[Megathread] PlayStation 5

[Kallisto]

It's all fun until you realise most games will come out in 2025, if ever.


Looking at you Pragmata and FF7R 2.

Ff7-2 already has a set release window of between December 2023 and march 2024. Square Enix just want 16 release done before moving the hype train over to 7-2.

[Kumorii]

Ff7-2 already has a set release window of between December 2023 and march 2024. Square Enix just want 16 release done before moving the hype train over to 7-2.

Had missed this... earlier than I expected!

[Kallisto]

Had missed this... earlier than I expected!

Yeah it was only mentioned once. During an FF7 anniversary event. It's also why once Forspoken came out the media from SE about Ff16 went into hyperdrive.

The main company likes to focus on one big thing and lots of little things at the same time. So come Gamescom (maybe summer games fest, but that's before ff16 release so maybe not.) expect ff7r2 stuff to go into hyperdrive.

[Zenfoldor]

SO they created pretty hamster wheel to sell microtransactions.

Just like Blizzard, but the development team is still good, is the main difference.

Bungie is teaching Sony how to do the same thing as we speak. So be ready for Sony live service games to be like Destiny 2, just saying.

https://www.videogameschronicle.com/...service-games/

If Bungie was ever allowed to make artisanal content again, I think the development chops are still there, it is just their design philosophy that I worry about.

[Edge-]

Just like Blizzard, but the development team is still good, is the main difference.

Bungie is teaching Sony how to do the same thing as we speak. So be ready for Sony live service games to be like Destiny 2, just saying.

I really worry about this to a point. Because Destiny 2 is a disaster of a game in many regards, especially the narrative front. Vaulted content, temporary linear story that disappears each year, consistently underwhelming paid expansions (minus Witch Queen, the only one received well). Destiny 2 is great in a lot of ways - mostly the gameplay - but it's an absolute nightmare of a game from a live-service perspective.

If Sony or Bungie's other games follow this kind of, "Nope, we're just gonna constantly delete shit and if you missed a year or something fuck you, go to YouTube to catch up." then I'm 100% not here for any of it.

Why yes, I am still mildly salty that literally all the Destiny 2 content I paid for is vaulted now (OG game, first two DLC's, first expansion) and by years of Bungie making some of the most impressively terrible decisions possible.

[Zenfoldor]

I really worry about this to a point. Because Destiny 2 is a disaster of a game in many regards, especially the narrative front. Vaulted content, temporary linear story that disappears each year, consistently underwhelming paid expansions (minus Witch Queen, the only one received well). Destiny 2 is great in a lot of ways - mostly the gameplay - but it's an absolute nightmare of a game from a live-service perspective.

If Sony or Bungie's other games follow this kind of, "Nope, we're just gonna constantly delete shit and if you missed a year or something fuck you, go to YouTube to catch up." then I'm 100% not here for any of it.

Why yes, I am still mildly salty that literally all the Destiny 2 content I paid for is vaulted now (OG game, first two DLC's, first expansion) and by years of Bungie making some of the most impressively terrible decisions possible.

When they sunsetted the gear I'd worked for years to achieve so they could let me earn it back, I hard quit and very much disliked Bungie for a time. Only after the downfall/redemption did I tentatively give them another chance, but I don't blame others for keeping that grudge. That was a hard pill to swallow. Vaulting also. Trust me, I went through emotions over that, lol. Still salty too.

That said, I do believe Bungie have learned a great deal through their mistakes moreso than their successes, so perhaps they can prevent some of those same missteps at Sony.

[Edge-]

When they sunsetted the gear I'd worked for years to achieve so they could let me earn it back, I hard quit and very much disliked Bungie for a time. Only after the downfall/redemption did I tentatively give them another chance, but I don't blame others for keeping that grudge. That was a hard pill to swallow. Vaulting also. Trust me, I went through emotions over that, lol. Still salty too.

That said, I do believe Bungie have learned a great deal through their mistakes moreso than their successes, so perhaps they can prevent some of those same missteps at Sony.

For me it's more that their intentional method of supporting the game on an ongoing basis is annual story additions via season pass that poof each year. That's beyond unacceptable to me, especially since these stories are apparently better than most of the expansion stories and where much of the meat and potatoes are.

I just still don't trust Bungie to have learned shit. They repeated the same mistakes (and tons of others) with Destiny 2 to begin with, and after all these years I still don't have confidence that they won't simply repeat them once again. Just look at how poorly received the latest expansion was for petes sake, it's still sitting at a whopping 33% positive/67% negative score on Steam. I get it, a lot of those reviews are from when it first dropped by the "recent reviews" mirror that.

