General Game Chat

[Moonface]

For anyone who was bummed about Tango Gameworks being closed down by Xbox a little bit ago, Krafton has purchased the studio along with the Hi-Fi Rush IP and is welcoming back any employees who were working at the studio when it was shuttered: "KRAFTON Strengthens Global Presence Through Strategic Integration of Tango Gameworks and Hi-Fi RUSH IP"

As part of this strategic agreement, KRAFTON intends to collaborate with Xbox and ZeniMax to ensure a smooth transition and maintain continuity at Tango Gameworks, allowing the talented team to continue developing the Hi-Fi RUSH IP and explore future projects. KRAFTON intends to support the Tango Gameworks team to continue its commitment to innovation and delivering fresh and exciting experiences for fans. There will be no impact on the existing game catalog of The Evil Within, The Evil Within 2, Ghostwire: Tokyo, and the original Hi-Fi RUSH game.

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Happy to see this, mainly because I thought Xbox shutting down Tango was a complete joke when they had the gall to make statements like "We want smaller acclaimed games" when Hi-Fi Rush was literally ticking all those boxes for them.

[Dragon Lord]

So today was the launch of Black Myth: Wukong, and woo boy is it demolishing. Over 2.2 peak concurrent players today, overtaking Palworld's second place on the most peak players list. The only one that is ahead of it now is PUBG with something like 3.2 million.

This is amazing to see after how badly some Western game journalists tried to smear the game and "cancel" the devs on Twitter. For context: Woke western game journos tried to launch a smear campaign against the devs after the devs had exposed Sweet Baby Inc for attempting to strong-arm them into their DEI agenda (Sweet Baby told them they would have to pay $7,000,000 USD for their "consultation" for the game, in which Game Science told them to get bent). Right after this, sites like IGN and Kotaku (of course Kotaku was involved) attempted to cancel Game Science by using a mistranslated conversation among the devs, trying to paint them as being derogatory towards women. Of course this blew up in their faces once it was discovered that the conversation was mistranslated (whether or not it was an intentional mistranslation, we'll never know, but knowing how far that side will go, it likely was). We even had Screen Rant try to come in with a review on the game listing "LaCk oF diVeRsItY" as a negative of the game, lmao.

And of course, just like always, just like with Hogwarts Legacy, just like with Stellar Blade, they tried to cancel Black Myth Wukong for the most ridiculous of reasons and instead they helped skyrocket it into unbelievable success!

You. Love. To. See. It. Sadly I don't have time to buy and play the game today otherwise I would do my part in helping with those numbers.

[ShiraNoMai]

Brother you need to seriously reconsider some life choices if you think using "woke" unironically in this day and age makes anything you say directly after have ANY kind of credibility lmao

[Moonface]

I'll entertain this...

For context: Woke western game journos tried to launch a smear campaign against the devs after the devs had exposed Sweet Baby Inc for attempting to strong-arm them into their DEI agenda (Sweet Baby told them they would have to pay $7,000,000 USD for their "consultation" for the game, in which Game Science told them to get bent).

I highly doubt SBI asked for that much money, because that's a ridiculous amount of money for a company with only 16 employees to receive. However, even if they did somehow ask for it, they have every right to do so because they are offering a service/product/whatever and like any company offering something, they ask for x if you give them y, and you get to choose if x is worth y to you. SBI have the right to ask for y amount for x service, and Game Science have the right to decide they don't wish to pay for that. Neither company is in the wrong on that front, so stop trying to make that a wrong versus right because it isn't. That's just called capitalism.

As for the strong-arming, SBI can't do any such thing if they were never even brought on to consult in the first place which they seemingly weren't if GS didn't want to pay whatever SBI asked for. Even then, they're a consultation firm to be asked for their input on things they serve for; whether a developer wants to take any of it on board is up to them and if somehow SBI actually has power over a developer in such an instance that would be laid out via a contract up front the developer would agree to, and as such that's on the developer for working with an external company that is asking for such power. However I doubt a consultation firm would do that because that isn't consulting at that point, and asking a company for assistance on diversity and inclusion in your game means you were putting it in anyway or you wouldn't be asking someone to help you with it. That's like asking someone to help you with shooting mechanics in a game you don't intend to put shooting into; it makes zero sense and a second of critical thinking would show that.

