As you may have already heard, a lot of developers are making their games for consoles first and then scale them up for the PC. Well, it appears that’s not the case with EA’s games. During the UBS Global Technology Conference in San Francisco, EA’s chief financial officer, Blake Jorgensen, revealed that the company is developing its titles first for high-end PCs.
As Jorgensen said, EA is developing its games first for high-end PCs and then scales them down for consoles.
This of course is great news for all PC gamers, however it does not mean that the visual difference between the PC and the console versions of EA’s titles is THAT huge.
It’s pretty obvious that all the latest games that were developed by EA’s first party studios are looking better on the PC. Still, the teams are certainly developing them with consoles in mind. After all, the visual difference in both Battlefield 1 and Titanfall 2 is noticeable but not that of a big deal.
However, the fact that EA is developing its games first for high-end PCs explains why both Battlefield 1 and Titanfall 2 run so well on the PC platform.
It would be awesome if EA actually took advantage of the PC platform and offered us a new Crysis game. To be honest though, this won’t be happening anytime soon.
Still, it’s certainly great that all of EA’s games are performing – tech wise – so well on the PC!
John is the founder and Editor in Chief at DSOGaming. He is a PC gaming fan and highly supports the modding and indie communities. Before creating DSOGaming, John worked on numerous gaming websites. While he is a die-hard PC gamer, his gaming roots can be found on consoles. John loved – and still does – the 16-bit consoles, and considers SNES to be one of the best consoles. Still, the PC platform won him over consoles. That was mainly due to 3DFX and its iconic dedicated 3D accelerator graphics card, Voodoo 2. John has also written a higher degree thesis on the “The Evolution of PC graphics cards.”
Contact: Email
I may hate EA but i always give them credit when it comes to performance, unlike Ubi, when EA games come to PC, theres rarely any performance issues. More companies need to use this same tactic bc the games end up working quite well on PC and the console versions dont have any issues either for the most part, everyone wins. Now if they could stop with the DLC and Microtransaction BS id be very happy….maybe another dead space wouldnt hurt either just not dead space 3-2, make it dead space 1-2..there we go
“unlike Ubi, when EA games come to PC, theres rarely any performance issues.”
…. You never played Battlefield 3 &/or 4, did you?
That doesn’t explain DA:I.
That’s because DA:I was made by last minute console personnel, who EA hired because they could be paid half of what the original team (that made Origins) wanted, and EA assumed PC players wouldn’t notice.
DA:I is just a bad game, never mind the quality of the port.
Well yea gfxs aside, if the title runs well and looks okay then it’s a win. But like always, gameplay makes the game not gfx.
Thats correct. Most sites like to talk about graphic quality when pointing out a game made for consoles, but thats the thing that matters the least. It doesnt matter that EA uses PC’s if the gameplay and gamedesign is created for controllers and couch tv play – it will always be a console game running on PC.
Yea, starting to see this more and more in the new generation of games.
Just dumbed down…. less choices, less options, less depth.
It’s been going on for 15 years.
Eh, 15 is an exaggeration, in my honest opinion; 10, is more like it. Ever since the industry switched out its “PC-first with an occasional console port” mindset for a “multi-platform, with a console-first” mindset approach to development.
I can seriously trace a direct link between an IP going multi-platform & its subsequent degradation from quality to quantity, & it started right with the PS3/X360 generation.
Yes, 2001 was a good year especially for PC games, but the release of Xbawks and Halo marked the beginning of the end…
It’s funny, I could have sworn I’d replied to you 3 hours ago. Anyway;
I see where you’re coming from now, yeah. Though, since we’re on the subject, funny story; if Epic Games hadn’t convinced Microsoft to double the memory on the X360, we probably wouldn’t even have cross-platform as standard right now, since the X360 would have been complete sh*t compared to the PS3…….
LOL.
arx fatalis was great! 2001,i miss fun
another one …its becasue of thoughts like your that make the devs lazzy an imerssive beautifull game is important no matter what
What about immersive gameplay? Fancy graphics mean nothing if the game is shallow as hell. Also, artstyle matters more than the graphical technology behind it.
Just look at The Order 1886, it may look technically impressive, but holy molly, is it so shallow it hurts my brain.
