checked the pub for cuphead today. It is mdhr on consoles (xbox)
For those interested, hereās a DF Dive into the Switch port and is worth a read.
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itās worth the watch as well, for good context of how the behind the scenes looks in action. They optimized the living fuck out of this game for Switch itās crazy.
and yeah this is weird, but even so, MS has been able to get sooo many third party indies on gamepass yet canāt seem to get one they themselves funded, itās an absolute joke, donāt know what MDHR wants lol
They have grown substantially with now over 150 employees. Hellblade 2 has more than twice as many people working on it than the first one.
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Regarding Hellblade 2, I donāt want to see any of those āshadowā puzzles because after the first two, they sucked so im hoping the puzzles are better and more varied.
Combat should stay brutal and visceral but I would like a bigger move set because having just two attack animations is so damn boring because youāre seeing the same attacks repeatedly throughout the game. Combat can keep the brutality but I would like more depth in regards to the move set.
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Threading on thin ice there buddy boy
[spoiler] 
[/spoiler
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100% agree.
I remember there being one specific puzzle involving trees and stuff that was just legit awful and I just decided to look what the solution was cause it was terrible and wasting my time.
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tbh a lot of Hellblade felt like ideas that would get fleshed out better in a sequel because a lot of it at the time was a result of them tryna come up with their own tech, not pursuing existing expensive equipment and middleware, but also no publishing partner and all of this on top of trying (and largely succeeding at) to achieve AAA levels of production quality with a AA budget and team size. Iām sure they had to cut back on scope a lot during development because either the tech they were building hadnāt matured enough or the kind of mechanics they had in mind werenāt working as great as intended with the vision of the game. Iām almost certain Hellblade 2 will have matured a lot in not just tech but their vision and design for the game, and now that the kind of origin, more intimate story is seemingly over with the sequel trailer showing off a more war-ready Senua, Iām thinking her moveset is gonna expand significantly and her struggle with her hallucinations will either take a backseat for a new story or perhaps go even deeper, either of which can present scenarios of brutal and visceral combat, something I definitely think NT can pull off.
I should really pick the game up again, I just never really took the time out to properly go for a playthrough. I do remember that before the first combat encounter you get a warning about something. I interpreted it as if you lose a fight itās game over or something, have to restart all over. Surely they mean just the level though?
I cannot wait to spin up Flight Sim on my Series S. Last time I played a flight sim was a mid 90s demo on my dads PC but after watching a documentary on the making of it by Noclip I am hyped to give it a go. Technical marvel as you rightly say. Only question is where should I fly first? (Assuming I donāt crash right away)
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Great news personally, I have been following this artist for a good while now and he was working at Counterplay for the past year or two on Godfall (which for all its faults was a very pretty looking game imo), but has now joined Initiative for Perfect Dark.
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Yeah that message confused me too but the game saves/autosaves just normal, it definitely doesnāt have permadeath or even restart a whole level thing going on. Give it a try, even though I am not the biggest fan itās definitely worth checking out just for the atmosphere/art direction alone.
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Thatās a relief for sure, because permadeath in a game like thisā¦no thank you.
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 donāt drop them for part 2. They seem like a part of Hellbladeās 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 Iām just biased 
Going to spoiler this, just in case.
Hellblade spoilers below 
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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Donāt 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 ā and ā¦ 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 donāt 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, wasnāt 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 titlesā¦
AoE 2 was on PS2 and Starcraft was on N64, so itās definetely possible, I know itās not trivial, but Iām not buying the cheap excuses from MS, thatās my point. They arenāt doing only because the public outcry on the subject is not so strong.
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Donāt buy the excuses, but look at the interviews that the devs themselves are giving. One was on Xboxera, I think.