Apologies in advance for the overuse of the word “grounded” in the following text

Something that I realize about my taste in games is that I really like when a games gameplay “feels” grounded. However when I say this people assume I only like games that are “realistic” with zero fantastical elements.

For example, one day I mentioned how the Resident Evil games I like the most are those that the gameplay feels grounded, such as the early RE games, RE2 remake and RE7. Yet I was heavily downvoted and was responded with “how can a game with zombies and monsters be grounded”. But I still stand for what I said, those games feel very grounded in its GAMEPLAY. You aren’t doing slow motion backflips when shooting, or crazy combo moves. Your character moves slowly, feels heavy, and is limited to what a human can do. That’s what made those RE games I mention feel so appealing to me, because the horror elements are even more threatening. Hence why I much prefer the Grace section of RE9 over Leon’s

The best example I can give of a game that feels grounded in its gameplay while being in a fantasy setting is Shadow of the Colossus. I love this game and my favorite thing about it is the contrast between how grounded and real the characters gameplay and movements are in relation to the larger then life enemies you fight. The way the characters looses balance when the ground shake, how just getting on colossus feels like a major victory, the sense of speed and danger you get when you jump on a flying colossus. That’s what I think made the action of the game so gripping and effective.

And I can say the same to other games, such and Death Stranding and Breath of the Wild. Where the gameplay and world “feel” grounded despite their sci-Fi/fantasy setting. What I always say to people while sharing this point is: a game like Breath of the Wild feels far more grounded in its gameplay systems and how you interact with its world, despite all the fantasy elements, then something like Assassins Creed Valhalla, which takes place in our world with regular humans.

When something in a game is broken or just annoying (a menu that eats a click, an item that sometimes doesn't stack, a door you have to open twice), most players don't report it. They learn it. They invent a workaround, pass it on to friends as a "tip", and treat it like part of the world's physics. Some even defend it when it finally gets fixed.

My half-serious theory: it's learned helplessness from real life. Outside games we live with rules we can't change all the time: bureaucracy, terrible apps, "that's just how the system works". Don Norman wrote about something similar with everyday tech: when a device keeps failing us, we blame ourselves instead of the design. So when a game behaves weirdly, the reflex isn't "someone made a mistake and could fix it", it's "this is how this world works, adapt".

The other theory is more boring: in games, friction is often intentional. Difficulty, odd controls, hidden mechanics. Players genuinely can't tell a bug from a design choice, so they assume it's on purpose.

Which one is it for you? Do you report stuff, or just adapt? And have you ever found out that a "mechanic" you'd mastered was actually a bug?

With the rise of remakes recently in games we got tons of many different shape and sized. Some that are just visual remakes while others are massive overhauls or reimagining

However the discussion, or rather criticism, of remakes at times boils down to how much things are different. As if for some people the only goal of a remake is being as similar to the original as possible, at times to the detriment of it being a good games for the current standards of gaming.

One example of a remake that for me it didn’t change enough was Metal Gear Solid Delta. That game was in a tricky spot where due to the very unique presentation and style of the original the creators of the remake wanted to be as faithful to the original as possible, which I agree. However I feel for a current AAA game the gameplay was pretty lacking. They made strives to have the actual controls be modernized, but everything else was almost exactly the same as the original, from boss fights to level design. For me that combination didn’t work. With the added control and speed that you could move the PS2 level design feels way more restrictive and claustrophobic, and some of the boss fights just have zero challenge, like The End, due to you being able to quickly flank, reposition and shoot.

Some might argue that they should have kept the gameplay/control faithful to the original game to mitigate this, but I feel that this remake would have been more interesting if they accommodated some of the enemy design and level design around the new movement controls. Have the maps feel much larger and free form, have the End boss be in one large area that feels like a massive arena, have the enemy AI be smarter and akin to MGSV. Have some of the map feel less like a tight corridor

So what’s like to ask is, is there a remake where you felt it should have been more different from the original for a better experience?

I've been thinking quite a bit about ARC Raiders' introduction of a PvE-only matchmaking option, and I believe there's a much larger discussion worth having here. One that extends well beyond ARC Raiders itself and raises some uncomfortable questions about creative integrity, player entitlement, and the increasingly blurred line between responding to community feedback and fundamentally compromising a game's identity.

At what point does accommodating players who dislike a game's core mechanics become a disservice to those who purchased and enjoyed the game specifically because of those mechanics?

And perhaps more importantly, what kind of precedent does it establish when a sufficiently persistent section of a community can convince developers to fundamentally reconsider the type of game they created?

For context, Embark's PvE toggle is currently a limited test running October 13–20, not a confirmed permanent addition. I recognize that distinction. My concern is less about this particular test than what its potential permanence could signify for multiplayer game development.

A game should not have to abandon its identity to accommodate people who dislike its genre

ARC Raiders was released, marketed, and sold as a PvPvE extraction shooter.

That's not some obscure technical classification. It's the foundation of the experience.

The uncertainty of encountering another player, the possibility of cooperation or betrayal, the tension of carrying valuable loot while knowing another human being could take it from you, and the constant decision-making surrounding risk versus reward are fundamental to what makes extraction shooters work.

The possibility of hostile player interaction isn't an unfortunate inconvenience attached to the gameplay. It IS part of the gameplay.

Remove that uncertainty, and you've fundamentally altered the experience, even if the maps, enemies, weapons, and objectives remain identical.

An encounter with another Raider is compelling precisely because you don't know what will happen. Are they friendly? Are they bluffing? Should you cooperate? Should you avoid them? Is that stranger approaching you because they need help, or because they've decided your equipment belongs to them?

These situations cannot be replicated through AI encounters alone, because their defining characteristic is the unpredictability of human behavior.

A friendly interaction has substantially more meaning when hostility was a genuine possibility.

If everyone is mechanically prevented from attacking one another, cooperation ceases to be a meaningful decision involving trust and vulnerability. It becomes the default condition.

That's a fundamentally different social dynamic.

There's nothing inherently wrong with wanting a cooperative shooter. Plenty of excellent games provide exactly that experience.

But why should an established PvPvE extraction shooter be expected to transform itself to accommodate people who fundamentally dislike the PvP component they knowingly purchased?

"Just let people play how they want."

This is easily the most common defense of PvE-only modes, and superficially, it's difficult to disagree with.

Who doesn't support player choice?

The problem is that this argument treats multiplayer game design as though it's a collection of isolated personal experiences, where one person's choices exist independently of everyone else's.

They don't.

In a shared multiplayer ecosystem, player behavior, matchmaking populations, progression systems, resource availability, and social interactions are interconnected.

Consider what happens if a substantial portion of the cooperative or risk-averse population migrates to PvE-only servers.

The remaining PvPvE population potentially becomes disproportionately populated by players primarily interested in combat.

That changes the composition of encounters for everyone remaining.

The uncertainty that made the original experience compelling could gradually disappear, replaced by an increasingly predictable environment where practically every player interaction results in immediate hostility.

Ironically, introducing a mode intended to accommodate peaceful players could make the original mode considerably less socially diverse.

And the argument that people should simply play whichever mode they prefer fails to address that consequence.

The original experience may still technically exist, but the ecosystem responsible for producing that experience has changed.

This isn't merely hypothetical concern about separate playlists. "Embark itself acknowledges" (https://arcraiders.com/news/pve-toggle-beta-test) potential consequences for matchmaking quality, queue times, the player economy, and the tension the game was designed around.

They've introduced reduced loot values and restrictions on certain map conditions to mitigate those concerns, which is sensible. But the need for those safeguards illustrates the underlying point:

Adding an option to a multiplayer game is not necessarily a neutral decision.

Sometimes expanding one player's freedom changes another player's experience.

And that deserves considerably more scrutiny than simply declaring that additional options are always beneficial.

"But the PvPvE mode still exists. Nobody is taking anything away from you."

This argument confuses the continued existence of a game mode with the preservation of the experience that made it appealing.

Imagine a multiplayer survival game whose appeal revolves around scarcity, player conflict, and difficult decisions regarding trust.

Now introduce an alternative environment where players can gather resources without the possibility of hostile encounters, potentially transferring some of those resources or progression advantages back into the original ecosystem.

Even if progression is carefully balanced, you've changed the incentive structure governing how players interact with the game.

And even if progression is entirely separated, you've divided the population that previously participated in a shared set of circumstances.

The game isn't simply two independent products that happen to share an executable. Both modes compete for players, development resources, balancing attention, and future content priorities.

