freotech
I have been watching the last 90 minutes and um kind of have a bunch of thoughts about all the various aspects of it. Im not going to cover every single game mention there, because that is impossible, but just kind of touch on some highlights uh. I came away from the show pretty impressed, although being impressed has concentrated to a very few select moments, uh, some of which i you can probably guess. Uh, given um kind of the reactions, youve, probably seen online already from what was shown uh. But i will go through kind of a chronological order, the things that stood out to me either good or bad, and we will see where we ended up at the end of all this. The the one thing to say at the outset of this is that uh, what was not expected was that microsoft said at the beginning of the show that this was going to be stuff. That is just out in the next 12 months and while some of this will no doubt be pushed out of that window, that kind of created a weird situation where that there wasnt, like a ton of room for a lot of surprises, uh there, because youre not Really gon na surprise launch a game within a year, usually uh, and that leaves a lot of stuff out that people are hoping to hear about like fable and perfect dark and about and all that stuff is not coming out within a year.
Also, that was not none of those were shown during the showcase. That said, there was another showcase um in two days. I think out, where theyre doing another 90 minute show they might some of its going to be expanding on the stuff they did here, but they might. That might be the time where theyre going to be like okay were going to do a new trailer for whatever. So i guess well have to see but um in terms of what they did show here. They opened with redfall, which is the arcane bethesda, vampire shooter, that got delayed out of this year, and i didnt love it like i. This is the first time we saw gameplay when it first debuted. It was this big kind of splashy cinematic trailer. No one really had any idea like kind of what it was like it almost looked like kind of left or dead or something. But since then the comparisons have been more based around something like borderlands, where its one to four player class base, where you have abilities. Theres skill, trees, theres, loot and loot, rarities, and things like that um, so you can, you know, upgrade your weapons and whatever to fight vampires and theres like vampire cultists that are human, that i assume you can shoot with like normal bullets, but just the total package. Didnt really come together for me in this footage i just i get that kind of arcane has their own exaggerated art style.
I just didnt think it worked that well here for uh kind of the vampires and the footage that we saw here. Um, the art direction was not really on point for me and the like: the shooting looked a little floaty and like hit registration wasnt quite there that they branded. This was pre pre, alpha, pre, beta footage or something so uh. You know its going to be cleaned up by the time it does come around. I did not get a new date still just 2023, but if we are taking the within the 12 months thing that should be on the first half of 2023, given that that is a year from now um. That said, if it is at all like borderlands and the shooting, is remotely okay uh its a looter, shooter kind of to some extent, so that means im probably going to play it um, i just its not like they debuted the footage, and it really blew me Away um – and i i kind of i need to see more from it id love to play like a demo or a beta or something to see if it actually kind of hooks me because i just i dont know it didnt really do it for me, um Some uh, an unusual bit of news, is that riot games is partnering with microsoft, to give everybody pretty much all the champions and heroes from all of their games for free uh, on pc theyre, not like all coming to console or something um thats.
Just a massive partnership that youre doing with microsoft, where i mean these, these games have sold, you know dozens and hundreds of champions over the years, so its kind of a big deal that theyre doing this granted. I think the idea here is that theyre going to give away all that for free in the hopes that players will get hooked and start spending money on skins and things. I do wonder how people who play the games, who have spent uh hundreds and hundreds of dollars on unlocking all these champions over time, will feel about that, because everyone is now just getting that for a game pass sub uh, but i dont know for the overall Health of the game. This seems like a pretty significant um partnership. Even if it wasnt like announcing anything necessarily new here, we did get a short preview of uh, forza motorsport 8. I think its eights pretty sure its eight uh. This was your usual, like this card game has insanely good graphics moments that we have at all of these shows pretty much every year at least once the graphics did look pretty insane. The the difference here is that so theres like live ray, tracing and stuff for the card game um. This is the engine thats being used for the fable game and well, i dont think its going to be. Maybe this detailed like it will be using a lot of the same tech for a completely different type of game, but one that is going to have.
