Good call on the spoiler tags, they should probably be used by everyone for anything confirmed or heavily rumoured to avoid ruining it for those watching live…
(I won’t be as it’s a ridiculous time in the UK)
1 Like
Rockstar do their own thing and have for over a decade. Not only that but Mafia and Borderlands 4 are both confirmed for TGA which are both owned by Take Two Interactive which also own Rockstar and GTA so I don’t see Take Two overshadowing their two other games by also showing GTA VI. That would be beyond stupid in my opinion.
I can see a trailer around the Spring with a Fall 2025 release date even though it’s been reported that several deadlines have been missed. I’m sticking with my 2026 release date prediction and will stay with it until if/when im playing the game in 2025. lol
Funny? Absolutely. But also horrible for me. I want to see their new IP.
Damn, that sucks. We know about Doom and South of Midnight but if we get new trailers along with a release date for both, I will be happy. 
Can’t freaking wait for both!!! Oh man.
I’m not a Druckmann fan (wish Hollywood would make him an offer he can’t refuse, lol) but as a studio, Naughty Dog hasn’t missed for me since they started Uncharted. I was disappointed with the story/characters in Uncharted 4/TLOUP2 but even then everything else in the game was so damn good, they were still both an 8.5/10 for me overall.
I don’t blame studios for remasters and whatnot because I know that’s a publisher (Sony in this case) decision. I can’t imagine hundreds of developers and whatnot wanting to waste their lives and their time on remasters. I will always see it as a publisher thing because it’s easy money.
I love TLOU 2013 as that was my 360/PS3 game of the generation. TLOUP2 I loved every aspect except the most important for this IP, the story and characters. Wasn’t into it but visuals, audio and combat/gameplay, I honestly had no issues.
New IP wise, I am looking forward to seeing what it is even though I still believe that it will be some kind of sci-fi game based on those Savage Starlight comic books that were in TLOU 2013.
Factions, I don’t believe for a minute that it was cancelled due to the quality or lack there of. Just no fucking way because they’re history is already proven. I 100% believe that Bungie got Factions and the Spider Man multi-player games cancelled because let’s be honest, Bungie is nowhere near what they used to be and I for one believe that they convinced Sony to cancel those two games because they saw them as a threat and also, realistically, who in their right mind would choose Concord or Fairgames or even Marathon over Factions and online Spider Man?
Without ever seeing a second of gameplay, I would automatically go with Factions and Spider Man over those three other games because they’re established IP’s that have a huge fan base with one of them being a huge licensed IP. Far greater chance of Factions/Spider Man succeeding than those three other games combined, by far.
In short, I 100% believe that Bungie when overseeing all of these live service games were saying to Sony - “yeah, stay with Concord and Fairgames but don’t stay with Factions or Spider Man online because we don’t know about them”. LOL.
Nah, Bungie knew and were like, holy shit, we better convince Sony to cancel those games asap!! lol
That sure is a lot of words to effectively dismiss reality and create your own without any evidence, but you do you Peter, we’re all used to the contrarianism at this point.
But Shinobi602 thinks the Mafia trailer will be mostly in engine cinematic, maybe gameplay clips. It seems he isn’t in the know about specifics but we’ll see.
No one has any evidence that the game looked or played bad either because like you said, we never saw gameplay. Just because a game gets cancelled doesn’t mean it was because of quality. There’s a lot of games in history that were shown, looked and seemed to play great and were still cancelled.
I just don’t believe that when Bungie was “overseeing” all of these live service games, the games they called out as being bad or whatever were also the two that were their biggest threat.
https://x.com/therealcliffyb/status/1865958024369823803
He’s loving it by the way.
6 Likes
Most of that is probably on Sony not ND, Factions couldn’t have been just an additional mp mode as Sony wanted a big live service which would’ve likely hurt ND long-term, and all the remasters and re-releases, we know as well is Sony’s thing.
As long as it’s not Uncharted I’m excited to see what it is because I believe they said it’s not gonna be cutscenes galore and will do more environmental storytelling so hopefully that might means they’re reinventing themselves after two generations of cinematic action adventures? let’s see. Generally should be exciting what ND makes, doesn’t mean you have to like it but it will more likely be something quality.
1 Like
Not a fan of removing ND leadership from responsibility, especially after hearing for years that Sony gives devs like ND largely a free reign, from the media and internal devs - remember, several devs said they wanted to keep remastering TLOU (yes, the current situation at Sony have shown less of that, but that’s only been in the last 18 months).
End of the day, there’s an argument to make regarding creative bankruptcy, and we’ll just have to see - liking something is irrelevant to the fact that ND haven’t made a new game since 2020 - not even a shred of gameplay to prove anything new has even been made yet. In the last 11 years they’ve made two different games and spent the vast majority of that time shoveling out barely-touched-up remasters.
2 Likes
I think you’re referring to Savage Starlight.
They have been rumouring that for a good decade at this point.
I’m still gutted about TLOU2, the first was one my favourite games of all time then the second was just meh…
If they spent less time remastering and more time focusing on original content we could have had something special.
4 Likes
Personally, when it comes to AAA gaming in general, I believe that creativity died a while ago. Gamers who want creativity need to look at the Indie games because that’s where all the creativity lies. And maybe a few AA games here and there.