What kind of games you like in general? Hell, what do you consider good game design? I consider games that are easy to get into, but hard to master, the hallmark of great game design.
That’s why I like Devil May Cry, Platinum games, Serious Sam or oldschool shooters in general, , some racing games, fighting games, platformers (Mario, Sonic, Rayman, Donkey Kong, Captain Claw, Megaman, etc.), some RTS games (mainly Warcraft 3…), even trading card games (I play some Yu-gi-Oh via Devpro, don’t judge…). And I have so many more games I would love to share with other people, but I have to keep this comment short… and I already failed at that…
Pokemon? ;D
That works too, I guess. Never played Pokemon, not even Pokemon Go… I remember the cartoons though, since I watched them when I was a kid. 🙂
:O
Should I feel ashamed that I haven’t played any Pokemon game?
Just a little bit, yes 😛
The older ones are really classics. I’d say everyone should play at least one of the GBC/GBA-era Pokemon games through at least once in their lives.
The more recent ones are just weird. Like, if you really prefer a DS game instead of a GBC &/or GBA one, then I’d say go for one of the Diamond-Pearl-Platinum games. Other than that, f*ck the subsequent entries entirely.
Then again, there were those two Gold & Silver remakes on the DS, right after Platinum, so, I suppose those should count, technically.
Oh… okay. T_T
I’ll pick up a GBA pokemon game, then. Don’t know which, don’t know when, don’t know if I’ll enjoy it even, but I have to at least try one before the day I die…
I have no idea how those games even work and frankly I don’t want to be explained about it either. More fun when I figure it out myself. 😀
😀
Crystal> any other.
F’king played that game until my hands where shaped to perfect GBC handling. >.<
Hah. Mine was Sapphire. I’d played a few others before that (& a few others afterwards, too), but Sapphire was the one I dedicated myself to inside-&-out.
When you like something enough to play it again after the first play and then again, thats what I call immersive enough. I pay for borderlands 2 and its DLCs like 40 dollars, then I didnt even finished the game. Looking at my library, the most “immersive” games I have played are free or F2P. I have more hours on No more Room in Hell, which is free, than Left 4 Dead or Counter Strike, and both cost me 14$ each.
Well said.
It’s unfortunate that modern replay value has descended into disgraceful levels, since publishers believe replay = less sales on the sequels >.>
The oder was hevily cut to fit ps4,remeber quake 2 ps1 and quake 2 pc? half of the levels where missing from ps1,i know you are a console gamer and refuse to belive, i don´t have and never gonna get any more consoles because,im not someone to be milked over money.
Buddy can you explain to me what you just wrote has to do with anything I was trying to point out? I am talking here about gameplay, not platform preference or technical capabilities. The order was crap through and through, technically impressive, but still crap. Could the Order 1886 have been a great game? I highly doubt it since the guys from Ready at Dawn were kind of ashamed it being a game…
And FYI, I am primarily a PC gamer. The games I listed I played them on PC, be it from the platform itself or emulation (God bless emulation).
But I also like some console games too, mainly stylish beat em’ ups. That’s why I bought a PS3 for very very cheap BTW, for a few select games. I mean the system cost me less than half of AAA games these days so I can’t complain.
I just realized I’m replying to the guy with a hard-on for “muh immersion”. You like fancy graphics? Good for you. I like them too. But when it comes to videogames, graphics age, but good gameplay doesn’t… And where at a point where most videogames are almost photorealistic anyways, to the point where it becomes kinda samey. And with gameplay being considered in some AAA games as an afterthought, that worries me…
This. “PC first” isn’t about just making it look prettier with higher resolution textures, it’s also about the “oh, it doesn’t fit on a controller? Oh well, f*ck it then” mindset that the development industry has, amongst so many other things, like UI’s for example, which are almost always designed for controllers, not M/K.
Skyrim is an infamous example of this; its UI is so consolised, it’s f*cking legendary.
And good optimization. Everyone forgets optimization.
EA develops for HIGH END PC’s. If its runs like crap on mid range its not their problem. You didn’t read the article ?!
