True. But DF said the opposite, or was that them guessing based on videos? I’m not sure if they played it.
Combat should be more brutal, visceral and engaging than the first game but my God, I really hope there’s better puzzles because after the first two or three, I hated them all in the first game.
I don’t think they played it I think they were analyzing videos but could be wrong
1 Like
Ive been looking at legion go and asus, not sure how soon a handheld Xbox would actually be.
For the most part the handheld talk seems to be nextGen only. With 2026, seemingly being the speculated launch of the next Xbox, with a handheld with the Series S level of power.
Edit: but with the advances of tech likely making the performance better.
1 Like
I watched the DF direct yesterday and you weren’t kidding…like holy shit…where did all that negativity from Alex came from? why even be so negative about a game pre-release while at the same time basing your opinion on (sub-par as he said) b-roll footage? and the funny thing is that supposedly he completed the first game.
He even said that he’s not sure HB2 is a true next gen game (or something along those lines) as if HB2 could run at it’s current visual quality on a last gen system…you may not like what HB2 is trying to do as a game but trying to belittle the impressive on so many levels presentation of the game is ridiculous IMO.
I also found it funny that John when commenting on the frame-rate of the game said that even on PS5 the game would run at 30fps…did we really need confirmation that a demanding UE5 game wouldn’t run better on inferior hardware? 
At this point you can see a certain pattern forming before every major Xbox release, it’s like every Xbox game must be stigmatized by a negative spin or a negative opinion cycle before release…and I am not saying that everyone needs to be positive about them but even being neutral seems like an impossible scenario at this point. The only game that dodged this crap is HFR and we all know why.
3 Likes
what exactly is a “true next gen” game?
3 Likes
Knack 3
2 Likes
If we are to believe Shinobi602 Gears 6 will be.
Two of the games I’ve considered some of the best looking in recent years, and which have huge worlds with no loading screens plus lots of ways to play the games are Forza Horizon 5 and Hogwarts Legacy - and if I recall correctly both had ray tracing to some degree (FH5 just in the showroom I think?).
But the former was also on the One, and the latter has been back ported to almost everything - even the Switch! - which for me proves your point it’s very difficult to determine what “true next gen” is.
It used to be the jump from 2D to 3D, or to big open worlds, or to every actor being voiced and mo-capped, or huge stories with branching decisions on a game bigger than a text-based RPG.
But these days I really don’t think there’s such an obvious identifier - some games can look better without ray-tracing than with it, some are huge but ugly / run poorly and others do it all but even run on last gen…
Maybe having “AI” responding to user input might be the next big leap, allowing decisions / questions that weren’t hardcoded into the game from the start might be the next big leap - but I’d imagine that’s a decade or more away for it to be done believably and for games designers to figure out how to fit that level of freedom in…
But until then I suspect it’s just going to be “more graphics, faster loading, more ray tracing, bigger worlds!”
3 Likes
No such thing anymore IMO. We’re in a cross gen world now.
2 Likes
Maybe Gears 6 can be that game. If we are to believe Shinobi602 it will be like how we saw Gears for the first time on Xbox 360. That sure as hell was a true next gen moment, holy cow.
But yeah, that’s just one person, we shall find out soon enough.
Gears 6 will look amazing, no doubt about that. But I don’t think that a Gears 1 like leap in graphics is possible anymore, the days of such big and impressive generational leaps are a thing of the past. Don’t get your hopes up for such a big jump IMO.
BTW it was Nate The Hate that said that and not Shinobi.
4 Likes
Aaaah, right, Nate. My bad.
You are right, I’m keeping my expectations neutral on this for sure.
1 Like
It’ll look amazing no doubt but plenty games will this gen.
“Next gen experience” for me at this stage in gaming is more so advancements in AI, in how they interact with you or how they simply react within an combat/talking scenario, innovation in gameplay, etc etc.
That’s just me though, there’s no one true definition of what a next gen experience is.
3 Likes
I don’t think AI will be used for talking scenarios outside of maybe random background NPC saying something random about the stuff going on. Or having conversations about the events of the world.
Because talking sections are always scripted by writers, from what we say to how they react and respond. Letting AI change that will imo, only result in a worse story.
Hm, I disagree. I think there’s going to be a lot of advancements in that area of gaming in the next couple of years.
It doesn’t have to be an AI with infinite speech options but I there’s a lot of meat left on the table when it comes scripted AI in games.
The reason the meat is left on the table because advanced AI when it came to gameplay wasn’t fun.
2 Likes
Meh.