They're still running a profitable game and all so what they're doing is clearly working overall. But I just don't have much positive to say about their handling of Destiny 2 overall beyond, "They haven't fucked up the solid core movement/gunplay."

[Poppincaps]

I have a pretty strong distaste for GAAS games in general. The only genre that I frequently enjoy are MMOs. So many games with great potential have been ruined by the GAAS model such as Avengers and Destiny. If the output of high quality single player games continues, then I'll ignore it, but if they start putting Insomniac, Naughty Dog, Sony Santa Monica, and Guerilla on GAAS games I'm going to be pissed.

[Aliven]

Just like Blizzard, but the development team is still good, is the main difference.

Bungie is teaching Sony how to do the same thing as we speak. So be ready for Sony live service games to be like Destiny 2, just saying.

https://www.videogameschronicle.com/...service-games/

If Bungie was ever allowed to make artisanal content again, I think the development chops are still there, it is just their design philosophy that I worry about.

Just like any GaaS. They dont favor the player, they train player to pay.

[Tech614]

I have a pretty strong distaste for GAAS games in general. The only genre that I frequently enjoy are MMOs. So many games with great potential have been ruined by the GAAS model such as Avengers and Destiny. If the output of high quality single player games continues, then I'll ignore it, but if they start putting Insomniac, Naughty Dog, Sony Santa Monica, and Guerilla on GAAS games I'm going to be pissed.

Insomniac, Naughty Dog and Guerilla all currently have a live service game in development(TLOU live service is an open secret but the other 2 are also pretty well known from hiring listings). Not like it's taking away from their SP teams, all 3 studios have always worked on multiple games at the same time. Sony actually increased their budget for SP games in the last briefing along with the increase budget for the live service games.



Notice the 40% is actually more than the 45% from last year, and even slightly more than the 88% from 2019. All of their studios are going to be working on live service games at some point but they will also keep working on their traditional games so I just giggled when you mentioned them working on them when we already know they are lol.

[Edge-]

Damn man, why was Sony having Naughty Dog work on a multiplayer shooter? Reading now that they were building a TLOU multiplayer shooter, sounds familiar but I must have forgotten about it. That just...why? Did they not read Microsoft's review of TLOU dunking on how bad ND's gunplay remains?

https://www.pushsquare.com/news/2023...iped-by-bungie

Apparently it's now "scaled back" after Bungie raised some red flags, so that acquisition is already paying off given that Sony still seems to lack an internal studio for shooters (Guerilla is...alright, Killzone was never that great) beyond them.

Probably for the best, especially given that the PC port of TLOU is apparently still a disaster.

[Cattleya]

It was the Factions part of TLOU2 (see original TLOU's Factions mode) that completely and utterly went beyond scope for whatever reasons so they made it a standalone thing. Ever since they said it'd be a standalone thing they've been kinda quiet besides "working on it, hope to show it soon" and here we are now.

[Jastall]

I will never understand this idea of taking a studio known for its single-player offerings and have them shit out a live service game. Has it ever worked in the past?

[Tech614]

I will never understand this idea of taking a studio known for its single-player offerings and have them shit out a live service game. Has it ever worked in the past?

How do you think every live service game came to be in the first place? You know what where Rockstar games before they had GTA Online? CoD before the 360 gen? etc etc

It's also not the SP teams working on these things, so again I don't really get your point. It's not like the team working on NDs next SP game is working on this factions thing, and ND has had a multiplayer dev team since Uncharted 3 so not even new. Uncharted 3, 4 and TLOU1 all had multiplayer modes and at least 2 of them even had in game purchases. They have been making live service games for a very long time lmao, it's just the factions mode for TLOU2 completely flew the coop in scope and is in dev trouble with that very same team.

[PACOX]

I have a pretty strong distaste for GAAS games in general. The only genre that I frequently enjoy are MMOs. So many games with great potential have been ruined by the GAAS model such as Avengers and Destiny. If the output of high quality single player games continues, then I'll ignore it, but if they start putting Insomniac, Naughty Dog, Sony Santa Monica, and Guerilla on GAAS games I'm going to be pissed.

Destiny 2 is unfortunately a shareholders dream. As gamers we might be lucky that no one has really been able to replicate the Destiny's balance of smooth gameplay and monetization that bits the consumer in the wallet. Destiny's 2 monetization should not work, but it does because the gunplay in the game is great. The raids, dungeons, coop, great. It's an aging game this point and not many FPS games have been able to replicate it's longevity. On the flipside not many companies have been able to keep players hooked on its brand of monetization as well, how many games can get away with sunsetting old content while still getting people to pay for the expansions...buying expansions seasons in the same patch cycle? None.