Ok didn’t know my 950 and i5 3470 were high end, since they run BF1 on medium
You know, back in the old days, better graphics weren’t just eye candy, but improved gameplay too. Remember the jump from Atari or other similar consoles to NES? Or remember the jump from NES to SNES, with games like Megaman to Megaman X, Super Mario 3 to Super Mario World, OG Legend of Zelda to A Link to the Past, Castlevania to Super Castlevania, Metroid to Super Metroid, etc. It was mind-blowing and it such a short amount of time.
And this continued up too the 6th gen of consoles and ended right there. Nowadays, most devs like to push graphical fidelity with to no gameplay improvement or refinement, or worse, push graphical fidelity at the expense of gameplay. This is so backwards I can’t even right now.
“You can polish a turd until it shines, but at the end of the day, you’re just left with a shinny turd”.
I feel you.
That’s an unfair comparison (2600 to NES….). Because the leaps in gameplay complexity due to hardware getting better diminishes with each successive generation. This isn’t always true however as the jump from 16bit 2D sprite based consoles to full 3D polygon rendered consoles was the largest leap not only in graphics but in game design as well. The problem is though that there has not been a jump since then large enough to really allow for drastically more imersive game design (open-world games have really imptoved tjough with the more powerful hardware…). VR is almost good enough to allow that but it isn’t thete quite yet. I agree that there has been a doldrum in game design lately but i wouldn’t blame that as much on the devs as i would on the hardware and what it allows them to create. I also noticed you used all Nintendo titles in your argument…. You’re showing your colours there…. interesting….
Are you implying I am a Nintendo fanboy? Cause Nintendo of today has nothing to do with Nintendo from the late 80’s – early 90’s. Also, the games I have listed were examples were graphics enhanced gameplay, which just so happen to be fun games loved by everybody, or at least I thought so. Early 3D games have aged like cheese left in the sun, plus I didn’t have any reference. And translating what worked in 2D to 3D was also pretty hard. Mario 64 is quite a departure from your typical 2D Mario game, despite being revolutionary. I’d argue Sonic Adventure is more close to being classic Sonic in 3D than Mario 64 is to being classic Maio in 3D. But whatever…
Want more modern games for a comparison? Okay then. Need for Speed. Remember this franchise. It was awesome. Then EA messed it up. I have no problem playing Need for Speed II SE, Need for Speed III, Porsche Unleashed Hot Pursuit 1 and 2, Underground 1 and 2, Most Wanted, Carbon, Pro Street (this one is a stretch) even Undercover, buggy as it is still kind of fun. Hot Pursuit 2010 was also kind of good and Most Wanted 2012 was good… for a free game…
Then EA decided making Burnout with licensed cars… with none of the fun of Burnout. But wait they have awesome graphics, right? Just look at the latest Need for Speed, look how wet the cars look man, so real… But somehow the game is way more shallow than Underground… a game from 2003… Don’t even get me started with Underground 2.
Bro, but then there was a huge room for gameplay improvement, nowadays it seems everything that has be done is done, and its hard to think on a real improvement on gaming nowadays, Even consoles has give up, look at nintendo switch, if you have a bluetooth controller, a smartphone and a chromecast, you already have the N switch experience and its more practical because you dont have to be assambling and disasambling the pad and you dont have to go to the tv to put the tablet in the damn receptor.
Remember those days when you have to go to the tv to change channels or change the casette of your console, Nswitch bring you to those old days again.
This isn’t necessary about game design in general over the years, but more about how graphics impacted game design. Some old games hold up even to this day and I’m not speaking out of nostalgia… because I’ve experienced them via emulation.
I come from Romania and that country isn’t exactly… well-developed to say the least. Didn’t had access to consoles in the late 80’s early 90’s because communism was a thing during those times… Fun times… And there is barely a second hand console market let alone something like Gamestop, though I managed to grab myself a modded PS2 and got a a modded Xbox (original) with some really good games on it as a gift just recently. I also have a used 40 GB PS3 that I got for 20 something euros. Played the God of War Collection, next up is Ninja Gaiden Sigma 1 and 2, Ninja Gaiden 3 Razor’s Edge and maybe Sonic Unleashed.