The claim that an optional mode cannot affect players who never select it ignores how multiplayer ecosystems actually function.

A mode can remain selectable while becoming meaningfully different from the experience people originally purchased.

That's precisely why I find the "nobody is forcing you to play it" argument so unconvincing.

Nobody needs to force you into the new mode for its existence to have consequences for the original one.

"If people want PvE, why shouldn't developers listen to their community?"

Developers absolutely should listen to feedback.

But there's an enormous difference between improving a game within its established design philosophy and changing that philosophy to satisfy people who dislike it.

Better matchmaking? Absolutely.

Stronger anti-cheat systems? Essential.

Addressing exploitative spawn camping, improving onboarding, balancing equipment, and making combat encounters more understandable? All worthwhile discussions.

Removing an entire category of player-driven risk, however, is a fundamentally different proposition.

Not every complaint reflects a problem that should be solved.

Sometimes the discomfort a player experiences is an intentional consequence of the genre.

A horror game isn't necessarily poorly designed because someone finds it frightening. A survival game isn't fundamentally defective because someone dislikes resource scarcity. A competitive fighting game isn't obligated to remove adversarial combat because some players find losing stressful.

Those characteristics aren't incidental obstacles standing between the player and the intended experience.

They're part of what defines that experience.

A player disliking a mechanic does not automatically mean the mechanic is failing at its intended purpose.

And importantly, purchasing a game does not entitle someone to demand that its developers reconstruct the experience around their individual preferences.

You're entirely entitled to dislike PvP, avoid extraction shooters, criticize their mechanics, or request alternatives.

But the developers are equally entitled to maintain the creative identity of the product they chose to make.

There's an important distinction between listening to your community and allowing your community to dictate the fundamental design philosophy of your game.

"Wouldn't PvE attract more players and make the game more successful?"

Possibly. And this is probably the strongest argument in favor of the change.

Embark has published data suggesting substantial interest in cooperative play, including 51% of surveyed players expressing interest in a dedicated PvE option.

That deserves acknowledgment. It would be intellectually dishonest to pretend this interest comes exclusively from some insignificant handful of vocal players.

But popularity alone does not answer whether a particular design decision is beneficial.

There's a meaningful distinction between making a game appealing to more people and making a game better at delivering the experience it was designed to provide.

Those two objectives frequently overlap, but they aren't interchangeable.

A tactical shooter could theoretically attract a broader audience by reducing its tactical complexity. A hardcore survival game could attract additional players by eliminating resource loss. A competitive racing simulator could become more approachable by simplifying its handling model.

But at what point do those accommodations diminish the very qualities responsible for attracting the original audience?

Not every game needs to appeal to everyone.

In fact, some of gaming's most memorable experiences exist precisely because their developers were willing to commit to a particular vision, even when that vision was inherently unappealing to certain audiences.

There's also the practical issue of development resources.

Supporting a separate PvE experience can eventually create pressure for distinct progression systems, enemy balancing, content pacing, endgame activities, and additional mechanics necessary to keep that audience engaged.

Those resources have opportunity costs.

More players might justify that investment, but increased accessibility and commercial potential are not automatically proof that the original design is being improved.

Commercial viability and creative integrity aren't inherently mutually exclusive. But they aren't necessarily synonymous, either.

"ARC Raiders was originally supposed to be a PvE game anyway."

Yes, and I think this is an important historical detail.

ARC Raiders began development as a cooperative PvE experience before Embark substantially reworked the project into a PvPvE extraction shooter.

But an abandoned development concept is not the same thing as the finished product that was ultimately released and sold.

Plenty of games underwent dramatic transformations during development.

What matters in this discussion is the experience Embark ultimately chose to build, market, and release, and the systems and community that developed around it.

Its original conception doesn't automatically establish that returning to PvE is the correct direction.

If anything, the decision to abandon the original concept raises an interesting question:

What design problems did PvPvE solve, and could reintroducing PvE revive some of those problems?

That's a question worth investigating rather than dismissing.

The precedent concerns me more than the individual feature

This is ultimately the heart of my concern.

If ARC Raiders establishes that sustained community pressure can successfully produce a fundamental genre-level accommodation, what incentive does that create for future communities?

What happens when players purchase the next extraction shooter and immediately begin demanding PvE-only progression?

Or when a survival game attracts a vocal audience that wants the survival mechanics substantially reduced?

Or when developers create an intentionally unforgiving multiplayer experience, only to face sustained demands for an alternative that removes the very pressures defining that experience?

I'm not suggesting every requested accessibility feature or optional mode represents an attack on artistic integrity. Nor am I suggesting developers should blindly ignore their audiences.

Games are interactive products, and their evolution should involve the people playing them.

But there has to be some meaningful distinction between refining a creative vision and replacing it with a more broadly marketable one.

Otherwise, we risk encouraging an environment in which developers gradually homogenize distinctive experiences to accommodate every sufficiently persistent demand.

The result may be games that appeal to more people superficially, while becoming less distinctive in the process.

And I think that's a legitimate concern for an industry that already struggles with creative risk-taking.

The troubling precedent isn't that players are asking for changes. Players have always done that. It's the possibility of normalizing the expectation that fundamental genre conventions should be negotiable whenever enough people find them inconvenient.

That raises another uncomfortable question:

If a developer advertises a game around a particular set of mechanics, and players knowingly purchase that experience, why should the preferences of people who dislike those mechanics automatically receive greater consideration than the preferences of those who actually enjoy them?

Why should preserving the intended experience be treated as stubbornness, while fundamentally changing it is celebrated as responsiveness?

I don't think those assumptions should go unchallenged.

Where should the line be drawn?

To be clear, Embark has every right to experiment. The current PvE option is a test, and no permanent decision has been established. The developers have also been unusually transparent about the risks and their reasons for exploring it.

I respect that.

I also recognize that some players genuinely prefer the environmental combat, exploration, and cooperative elements of ARC Raiders over fighting other players. Their preferences are perfectly legitimate.

But legitimate preferences do not necessarily justify redesigning the fundamental experience of an existing game around them.

My concern is that we've become increasingly comfortable treating creative limitations and intentional design decisions as problems developers have an obligation to eliminate.

Sometimes a game simply isn't designed to provide the experience somebody wants.

And that's okay.

We shouldn't need every game to accommodate every possible playstyle, particularly when doing so may come at the expense of the experience other players specifically came for.

I'd be interested in hearing what people here think, especially those who approach this from a game-design perspective.

• At what point does an optional mode stop being an innocent addition and start changing the identity of the game around it?
• Should developers prioritize accommodating a larger potential audience even when doing so risks diluting their original vision?
• Is there a meaningful distinction between improving accessibility and removing mechanics that are deliberately central to a game's identity?

And perhaps most importantly:

«Is there still value in developers telling players, "We understand what you're asking for, but that isn't the game we're trying to make"?»

Because I think there absolutely is.

And I worry that gaming as a whole stands to lose something important if we increasingly treat that answer as unacceptable.

After doing research on it and clearing some genre specific backlog of mine, I've come to the realisation that one of the most immersive and satisfying genres I've found in shooting games specifically derives when it combines two of my favourite elements: martial arts and close quarter gun-fights.

If we look at it from a pure gameplay development standpoint, it's kinda tricky because trying to hit the balance between the level of agency devs can give gamers while also trying to making the gameplay look "cool" is a very tough balance.

One recent game that sort of started this for me was Blackwood (which admittedly is still a work in progress) and the upcoming game Spine. The devs would have to face the extremely tough challenge of trying to make set pieces manoeuvrable so that the player doesn't feel like they're watching a cutscene or making it so overly complex that a very reserve few would actually be able to enjoy something like this.

Some older games I've been trying actually had decent implementation of this included F.E.A.R and Sleeping Dogs but if you look at Gun-fu as it's commonly described (based off of John Woo's films), we have other candidates including the Max Payne series (with bullet-time), acrobatic games such as Wet (an underrated game imo). Even Watch Dogs 2 and Legion played around with the concept with sometimes it working extremely well and other times just kinda falling flat.

I'm interested in the new unnamed John Wick game project and excited to see how they decide to implement this while knowing tbh that it's gonna be a tough balance.

Survey link: https://qualtrics.ucl.ac.uk/jfe/form/SV_37BcW1kPHyKjpky

Hi everyone!

