Sulphur on 8/12/2023 at 05:18
As someone who enjoyed the creative methods of wreaking violence and chaos across Dishonored 2 (and then reloading because I didn't want to ruin my no-kills run), this could be fun if you take it for what it is, which I assume is the Far Cry 3-ing of something that was special.
But hopefully it's better than FC3, which was a flat world ridden with teenage shitewank.
Renault on 8/12/2023 at 15:34
This is extremely disappointing. I thought for sure with them hiring on skacky recently that we were getting Dishonored 3.
It's funny too - you'd think after the Redfall debacle, they'd stay far away from anything to do with vampires.
EvaUnit02 on 8/12/2023 at 16:15
Quote Posted by Renault
It's funny too - you'd think after the Redfall debacle, they'd stay far away from anything to do with vampires.
I hope that you realise that this likely would've been in the cards around the same time that they were wrapping up Deathloop, right? I.e. Lyon likely had been working on this whilst for a good year while Harvey's Austin team would've been fumbling around in the dark, trying to stickytape Redfall together.
After Sony's success with Spider-man 2018, there likely would've been pressure put on Xbox to secure a Marvel license of their own. Coming straight off the heels of Deathloop, The Daywalker is a good fit for them, surely?
EDIT: Ewwww, just learnt that it'll be in 3rd person.
Renault on 8/12/2023 at 17:08
I don't know much about dev cycles, but Deathloop came out over 2 years ago, and the article linked above said Blade was "just starting development," so that doesn't seem to jive with what you're saying. But I was being somewhat facetious about the vampire thing, it's not like they're gonna just cancel the game because it's loosely related to Redfall.
chk772 on 8/12/2023 at 18:11
Quote Posted by Renault
This is extremely disappointing. I thought for sure with them hiring on skacky recently that we were getting Dishonored 3.
I was sure that it wouldn't be Dishonored 3. I think that chapter is closed forever. Just doesn't pay out these days.
demagogue on 8/12/2023 at 19:44
I was kind of surprised that Arkane has lasted as long as it has with original IP that more or less respects the tradition it's coming from while also pushing the boundaries in new ways. For the time being, I want to be optimistic and think a Marvel franchise is a financial cushion that will help support their homebrew games. They've been unlikely survivors this long. We'll see where things stand in another two years.
The best I can say about a Marvel game is that Blade is probably one of the better properties for an atmospheric action game, and I trust Arkane will do it better than other comic properties and kick out something pretty good by comic-game standards. Well, I don't want to predict too much. I'm not one to ever play comic games (or watch the movies) to begin with, so I'm not really qualified to have opinions about them anyway.
Aja on 9/12/2023 at 17:46
I don't understand why Bethesda doesn't just let Arkane do whatever they want (and don't say Redfall; that's a different team). Sure their games wouldn't sell a billion copies but they'd be critical darlings, they'd innovate, and most of all, they'd bring a lot of goodwill to their parent companies among the hardcore fan base. Surely there's a business case for that.
chk772 on 9/12/2023 at 21:00
Quote Posted by Aja
I don't understand why Bethesda doesn't just let Arkane do whatever they want (and don't say Redfall; that's a different team).
Would you give someone a couple of million Dollars, and let him do whatever he wants with it?
Whether we like it or not, the games industry is a completely commercialised one, and, games have to return the budget.
Of course, Arkane could go Indie... but, I assume they would have to cut 95% of their jobs then.
You know, the way it is now, I don't give a damn about any future game of Arkane anymore. They've been swallowed by the big cookie cutter game industry, and, there's no way back. Maybe there'll be some interesting WolfEye Studios games in the future. At least, they seem much more promising than Arkane for me, in terms of future developments.
EvaUnit02 on 9/12/2023 at 21:05
Quote Posted by Renault
I don't know much about dev cycles, but Deathloop came out over 2 years ago, and the article linked above said Blade was "just starting development," so that doesn't seem to jive with what you're saying.
My bad, I didn't see that part until hours later.
Quote Posted by Aja
I don't understand why Bethesda doesn't just let Arkane do whatever they want (and don't say Redfall; that's a different team). Sure their games wouldn't sell a billion copies but they'd be critical darlings, they'd innovate, and most of all, they'd bring a lot of goodwill to their parent companies among the hardcore fan base. Surely there's a business case for that.
I would love to agree with you, but ultimately can't. MS not keeping their first party studios on a leash has largely lead to mismanaged dumpster fires. They had a golden goose in Halo and MS let 343 Industries have free reign for about a decade to run it into the ground.
Let Lyon do their own thing with a blank cheque? A solid track record is no longer a sign that a studio can be trusted anymore. That attitude lead to the likes of the Cyberpunk 2077 launch and yes, Redfall too.
While yes, all MS published games are essentially loss leaders to attract subs to Game Pass, you need "AAA blockbusters" to be big drivers. Doing a Netflix with the gaming equivalent of "coffee shop dramas" isn't going to pay the bills.
Quote:
MS being hands off with their studios in the post Don Matrick era has really been to their detriment. Only Forza and Gears have had any consistent quality. Sea of Thieves was a disaster initially but they lucked out and had a 2nd wind because a handful of a big streamers latched onto the game. Age of Empires has been going well, but they've completely outsourced all development to strategy game experts like Relic (AoE4) and Forgotten Empires (AoE2 mod team gone pro with over a decade of experience ATM). Even then they've they've mostly been updating/remaking classic games made by talent no longer at MS for aeons, keeping pretty faithful to what came before.
* 343 Industries be a shit show for a decade because of the awful management, driving the Halo franchise into the absolute dirt. Only after Halo Infinite was pretty much DOA did MS finally decide to step in and restructure management, making heads roll.
* The Initiative, their "AAAA studio" founded to compete with Soyny's high profile Californian studios, tried to do flat management structure, resulting in nothing getting done. The high profile talent poached from Soyny studios mostly got fed up and left. They had to partially reboot Perfect Dark with assistance from Crystal Dynamics.
* Last I heard about Rare's other live service game, Everwild, they had NFI what direction to take the game.
* Fable "4" has had reports of troubled development, including rebooting development onto Unreal cuz trying to retrofit the Forza car racing engine for a RPG wasn't working. There's been reports that Crystal Dynamics' sister studio Eidos Montreal (Deus Ex 3 + 4) has been brought on to assist with it. The reeking of ESG with the uglified female protagonist seen in the last Fable trailer is sign that game is going to be a turd.
Jason Moyer on 9/12/2023 at 22:02
Quote Posted by chk772
Would you give someone a couple of million Dollars, and let him do whatever he wants with it?
The only time that's happened since being acquired by Zenimax, the result was their most successful game (Dishonored). Raf/Harvey said they didn't want to make a sequel to it, then magically that was their next game and it underperformed. Then Raf's team in Austin started working on a SS2 inspired game and the suits torpedoed it by forcing them to use a title that, particularly at that time, carried a ton of baggage. Deathloop had meddling (it was supposed to be less hand holdy) and Redfall started as a GaaS that no one at the studio wanted to make, tried to get cancelled, then begrudgingly hammered into an ok game.
If I were in charge of the business side at Zenimax/Microsoft/whoever I would tell each studio to brainstorm some pitches of things they would actually like to do, pick one that sounds promising, have both studios work on it (like they did with DH) and then market the living hell out of it.