So for someone, who hasn’t even experienced old games only much later in his life (around 2013 where I was really into emulation at that time) to say something like this… that’s saying something. Or maybe I’m just crazy, I don’t know, one or the other. 😛
If you’re a fan of ninja games, Tenchu 1-3 are great as well, btw, & since you seem to be working your way through PS3 Classics, needless to say, don’t forget about Shadow of the Colossus & Ico 😛
I just like stylish hack n’ slash/spectacle fighter games. Ninja Gaiden seems to fit the description. But I’ll check the games you listed too. 😀
Anyway, with God of War so far, I had fun, obnoxious QTE’s aside. It has a pretty nice combat system, not Devil May Cry levels of deep but still good and more importantly fun.
Which let’s me segue into the new GOW trailer. Have you seen it? Because I hate it, for some justified reasons, which Sony fanboys will probably dismiss. I won’t rag on this in this comment, but… search on Youtube “THE GOD OF WAR 4 RANT” by TheGamingBritShow and you’ll see what I mean. It also explains why I’m kinda losing faith in AAA games at this point, at least when it comes to Sony…
omg you are so wrong…do you know what imerssion is? do you realize we are not anymore in 2009?
Good story and good gameplay beats good graphics any day. Why people still enjoy snes/sega/nin64 games ? because they were fun and addictive. Why people spit on the new Call of Duty ? Because it is dull and repetitive.
Speak for yourself… plus the indie stuff today stomps on that old 8/16 bit stuff… you seem to be looking back in the past with rose tinted glasses… take those off and get LASIX… you may actually see in reality then.
This comment leads nowhere. You imply i do not know myself and what i like is not really what i like. It is not for everybody i’ll give you that. Some people look more to gfx than stories and it’s okay. Games and films are the same to me, what gives to have good animations and end up with Fantastic Four 2015 lol.
“plus the indie stuff today stomps on that old 8/16 bit stuff”
…… eh?
well lately EA are actually good boys 😛
battlefield 1 and titanfall 2 are great on pc
So was Titanfall 1 on PC and BF4 graphically.
Besides the insane CPU usage on BF1, the season pass that will cost me £40 yet to arrive, the rent servers on PC costing more on there than on consoles (with no mod power to kick or ban, why are we renting again?). Titanfall 2 isn’t made by EA, but published, so we should be congratulating Respawn, not EA.
My cpu usage for bf1 stays around 30-40%. GTX 980 is around 70-80%
My GTX 980 is fine, it’s the CPU usage that is around 80-100% on my i5.
I’ve had to use a custom config file just to limit the usage by a bit and keep frames somewhat stable, but I do want them to keep on working to tone down the usage. Bear in mind that I only have Origin running and the game, no other game thus far has required that much of my CPU.
This is nothing new, ever since Battlefield 3, EA has the best ports PC ever had.
Very nicely worded 😀
This is great, of course, but it wasn’t always like that. Even a 2013 title, NFS Rivals, has a 30FPS lock.
AHAHAH Yeah, sure
1. Develop game so it can barely run on dev super computer.
2. Shrink down to console specs.
3. From there scale back up to consumer PC specs.
Voila, you’re technically doing what the guy is saying, but you’re really making standard console ports like always.
I’m not even sure about them developing on computer first, their games looks so buggy and so weird to be developed on pc.
Must say bf1 seems to be running pretty smoothly
Funny, I was just saying this to someone else a mere couple of days ago; I think now that the Frostbite Engine has matured more, it’s releasing less buggy end-products as a result. Like, don’t get me wrong, it’s probably still a piece of sh*t, but the sh*t it’s generating is no longer runny diarrhea sh*t.
I mean, Battlefront was also quite solid on launch, for that matter, & if you look closely, most of the ultra-broken games that launched lately are either operating on brand-new new engines, or carried-over half-assed re-purposed old-gen engines (ex. Mad Max vs. JC3 – MM ran on a slightly older version of Avalanche’s tech, & it came out fine. JC3 ran on the newest version, & it’s a f*cking mess).
Either way, I think Andromeda should confirm if I’m right.
Good Job EA
It helps no one when the game design is already streamlined and diluted to massive appeal.
x1000
“Streamlined and diluted to massive appeal” Comment of the year!!
Comment of the month ^^
Is the most convenient way make bullshots, for sure.
I have a gtx 1070 and Battlefield 1 runs at 1440p 75 – 100fps!
Makes me want to get a 120fps monitor and play at medium.
Frostbite + PC <3
These consoles run less than 60fps and lower than 1080p.
Thank you for not starting there!