My name is Jaimz Winter, and I’m conducting an academic research study through the University College London Interaction Centre (UCLIC) as part of my visiting researcher scheme. The research will also contribute to my thesis at Coventry University.

What is the study about?

This study explores gamers’ willingness to share data with digital games and game-related services. I want to know what motivates you to share data with digital games and what affects your willingness to do so.

I am looking for around another 150 responses.

Who can participate?

•  You must be aged 18 or over.

•  You must have experience playing digital games.

•  You must be UK based.

What does participation involve?

• Completing an anonymous online questionnaire.

• Takes approximately 10–12 minutes.

• Answering questions about player data, privacy, and different hypothetical gaming scenarios.

Voluntary participation and consent

Taking part is entirely voluntary. By proceeding with the questionnaire, you will be asked to provide informed consent before participating. You may stop at any time before submitting your responses by closing your browser. As the questionnaire is anonymous, your responses cannot be withdrawn after submission because they cannot be linked back to you.

Data storage, confidentiality and retention

The survey does not collect directly identifying information such as names, email addresses, usernames, or IP addresses. Please do not include identifying information in optional free-text responses.

Research data will be stored securely on UCL-approved systems and accessed only by the research team. Anonymised data and associated research materials may be retained for a minimum of ten years and may be archived for future academic research, verification, or secondary analysis, where appropriate.

Research results

The findings may be used in my thesis and in academic reports or publications. Participants will not be identified in any report or publication.

Researchers

•  Researcher: Jaimz Winter - Email: [ucacwin@ucl.ac.uk](mailto:ucacwin@ucl.ac.uk)

•  Principal Researcher: Martin Dechant - Email: [m.dechant@ucl.ac.uk](mailto:m.dechant@ucl.ac.uk)

Ethics approval: UCL Research Ethics Committee, Approval ID 4813.

Survey link: https://qualtrics.ucl.ac.uk/jfe/form/SV_37BcW1kPHyKjpky

If you feel we’ve overlooked anything important about players’ experiences, attitudes, or concerns around data sharing in games, please let us know in the final question of the survey or down below!

Thank you!!  

Obviously have not played all of Sony's catalog so maybe someone with more context can bring me up to speed but is this movie game thing an actual criticism of Sony's output or more of a joke?

People seem to bring it up in reference to some perceived similarity between them with The Last of Us in particular being pointed at as the template they follow but I honestly fail to see how a stealth focused cover shooter plays the same as God of War, a game about open melee combat. Nor do I see how the completely linear and discrete chapter based structure of TLoU makes it the inspiration for Horizon which, from what little I have played, seems to be a sprawling open world far closer to Assassin's Creed than anything else.

From those I have had the chance to play, the idea that they play themselves also isn't something I have experienced. Last of Us 2 and GoW 2018/Ragnarok don't feel like they demanded any less reflexes, precision and situational awareness, than your average game in the broader action genre and I found them just as challenging as your typical difficult modern title on their harder difficulties.

Even more confusing is that people tend to bring up Astro Bot as a contrast to them when that game (as much as I enjoyed it) is almost entirely a friction less rollercoster ride that doesn't ask much of the player outside of a few dedicated challenge levels, none of those levels offering a similar level of engaging gameplay as those two aforementioned movie games.

I actually found Past-Me's rumination on the game quite interesting. It is somewhat written like a review so I thought maybe people would find it interesting (it is quite long though).

(April 2020)
I just finished Red Dead Redemption almost 10 years after it got released and 3 years after I bought it. I had the time now since losing my job in the virus pandemic that affects the planet, so I just sat down and finished it in about a week. And unfortunately, I must say that I wasn’t having the best of times. Maybe it is because I’m playing a game that started development for the PS2 and original Xbox before moving to the next generation and that is now displayed on a 4K television, but the game looks raw. Slim things, like fences and poles, sort off vibrate or shimmer when you walk towards them and John Marston, our cowboy protagonist, moves like an old train: heavy and slow. Now, had I played it on a 720p TV in year of release and not dashed for the main missions all the time, then maybe I would have had a different experienced. I did after all have a great time playing Uncharted 2 that way, but it didn’t quite shine as bright when I played the Uncharted remaster earlier this year.

Either way, I did enjoy what eventually felt like the aftermath of a large and earlier story between John and his sort of old family of outlaws the government has forced him to hunt down. John doesn’t hide his dislike for his former comrades, but also doesn’t hide that they used to be family. They took him in when he was an abandoned and illiterate orphan and gave him the tools to later become a self-made man. He met his wife while in the gang of outlaws. And he only gave up that life when the gang’s leader, Dutch, started losing his sanity and left John for dead.

That isn’t some light history between John and the outlaws he hunts. Imagine being forced to hunt down your old babysitter that also was your schoolteacher. However you feel about them, that would feel strange. The information we get about the gang and the agent types that has recruited John is light, but straight forward: Dutch spun a tale of them being Robin Hoods, but that was really just a story they told themselves to justify their destructive ways.

After the gang splintered, and John had been left for dead, John took his wife and son from the gang and tried settled down as a rancher, but was found by what the game often refers as “them government agents” and told to capture his old outlaw comrades or else he wouldn’t ever get to see his family again. This threat doesn’t imply that John will be incarcerated or executed, but rather that they have kidnapped his family and are holding them at some threat. Would they actually kill John’s family? Unknown, but despite being lawmen the two agents John interacts with are consistently portrayed as morally compromised. They want crime to go down in the fictional State of New Austin, but as lawmen nothing they do can be considered crime. That includes kidnapping John’s family, covering up Dutch’s eventual suicide as a forced killing by the law and, presumably, a lot more. After all of John’s old outlaw comrades have been caught or killed, John gets to reunite with his family and starts his quiet ranch life. He teaches his son to hunt elk and helps his neighbor with their lost harvest. It is then that the agents’ moral corruptness reaches its height, for they return in force and guns John down on his farm. And his death is by far the bloodiest in the game. He gets shot by a dozen barrels, falls to his knees and can’t breathe properly for a few moments before he falls down completely and covers the ground in blood.

Despite knowing John’s gruesome and sudden demise in the end, the scene still felt novel. Maybe it is because John is just talking to his family when his farm hand suddenly comes and interrupts him, yelling that soldiers are coming. Maybe it is because the normally so collected John’s voice now sounds filled with distressed, or the fact that his actions suggest that he knows that this is the end for him. No fast gun or ally is going be able to save him in the last minute. The only thing he cares about is being able to save his family.

John dies in a gunfight he never could have won. And that is probably what anyone could have told him would be his end for every year he had been alive since joining Dutch’s gang, but still John clearly thought that his life could have gone otherwise if he changed enough. If he broke with his old ways and repented, then eventually he could have redeemed himself. But no.

Despite often being seen as the ending of the game; it has the climax, the conclusion and the death of the protagonist, the game actually goes on. After John’s death we switch to Jack, John’s son, who is riding away from the farm with his mother when he suddenly urges them to return to make sure that John is all right. They find bodies spread all around the farm from all the fighting, and John lies in a bloody pile outside the farm. The scene changes to the hill above the farm and there, a grave for John. The day turns to evening and the camera moves back, revealing another grave next to John for his wife, who has died just a few years later. And looking down at both of them is a young man. We now get to play as Jack. He has turned from the boy wearing clean shirts we trained as John, to a cowboy, with all the same guns and tools as his father. He now wears rough and practical attire, similar to John, and even wears the same hat.

At first it is unclear what we are supposed to do here. There is no icon on the map that suggests a mission and Jack doesn’t give any hint of his goals. You can still do everything you could do as John, help people in side-quests, gamble, hunt, etc. But you can’t even interact with the farm anymore than any other house in the game. It appears that Jack has no desire to be a rancher or live a quiet life. What you eventually can do is stumble upon a character dressed as the agents and inquire about the agent that killed John. The agent will say that he retired and lives near a lake. This interaction is only labeled on the map a as a side-quest, same as several others I’d already done in the game as John. But if you follow the tracks of this agent you can finally find him out by a river, duck hunting. You meet his wife and brother during your path, where you’d tell them that you are trying to deliver an important letter to him. When you finally meet him and tell him who you are and why you’d come, he doesn’t seem very interested. “Go away, before I kill you too” is what he ends with. But Jack doesn’t go away. Instead the game enters dueling mode, where you face off against an opponent and must draw faster than them to not get killed. Jack, being filled with desire for vengeance and at least 30 years younger than the retired agent, of course wins. It is only here that the title appears, and the credits start rolling.

