The Initiative game could be not the game we are waiting for

Gaming
21

I’ll wait and see what it is before freaking out

22

Yeah, we have no idea what it’ll be about at this point.

23

What kind of expectations do you see that you believe are unrealistic?

I’m personally expecting The Initiative to be a Sony type studio because first, they have acquired a massive amount of talent and when you look at that talent’s background and history, seeing their game as potentially being episodic as a possibility isn’t exactly going to make Xbox gamers in general happy nor is it going to give these same Xbox fans confidence in Microsoft or the Xbox brand as well as their direction.

Second, they’re the ones who kept saying AAAA. Not me. Not others online or on twitter or other forums. It was those from The Initiative who said it and if they can’t deliver on what they said, then they shouldn’t have said it.

Microsoft’s diversity and variety is great but only if that diversity and variety is filled with quality. If it’s just quantity for the sake of filling up Game Pass, I completely disagree with that because at some point, 20 years in, over 10 since their last great game (Gears 2), they have more than enough studios, talent, money, time and resources to deliver great games to those who are invested into the Xbox eco-system.

Microsoft has RPG’s locked up (first and third person), they have the stylized art style with Rare games, they have the FPS/TPS with Doom/Gears/etc., they pretty much have everything except for the one genre/area that the majority of Xbox fans keep asking for which is third person action adventure story driven games.

I’m not expecting every studio to do this nor should they but it would be nice to get at least a few studios out of 25+ to actually do this because it would fill out the portfolio a lot better and make as many Xbox fans across the board happy and satisfied at the same time. Plus, all the other genres and games are still there as well so everyone would win.

2 Likes
24

Bad title. Sounds like exactly the game I’ve been waiting for.

25

Like Black Mirror. Self contained stories per episode across multiple universes.

1 Like
26

The AAAA comes from a job post not xbox pr.

27

This is false.

…what?

28

But The Initiative/Microsoft is responsible for that job posting.

It’s also here from a Jeff Grubb article -

https://venturebeat.com/2020/08/26/the-initiatives-first-game-whats-the-so-called-aaaa-studio-making/

“Microsoft also describes The Initiative as its “AAAA” studio”

2 Likes
29

True? Still does it say “third person narrative singleplayer game like sony does” ?

Halo is a AAAA game too. Destiny was as well

30

How does Microsoft saying it (and TAKING IT DOWN) in one listing, become “they keep saying it”? And it’s not internet people? It is. It 1000% is. Jeff Grubb doesn’t work for Microsoft.

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31

Microsoft hasn’t exactly hit on many AAA titles so I would think that they would stay far away from AAAA. To me, it simply raises expectations when the AAA expectation is already high. It’s like they want to make it harder for themselves and then complain when people get disappointed despite the fact that they’re the ones who said it all to begin with.

32

Regardless, once they said it, that’s it. It’s out there. Simply, they shouldn’t have said it. They’re the ones raising the expectations for their own game. Not me or anyone else. After all, we’re going based on what they said to begin with.

33

AAAA is a nonsense term that we shouldn’t be too fixated on. There is already a large spectrum of scopes in AAA as-is. Red Dead Redemption II is not on the same level as something like, say, Jedi: Fallen Order.

3 Likes
34

Job listings, I’ll remind you, are not written for us. They are not PR. We only see them because we’re crazy about this shit.

I cannot believe you’re gonna ride this train.

35

Nothing to ride. Why couldn’t the job listing just say a major action adventure game or whatever? Why label it as AAAA for no apparent reason especially when it’s only going to bite them in the ass.

36

Clearly they agree they shouldn’t have said it, because they took it down. So why are we gonna hold it against them forever, unless we want to be disappointed?

It only “bites them in the ass” because of OUR behavior. Stop contributing to that.

3 Likes
37

AAAA in the industry means mostly high budget game. The reason why soo many think it’s an answer to sony like games is because of the staff going there.

Now should they hide the hiring process?

Also one of the lead creative was responsible for Sunset Overdrive. Just to take this in perspective.

1 Like
38

True and fair enough.

I don’t want to be disappointed. At worse, it would just be like any other game that I have no interest in - skipped. But disappointed? Nah. I rarely if ever get disappointed when it comes to gaming simply because I always keep my expectations in check.

39

True and no they should not hide their hiring process but they should word it better.

The studio head is from Tomb Raider. I know there’s a huge mix of various games that the talent at the studio has worked on and whatnot but let’s be honest, for their first game, they can’t exactly release a “stinker”. LOL. I mean, come on. Even if the game isn’t for me, I still want it to be a great game in general.

1 Like
40

Xbox could send each gamer a check for $1000 and the internet would complain about it. It is a meta hobby of the gaming community to trash Xbox and pretend Sony can do no wrong.

5 Likes