144hz monitor. Not an fps monitor.
LOL.
Come on now. It’s essentially the same difference. Let’s not redicule on a typo.
I did not redicule anyone, there is nothing wrong with my correction.
There is indeed nothing wrong with you correction. You actually tought something to someone. If he took the time to understand. I think dirthurts is implying that you understood what the OP said and that it wasn’t necessary to make that comment.
I think it was necessary.
ridicule
What CPU? I have a GTX 1080 and sometimes get under 70fps because my i5-4670K @ 4.2Ghz is the bottleneck especially on 64man servers. I actually run resolution scale 110% and it doesn’t impact anything because of that. 120% may work like that too.
Crysis 4 pc exclusive would be nice!
LEL it sounded like you said crysis 4 as pc exclusive
LOL
What a huge lie.. You mean they develop for console first then see what they add to make it look like it was for PC.
All games? I think not! Sure, they are developed ON high-end PCs, but if they did this, why would their PC “ports” be so horrible? I’m a stickler for k/m controls and if they were developed FOR PC first, then why was there a huge hit to PC controls when they started making games for both PC and console?
Take Mass Effect 2 for example: why was there a “Spacebar does all” keybind? PC gamers know Shift is Sprint, and we can keybind things for other purposes. While other developers do far worse in this area, EA is definitely blame free. /rant
Exactly the same issues in DA:I.
so this means nhl 18 for pc?
There’s another statement by another company and this time it’s “not very good” >__<
BF1 has an issue with its first major update lol! Here’s your marketing reassurance right there..
??????????????
EA has benefited massively by unifying to Frostbite. Not only is it a well optimized engine that generally drops games with sli support from day 1, but also if there are any issues in a particular game they own the company that developed it (Dice) so they have access to the best tech support for it.
The downside is, I’ve started to notice almost like a certain look to the games, where I can tell it’s a Frostbite game, kind of like how you could tell if a game was UE 3, because of that janky lod texture pop in that would occur esp during cutscenes. It’s nothing bad like that, but they way certain materials are rendered do look similar even in different games.
Dice of course knows how to utilize the engine to it’s fullest so their in house games do stand out graphically. Then you have outliers like Crytek (Ryse: Son of Rome is still a d@mn good looking game) and whatever that engine is they developed Titan Fall /2 on
Some sort of weird, steroid-pumped Source Engine, supposedly (Titanfall 2).
Either way, true, but I find that to be a standing byproduct of most engines out there. Like, take Black Flag; I can really just see Crytek’s water & vegetation tech in just about every screenshot, because it is Crytek’s tech, even if it has been updated by Ubisoft (the Dunia Engine was a CryEngine branch that Ubisoft got from Far Cry, & later re-purposed for AC).
Unreal 3 had that certain “look” to it (not to mention when they draped an area with default textures… ugh), Frostbite has those particular particles that give it away for me, I think, & Unreal 4 has this…. glassy? look. I’m not sure how to describe it, but I think you get it regardless?
Release ufc on pc then we all good
With All frostbite multiplayer games I have the same issue. GPU usage. Its never stable and goes below 70%. This was fixed with Mantle so it the problem must be dx11.
PAhahahahahhahahahahahahha
Tell that story about the Little Red Riding Hood too please!
lol
What was that console presentation a few years back in which they were caught red handed running the games on a PC? Was it PS4?
Happened a lot during the PS3/360, I remember seeing some footage of Uncharted 3 at 60 fps.
What do you mean the difference between PC performance and visuals is “not THAT huge” and “not that big of a deal”? Are you blind? All the trees in Battlefield 1 on console are SPRITES. WTF? You think the difference between 1080p 30fps and 4k 120fps is not that huge? Consoles are, and always will be more expensive over time, significantly less powerful, and restricting. Buy yourself a PC and escape the corporate bullshit.
Makes sense since they have their own digital service on PC. Ubisoft is the same way their last like five games have been awesome PC versions.
Developing backwards = Mafia 3 and Dishonored 2 garbage PC ports.
Seen it, & yeah, it’s hilarious. Even by just setting aside the whole “Kratos goes to Scandinavia” thing for a second, the amount of fail Sony & Microsoft have been aspiring to with their personal exclusives (read: owned IP’s) is really just hilarious.
