Xbox Game Studios |OT5| DOOM posting not allowed. Except for posting about DOOM

Personally, I thought the environmental puzzles in Hellblade were a refreshing change of pace, thematically relevant & satisfying to solve on their own merits. They increased my feeling of engagement with the game.

I hope they don’t drop them for part 2. They seem like a part of Hellblade’s identity to me & I think it would feel weird if they were just gone suddenly in the sequel. I do enjoy puzzles though, so maybe I’m just biased :man_shrugging:

Going to spoiler this, just in case.

:raised_hand_with_fingers_splayed: Hellblade spoilers below :point_down:

The perma-death thing was a clever trick that Ninja Theory pulled on the player. The idea was obviously to increase tension & it worked on me. The first time I played Hellblade, I believed that death was final. I thought it was brilliant.

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Don’t mistake AoE for Gears Tactics or Desperados. Besides Gears Tactics is Turn based. whereas AoE is Real Time Strategy with massive number of units requiring individualized attention. The two games you mentioned are NOT even in the same neighbourhood in terms of being vigilant for massive numbers of AI attacks. The original Warcraft/Starcraft is a poorer cousin and can offer inspiration if they have been ported to consoles.

The challenge is input remapping to controllers to handle 20-30 different simultaneous group and singular attacks. All these require different configurations army builds and different attack/defence tactics and moves — and … all the while building 30-40 different things with villagers. So, you are managing at least 50-60 groups in parallel. The challenge of RTS is massive number of units requiring attention or requiring action . Usually very difficult even in normal modes, and requires massive multitasking.

If they can even offer some controller solution there for Consoles, then it would be good. But the real solution has to be M+KB in addtion to controller.

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I agree, I don’t want them to be gone myself, just have less of a focus/prominence this time around.

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I knew that are different genres, the example was Desperados 3 vs Gears Tactics where the latter, MS owned, wasn’t on console from day one, while the former was day one on it. This comparison was part of a larger thought about MS unwillingness and/or reticence to port pc focused games on console from day one as they should, like the aforementioned AoE, Gears Tactics and even Fligh Sim. I know there are different shades of difficulties, but Tactics imo was not very excusable considering much smaller titles…

AoE 2 was on PS2 and Starcraft was on N64, so it’s definetely possible, I know it’s not trivial, but I’m not buying the cheap excuses from MS, that’s my point. They aren’t doing only because the public outcry on the subject is not so strong.

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Don’t buy the excuses, but look at the interviews that the devs themselves are giving. One was on Xboxera, I think.

I personally spoke with a MS dev at Gamescom 2019 about the subject and he didn’t even know AoE 2 was on PS2. From what I got from that conversation, they never even considered a console port (the concept was utterly alien to him and why lie to a question from a simple fan like me), then Adam Isgreen is a MS higher up and he has to say something convincing to avoid pr blunders, but that’s it, some shallow pr answer…if Paradox can map their grand strategy games with unlimited checkboxes, I’m sure MS can map AoE controls, come on mate.

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Last year at the Xbox Games Showcase, Xbox revealed 4 new, AAA games coming from their own studios; Forza Motorsport, State of Decay 3, Avowed and of course, Fable.

For this year including XGSP and Bethesda, so far, I do think I already know about 5 completely new, AAA titles being announced this Summer. Some more expected than others.

Plans are still fluctuating though. At the end of the day, I think it is a fair expectation that gameplay trailers and/or demos should have a bigger presence at least for the already announced things coming this and next year.

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Season 7 Reaction GIF by The Office

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Al Pacino GIF

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I love you Squirrel another person who backs me up in my positivity!

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Typhoon, Omen, Forza Horizon 5. Not sure what the other two might be.

That was basically me when they announced they purchased Obsidian in 2018 :philwins:

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Xbox Global Publishing spin off AAA Game and Wolfenstein or Compulsion maybe?

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Very good news, but I suspect no one will be a japanese game, the last AAA from there was Dead Rising 3 I think…

We know two of them likely to be Omen, Typhoon and Forza , so by my reackoning there could be 2 more to be announced if your hunches are correct.

I was thinking Wolfenstein but Grubb said it wouldn’t be at E3. Compulsion is a good possibility I think.

#KlobBomb

final judgment GIF

5+ major reveals with a solid showing for Halo Infinite and Starfield would have the makings of a great conference. Surround those with a few XGS updates for a few announced games, Game Pass news, some cool indies and a few key third party trailers and you’ve got yourself a top tier Xbox show. It may not live up to the craziest expectations of some but it would be one of Microsoft’s best E3 showings, with the knowledge that the exclusives and Game Pass situation will only improve every year over the next few years.

I’m speculating on Klobrille referring to Project Typhoon, Forza Horizon 3, Arkane’s next game (Omen?), and a Minecraft project. Not sure on a 5th but a Compulsion reveal, Zenimax Online reveal or Wolfenstein 3 seem reasonable. If Jeff Grubb doesn’t think Wolfenstein will be there, I assume it’s because it likely won’t be ready until mid to late 2022 or later. That may not stop them from showing a reveal teaser though, especially if they want to hammer home that future Bethesda games will be exclusive to Xbox platforms.

A big twist or nothing?

With the FF Origins article, I’ve seen a lot of folks mixing Team Ninja with Ninja Theory… So I believe that this is just they having fun.

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