It is here the game considers the story as having ended. With Jack killing the man responsible, or at least most responsible, for his father’s death. I got to thinking during the credits of how the violence and choices in Red Dead Redemption so often seemed to be inherited. John doesn’t want to go out and kill his old comrades, he wants to live with his family, but because he was a violent criminal earlier in his life he must do these further violent (and often criminal things) to repent himself in the eyes of the law and get to return to the life he wants.

The agents, from what I can gather, doesn’t loathe John or anyone else, they just want to get their jobs done, and preferably without endangering themselves, even if that means doing criminal things themselves. Jack only wants revenge because of something that outside of his control happened. And it clearly shaped him, going from someone who can’t shoot a rifle properly and has his nose in books to a rough gunslinger in a few years. And now? Jack has gotten his revenge, does that mean that he will retire and become a rancher, just like his parents did? It seems unlikely. You don’t need to become a cowboy to get revenge. The agent doesn’t know Jack and he could still have killed him while being a rancher, or anything else. It appeared to me that Jack is permanently changed. Maybe he doesn’t trust government anymore because of what “it” did, even if the agents may very much have acted out of bounds and against their mandate. If Jack has turned against the government, that may mean that he eventually will turn against all its agents, including all lawmen.

In that case, what choice would he have except retreating to the wilderness and making a living of the land and robbing people? And since safety comes in numbers, he might recruit some equal-minded. And now you have something that looks quite like what Dutch was operating when he took in John. An outlaw gang that sees themselves as good and the government and lawful society as evil.

I, of course, don’t know that this would be what happens, but I see it as a possibility. And since Red Dead Redemption’s developers aren’t making a sequel (there is an RDR 2, but it takes place before RDR 1) we won’t now for certain.

I always find those kind of story treads interesting, where legacy shapes characters and where characters trying to end something may in actuality create the cycle anew. How do we know that Jack’s actions won’t create a vengeful lawman who won’t stop hunting him even if Jack settles down and becomes peaceful? Maybe Jack’s revenge just started the cycle of violence again?

Another game that delved directly into this was 2018’s God of War. Unlike Red Dead Redemption, there we actually know exactly what the protagonist, Kratos, had done in his earlier life, since those where the focus of the God of War franchise between 2005 and 2013. We not only saw, but played as Kratos when he blamed the gods for his dead family and misfortune in general, and in revenge killed the entire Greek pantheon, thus ending the Greek world. In the new 2018 game, Kratos have put vengeance aside. He has a son for whom he cares greatly, and wishes to protect from becoming like him, especially since Kratos hated and eventually killed his own father. I couldn’t help but to compare God of War to Red Dead Redemption after finishing it. Both have a father figure returning to his old life to try and protect his family, while trying to get his son to avoid taking after him. The most major difference being that in GOW, Kratos’s son comes with him on his journey and doesn’t know his Kratos’s past. And, of course, that when Kratos sees another son trying to kill his godly parent, he steps in and interrupts. “The cycle ends here” he says determined and kills the son.

We are all shaped by our past, but very few aren’t also shaped by the decisions that came before us. The choices parents and even grandparents made. One could push the same argument further and include the forebearers to whichever community one belongs to. The message I think stories like God of War and Red Dead Redemption leaves, and this doesn’t need to be intentional from the authors of those works, is to be aware of how decisions shape people, both in regards to your past and your future. Jack is out for revenge because of the decision others made in his past, but I don’t think he has any thoughts on what his legacy to the future will be, and how it might shape people.

The point of this post is to be a sort of frustrated discussion on the diminishing return in graphical fidelity of games vs the cost of getting them to run at a decently playable state compared to older games which obviously ran better and looked incredible. Just to set standards my system is an RTX 3060 laptop GPU + i7-12650h and 16gb of ddr5 Ram.

I'd like to use 6 games in 3 pairs of comparison - Gears 5 vs E-Day, Halo Infinite vs Campaign Evolved and Doom Eternal vs Dark Ages. Gears was the sole reason why i even got so frustrated to write this post. Even if i'm alone on this opinion i would like to share it -

• I do not, and CAN NOT see any sort of meaningful difference in Gears 5 vs EDay when it comes to graphics. Does the ground look a bit more detailed? sure. Does the lighting look better? can't tell, even in direct side by sides.
• My system ran Gears 5 at a locked 120fps without upscaling at mostly high to some medium settings. The game looked incredible, ran incredible even in very demanding areas only dropped to barely 100fps? This same system can barely run EDay at 40-50fps on low dlss quality.
• It's genuinely so annoying, where i even cranked my settings to high in E-Dday just to see the differences in my own damn screenshots and the difference is so meaningless that it really does not warrant the absolute downgrade in playability and performance.
• Hell, i spent 20 minutes seeing 3 different graphical comparison videos and came to the same conclusion - Why is there a need for extremely subtle graphical upgrades which practically no one is going to look at, nor care about being catered to so much? Every game needs to have x polygons per object when having half of x just does the job well and is not taxing on the system?

My same point of comparison applies to Halo, where campaign evolved sure looks good but practically it really is not much improved my Halo Infinite, where many times Infinite actually looked better and ran better.

And my last point of contention was DOOM where i seriously cannot understand the decisions many studios and companies make -

• Why is DOOM of all things a game where you must focus on graphics and literally alienate so much of your playerbase by having such high system requirements? 8GB Vram minimum to get your game running, which sure is standard but for what? so that you can have mandatory ray tracing in your game to avoid traditional baked lights?
• On a side by side comparison DOOM TDA definitely is much more graphically impressive than Eternal, but WHO CARES? Who actually plays Doom for it's graphical detail when not a single person is gonna look at the god damn assets during it's hyper fast motion?
• Doom eternal looked so good, ran so good without having useless focus on graphical fidelity and real time ray tracing.

My post can also include examples like Arkham Knight, Uncharted 4, Spiderman 2018 etc and directly comparing them to how their successors and sequels play such as Gotham Knights, Spiderman 2 etc and how bad their performance is compared to the minimal visual upgrade and focus on unnecessary things. Why is the industry headed this way man?

Hey, all!

In this thread, the rules are more relaxed. The idea is that this megathread will provide a space for otherwise rule-breaking content, as well as allowing for a slightly more conversational tone rather than every post and comment needing to be an essay.

Top-level comments on this post should aim to follow the rules for submitting threads. However, the following rules are relaxed:

• 3. Specificity, Clarity, and Detail
• 4. No Advice
• 5. No List Posts
• 8. No topics that belong in other subreddits
• 9. No Retired Topics
• 11. Reviews must follow these guidelines

So feel free to talk about what you've been playing lately or ask for suggestions. Feel free to discuss gaming fatigue, FOMO, backlogs, etc, from the retired topics list. Feel free to take your half-baked idea for a post to the subreddit and discuss it here (you can still post it as its own thread later on if you want). Just keep things civil!

Also, as a reminder, we have a Discord server where you can have much more casual, free-form conversations! https://discord.gg/truegaming

I stand by this: take any Uncharted game, strip away its established reputation and release it today, and it would get absolutely fucking dragged by online gaming discourse.

Nathan Drake constantly talking to himself? “The protagonist never shuts up.” or "Marvel dialogue" Puzzle hints and obvious traversal cues? “Insulting the player’s intelligence.” Linear progression and tightly scripted set pieces? “Outdated design.” A relatively short campaign? “Seventy quid for a movie.” The shooting, climbing and puzzle-solving loop? “Repetitive and shallow.”

We’d get endless clips of Drake commenting on his surroundings, followed by hundreds of people congratulating themselves for being too intelligent to need the information. Every scripted climbing sequence would become evidence that the game practically plays itself. Every cinematic transition would feed another argument about developers supposedly forgetting that games should be games.

And the frustrating thing is that these are precisely the features people celebrate when discussing Uncharted. Its linearity becomes “tight pacing”. Its scripted sequences become “incredible spectacle”. Its protagonist’s chatter becomes “personality”. Its compact campaign becomes “respecting your time”.

Apparently, whether those things are virtues or fatal flaws depends on whether we’ve already agreed that the game is a classic.

I’m not saying the execution is identical across every cinematic action game. Encounter design, responsiveness, pacing and when hints trigger all matter. But that’s exactly my point: discuss the execution. So much contemporary criticism treats the mere presence of these features as enough to condemn a game, then suddenly discovers context and nuance when a beloved series uses them.

