Deliver Us Mars developer Keoken Interactive has laid off the majority of its staff after struggling to secure funding …
According to Housemarque, Returnal marks the beginning of a "new future" at the studio, and is the game that them to join Sony.
Returnal was fantastic, and I'm looking forward to seeing what these folks create with Sony in the future.
They make some fun arcade styles games. Returnal is one of the best games so far this generation. I wonder what is next
returnal is easily one of the most underrated games this gen. a lot of people with ps5s dont know it exists.
From GameWatcher: "Embracer has shut down Pieces Interactive, the studio that recently developed the Alone in the Dark Reboot for PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X/S.
Pieces Interactive, acquired by THQ Nordic in 2017, worked on the Titan Quest franchise. Its most recent game, Alone in the Dark, received mixed critical reception at launch but was improved with subsequent patches."
Like we did not see this coming. Pieces and Alone in the Dark, had a kick me sign on their back the entire dev cycle to release. Perfect example of not reading current market trends, bad forecasting, marketing and release.
Why is it the perfect example?? It was actually one of the few games that did all those things well. In fact considering the current environment in the industry it actually did all those things very well.
The problem was the game itself was just rough around the edges and that’s the problem we currently have in the industry it’s hard to release something like that when everybody wants perfection and the developer and publisher doesn’t have enough to pay off all the reviewers.. it has a large cult following and had potential to be exactly what survival horror fans have been crying out for while they were waiting for silent hill 2. Don’t see what market trends and forecasting has anything to do with it at all. I don’t remember it fighting in its release window either.
Alone in the Dark would've gained more praise if it released in 2022, well before Alan Wake II and other horror projects
The demo they released a while back didn't leave a good impression, and it seems like they were riding far too much on Jodie Comer and David Hayter to be the driving force to buy the game. They're both great actors, but their performance on this game from what I've seen felt very stiff/forced - like they were out of their comfort zones. It's a shame to see another studio closure, though, and I hope the people effected (affected? I always get it wrong) can find more work soon.
Embracer's takeaway from this will probably be that they should focus on live service games.
Astro Bot launches later this year
Day one buy ..
Too bad most devs do not take advantage of the controller’s haptics
exclusive features like those featured by the Dualsense will only be maximized by Sony's own team, sadly. And they definitely need to do it or it will become an afterthought by the end of this gen with other devs not bothered taking advantage of the unique features. that's exactly the problem with the PS Vita. not enough devs (not even Sony's) are willing to push the envelop when it comes to its features passed the launch period. games like Uncharted GA which uses the Vita to its full capabilities are almost non-existent. even the power is underutilized.
They're struggling with putting out a finished game let alone implementing exclusive features.
How are games like Horizon Forbidden West, Demon Souls, Ratchet & Clank, Spider Man, God of War Ragnarok, Returnal, Sackboy A Big Adventure and such unfinished?
They did a great job with the demo version I would guess with all this time they really push it now. Unfortunately nobody else does it. It really can make a big difference in immersion but it isn’t used beyond rumble , speaker and the touchpad as a button
Steering with the controller in GT7 is a game changer.
I've since played WipeOut and Project Cars 3 with gyro steering, and also loved it.
Wish more racing games used this feature
The industry model and standards and who's in place to approve/disapprove have changed ^ what Keoken is feeling now is much like the Mobile burst 15 years ago. Expect more to come out of your own finances. Investors are treating games like movies and now (thank$ a lot for involving yourself hollywood) only the big (and money blind) investors get involved, effectively killing a lot of content that would come out with proper non-gate-kept and/or with incentivized funding.
And when you only make a fraction of your games worth on gamepass you suffer
Sorry but i couldn't care less, Deliver us Mars was as woke game as they come, climate change disaster, all female cast plus only a comic relief indian guy (it takes only 5 minutes into the game for the main female character to say how smart she is compared to the guy), evil white guys, ugly females, then add generic gameplay and puzzles (how many times do you have to cut things with a laser for gods sake), you can't change anything in how the events develop so 0 agency in the story, sub par graphics even while using UE4. So well, go woke go broke, that's how it works.
That stinks but with a 68 average critic rating on their games probably made it difficult for people to invest considering there is a bloat of games getting made these days.
You guys will be back with team strength and funding !