2 Likes
I still miss the days when Naughty Dog were making Jak and Daxter. Those were some really fun and great games.
7 Likes
I hate that take, it’s a lazy dismissal of valid criticism. Indy, alone, proves that you can innovate and surprise in the AAA space and I can easily make a list of a dozen others that do as well. There are just as many contrived, derivative indies out there at this point - as someone who owns/plays more indies than AAA lately, I’m beyond tired of the samey 16-bit sidescrollers and top-down RPGs (being slightly reductionist gere).
I too miss games that aren’t misery fests (applies to almost all of Sony’s output), and definitely miss when there was a semblance of variety in their output (I’m not going to artificially bloat Sony’s output over the last decade, I’m talking games developed by Sony developers).
7 Likes
Previously the Naughty Dog hype was justified because their cinematic high production linear AAA games were at the pinnacle of their genre, but it’s difficult to say the same nowadays, it feels like a lot of other studios have caught up including Sony’s own.
It’s difficult to put them in a tier above Sony Santa Monica or Guerilla, whose games at this point sell more than ND and are similarly rated.
I don’t think their games will graphically stand out anymore, but maybe I’m wrong on this. They don’t seem to have that unique hook that Rockstar or FromSoftware have.
3 Likes
Imagine if they announced a new one, jesus that would be so good. Loved the first one, had one hell of a good time with 2 as well. Not sure if I finished or even played much of 3.
It sounds like you would want the return of the very first one, as in how happy and family friendly it was, opposed to the clearly way darker theme of 2 and 3? I definitely do too. Wouldn’t say no to a Jak 4 either.
4 Likes
You may hate it but it’s legitimate. I’m playing Indiana Jones and nearing the end. It’s a great game and changes it up from the standard third person Uncharted/Tomb Raider type games and is more of an immersive sim built around the stealth, puzzle and disguise mechanics as opposed to the pure combat of the other two series.
So while it changes the formula up, I don’t see Indiana Jones as this amazing creatively impressive game. Sorry. To me, creativity would be something along the lines of a Super Mario 64 or Ocarina of Time because of what they accomplished going from 2D to 3D and making them amazing games and experiences in the process.
I just don’t see any AAA game from any development studio from any publisher nowadays doing that. They’re all basically what you already played a generation or two ago albeit better in every aspect but are they creative and original and innovative? No. Not to me they’re not.
But we can agree to disagree.
Personally I thought A Plague Tale 1&2 were equally beautiful and way more enjoyable than TLOU2 (for example). It’s crazy to think that Requiem was made with a $25 million budget and Innocence was half of that!
Once I finish Indy I’ll be moving on to Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden, which also looks promising for another AA narrative game.
5 Likes
Just because one of your favorite studios has not done anything in a decade except one game in two parts multiple times does not mean the entirety of AAA gaming is creatively bankrupt. Stop projecting onto the rest of the industry just to come to Sony’s defense.
8 Likes
It’s insane how time flies, my brother just told me our Game Pass Ultimate is ending soon. I think it was four years ago that we subbed to it, again.
Things have changed a bit since then, can we still do the “merge” trick or none of that? I recall there was a way to have a nice discount on it or something. Otherwise we’ll just pay the full amount and we split it 50/50 anyway.
Wait so games have to go 4D before they’re considered creative again?
I get that initial “wow” of Theme Hospital / Park, Dungeon Keeper, Age of Empires 1 and 2, Duke Nukem 3D, Metal Gear Solid, Goldeneye, the cinematic Mafia 1 and big jump of GTA3 (made a little less impressive by Driver on PS1) will likely never be repeated as they were huge steps at the time until we maybe lose the screens and are “in” games as we’re just going higher fidelity and more interactive, but to say creativity is gone is silly.
I’ve played a myriad of games in recent years that have been incredibly innovative and creative - Viewfinder, Unpacking (yes both indies), Banishers, Powerwash Simulator, Pentiment (AA) and Hitman, Flight Sim, newer Forza Horizons (building on TDU) and however much I personally dislike it, Baldurs Gate 3, which are all AAA and have either allowed much more freedom, had insane scope or near-realism.
And that’s before we get to some really emotional storytelling - already covered Banishers and Unpacking, but there’s also Tell Me Why, Edith Finch, Call of the Sea, Firewatch, Detroit: Become Human and Immortality; all had strong narratives, while Hogwarts Legacy, Witcher 3, The Outer Worlds and the Mass Effect trilogy (older I know) all had great world building.
If anything I get indecision due to how many great games I’ve got in my list to play, let alone ones I’d like to go back and replay, that I get stuck trying to pick - I’m definitely not thinking we’re creatively bankrupt, I only see one publisher that apart from a few outliers pumps out the same third-person action adventure games all the time and remasters them constantly…
2 Likes
Haha. Naughty Dog is NOT one of my favorite studios and hasn’t been since the original TLOU in 2013. I’m not coming to Sony’s or anyone’s defense. In my opinion, there is NO CREATIVITY in AAA gaming and I don’t care what game it is, who the studio or the publisher is that made it and that includes but isn’t limited to SONY as a whole.