I definitely think Sony is going to try to make a GAAS Horizon, and they can with Bungie supporting the project.

[Edge-]

I definitely think Sony is going to try to make a GAAS Horizon, and they can with Bungie supporting the project.

Horizon MMO, and NCsoft is involved - https://www.videogameschronicle.com/...orizon-mmorpg/

Which probably sounds a lot more exciting in the wake of T&L's pretty abysmal initial showing so far (this is sarcasm).

It's a bit of an odd project to move ahead with IMO. Neat world and all but not one I'd instantly think of making an MMO set in.

[Jastall]

How do you think every live service game came to be in the first place? You know what where Rockstar games before they had GTA Online? CoD before the 360 gen? etc etc

It's also not the SP teams working on these things, so again I don't really get your point. It's not like the team working on NDs next SP game is working on this factions thing, and ND has had a multiplayer dev team since Uncharted 3 so not even new. Uncharted 3, 4 and TLOU1 all had multiplayer modes and at least 2 of them even had in game purchases. They have been making live service games for a very long time lmao, it's just the factions mode for TLOU2 completely flew the coop in scope and is in dev trouble with that very same team.

Point taken on GTA but, I mean, Rockstar is Rockstar, they're quite the unique dev. GTA Online had loads of growing pains before becoming a huge success. They tried the same with Red Dead and it hardly took off in comparison.

CoD were multiplayer games from the onset, it's not really comparable to going from pure single-player to live service directly the way Arkane did for Redfall. Or BGS for FO76. Not all MP games are designed as live service, even if they increasingly are because a lot of publishers chase that golden goose.

I know they're different teams, with usually different budget allocations altogether. But taking a studio that is used to making MP games seems a lot smarter than trying to have different teams under the umbrella of one single studio. At least historically aside from the GTA Online exception I struggle to recall a time where such an attempt ended up with a good, successful game.

[Evil Midnight Bomber]

I know they're different teams, with usually different budget allocations altogether. But taking a studio that is used to making MP games seems a lot smarter than trying to have different teams under the umbrella of one single studio. At least historically aside from the GTA Online exception I struggle to recall a time where such an attempt ended up with a good, successful game.

I think I'd rather have the developers of the awesome Single-player game franchise bring in some new people to help build the live-service offering than to hand the reigns of a successsful franchise over to an entirely different Studio.

[Tech614]

CoD were multiplayer games from the onset, it's not really comparable to going from pure single-player to live service directly the way Arkane did for Redfall. Or BGS for FO76. Not all MP games are designed as live service, even if they increasingly are because a lot of publishers chase that golden goose.

Eh lets not cap here, nobody gave a shit about CoD MP prior to CoD4. People played them for the campaign prior to that, hell people still play them for the campaign enough that there was an uproar when Black Ops 4 had no campaign.

Almost every successful live service studio made or still make SP games/campaigns at some point and usually built up their notoriety doing such.

How many studios have successfully started from the ground up as live service? Mihoyo? They're the only one even coming to mind. But I'm not even sure about that one as not being chinese I'm not sure what their games prior to genshin even where but wiki lists a few.

[Jastall]

I think I'd rather have the developers of the awesome Single-player game franchise bring in some new people to help build the live-service offering than to hand the reigns of a successsful franchise over to an entirely different Studio.

I dunno, the recipe to make a great SP game is just not the same as the one for making a multiplayer ones. The priorities are so different in my eyes. Especially for live service games, which aren't just an optional MP mode like say ME3's was, but games designed to be supported for years on end like an MMO. You just don't build games like that like you build God of War or whatever.

@Tech614 What would be examples of those studios? I don't follow live service games religiously but aside from outright MMOs- which are usually made and maintained by studios that focus on multiplayer in the first place- the live services I can think of usually are made by devs with loads of prior MP experience, like Bungie or Epic. You could name Square Enix and be right, FF is usually single-player but they made two MMOs out of it albeit 14 needed quite a lot of work to fix after its launch. But I don't see many others.

Of course another pet peeve of mine is turning SP franchises into live services. I was never interested in a Fallout pseudo-MMO personally despite it being one of my favorite IPs. A Horizon MMO sounds like diet Monster Hunter at best. Multiplayer Last of Us seems a very meh idea considering I find the gameplay the least attractive thing about that series and having people bunny hop around the zombie apocalypse doesn't do wonders for immersion. But that part is obviously subjective.

And CoD was a lot less popular before MW for sure, but it was still a game with online multiplayer and such. The required talent and expertise was already there. Of course I'd hardly count that franchise as a live service given that it releases a new entry every year and ditches the old one but still.