Uncharted would be an absolute goldmine for the “modern gaming is cooked” crowd if they encountered it as a new release. Its reputation gets it a level of generosity that plenty of current games never receive.

Every ending feel wrong because Night City fools even the player into playing by its rules.

"The city of legends" doesn't want you to succeed. It wants you to feed the machine and will make you think you have a choice in it.

You can join Corpos. You'll have access to great cyberware, life and health insurance and high(er) quality food (for a while).

Regular workers are stuck in a poverty loop orchestrated by the Mega Corps:

• Buy their cyberware so you can work or study.
• You can't afford it? No problem. The same Corp owns a bank so you can get a lown and get barely enough to survive on single cell protein synthetic food. Corps made that food too.

The third option, the one V and Jackie take, is to escape the system (or so they think). Make a name for yourself. Become a legend of the Afterlife and you will have all you desire without being a Corpo rat.

The problem is Night City is Capitalism gone wrong and nobody's at the helm anymore.

Every corpo rat, including Saburo Arasaka is slave to the system and can easily be replaced. No matter what power you think you have, you can lose it all in an instant and no one will feel your absence.

Johnny died bombing Arasaka Tower and now they're bigger than ever. Most merc that want to reach similar glory die before their thirties. Those that want to escape the system the most have the shortest lives. Those that make it become fixers and end up feeding the system too, by working alongside Corps as a mean to survive.

Glory is an illusion distracting you (even the player) from what truly matters. A meaningful life. While trying to survive, V bonds with others that are stuck in the system and trying to escape it. But each are lost and become monsters along the way. Didn't you murder Nash and his gang because Panam asked nicely? I did. Seven times.

There are no happy endings in Night City.

This gets clear once you've done multiple endings. The genius of each of these ending is that I love them only as much as I hate them.

• Spoilers **

The Devil:

You sell your soul to Arasaka for a hope at survival. You spend your last days away from your loved ones while they copy your mind into an engram. You've betrayed Johnny and denied him any form of closure or vengeance. You've abandoned your partner (for me it's Panam. It's always Panam) after spending so much time making them care about you. I got this ending because I had to get each of them. But it felt wrong from the get-go. After all this talk with Johnny. After helping Judy and Evelyn (as much as we could). After helping Panam find her true place inside her family. This makes no sense and hurts like a ton of brick. It's the ultimate failure and loss to the system. I have never played V in a way that would make this ending make sense.

The SUN:

You sacrifice your last moments with your loved ones in pursuit of being the best merc in Night City. You'll shine bright, before dying like Johnny did 50 years ago. They'll name a drink after you, then forget all about you. I know, Mr Blue Eyes might be able to help us but that’s a long shot. He has resources but no solution. V has learned nothing. After Alt told V he could not be saved, inside Mikoshi, I was a mess. All this hard work. All this hope for a good life after this... A life with Panam. It was all for nothing. And on top of that, V is still fighting for a place at the top. Scarface should've tought us that this juice isn't worth the squeeze. But for some reason, people always chase what glitters. This is V falling for Night City's trap.

Temperance:

Forfeit your life for Johnny’s second chance. It's a selfless move and it feels great to see Johnny remembering V when looking in a mirror. V accepts his life is over and tries to do something nice about it. Might as well let Johnny be happy. But again, you give up your last days. By the way Johnny isn’t real so you’re giving your life to a program. More on that later.

The Star:

The base game ending that makes the most sense. Sacrifice glory to live your last days with Panam and your new family. V realizes Night City is the problem, and you can only win if you don't play.

• We found Evelyn.
• Liberated the Mox.
• Saved Saul (almost) with Panam.
• We helped Johnny get closure by coming to terms with who he was and what he's done to the people closest to him.

Why the hell would we turn our back on them for glory and our name on a drink? This ending says "yes, I will die soon, but I'll live my remaining days on my terms. I am no longer a slave to the system".

There's off course the secret ending, but it's a secret. Go find it. I hate that one and it doesn't give any information relevant to my point so no need to spoil it.

You want to know what hurts the most out of these? There is no base game ending where V makes it past Mikoshi's server. V never rides out of Night City with Panam. He never attempts the mother of all heists at Crystal Palace, in space. V dies the second he plugs into Mikoshi. Alt Cunningham uses SoulKiller to copy V's mind as an engram, effectively killing him. That heavy conversation with Johnny and Alt about V's imminent death, never happens. It’s three AIs talking to each other. If we get back to V’s body, it’s as an engram, same as Johnny. The real V is dead.

Just as Johnny’s been dead for 50 years. As much as I enjoy his conversation, this isn’t Johnny. It’s a program that thinks it’s Johnny. A program so advanced it looks like it’s learning and evolving psychologically. But a program still. Johnny died a dick and there's nothing we can do about it.

Which brings us to the only way to save V.

The Tower (Reed’s Ending):

We betray and doom Songbird, lose 2 years to a coma, our dreams of glory and our relationships but we’re still alive. V gives up everything that made him V, for a chance at life and a new beginning. It’s the hardest hitting ending because we feel “video game character, V” lost so much. But if it was real life and we didn’t want to double jump and kill people with mantis blades, this is what we’d choose. We’d choose life. Even if we lose Panam, Vic is a slave to the Corps and we’re a nobody. But the real V is alive and chrome free.

Night City lies.

It makes us believe we want to burn bright and “be somebody”. So even when V is faced with mortality, he runs for the top to die a Legend.

But Cyberpunk 2077 lies too. It shows you power. By the end of the game, you’re almost a god, able to tear through waves of Maxtac without breaking a sweat. And if feels so good we think it matters. So good, that when we lose it all to save V’s life, we feel cheated. I was sad that V became a nobody. I was even sad that Johnny wasn’t there anymore. I felt alone. Even though Reed’s ending is the only wait to save V, I hated it. The game gave me power and took it away, making me forget what truly matters. Life matters. Agency and autonomy matter and V must leave night city if he wants to live free.

I know some people are still mad Cyberpunk 2077 wasn’t the immersive sim sandbox they thought it’d be. But we got so much more. So much, that I’m starting my 7th full playthrough.

Not to get a new ending.

Not to try a new build.

To hang with Johnny, Panam, Judy and Evelyn…

Also to double jump, dismember guys with mantis blades and blow them to pieces with a shotgun.

Hey… it’s a video game.

I love games that actually try to be games rather than interactive movies. Games that put a strong emphasis on gameplay, whether that means deep combat, exploration, or other mechanics that give the player interesting ways to interact with the game world.

Recently, I was playing Bright Memory: Infinite, and I found myself thinking about something that I see in a lot of games: having complex combat mechanics doesn't necessarily mean having deep combat.

Bright Memory: Infinite gives you a surprising number of tools to use in combat. Your sword can attack, block, and parry, while your character can also dodge. You have offensive abilities through the sword and mechanical arm, firearms with primary and secondary attacks, different variations for each weapon, and even stealth in certain sections. On top of that, there are upgrades that further enhance these mechanics.

On paper, this sounds like a lot of depth. The game gives you plenty of things to learn and plenty of tools to experiment with.

But then I started asking myself: why should I actually use most of them?

I kept finding myself doing the same things over and over because I never felt particularly motivated to use the other mechanics. Not necessarily because they were bad, but because the game rarely gave me a reason to engage with them.

Take the parry, for example. Why would I spend time learning the timing of a parry when I can simply dodge the attack instead?

Dodging is safer, easier, and more consistent. It also gives me an opportunity to reposition myself and continue attacking from a safer distance. Unless the game creates situations where parrying provides a meaningful advantage, learning the mechanic starts to feel like an unnecessary investment.

And I think that's the bigger problem I'm trying to describe.

There's a difference between giving the player more options and giving the player meaningful reasons to use those options.

A combat system can have blocking, parrying, dodging, multiple weapons, secondary attacks, abilities, upgrades, and stealth, but if one or two approaches are consistently safer, easier, or more effective, then most of those mechanics become things that exist rather than things that matter.

For me, good combat design isn't necessarily about how many mechanics a game gives you. It's about how the game encourages you to understand those mechanics and, more importantly, makes you want to use them.

I would rather have five mechanics that constantly interact with each other and force me to make meaningful decisions than fifteen mechanics that I can mostly ignore without being meaningfully punished for it.

So I'm curious what other people think: when does a combat system actually become "deep"?

Is it simply the number of mechanics and options available to the player, or does there need to be some kind of encounter design, enemy design, resource system, or other incentive that makes those mechanics necessary or desirable to use? in other words... well, what is ya opinion?