Right after this, sites like IGN and Kotaku (of course Kotaku was involved) attempted to cancel Game Science by using a mistranslated conversation among the devs, trying to paint them as being derogatory towards women. Of course this blew up in their faces once it was discovered that the conversation was mistranslated (whether or not it was an intentional mistranslation, we'll never know, but knowing how far that side will go, it likely was). We even had Screen Rant try to come in with a review on the game listing "LaCk oF diVeRsItY" as a negative of the game, lmao.
And of course, just like always, just like with Hogwarts Legacy, just like with Stellar Blade, they tried to cancel Black Myth Wukong for the most ridiculous of reasons and instead they helped skyrocket it into unbelievable success!
You. Love. To. See. It. Sadly I don't have time to buy and play the game today otherwise I would do my part in helping with those numbers.

I've seen nothing to claim everything was mistranslated, but whether it was a mistake or not calling out inequality in gaming (which absolutely exists) is not the wrong thing to do. Just as it isn't wrong when other companies like Rockstar have been called out by these same sites for the way they have treated employees. Maybe IGN is wrong, maybe they're not, but who's to say that for every person claiming the translation says members of the development team are misogynistic that there isn't a person claiming the translation says no such thing? What verifiable sources are there to prove what side is actually right here? Because by all means I can understand not wanting to take IGN's word alone, but with how big this game is for China it isn't out of the question that Chinese people would try to defend Game Science out of a sense of pride so you can't know their word is truth either, nor should anyone just decide "These people say what I agree with so they're right" if those people wouldn't pose as a trusted source in a paper let alone random internet discourse.

As for the lack of diversity review, I've not read it to know the full context to it but I know this game is at least focused on Chinese subject matter and features both men and women, so if the complaint on that is "It's only Chinese stuff" in a game focused literally on that then at face value it sounds ridiculous.

Also cancel culture is literally just capitalism renamed into a stupid buzzword, just as woke is a stupid buzzword for attacking people who are usually just pointing out a group is being poorly represented or treated. If people choose not to support a thing, that isn't cancel culture, that's just capitalism and people deciding what they want to spend their time and money on. And regardless of whether IGN was wrong or not, them calling out misogyny itself is not wrong and if you think calling that out (or racism, sexism, or whatever else) is "woke" then I suggest touching grass because there is no world where calling that out when it happens is wrong.

[Moonface]

Croc: Legend of the Gobbos Remastered Announced
Croc and Argonaut Games make a return! Check out the teaser trailer for Croc: Legend of the Gobbos, an upcoming remaster of the platformer game originally released in 1997 on PS1 with ports to Sega Saturn and MS Windows. Join Croc, a lovable crocodile who embarks on a quest to rescue the Gobbos from the clutches of the evil Baron Dante, in this remaster. The Croc: Legend of the Gobbos remaster will feature enhanced HD graphics and updated modern control mechanics.

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I remember seeing the original creator teasing that a HD remaster was in development a year ago, but I didn't really expect it to actually come to fruition because of how niche this game is. The upgraded visuals look really nice, and I'm glad it'll get modern controls because a platformer with tank controls is not a good time and that was one of my biggest gripes with the game back when I played it as a kid. If the remaster is only like $30 I'll probably get it to show my support for it even though I doubt it'll see the series revived.

[ShiraNoMai]

I'd love to see the game that was meant to be a 3D Yoshi game wind up being. It's such a miracle to see studio revival these days in an industry full of closures/restructuring.

[Moonface]

I'd love to see the game that was meant to be a 3D Yoshi game wind up being. It's such a miracle to see studio revival these days in an industry full of closures/restructuring.

I didn't know this when I posted the trailer but the Croc remaster is going to have a gallery containing all of the development content including things that were cut or scrapped, so maybe their 3D Yoshi concept will show up in there?


Anyway, I think this easily wins disaster of the year for gaming and has surely set a record for the quickest "back to the drawing board" game release. If you don't know what I'm referring to yet, Concord is going offline starting September 6 to "explore options, including those that will better reach our players." Players will be fully refunded if they purchased the game.

Like holy shit though it's been two weeks and this game is being basically de-released. This thing was already in development for eight years and the gameplay just wasn't that good, and now they're gonna take more time? I can't see what can be done besides rebuild the gameplay from the ground up but that's gonna take so much time and money that this game has already had droves of.

[Mr EliteL]

What I've seen of Concord which is basically just reactions from some select people seeing how badly it's doing, looks to be among the biggest colossal failures ever, and can't see how they'll fix it more like never no matter what is done. The only people who'll ever return to it are for content or to see how meagre their attempt was then just die off for good.

