Xbox Game Studios |OT9| How many games would a game studio make if a game studio could make games?

[DARK-PARADISE]

@Cairnst

…Sword literally had Andy Serkis as the “dramatic director” with the goal of making a “cinematic action adventure” inspired by various other movies of the era, and Enslaved was initially planned as a movie and involved Andy Serkis again and film writer/director Alex Garland while being a major step in the evolution of cinematic gaming with it’s use of motion capture to better portray the performances of the cast of traditional media actors. These games weren’t known at the time for their gameplay, it was the stories and the effort from Ninja Theory in presenting them - and Hellblade only feels like an evolution of that effort. I’m certainly not going to say Ninja Theory popularised cinematic video games over Naughty Dog - but they were way ahead of Naughty Dog in adopting this as their style.

I played Enslaved and DmC (both liked), and am familiar with Heavenly Sword. They were all not close to Hellblade in terms of the cinematic/story driven nature limiting your control and gameplay flow. The way Hellblade goes is that it wants everything cinematic and realistic and grounded to the point of limiting gameplay, kind of like what RDR2 did. I used to criticize Naughty Dog for that too but after TLoU2 they took a huge step making their gameplay mechanics great to play (they have other problems when it comes to cinematics and slow/walking segments interrupting the gameplay flow still, but at least when they gave you control, the gameplay was a blast).

[CryOn]

@anon85340516

Man Skyrim is truly special, sure the rpg mechanics were a bit subdued compared to previous entries but the scenery, atmosphere, legendary score, fun side quests.

No wonder botw did well because I think they mentioned it in a interview and took some things from it.

Agree with everything except for side quests. Oblivion’s side quests are much better than Skyrim. Honestly that’s probably Oblivion’s biggest strength. Skyrim’s side quest are mediocre.

[anon74828371]

@Thebaconlife

what version is this?

SE/Anniversary (no mods)

[Vivir]

If Ninja Theory wants to make a cinematic narrative game then more power to them.

Yes they’re inspired by Naughty Dog but that shouldn’t be a reason to diminish their new direction. They seem to be very passionate about what they’re doing and that’s all you can ask for from a Xbox First Party Studio.

There’s a bunch of shooters, rpg’s and live service games at Xbox, let us have this one cinematic narrative studio, is that too much to ask for ?

[DARK-PARADISE]

@Vivir

If Ninja Theory wants to make a cinematic narrative game then more power to them.

Yes they’re inspired by Naughty Dog but that shouldn’t be a reason to diminish their new direction. They seem to be very passionate about what they’re doing and that’s all you can ask for from a Xbox First Party Studio.

There’s a bunch of shooters, rpg’s and live service games at Xbox, let us have this one cinematic narrative studio, is that too much to ask for ?

I’m glad they are part of Xbox and they have a direction which Xbox rarely ever had, but it’s also fine to dissect their approach and design decisions, like it’s fine to do with everything else too, It’s not to diminish. I’m sure Hellblade 2 will be a highly rated game that will get lots of awards and all that, which is nice for Xbox. I also think Compulsion will serve a similar category with a narrative driven cinematic game.

[Cairnst (Bill Cairns)]

@DARK-PARADISE

I played Enslaved and DmC (both liked), and am familiar with Heavenly Sword. They were all not close to Hellblade in terms of the cinematic/story driven nature limiting your control and gameplay flow. The way Hellblade goes is that it wants everything cinematic and realistic and grounded to the point of limiting gameplay, kind of like what RDR2 did. I used to criticize Naughty Dog for that too but after TLoU2 they took a huge step making their gameplay mechanics great to play (they have other problems when it comes to cinematics and slow/walking segments interrupting the gameplay flow still, but at least when they gave you control, the gameplay was a blast).

I think it’s worth remembering with Hellblade that it was made by a very small group of people at Ninja Theory on a very tight budget, it was something like 20 people trying to make a AAA looking story driven game. I haven’t played Hellblade yet, but given that gameplay is a common criticism of the game I can assume you’re right in that - but it doesn’t necessarily come down to a desire to adhere to cinematic realism when the team was pretty restricted in general. It’ll be very interesting to see how the sequel turns out now that they are under Microsoft.

