or something similar though.

Not even sure how much of this addresses your remark specifically, but my feelings on this felt best placed below yours lol

Chromatic Aberration toggle

Motion Blur toggle

Distortion Effect toggle

Vignette Effect toggle

FoV slider

DLSS/FSR implementation (cause fuck TAA, like really, really fuck TAA and its smear)

Oh, and Head Bobbing/Camera Shake slider, forgot about these

Far Cry games at least until 4. I like mindlessly collecting 300 map markers sometimes. Funny enough, I don‘t like 5 cause there doesn‘t seem to be a collectibles map that lets me just move up and down the map collecting everything lol

I don‘t get why they’d cheap out on artists, a couple people drawing illustrations is surely not gonna balloon development cost - and arguably one of the easiest places to spot when it‘s AI slop. It‘s as if they think there must be gen AI stuff in the game somewhere or the game‘s worse or something.

My first thought was Minecraft. I‘m not sure if it‘s playable offline still but a google search makes me believe so.

It runs on basically anything, and if the kids in question are still super young, there should be a peaceful/creative mode without monsters to scare them or survival mechanics to worry about, making it essentially just more complex LEGO.

Real. Without my 800 mods I would‘ve never bothered finishing it. Playing/modding was probably 50/50 in terms of time spent.

Horizon: Zero Dawn. I have yet to finish it but apart from robot dinosaurs, it feels so generically open world… Admitedly, a very pretty-looking open world. Can‘t really get into the story so far either since it takes itself so seriously while I‘m having a hard time not thinking too much about how ridiculous its world is. So apart from sight-seeing, there hasn‘t been much in this game for me thus far.

Edit: This comment section is a treasure trove of hot takes, so many of my beloved games mentioned making me go „What the fuck…,“ I love it

It’s Black Desert as mentioned in the title

Yesterday when I played GTA Online with a friend cause the stuff the heist givers say is so absurd, I love it

Is this by the same people? The studio seems different but you never know… Wishlisted for sure, didn‘t even know this was being made

I‘ve gotten Zomboid as well, haven‘t had the time to try it yet though. Any tips for a complete clueless beginner?

Also, crazy how you‘ve kept these posts going!

The only alternatives I‘ve played were Nexomon and TemTem, and Nexomon‘s grind sucked the life outta me, especially when they pulled a „oh nonono, this new region has different levels you have to grind from 0!“

TemTem was pretty fun in co-op though… even though I had to play with a VPN for the first time in my entire life cause somehow players wouldn‘t move on my screen with my „raw“ connection. No game has ever done this before nor has any game acted like this since lol, completely weird.

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Idk if someone from Bethesda said this or if it was just a Youtuber regarding the stupid ways to level up in Oblivion (like jumping around for hours), but: If that‘s how people enjoy playing the game, then let them. And I agree with this.

Regarding abuse of game mechanics and not just bugs/glitches… I can only think of some Dark Souls bosses that can be baited into killing themselves by fall damage. For some it‘s clearly intentional (Iron Guard thing in Dark Souls 1), for some arguable (Dark Souls 2 the guy in the sunken area), and some clearly rather unintended (first real boss in Dark Souls 1 for example, it‘s really hard to do and when it happens the dude drops like a rocket lol)

Interesting, thanks for sharing

I cannot fathom how this move is better for them than a larger audience with baked-in ads. This isn‘t some huge event with mainstream appeal. I‘d hope they ran the numbers, but nowadays I‘m not so sure.

If that‘s their big plan… well, I hope the IPs find smarter homes after EA goes bankrupt

I have…

Just Shapes & Beats

Nine Sols

Smushi Come Home

CATO: Buttered Cat

Is This Seat Taken?

GRANBLUE FANTASY: Relink

Ballionaire

Pepper Grinder

Like a Dragon: Ishin!

…in my cart, but considering I‘m unlikely to get around to any of them this year, I‘ll let them sit in the cart throughout the sale and see whether I’ll pull the trigger on anything.