See, most people don’t realise this, but everything from Killzone to God of War to Halo to most whatever other platform-exclusive IP’s actually started up during the PS2/Xbox era, & then later got ported to the PS3/X360 respectively (granted, this was almost exclusively PS2 games going to the PS3, but yeah), because they were popular, & well received, etc. at which point, due largely in part to the sequels that followed them, these IP’s massively took off into the mega-franchises that we know them as now.
God of War, as I mentioned, is one such example. As a byproduct of being so old however, as is also the case with just about all of these other IP’s (hell, even the ones native to the PS3/X360 generation like Uncharted, Resistance, Gears of War, etc.), their narrative has just about run its course, which means they’ve run their course, so now Sony & Microsoft are desperately trying to [figure out how to] hold on to them through these dumb-as-dogshit sequels;
Killzone: Shadowfall, God of War 4, Gears of War 4, Halo 4, Halo 5, etc. except all they’re really doing is providing a hilarious, ever-more engorged neon sign that openly shouts out to the entire world WE ARE TOTALLY OUT OF F*CKING IDEAS! 😀 which is exactly why we’re seeing a Ratchet & Clank reboot following a Ratchet & Clank movie from Sony. Sure, Uncharted 4 was a great send-off to the series, but as they say; there’s always an exception to the rule, & in this case, it’s Uncharted 4.
Back to God of War 4 for a second; yeah….. I find it extremely hilarious that Microsoft is seeing so much success on the Halo Anniversary remasters, yet Sony still hasn’t ported even 1/5th of their PS2/PS3 Classics lineup to the PS4 yet, excluding their presence on the PS Now service. Hell, Gears of War Ultimate on the XONE comes with free copies of GoW, GoW 2, GoW 3, & GoW Judgement (through backwards compatibility, of course), whereas Sony’s Uncharted is still stuck on the PS3, & so is just about every God of War entry except for 3.
Now don’t get me wrong, I do find this whole “remake, remaster, recycle” thing to be utterly ridiculous, but since consoles need it, & it so often provides some good games some fresh life (Colossus used to be a PS2 game, for example), I find there to be some use to it, even if only on the console side of things (almost the entire Metal Gear IP is currently stranded on the PS3, for example, & it’s liable to stay there, wholly inaccessible to so many people). Except, in the middle of all this “remaster mania” that the industry’s going through, in the middle of Microsoft making f*cking Halo remasters, Sony is just sitting in a corner, & sending Kratos to Scandinavia……..
Yeah. Okay. And then people wonder what happened to them, like you said yourself, really, except it’s both of them, not just Sony.
Though probably the funniest part of all is, Ubisoft is throwing what they should be doing into their faces every year with AC. The universe works, the backstory is established, etc. the gameplay is refined to f*ck, as Gears 4 perfectly showcases, so just take the IP, move it to a different corner of the universe, & never look back. Don’t go stepping on Master Chief Kratos’ toes, ffs. He’s done, he’s over, move the f*ck on & get over them already. I mean sure, Ubisoft’s AC went to sh*t for a reason, but one thing’s got only so much to do with the other in this case.
Wow, that was a long reply 0_0. And I thought my comments were stupidly long enough :)). What can I say, I don’t know what to think or say anymore after something like this. At least the other games you listed where at least still reminiscent of their old installments to some degree gameplay wise. God of War just went from simple yet enjoyable hack n’ slash to TLOU with a GOW skin. Why? They don’t have anything in common. On why are so many people okay with this? Why the heck would you uproot the entire gameplay of the franchise?
I was kinda “meh” about TLOU or 3rd person shooters in general and would just go “screw it, it’s not my kind of game” and move on, but now I hate TLOU simply because the undeserved praise it got. I don’t care how good the story is, I don’t care how good the production values are, I care about gameplay first and foremost and maybe a good soundtrack too, everything else is just extra. And TLOU is for the most part mediocre and even downright boring in that department. Uncharted at least had more action in it and kept the pace going, so I can excuse it’s more shallow gameplay.
As for the story, I really don’t care for it, it’s just so… melodramatic. Uncharted was at least kind of selfaware at times. And I’ll be blunt here, but I find the story in Undertale… yes you read that right, Undertale, to be way more entertaining and engaging than The Last of Us. It actually made me care about what was actually going on no matter how ridiculous the game got at times. And Undertale was actually fun as a game too, simple as it was. If I’d tell this to Sony fanboys I’d be laughed all the through.