[anon85340516]

@Cairnst

I think it’s worth remembering with Hellblade that it was made by a very small group of people at Ninja Theory on a very tight budget, it was something like 20 people trying to make a AAA looking story driven game. I haven’t played Hellblade yet, but given that gameplay is a common criticism of the game I can assume you’re right in that - but it doesn’t necessarily come down to a desire to adhere to cinematic realism when the team was pretty restricted in general. It’ll be very interesting to see how the sequel turns out now that they are under Microsoft.

I think the dmc person is working on this one.

[Hue]

@Vivir

There’s a bunch of shooters, rpg’s and live service games at Xbox, let us have this one cinematic narrative studio, is that too much to ask for ?

If anything I’d love to see more of this at Xbox, I don’t always want to play a RPG or a Shooter.

Outside of the occasional third party release (Plague Tale) I always have to go to PS for this type of fix, that and third person action/adventure games.

[anon85340516]

I hope everwild has been turned into a Pokemon like. Huge gap in market outside of Nintendo consoles.

[DARK-PARADISE]

@anon85340516

I hope everwild has been turned into a Pokemon like. Huge gap in market outside of Nintendo consoles.

Everwild will be a strand-type game. My uncle works at Rare and told me.

[DARK-PARADISE]

@DARK-PARADISE

Everwild will be a strand-type game. My uncle works at Rare and told me.

But I’m not even fully joking. I feel that Everwild will revolve around a community aspect where people work together to archive goals ie. preserve nature/ecosystems within the planet.

[Mort]

@Vivir

If Ninja Theory wants to make a cinematic narrative game then more power to them.

Yes they’re inspired by Naughty Dog but that shouldn’t be a reason to diminish their new direction. They seem to be very passionate about what they’re doing and that’s all you can ask for from a Xbox First Party Studio.

There’s a bunch of shooters, rpg’s and live service games at Xbox, let us have this one cinematic narrative studio, is that too much to ask for ?

It’s like the people who wants to make the RPG’s into 5 hour affairs because they don’t have the time to play video games. Leave our games alone!

[Popppi (Phil Spencer's shelf)]

@DARK-PARADISE

My uncle works at Rare and told me.

Cousin Frank’s dad?

[Thebaconlife]

@Mort

It’s like the people who wants to make the RPG’s into 5 hour affairs because they don’t have the time to play video games. Leave our games alone!

Just let developers make what they want to make. I didnt want obsidian to make grounded but its not my choice and im glad they did. games great

[Staffy]

Hunter 🎮

[rtansey]

@Daniel

again with posting fanboy tweets, at this point it seems like you’re doing it on purpose now.

what?

[Vivir]

@Daniel

They keep posting tweets from fanboy twitter accounts, it’s not the first time and I just assumed they didn’t know. That account is a fake netual twitter account, they try to play it close and smart but it’s obvious what they’re doing. It’s not this account that is the main one but they posted really bad ones many times and I passed it off as they didn’t know.

https://twitter.com/klobrille/status/1587096311211462657?s=20&t=SbE1CcbrCsYL5XPGwKJgKw

is this more acceptable lol

[rtansey]

@Daniel

They keep posting tweets from fanboy twitter accounts, it’s not the first time and I just assumed they didn’t know. That account is a fake netual twitter account, they try to play it close and smart but it’s obvious what they’re doing. It’s not this account that is the main one but they posted really bad ones many times and I passed it off as they didn’t know.

weird victim complex when the post in question isn’t nefarious. Scrolling their feed it’s not like its REDDRAGON or whatever. Staffy probably has the Twitter feed set to recommended content and it appears on their TL, rather than new tweets from only ones they follow. This kind of stuff crops up automatically.

[Staffy]

@rtansey

weird victim complex when the post in question isn’t nefarious. Scrolling their feed it’s not like its REDDRAGON or whatever. Staffy probably has the Twitter feed set to recommended content and it appears on their TL, rather than new tweets from only ones they follow. This kind of stuff crops up automatically.

Exactly this. I saw this and there’s really nothing wrong with it. In fact, it’s good to see Phil acknowledging that fact. As for who posted it, I don’t think he or she had any bad intentions but at the same time I don’t go checking every single one of them out either.

Did a quick check on the account, seems very normal and OK.

@Vivir

is this more acceptable lol

This is a overall better tweet though, for sure. This sounds hopeful for Starfield, tracking well. If the first half truly has Starfield, Redfall and Forza…we’re gonna eat like Kings.

[Mort]

@Vivir

is this more acceptable lol

Good to hear Covid is no longer an issue.