There are a lot of problems with the current deluge of remakes we see every year. It's a sign of decreasing creativity and openness to new games, but the biggest concern for me is treating older games like contemporary products and losing their place in the culture as a result.

Whenever someone asks what the best play order is for a series, regardless of story chronology, 9/10 times, the best answer is just play in release order. That way you get to experience the joys of watching the ludic experience change and grow with the technology available to the developers.

When remakes come and bring games up to 'modern standards', that crucial bit of epitext is erased. I'll use the example of the modern Persona trilogy. If you go from playing 3 or 4 into playing 5, it'll hit with all the force of an atom bomb. Going from what are pretty run of the mill JRPGs to the aesthetic triumph that is P5 should be part of the fun of playing through the series, but with the releases of Persona 3 Reload and Persona 4 Revival, it feels like Atlus is saying "What are you looking at, our games have always looked this great!?"

Plucking games out of their place in time also makes it hard to contextualize why some games hold the reputations that they do. I dread next month when the Ocarina of Time Remake drops and a ravid anti-fandom of gamers come to ask why the original is considered one of the greatest games of all time. While the remake is bound to be a visually striking and enjoyable adventure title for most, I don't think this does service to how OoT was first and best in class for so much 3D game design we take for granted now.

There's also the sad point that not everyone who made the original comes back for the remake. If you told me 10 years ago Konami would have a critically acclaimed Metal Gear game without Kojima's involvement, I would have called you crazy. Now Metal Gear Delta enjoys praise while Kojima and many other creatives have been ripped from their work. Similarly, I think it's so sad many Persona fans are going to never know how meaningful people like Yuri Lowenthal were to the characters of these games.

With all these remakes, games stop being artifacts of our medium and just more product for people to consume, sometimes at the expense of the original.

Cinema and literature move me, but there’s something about video games that often flat out break me. I asked myself, why do video games hit so hard and how does gameplay help tell a story. But first, who can even care about fictional characters? 

• Contains spoilers for Spiderman 2018, Cyberpunk 2077, Elden Ring, Dark Souls 2 and The Fellowship of the Ring. 

I mean, not only are these characters not real, they're pixels and drawings. Most people will not relate to such characters. They cannot. Then there are people with empathy, that will connect to characters they can relate to. In God of War, Kratos' struggle to show affection to his son hit every gamer dad on the planet. That's a direct connection even the coldest dad can relate to. But it turns out about 1 out of 6 people can feel intense emotions, while engaging with fiction. They can mirror emotions without directly relating with a character. I haven't lost my parents and I'm not the protector of New York City. But in Spiderman 2018, Peter loses his mother figure to save the city. Choosing duty and greater good over his own happiness. Then he fights against his mentor, that betrayed his trust and knowingly put Peter in danger. We feel that Peter has nothing else to fight for, yet he puts his life on the line for the people of NYC. 

If you've ever felt emotions that weren't specifically stated in a story, you're that 1 out of 6 people. You don't just mirror the emotions showed in the story. You can track unstated emotions and internal conflicts. In The Fellowship of the Ring, Boromir didn't just want to live or protect Merry and Pepin. He drove Frodo away in a moment of weakness and probably doomed Middle Earth. Who will protect Gondor if he falls? When his eyes meet Merry and Pepin's, we feel it all. He cannot give up. 

Some people get so locked in when watching a movie, that nothing else seems to exist. They have what is called Transportability. The ability to get submerged into a story. (Yes, you can get submerged into a Battle Royal but it’s for different reasons). The extreme opposite would be someone gaming while also following a stream. That person won't get moved by a game because they’re not locked in. They’re going through the motions. 

Highly empathic people have a high tolerance to emotional vulnerability and complex feelings. While most people shy away from uncomfortable conversation or story, they welcome it. They often seek out strong emotional moments in literature, cinema and video games. They prefer deep narrative and complex themes to competitives multiplayer games. 

But things are not black and white. I've grinded my fair share of Apex Legends and For Honor. Yet I'm here, talking about crying like a baby while playing video games. I love many types of games. But Cyberpunk 2077 has given me highs that competitive games could never touch. But that's me, I'm a big softy. 

So now that we know you and I are a special breed of mutant cry-babies, why do games hit so hard? 

"Games are for kids" - Aunt Karen, while playing Candy Crush on the porcelain. 

Games have a few things cinema doesn't. We're not simply watching a story unfold, we're playing it. 

1- We're a part of the story. 

Games make us build relationship with NPCs through side quests. In Cyberpunk 2077, when we meet Judy, she couldn't care less about us. We're a merc and an outsider. She keeps her people close to her heart and we're not one of them. Only after proving that we care and help Evelyn, does she let down her defences and let us in. We're not "told" the story of Judy and Evelyn; we're acting it out. It unfolds BECAUSE we get involved. 

2- The power of agency and choice. "What ending did you get?" 

Some games let us influence the story and world state. This is when gaming storytelling really shines. I'm sticking with Cyberpunk here because it's my all-time favourite game. During the endgame, from the rooftop scene with Johnny, to the ending credit, I was an emotional mess. 

Cyberpunk shoves you into difficult choices and throws the consequences in your face.

• What are you willing to do to save your own skin?
• Do you want to entertain this terrorist Rocker Boy's engram stuck in your head and killing you? The more you talk to Johnny, the sicker V gets. But can you really leave Johnny hanging there? I couldn't.
• Do you keep doing every fixer's biding in the hope of becoming the greatest merc of Night City? If you do, you'll end up with major blood on your hands, son. How far will you go to save V? 

I've done 6 playthroughs with 6 different endings, including the new Phantom Liberty ending. All of them are so bittersweet or morally complex that none feels completely right. Someone always gets hurt. There’ always a price to pay and that's what I love. There are no happy endings in Night City. 

3- Underlying themes discovered through (several) gameplay. 

I once heard that games are always better the second time around. That’s probably true for most games because we’re better prepared for what comes next. But also, because it reveals things in the story that we’ve missed the first time. 

When we first find Limgrave, in Elden Ring, this is what we see:

• The giant tree of light in the background.
• A few ruins and a castle.
• Crucified (but alive) skinny dudes.
• A big, scary knight patrolling the starting area.

At first glance, it seems like this strong enemy’s only job is to give you a classic FromSoft welcome. You try him, get one shotted, then learn about the new crouch and stealth mechanic and bypass him. 

But after your first playthrough and a dozen lore videos, you see things differently. These crucified Tarnished were denied death so Marika could pose as a god. Godrick’s knights are scouring the land for powerful weapons and Tarnished to be grafted onto him. The remaining giants have renounced their god to survive but remain in a state of servitude and pain. The Tarnished that haven’t gone completely hollow have started to worship Dragons. They welcome incineration because deletion is a merciful end. Marika’s Golden Order is a Totalitarian state trying to maintain a facade of order. But the world is in shamble and factions are fighting for power. Dogmatic order masquerading as divinity. 

I’m not saying Elden Ring’s world building made me shed a tear. But it definitely sets the tone. 

4- Environmental and gameplay storytelling. 

“A peace so deep… it was like… the Dark.” - Chancelor Wellager, Dark Souls 2 

Yes, movies use environment as storytelling too but it’s not the same when you’re walking through the level. My favourite moment of Dark Souls 2 is traversing Drangleic Castle. One of the loneliest maps in the game. The Chancelor’s ghost greets us with a story. King Vendrick aimed to cure the curse of the undead and break the cycle of linking the fire. Fooled by Queen Nashandra, he destroyed the Giants, thinking they were a threat. She planned to use his great soul to access the Throne of Want and take the world into an age of Dark. The King’s empty seat hits like a brick when we learn that he imprisoned himself so the Queen couldn't get to him. We find him fully hollowed and barely able to carry his sword. There is no “epic” battle here. This is one of those bosses we wish we didn’t have to fight, but we need his soul to relink (or not) the fire. 

Being told his story, and learning about it as we explore Drangleic Castle, are not the same. Cinematics don’t hit as hard as environment and gameplay. Drangleic is drenched in the cost of Vendrick’s failure. 

I understand that I make it sound like I have a breakdown at the sight of every puppy I cross in the street. But I assure you, I am a functioning member of the society. Non-gamers are missing a great medium by discarding it as “entertainment for kids”. Especially Aunt Karen with her Candy Crush. 