I don’t think I even have the strength to hate anything at this point. I’m just sad right now. Apparently engaging and fun gameplay simply doesn’t work nowadays in games, at least not in most AAA games. Now everything has to be “cinematic”, “epic” and “meaningful” and it will sell like hotcakes, no matter how derivative and by the numbers the game really is. Yeah most people these days don’t even like games anymore, just glorified movies.
I’m not sure if they’re “okay” with it en-masse, or if this is just the typical pre-launch Hype Train + Mainstream Game Media lapping up anything & everything that’s presented to them by a high-ranking publisher (especially Sony & Microsoft), or if this is really the actual fanbase (I’d be very surprised, honestly).
I mean, you’ll always hear cheers & applause when something is announced at an event, but that doesn’t mean it’ll sell like a Witcher game though, or be received as well as one by either. I think, (aside from that we should wait until launch & see the actual fan’s reaction, rather than the sycophantic Gaming Media’s), this will turn out to be as divisive as Halo 4, what with one group praising it for being, basically, as you yourself put it – God of War: The Last of Us, & the other smashing it for being, once again – GoW: TLOU instead of GoW 4: Kratos is Back, B*tches. After all, Halo also turned into a Space-set Soap Opera when 343 took over, & look at how that’s going for them all now.
Remember the Devil May Cry reboot? CAPCOM f*cked up so bad, they haven’t been back to the series since, even with that new-gen console port “remaster” job. If “God of War” is likewise received badly enough, I could see Sony scrambling to (finally) make ports &/or remasters of the older entries for the PS4 afterwards in order to recoup on their investment & make up with the community in turn, much like CAPCOM’s “recent” DMC4:SE remastering.
Nope, gameplay has gone to sh*t ever since games like Uncharted & the Tomb Raider reboot started doing well, unfortunately – coupled with the new-gen consoles, of course. First it was Call of Duty clones dominating the industry, now it’s all about showcasing DEM GRAFEEX on the new-gen consoles, alongside “open world” “experiences” (read: linear cinematic sh*tfests disguised as a supposedly sandbox game), mostly in wanna-be RPG’s, because they’re the new “in” with analysts, or whatever. F*ck if I know.
Yeah Undertale is nice. The thing with Naughty Dog as a whole, is, IMO, they make decent enough games, & I enjoyed The Last of Us, but since their games sell so well, & they do this “different” thing (sort-of), people give them all these awards these days, & the awards cause people to think they’re actually better than they really are, which, coupled with the Naughty Dog Cultists, results in this mystical air of “ohmahgawd deir gaemz be liek, magik, brah!”
Like, The Last of Us isn’t inherently bad, it’s just over-hyped to hell “because Naughty Dog” which in turn is over-hyped to hell “because Uncharted” which really only ever took off because it’s basically Indiana Jones meets Tomb Raider, honestly. Again, they make fine enough experiences, but they’ve become so over-hyped, that by extension, they’ve ended up wielding considerable industry-wide influence, which is a situation only aggravated each time the Gaming Media starts singing their praises to high-heaven, a situation (needless to say) only further encouraged by Sony, of course.
That, coupled with Sony’s troubles & various other coincidences (Square Enix’s Turd Raider financial successes, etc.), has resulted in this near-industry-wide mindset of “let’s make soap opera cinematic experiences that also show off how much stronger the new-gen consoles really are compared to their predecessors!” This “feels-a-lot” mania will pass soon enough (especially once most of these jokes prove themselves to be the EPIC FAILS they’re expected to be), though unfortunately we’ll have to put up with quite a few of them in the meanwhile. In my opinion, the real question is; will Sony actually admit they made a hilariously dumb mistake, & return Kratos to his “I’M THE MOTHERF*CKER, B*TCH!” roots, or is he perma-f*cked, doomed to forever be the caring daddy who’ll probably lose his kid 20 minutes in, & end up going on some rampant revenge spree to avenge his sad pathetic death, all while moaning about his personal losses, or whatnot?
console gamer :meh
me: U CAN’T HANDLE THE TRUTH.