[ShiraNoMai]

It's such a perfect depiction of what board room decisions can do to video games: pour as much money as possible into a popular/trending concept and cover as many bases as possible. In fact, cover all the bases, all at once, so that it takes eight thousand years to develop, market and ship out the door.

[Maniakkid25]

I'll be honest, I never heard of this game before this point? So, goes to show how well those ad campaigns were doing. Seriously, the Hero Shooter is kinda over the hill at this point? Hell, it was over the hill with Battleborn, and we all know what happened to that...

[Moonface]

I'll be honest, I never heard of this game before this point? So, goes to show how well those ad campaigns were doing. Seriously, the Hero Shooter is kinda over the hill at this point? Hell, it was over the hill with Battleborn, and we all know what happened to that...

The only notable marketing moment it had was when it got introduced at a State of Play where it got 1/3 of that presentations total runtime, and I recall that the second the cinematic trailer ended and it was revealed to be a hero shooter that interest dropped like a rock for a lot of people, especially because it just felt derivative of what was already on the market.
For an amusing tidbit, Astro Bot was revealed at the same SoP and will release after Concord has released and shut down, and this SoP only took place back in May.

As for the genre of hero shooters being over the hill, a big problem for this game was it started development 6-8 years ago back when the genre was fresher so it was always going to end up late to the party, which wouldn't have been bad if there was something about it worth being late for.
Battleborn on the other hand, wasn't that just a matter of Overwatch getting considerably more attention than it did and a lot of folk comparing the two not knowing both games were actually pretty different from each other when it came to gameplay?

[Maniakkid25]

Honestly, I still say that people were burned on Aliens: Colonial Marines, and they didn't want to get burned by Gearbox again because the name of the game wasn't exactly "Borderlands 3". Like, Battleborn has some analogies to Overwatch and Paladins, but Battleborn was really a first-person MOBA at its core, and had they advertised it as that instead of a hero shooter, it might have gotten a better reception. But, it wasn't, and they didn't, so it died, and Paladins and Overwatch 2 still exist.

And seriously, when Overwatch 2 and Paladins and Apex Legends and Valorant are F2P, who would want to PAY to play Concord?

[Moonface]

I always overlook that A:CM, Borderlands, and Battleborn are all from the same company. Even then I thought one of the big factors against Battleborn was that Randy Pitchford started describing the game with constant references and comparisons to Overwatch or something which 1) advertised it as a genre it wasn't as you said and 2) kept making people aware of Overwatch who then decided they liked that game more. Did that happen or am I really misremembering that? x.x


On a side note, my Astro Bot controller arrived today! I haven't opened it yet because I'm gonna wait until I get a copy of the game tomorrow but the box it comes in is really nice, especially with all the embossed features.

[Maniakkid25]

You might be remembering it right; I wasn't really paying attention to the discourse, so I'm just interpreting what I think happened from my experience in the game. I mean, I've played Overwatch, Battleborn, and Paladins (though, once you've played Overwatch, you've basically played Paladins), and between the three, Overwatch and Paladins have the easiest comparisons. But Battleborn had shit like a skill tree, an actual campaign mode, and (my personal favorite) lore you could unlock in the game! Either way, it sucks it died the way it did, and the worst part is the game is useless because taking the servers down took the campaigns with it, meaning you can't even do single player or local co-op.

Though, looking it up, the game has been revived on PC by modders who at least brought back the PvE aspect? And you can buy keys for the game on Amazon still? I mean...okay! Don't know why you'd do that, but I guess if GunZ the Duel can run a private server, anything is possible.

[Moonface]

@Maniakkid25: You mentioning the Battleborn servers killing off even the single player side of things reminded me of a current movement/petition in the EU to stop game publishers from making their games unusable if they rely on an online connection for non-online elements. A recent famous example is Ubisoft's The Crew taking its servers offline which makes the entire game unplayable, yet it isn't a game that can only be played with other people.


Meanwhile, here's a former Sony president making a bold claim that game industry layoffs that have affected 11,000+ people isn't the result of corporate greed. That's not even the best part though; he also said those who have been laid off should "drive an Uber or go the beach" and that if their severance package (assuming they got one) runs out before they can find another job, then tough shit. I know it isn't a surprise to see some corporate pencil pusher being out of touch and spouting stuff that deserves a slap, but jeez.