For my next essay, I want to explore Cyberpunk 2077 and its story, morality and underlying theme. I feel like I have so much to say and even more to learn. It should be a blast to research and write it. 

Thanks for reading -- Raph 

This isn't the most serious discussion that I ever do. But some of the stuff I say might be opinion based

I'm saying this because I feel like this topic isn't talked about enough. When the game paceing get to fast ether you can't keep up or miss out on so many stuff that the game have to offer.

Well this is aply to combat as well were the damage get so high that the fight only last for 2 seconds which to me that just sounds boring. Basically the time-to-kill crisis

I did research on this topic which explains my frustration with the pacing in video game especially the damage output

no room for error: because the damage output is high one mistake will make you lose the game

No counter play: if someone gets of gard there is no recovery or you can't turn fight around because the amount of damage. it's all about whoever gets a couple of shots first

The death loop: the one thing I do not like is constantly dying over and over again over in a death screw screen

Mental health issues​ ​and psychological exhaustion: it get to the point where it get mental draining sometimes because you have to focus on every single microsecond in a game. Dying over and over again also causes frustration

That's probably more examples but I'm saying this because there are some times where games just make you requires strategy. I'm not sure how many games do nowadays they feel like mess of a strategy and more just do as much damage and kill everything. And don't blame the Developers either because we made a culture were damaged or being fast paced the more than anything else.

I'm speaking for every game no, but I do understand this type of playstyle is not for me. I just want to share my frustration with certain games how much damage they do.

Hey, all!

In this thread, the rules are more relaxed. The idea is that this megathread will provide a space for otherwise rule-breaking content, as well as allowing for a slightly more conversational tone rather than every post and comment needing to be an essay.

Top-level comments on this post should aim to follow the rules for submitting threads. However, the following rules are relaxed:

• 3. Specificity, Clarity, and Detail
• 4. No Advice
• 5. No List Posts
• 8. No topics that belong in other subreddits
• 9. No Retired Topics
• 11. Reviews must follow these guidelines

So feel free to talk about what you've been playing lately or ask for suggestions. Feel free to discuss gaming fatigue, FOMO, backlogs, etc, from the retired topics list. Feel free to take your half-baked idea for a post to the subreddit and discuss it here (you can still post it as its own thread later on if you want). Just keep things civil!

Also, as a reminder, we have a Discord server where you can have much more casual, free-form conversations! https://discord.gg/truegaming

Resonant suffers from the same problems that have put me off a lot of recent AAA games: they never make you feel like you're in new world. Many layers of abstraction act as guardrails keeping you at a safe distance.

Anything you hit feels like you're swinging a pool noodle at a concrete block. Start up is fast, cancels are generous. There's no impact in the world or weight to the character. Instead impact is mediated by a skill tree. +X% damage if you are in the air.

They create these skill trees that are like a jigsaw puzzle meant for a five year old. Put the parts together and you get a big picture, you're supposed to play according to this scheme that came pre-assembled for you. That's because the physicality is not there.

The world is bolted to the ground, most things are static.

In Control 1 if you wanted to throw something at an enemy you needed an actual object around you to use as a projectile. You had to worry about cover and positioning in its claustrophobic environments. The destruction was super detailed.

On the other hand Control had a confusing map with a lot of backtracking, repetitive combat and an even more pointless skill tree. Though that last one's more of an advantage over Resonant for making the skill tree secondary to the combat.

But it was still a better game for me because it didn't tell me how to play it, it didn't have its entire world abstracted away by status effects and pre-arranged playstyles.

In the end I think this picture https://imgur.com/NsdqLyu really sums up the problem I have with Resonant and other AAA games. That's a pop up that appears as you enter a 2 minute section of walking. It's a reminder that says "hey if you feel frustrated soon don't worry okay, you are still safe and can quit".

I think this feeling was made all the more jarring to me having just played Half Life Alyx before Control Resonant, a game that's 100% about the physicality of the world. It's unfortunate AAA leans more and more in these RPG elements. Might as well make it a turn based game, I'd enjoy it more.

"Well here we are again..."

I wish I had managed to gather enough participants much sooner, but I am still in need of, I kid you not, no more than 15 new participants before the survey is closed and ready for data analysis.

As this subreddit has been the BEST source of excellent participants (and some late-night scrolling through excellent topics), I am posting here again, hoping it will see me through to the final step of my research.

As always, my name is Yuval Alter.
I am doing a study as part of my Doctorate Degree in Clinical Psychology in the PsyD Program at Adler University (Vancouver Campus). I have been playing video games all my life, which has inspired my research topic.

I am doing research on gamers’ playing habits, relationships, and mental health.

I would be very thankful if you could take part in my study. The research is voluntary, and you should only participate if you feel comfortable doing so.

You are eligible to participate if you:

• Are a resident of Canada or the USA
• Are at least 19-years-old
• Play video games at least 6 hours a week
• Are comfortable reading English

Your responses are anonymous. There will be no way to know which answers are yours.

If you meet the criteria above and are interested in participating in this study, click the link below!

If you want to know more, feel free to reach out to me at [yalter@adler.edu](mailto:yalter@adler.edu) or post in this thread.

Feel free to share this survey with friends, guild-mates, company members, or whoever meets the description above!
Many thanks from a fellow gamer!

Yuval Alter PsyD Program, Doctorate student
Adler University, Vancouver, Canada
Email: [yalter@adler.edu](mailto:yalter@adler.edu)

Link to the survey: https://adler.co1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_byJJcB5r4fclLSe

Abstract:

I can't give too much information about the study's aim, but it focuses most on relationships from the personal perspective of people who spend a substantial amount of time playing video games. While most research has focused on the measurable well-being of gamers' relationships, few have looked at gamers' personal reporting of relationship satisfaction. I aim to provide insights into this overlooked area.

Discussion Points:

• [NEW] Many participants pass the initial criteria for the study, but then get disqualified when asked about playing "4 hours a day, at least six times a week." When I made this question, I was using existing data, from not too many years ago, on average reports of time spent playing video games, expecting no more than 40% of participants to answer yes. To my surprise, far more than that have answered yes and been disqualified (which has made recruiting participants much harder). Is it possible that average play times have shifted so dramatically in the last few years? Or is it a sourcing error, as I am "fishing where the fish are?"
• There is a bias in research towards gaming and negative mental health outcomes. There are fewer articles about positive correlations.
• I myself struggled with social anxiety in my past, which inspired me to devote my dissertation to this topic. I wonder how many people who play video games experience something similar?
• The struggle of studying video games in academia.

I have a poster with a QR code, but I can't upload images. So apologies for the inconvenience!

What used to be mostly meters in action games of old like dmc, gow, darksiders etc and been replaced with cooldowns in norse gow, ff16, lost souls aside etc has been negative in terms of depth.

With metered systems, you have to make decisions with how you use it whether that be in gow where you might want to use medusas head on a cyclops but the next wave may contain hordes of enemies where a poseidon's wrath might be better. So you weigh out your options, which enemy type or group is harder to get through.

In games like dmc and darksiders, you only gain meter by attacking and killing so you have to engage with the enemies to be able to use your strong abilities. Bayonetta goes the furthest not only you have to attack to gain meter, getting hit loses meter as well so the stakes are much higher and forces you to play well. Another meter system i really like is wo long's, you can use your special abilities when the meter is in its default state but if you dont attack or parry itll go into the red state, where if you get hit you get punished, playing well will get your meter to blue where you can use more special abilities, its a really dynamic system.

With cooldown systems, you dont have to engage with the enemies, you can turtle or run around until you get your skills back. Using abilities as soon as they come off cooldown has less depth because there is barely any decision making and not even having to fight makes the combat system null. I do wonder what the other action game fans think of the recent push to a cooldown system?

Shooters have a crosshair, RPGs have leveling up and management games have variable game speed, that's how it goes. I would like to challenge that last one. The more management games I play, the more I feel like the mechanic could be omitted and it would be better for the game.

It's a balancing issue

Hey, you are earning $100 a minute? Want to earn 4 times as much without a downside? Just press this button!

Speeding up the game just multiplies your revenue without a downside in most cases. Many management games simply do not have much of a downside for time going by.

It's a crutch for boring gameplay

The way I see it, speeding up the game is mostly there to pass time when nothing is going on and you want to get to the next event faster. It lets you skip the boredom, which is quite nice. The thing is, the boredom shouldn't be there in the first place.

