It might have taken you 4 hours but The Coalition’s own marketing information states it is 3 hours, so I assume that is the average completion time during their internal playthroughs and the fact of the matter is Miles is still a bigger game and therefore can be marketed as such.
The discussion is not whether The Coalition should continue releasing these smaller pieces of content, I actually think it is a good idea what with Game Pass and the chance to take more creative risks. It is whether it should have had more pomp and ceremony to which I say no and Microsoft marketed it the right way and partly why the DLC has been well received because expectations have been kept in check and it has come as a nice surprise rather than people placing too much hope on it.
They could market it for what it is though, a 20 euro (that is also free on GPU) 3-4 hrs expansion that is an audio-visual benchmark for the Series consoles. A trailer at the Game Awards would’ve been cool to see and many more people would be aware of it that way.
But I’d argue that more work went into Hivebusters than MM, simply because the world in which MM takes place is is a ctrl C, ctrl V, cut & paste of New York. Hivebusters takes place in an entirely new location, with structured level design. If anything, MM feels (again, to me) more like DLC than HB does. It feels like a longer version of Arkham Knight DLC.
In a launch, people generally just want eye candy…and Hivebusters is precisely that. So if they had marketed it as part of their wider launch line-up, it would have been taken really swell, I’d say.
Yes agree on that. Finished the DLC yesterday and was highly satisifed with it. Top quality. Great DLC. Insane graphics, really gorgeous visuals. I might have broken my share button haha. They should have marketed it more. It really deserves it.
You do know Microsoft did this with the upgrade to Gears 5 right? This DLC literally has the same graphical features as that, but just in new locations, because it is only DLC and not a brand new game.
What Sony did with Miles is exactly what Microsoft did with Halo 3 ODST, but guess what, Sony can get away with it due to it being Spiderman and they have a lot of goodwill, plus there is more actual gameplay with the game, enough for them to make it standalone.
I am telling you if you think if Microsoft tried to market the DLC in such a way as to give people a reason to buy a Series S/X they would have been laughed at. The DLC, like all DLC for that matter, is supposed to be for fans of the base game not necessarily to entice new players. You therefore don’t need to shout from the rooftops about it and certainly not to outmuscle your other announcements that are far more important to your overall strategy.
Ι never said that they should promote it as a Morales-like release, I said that it should be promoted exactly for what it is.
Also having the same graphical features of Gears 5 doesn’t make it any less of a graphical showcase for the system. The art/locations are breathtaking plus it’s all brand new content when Gears 5 wasn’t.
Promoting quality content for what it is (I repeat what it is) doesn’t outmuscle anything, if anything MS should fire on all cylinders marketing wise exactly because they DON’T have the goodwill Sony has and they should show that there is great content available on their platform.
Agreed. I think they could have instead repackaged Gears 5 with Hivebusters packed in as a special edition made for next gen (in terms of marketing). Framing it as a sorta remaster could have helped it stand out from the other BC titles on offer. Gears 5 and Hivebusters are really, really impressive showcases for XSX even without some of those next gen features.
Personally I think it’s all about how things are framed. When you label Hivebusters as simply “Gears 5 DLC” it immediately diminishes it’s importance in many people’s minds.
But if you’re actually evaluating these products in the purest way, Miles Morales is heavily recycling content from Spider-Man 2018. It’s the exact same city, with a winter setting layered over it.
Hivebusters is a new 3 hour experience, that isn’t recycling areas from Gears 5.
I’m not suggesting they’re equal. Just saying that if you analyze what these two projects are, I’m not so sure Miles Morales required a lot more manpower to produce than Hivebusters. When you start out with the entire city already made for you in Spider-Man, it dramatically cuts down on the workload for making that game.
So what I’m really trying to say is it would have been smart for Microsoft to present Hivebusters as a new standalone Gears of War product. Just doing that alone would have made it feel more important and noteworthy.
And for those saying it’s better for Microsoft to quietly let Hivebusters release, and don’t make much of a thing out of it. I’m listening to this weeks Bombcast and they actually starting talking about the fact that the Xbox has no games. They talked about this for at least 5 minutes, and Hivebusters wasn’t even mentioned, and it came out on the same day they recorded this podcast. This is what happens when you don’t properly present the content your platform actually has.
Also, on a related note, I think it’s a mistake to release games like Flight Simulator and Gears Tactics on PC first, and console later. The hype cycle for those products is over by the time they arrive on the consoles. Gears Tactics is a quality game but almost no one even acknowledged it was coming to the Series X at launch. Flight Simulator got a great reception this summer when it came to PC, but by the time it arrives on consoles next summer it’s barely going to be noticed, and once again the consoles will not be highlighted as receiving this great new game.
I thought the same thing, it’s the most next gen looking game I’ve played so far, it looks so good but it’s only around 3 hours long so maybe that’s why they didn’t advertise it as much, they should’ve made a bigger deal about it on their social media pages though, I think I liked this DLC more than both Gears 4 and Gears 5’s campaigns tbh, The Coalition will blow minds when they show off their next game.
I agree with people that Microsoft dropped the ball and hype up the Gears DLC. However people weren’t hyped for Gears 5. People would rather have the Coalition work on something else. Microsoft haven’t said how many people are playing Gears 5 since it’s launch. They talked about Forza, Sea of Thieves, Flight Sim, Grounded and Minecraft Dungeons. Plus I believe the gaming community is their marketing. The people that do podcasts and stream games are their advertisements.
True. Hivebusters was precisely the sort of thing they needed as a launch title. Hell, it’s only slightly shorter than Ryse was.
It’s also not arguable that, despite the fact there’s still an audience for Gears, the impact of the Coalition announcing a new AAA IP would blow Gears into oblivion. The thirst for new IP from that studio is real. No dabbling in other genres within the Gears universe will satisfy that.