Aja on 1/2/2022 at 00:15
So you’d rather they make games that people don’t want to play? Okay, Deathloop isn’t as po-faced as Dishonored, but it’s hardly selling out. It feels more like a pet project by passionate developers.
Pyrian on 1/2/2022 at 02:43
Quote Posted by chk772
Can you read?
?
That reads very much like you just claimed exactly what Thirith said you claimed. E.g. "the audience obviously wants".
chk772 on 1/2/2022 at 10:02
Quote Posted by Aja
So you’d rather they make games that people don’t want to play?
No. I want them to make games they want to make, not games they have to make, because the publisher wants to secure its investment. I know, hopelessly naive these days
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chk772 on 1/2/2022 at 10:10
Quote Posted by Pyrian
?
That reads very much like you just claimed exactly what Thirith said you claimed. E.g. "the audience obviously wants".
I also wrote that they don't fall into the usual AAA scheme. Their games ARE niche. It's just that they slowly become less and less niche. Never thought they'd do a shooter, for example. And, I never thought their games get so blinky blinky coloured "weee", like so many games these days.
Anyway. I don't even think that's worth a discussion. Of course they're orientated on today's market, even if their games are niche. Which makes them less and less interesting to me, that's all. E.g., I'm playing Dark Messiah of Might and Magic at the moment. That thing fkn rocks. Best game I played in the last few years. Deathloop and Redfall create a huge yawn in comparison. Just like so many games in the last 10 or 12 years. The market simply has changed. A lot.
Thirith on 1/2/2022 at 11:19
You want them to make the games they want to make, but you can't acknowledge that Deathloop may be exactly that. Do you have any reason to think that Arkane didn't make Deathloop because they wanted to? If you think that Deathloop was created due to publisher mandate, you have to make more of an effort than just saying it's a shooter (which isn't even a particularly convincing point - the moment-to-moment gameplay is quite similar to Dishonored and you can play long stretches without firing a single shot) and it's colourful. What you seem to be saying isn't "I want them to make games they want to make" but "I want them to make games I want them to make".
demagogue on 1/2/2022 at 13:26
From a bird's eye view, it's following a well-known track. The first instance of a concept is lightening in a bottle. Then further instances of it dial down the magic and story and dial up the gameplay and visuals, and a common thing you hear is "the first was more magical, the levels catered to the story and world better, and it was technically lower, but better aesthetics and art direction. But the second had the better gameplay, the levels catered to the gameplay better, and it was technically better but less inspired aesthetics and art direction." It's such a well-trod trope that I think there must be a name for it.
Anyway that, more or less, could be Deathloop compared to the Dishonoreds and Prey (And then DH2 compared to DH1. And the sequence of Thief 1, 2, 3 & I guess 4 on the gutter end). It's been my basic impression for Deathloop for the first few hours... Granting that I still really like the characters and gameplay so far. But it's not the kind of world like what really captured me in DH1 and Prey.
One thing that immediately pops out to me with Deathloop though is the blurring between the diegetic & non-diegetic... It's not big UI and bling, but having the game talk to you literally in the world, and try to handwave that it's in your head, eh, that's a sure magic killer no matter what else they're doing. And the gameplay loop itself is basically the in the same vein as that. It practically makes the thing a puzzle game, not a real environment I'm "in" and "really exploring" anymore, which is kind of the whole schtick immersive sims are supposed to, um, stick to... And that's even granting that every game has to do some amount of handwaving like that, but it's the spirit of the thing that you can sense anyway.
I don't blame Arkane for all the reasons y'all are already talking about. It's all a signal that it's not the game I would have signed up for, but I still like it a lot. Incidentally I've been playing the Dark Mod winter contest FMs this week too, and they're very much in that old style of level design, which is really validating that feeling I have about that style and making modern level design really stick out by the comparison. But this is already an ancient debate now. It almost feels extravagant still bringing it up anymore.
Renault on 1/2/2022 at 16:04
Quote Posted by chk772
No. I want them to make games they want to make, not games they have to make, because the publisher wants to secure its investment. I know, hopelessly naive these days
All someone has to do is listen to a few youtube interviews with Digi to see that this is definitely a game Arkane wanted to make, not one that they were forced to make. It's easy to just watch the trailer and blow the game off as fluff, but there's much more to it than that. Maybe it's not the "spiritual successor" to that favorite game you love that LGS made, but it's still worth your time.
Aja on 1/2/2022 at 17:03
Quote Posted by demagogue
Granting that I still really like the characters and gameplay so far. But it's not the kind of world like what really captured me in DH1 and Prey.
The more incidental text and details I uncovered and optional sidequests I completed, the richer and more immersive the world felt. The problem is that they kinda blew off the ending, setting it up as a commentary that ultimately didn't comment on anything and a story that never explained the why or the how. The way that Colt and Julianna kinda talk over and around each other was cute and funny for a while, but I was hoping that their relationship would develop to the point that they could have an actual dialogue, and while it was hinted at, it never happened. And that kind of sums up Deathloop's approach to storytelling in general. For example, the visionaries are interesting characters who don't end up getting enough screen time to elevate them above their archetypes. I would've loved more sections that delve into their backstories or maybe even let you interact with them in a nonhostile way.
I don't want to be too critical because it's still a remarkable game and I imagine many of the shortcomings are attributable to the weird pressures of a pandemic. I don't know if DLC is likely, but if it was and if it helped flesh out the backstory and give its characters some purpose, I'd be all for it.
chk772 on 12/2/2022 at 13:02
Quote Posted by Brethren
All someone has to do is listen to a few youtube interviews with Digi to see that this is definitely a game Arkane wanted to make, not one that they were forced to make.
Ok, then I have to take that, and accept that they're obviously not doing games I want to play anymore.
Still wondering though how people cannot see that Deathloop is very different to their other games.
henke on 12/2/2022 at 14:41
Aesthetically, yeah. Gameplaywise, naah.
As it happens a new GMTK vid just came out about how similar Deathloop is to one of their past games! And how it differs.
[video=youtube;UXQ6uBw2ycU]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UXQ6uBw2ycU[/video]