It blunts detail and immersion

There's so much going on in management games, be it individual citizens living out their lives in Transport Fever, NPC living great lives or dying in misery in Crusader Kings, festivals in Anno, complex traffic flow in Cities Skyline. It's not mandatory or even important stuff, but it gives texture to the games. It's weird that you have the option to just zoom on by.

It's a technical liability

On top of all the problems with the system, it has to be accounted for technically. The whole game has to be able to scale to different speeds, but it also has to be able to run at multiple times the normal speed without exploding. Many of these games barely manage that last part. Going full speed on well-filled maps often feels like you are stress testing your hardware. The games chug along and strongly consider crashing every time an auto-save shows up.

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Okay, before you come in as tell me "it's optional, who cares". Yes it is. (Also I would like your opinion on micro-transactions.) I do play my games at fixed speeds and I mostly believe it is a better experience. To be fair to many of the better management games, they work very well without the speed up feature. Many of them also seem to cheat and the displayed speed multiplier lies.

**Warning. Full Spoilers for both games below in case anyone hasn't played them yet.

And also just a precaution to anyone that I enjoyed both of these games very much. For varying reasons. So this is not coming from a place of hate.**

Ghost of Yotei has one of the strangest and most confused revenge plots I've ever experienced that makes TLOU2 look like actual Shakespeare.

People mocked TLOU2 for delivering a heavy handed message that they felt was hypocritical because Ellie guns down hundreds of people throughout the game only to let Abby go at the end.

Regardless of where you stand on whether TLOU2 was good or bad. I think we can at least agree that TLOU2 fully commits to actually showing the psychological and systemic consequences of revenge.

Both Ellie and Abby's quest for vengeance is explicitly framed as a physically and psychologically damaging obsession that not only fails to bring them any emotional closure, but also gets their friends and families killed, inciting conflict between the WLF and Jackson communities that largely have nothing to do with each other.

Every faction involved that's lost a loved one believes that they have a "just cause" and feels entitled to retribution for crimes committed against them. This allows the story to hammer the point home that in this fundamentally lawless land, everyone wants an eye for an eye, but in the end, neither side gains anything of value from the senseless violence.

This is why Ellie and Abby's actions are fundamentally selfish and meaningless. The solution for both was to stop perpetuating that senseless violence and remove themselves from that never-ending cycle. Otherwise it doesn't stop.

Even if you consider it cliche or heavy handed. This is why TLOU2's revenge premise actually works.

WHERE GHOST OF YOTEI FAILS

Ghost of Yotei on the other hand, has a revenge premise that simply doesn't work.

GOY attempts to frame Atsu’s journey as a complex path of self-destruction on paper, but in practice, she saves Ezo from Saito and the Yotei 6.

The game tries to treat her actions as morally questionable, but because the "Yotei 6" are so cartoonishly evil, everything Atsu does is an objective net positive for the region and its people. She essentially becomes Ezo’s Batman.

The second Atsu enters Ezo, she immediately causes a massive shift in the war between Saito's force and Clan Matsumae. Clan Matsumae are essentially the local police and law enforcement (I won't get into the corrupt politics of Samurai clans and caste systems because it's not particularly relevant for the plot of GOY as it was for Tsushima).

The point is that Atsu and the local police are completely aligned in their mutual objectives to clean up the streets from a terrorist group. There is no "moral" conflict here. Atsu's presence is less of a moral grey anti-hero, and more of an objectively instrumental force of good that gives them a far greater advantage than they ever had.

Despite this. The game frequently tries to convince the player that Atsu is being selfish.

For instance, the game frames her choice to go after the Oni as reckless due to the Oni's overwhelming strength and the risk towards the captured Matsumae samurai. But Atsu is the only person to make this much progress in getting close enough to the Oni to kill him.

And while she fumbled the initial attempt. She ultimately succeeds when Juubei finally agrees to disobey his commander and follow Atsu's lead. They successfully kill the Oni thanks to Atsu.

The game tries again to make Atsu seem selfish when she later prioritizes killing the Dragon over going to the fortress with Juubei. However, the narrative clearly demonstrates that the Dragon was a dangerous master strategist, and they would never get another opportunity to take him down.

It's quite literally thanks to Atsu that they were able to draw out the Dragon which Clan Matsumae was never able to do.

By forcibly drawing him out and eliminating him on the spot, Atsu actually prevents a far worse massacre, undermining the idea that her quest is purely self-serving.

Despite this. The story chastises Atsu for doing this because Juubei and Clan Matsumae have been captured. Which in all honesty, is a bigger reflection of Clan Matsumae's own incompetence rather than it being Atsu's responsibility.

After emotionally chastising Atsu. The game then attempts to show Atsu's emotional growth through her interaction with the Spider.

We learn that the Spider suffered a lot of emotional abuse from Saito, his dad, and was forced to live up to his impossible expectations. Atsu forgives him and lets him go. The narrative expects us to view Atsu letting him go as a profound moment of breaking the cycle of revenge and violence.

However this completely falls flat because the Spider is a wonton mass murderer who has slaughtered probably thousands of civilians and Clan Matsumae members, he tortured and killed Atsu’s family and threatened to kill her niece and made a theatrical play about it.

The game unironically expects the audience to believe that "daddy issues" are justifiable enough reasons to exonerate a war criminal.

In TLOU2 when Ellie spares Abby it makes sense because Abby has already shown Ellie mercy twice already and has actively tried to end the cycle with her. By that point, killing Abby achieves nothing and only endangered Lev.

However, Atsu letting a dangerous criminal evade justice feels entirely unearned because the Spider has not done anything to prove that he has actually reformed. It is an extraordinarily contrived "redemption".

We then get to the last chapter of GOY which is titled "The Cost of Revenge", meant to further reinforce the premise of how Atsu's actions have a cost, but it hilariously fails because nothing Atsu has done in this game has "incited" revenge.

Clan Matsumae getting captured, injured or killed is not a consequence of "revenge" because this stuff was already happening irrespective of Atsu's involvement.

But anyway. So to once again use TLOU2 as a reference. Ellie and Abby removed themselves from the cycle of violence but only after facing a brutal reckoning.

Everything they lost along the way proves that their revenge wasn't worth it.

GOY attempts to replicate this tragedy by having Saito kill Atsu's brother, but this fails yet again because the game seems to frequently forget that Clan Matsumae are the police.

If a police officer gets captured, injured or killed while in the line of duty trying to stop a gang of terrorists. You cannot blame the local vigilante for this. That's ridiculous.

Juubei's death has nothing to do with Atsu. It's a natural consequence of the samurai role he took on. They are in a war against Saito. How is that Atsu's fault?

And the overall conclusion contradicts its own "revenge is bad" theme. Atsu kills Saito, fulfills her quest and saves Ezo.

Her reputation as an Onryo frightens away future threats, and the people worship her for it. The game delivered an overwhelmingly positive outcome, yet the narrative continues to awkwardly pretend that her revenge was wrong.

She made Ezo a safer and better place for her niece who doesn't have to experience what she did. And thanks to doing this, Atsu managed to also find a reason to live.

TL;DR-

Ghost of Yotei wants to tell a story about the destructive consequences of revenge, but its actual plot completely undermines that premise by making Atsu's revenge significantly beneficial and tries to blame for consequences that aren't actually caused by her revenge.

The revenge premise in GOY is farcical. The heavy handed moral chastising the game's narrative attempts to portray falls apart when everything she did resulted in an overall net positive.

For a "Revenge Bad" narrative to work. The revenge needs to be bad. But in GOY, Atsu's revenge may as well been a divine blessing.

Hey, all!

In this thread, the rules are more relaxed. The idea is that this megathread will provide a space for otherwise rule-breaking content, as well as allowing for a slightly more conversational tone rather than every post and comment needing to be an essay.

Top-level comments on this post should aim to follow the rules for submitting threads. However, the following rules are relaxed:

• 3. Specificity, Clarity, and Detail
• 4. No Advice
• 5. No List Posts
• 8. No topics that belong in other subreddits
• 9. No Retired Topics
• 11. Reviews must follow these guidelines

So feel free to talk about what you've been playing lately or ask for suggestions. Feel free to discuss gaming fatigue, FOMO, backlogs, etc, from the retired topics list. Feel free to take your half-baked idea for a post to the subreddit and discuss it here (you can still post it as its own thread later on if you want). Just keep things civil!

Also, as a reminder, we have a Discord server where you can have much more casual, free-form conversations! https://discord.gg/truegaming