In the wake of Metroid Dread, Mike & Alex discuss the enduring merits of the decades-old metroidvania progression style. The argument: 2D adventure games with metroidvania progression are innately suitable for developers with limited experience & resources alongside strong artistic abilities & a well-conceived world. Metroidvania also scales well to larger budgets & diverse art styles, potentially even 3D perspective, due to the universality of its conceits. It even encourages remote community participation, a sort of “extrinsic multiplayer”, in wiki culture.
INDIE Live Expo, Japan’s premiere online digital showcase series , will debut never-before-seen games & content updates across more than 100 titles on May 25th.
With all the PlayStation games that are now coming to PC, is it time for Sony to release a dedicated PC launcher?
Unless they are trying to kill their recently created PC business, I would advise against opening a dedicated PC store. It's an extremely hard endeavor, and people, in general, are very comfortable with Steam. Even Epic, with their billions of dollars invested, is still struggling to find a foothold, and they have Fortnite.
Can tell who ever put this together is not all that clued up on pc gaming.
It's just a known fact. The PC gaming community prefer Steam and Steam alone. They don't like different launchers. I personally don't mind them. But majority just stick with steam. Hence why EA and Ubisoft went back to on releasing on steam and why Microsoft release games on steam as people hated buying from the windows store.
The only other launchers that I imagine are doing ok is GOG due to being drm free and epic games due to the free games every week. Sony shouldn't release any sort of pc launcher n
This is just another ridiculous double standard article.
It's like how Microsoft can spend 20 years of making nothing but gaas and live service style games to sell microtransactions, dlc and subscriptions and get praise for doing it, but if Sony wants to make a single game like that every website under the sun is writing articles saying how Sony is anti-consumer or whatever.
"The best games of the year and the creative teams behind them were in the spotlight at the grand award ceremony of the German Computer Game Award 2024." - German Computer Game Awards.
When a game in this genre is tuned well, the power creep of adding features to your character is one of the most rewarding aspects.
Seeing areas that you cant access yet and making mental notes of their location. Easily running through areas that previously gave you a lot of trouble. Gradual escalation of the skill ceiling with the addition of combat and traversal powers. Sequence breaking.
Playing a well-crafted metroidvania can be such a rewarding experience. There’s a reason this style is still around almost 30 years after its inception (using super metroid as the reference).
It seems it is also a style that the big companies haven't quite figured out how to monetize yet. Maybe they dont sell well enough to make it on their radar?
I still feel like Lords of Shadows was the best modern take on the style. Not the second one that game was all over the place not a terrible game but not as good as the first and mirror of fate.
I still don’t agree on the pricing for dread though a lot of its core mechanics are good. I still don’t feel like it’s notable flaws are being acknowledged.
AMEN!