You know: lakes, rivers and forests and all the kind of stuff that we saw in forza doubt. People will have cars, but you know what i mean so um. This was kind of a good preview, at least the type of tech that was going to be used for the fable game. So thats kind of kind of interesting im im curious to see what that actually looks like in practice. Obviously, but that is not something we actually saw today. Um we got the unusual debut of an announcement for when overwatch 2 is officially coming out kind of its its like early october now, which is the official release date for overwatch 2, but its still called like early access, multiplayer or something. So this is just when, like theyre putting in the really giant patch to like overhaul the game and add the new maps and add one or two heroes and they showcased um the junker queen one of the new heroes. And but this is just like the pvp side of things um their press release for this, and the announcement here did not mention anything about any single player campaign, content or co op campaign content, which was supposed to be kind of half the basis for overwatch 2. In the first place, so once again, overwatch 2 just seems like a giant patch that caused development on the original game to cease for a couple of years and really caused the playerbase to kind of wither up there um hard to get excited about that honestly.
Just because its a giant pvp update, if it was the single player stuff, i would be kind of more on board for that. But it is not that past that we had a very very short trailer for scorn, which is out in october, still barely have any idea what this game is, and it seems like this would be the time to really kind of do a showcase on that, since Its out in four months uh – and it is one of the only uh holiday games – really coming um. This they had playtale earlier that i kind of skipped over but like that and scoring are like two of the bigger late 2022 games, which theyre not all that big and the gist of the show is like most of the quotes. Huge stuff is coming in 2023.. Um not sure whats, going on with scorm uh, something that will be big, probably is my uh microsoft, microsoft, legends minecraft legends, which is a new action, rpg type game in uh, using micros or using minecraft technology and with its like youre saving the land from block Evil blocks and its going to be huge, like everyone loves, minecraft, im sure that game will do extremely well in the minecraft crowd and a a another positive for a game pass launch there um. I was a little bit caught off guard by uh as as dusk falls. This, like narrative game, that its using a really really weird style of animation, where its like painted actors almost like paintings of actors, and then it kind of like transitioned back and forth between it, its like a storybook essentially, and it makes the character interactions.
Look like its like one frame, a second, its really unique, and yet i found it pretty jarring. So i i dont know im sure the writing could be good and stuff, but the animation stuff. For that really kind of threw me in a weird way – and i wasnt a huge fan of that um. Now we get to one of my very, very big highlights of the show. Okay, look. I maintain everything i said about diablo mortal. I am very mad about how that game panned out uh im mad. I recommended it to people when it ended up being such a blatant cash grab, um in the end game and how they gate xp, and things like that really really upset about that. Still. That said, diablo 4 looks absolutely incredible, um what they they started. With the new debut of the necromancer class thats, the last class uh joining wizard barbarian, uh demon hunter, i dont remember theres five uh and then they showed off a lot of different gameplay talked about the shared world talked about exploration, talked about end game, dungeons. Clearing out areas, world bosses, it looks so good. I i just i really cant get over how brilliantly good it looks um. I was never like a person thats like oh diablo, 3 was too colorful and they lost their way and blah blah, but they clearly really went back to the diablo 2 aesthetic here and it really works. It looks gorgeous.
It looks absolutely fantastic, and the other thing here is that, because this is a within the next 12 months showcase in theory, they just gave us a 2023 date, but in theory that means the game should be out by mid june a year from now so thats Kind of a big deal, because a lot of reporting seemed to indicate that the game was still a couple years away, and that is one year away um. Obviously, this is a project that lost a ton of people due to misconduct or overseeing misconduct, and a lot of things like that, but it seems there are talented people who have stayed around and made this game. Look really good have to believe theyre, not gon na. Do like microtransaction pay to win stuff like immortal in diablo iv. That said, i dont know how much i can trust blizzard now. Ive lost a lot of faith in blizzard, which i dont think is unreasonable. Given the last few years here. That said, this is easily one of my most anticipated games of the next year and everything that was shown here looked gorgeous. I im still kind of reeling from it. Um im like a diablo addict at my core, but just i i saw a lot of positive reaction to that. I dont think so i dont, i dont, think its just me um then we moved into this is towards the end of the show. Now uh wolong uh fallen dynasty from team ninja.
That was a surprise thats something weve, never heard of before thats microsoft, working with team ninja for the, i think its console exclusive im, not im, not sure whats, going on with that exactly but uh it looked really good team mention is obviously very talented. So i am curious to check that out and then they made the announcements that they are partnering with atlas, to bring all the well a lot of the persona games, including persona 5 royale to xbox, and previously that was playstation only so that is a big feather In their cap i think persona 5s coming in the fall im pretty sure they did not announce, theyre buying any japanese developers or anything but um they. That was a pretty big deal and then, in the show, where uh they said that they were going to kind of have the most gameplay footage of theyve ever shown and all the games are going to be without it in a year, uh the exception they made There was for hideo kojima, who is partnering with microsoft, for some unannounced game that he showed up to talk about hes like theres a game. Ive always wanted to make excited to make this game well talk to you later and i mean hes in yokojima, so he can get away with that uh. This might be the the overdose game that was leaked, that could be a code name or the actual game. We also think hes making dust training too, because norman reedus pretty much confirmed that, so he might be doing these simultaneously.
We do not quite know what the exclusivity deal is here. This is like a timed xbox exclusive or whatever this deal is with them. No idea of the genre anything like that, we dont know anything, but we know microsoft is working with kittyokojima in some capacity and thats enough to get a lot of people excited um. Finally, we will end with starfields. I it really did live up to expectations really did blow me away in a lot of ways, namely its scope. I think that is the biggest thing that i was not expecting from this um. They kind of it was kind of like a building reveal, so they just showed at first like oh youre on a planet looks really good. The environment, design, ui design, looks very clean very clearly. They have gone through some some massive engine. You know upgrades and overhauls, and this is like the new standard going forward, all of that looked great uh, and then they moved into kind of story stuff and the different factions. This is where i was like. Okay, definitely, the character models are improvements. Theyre. Definitely like you know, making facial expressions but theyre still doing the like talking to you from one foot away from your face thing: uh, so its not what i would call the most dynamic conversation system, maybe um, and then they show the character creator a little bit And like it looks good and it looks better than passport, does the games, but if theres any area that was like, maybe is, is not quite up to stuff compared to similar games.
This could be it. But then we keep doing reveals and we are starting to get into pretty wild territory. You can make your own base um, like a super sized version of fallout 76s camp system to make your own starship get to fly your own starship around and shoot at other starships. And then the final reveal that this. If this all sounds a lot like no mans sky, its because they pretty much just did no mans sky, but with a giant bethesda budget and team, whereas no mans sky had a much smaller budget, much smaller team at hello games and well. This is not a procedurally generated, infinite universe, they have a hundred systems and a thousand planets that you can fully explore so thats insane um. I have to believe there is some level of procedural generation involved there. I cant imagine your hand sculpting the entirety of a thousand full planets. You can explore so that theres got to be some sort of tech being used there to make it at least a little bit procedural and fill in some gaps uh. But the idea here, its exploration, like you, want to – i actually like this better, because the problem with no mans sky is because its infinite, like you cant, put something unique and special on some planet that literally no one will ever find. So i think what this will end up being is because there is at least a limit of a thousand planets.
This will kind of be community driven would be like. Oh, you got to go to this star and see this thing, because you know one of a million players happened to go to this spot to find it, and i think this is going to you know therell be a you know, huge huge wiki, entries and walkthroughs About the coolest stuff to find in star field and like it it if you know we all loved elder ring because of the exploration of that game was one of the most fun aspects. Youre constantly finding new things, this kind of exploration here if they have buried enough cool secrets in you, know all of these vast planets. That could be very neat as well, and i really like the idea of of a the scope like that. Like these, this kind of true exploration of these planets and systems, but within constraints so its not just totally random and like oh heres, this thousandth crash ship. You find on like a no mans sky planet like great full credit to no man sky. For absolutely being the blueprint here very clearly, this is what inspired a lot of starfield um, but i think with this budget and this at least some constraints in terms of being a fixed number of planets. That really means there can be. You know, in addition to being a layered, you know story driven bethesda game on top of it. This does seem like it could be one of the just biggest games ever not like in sales.
Necessarily i mean maybe sales, but i just mean in terms of like literal size and scope and how much time you can put into something like this like it looks deeply impressive and delay that as long as you want. As long as it comes out right like just, i understand why it takes a long time to make this game so uh you, you do you bethesda and uh, just launch it without a metric ton of bugs please um. So, yes, i was mostly impressed by diablo4 and starfield everything else. Im kind of like whatever about including red phil redfall, well see what happens in the second showcase, but i think most people are going to come away kind of so impressed by what starfield showed off that.
