Looks like we’re in for some more “HD-2D”. Gematsu
reported that Octopath Traveler was rated in Korea for PC. With no word on
dates or even a western release.
Octopath Traveler
is the first entry in a brand-new IP from Square Enix. Originally released in
July 2018 for the Nintendo Switch. The game employs a unique graphical style
that is part of its charm and can even be considered its own character in the
game which already has 8 protagonists. The game reviewed well and is loved by
fans of traditional JRPG’s who feel that the game perfectly marries the feel
and look of older games like Chrono Trigger or Xenogears yet also feels
contemporary.
A prequel has been announced Octopath Traveler: Champions
of the Continent and is in development for smartphones. As well as a full-fledged sequel although details on that
one are much more scarce. I personally
sank over 100 hours into the game and am looking forward to a possible PC
release.
Square Enix released the final piece of DLC “Episode Ardyn”
for the long-running series latest entry Final Fantasy 15 this week. The DLC
takes place before the main story of the game and puts you in the shoes of the antagonist of the main game Ardyn Izunia. The bad guy is the star here and
handled properly this can lead to some amazing storytelling.
Marvel’s Avengers Infinity War’s main character is arguably Thanos and it
succeeds in its goal of humanizing the Mad Titan, who we’ve been seeing for
years as nothing but the ultimate bad guy.
Image via Pushsquare.com
Episode
Ardyn, like the other post-game chapters,
develops supporting cast members that were present in the game. The focus
ranged from party members who are with you throughout the majority of your
journey, to the main villain. The problem is a lot of these support characters connections
and relationships to the main character felt forced, or straight up convoluted
and unclear like the main villain’s motives. Plus, this isn’t mentioning the cancelled DLC projects, one for your in-game
fiancé Lunafreya, one for the empires mercenary boss character that joins you briefly and that we will just have to
take at face value that she’s a badass and one for the main character. I don’t
believe you ever see your fiancé during the story aside from a few in-game
cutscenes sequences. It’s kind of hard to sell a love story in almost any
medium when the two people never meet or interact.
Image courtesy of IGN
This DLC however, along with the other expansions that were released, carried much more weight than just bringing more content to the game. These DLC packs had the added responsibility of trying to fix the game’s story. That’s not a common thing in videogames, even in the era post-launch support. Final Fantasy 15’s story required some serious investment when it launched back in 2016, and it wasn’t due to it being expansive. Alongside the base game, a feature film was released taking place a few hours before the game starts. As well as an anime mini-series focusing on the main party of Noctis, Prompto, Ignis, and Gladiolus. While the anime can easily be categorized as world building, as it offers insight into all of the characters. The feature film was an absolute must watch to understand the story. The game was even patched after launch to include scenes from the movie to make sense of some of the early story beats in the game. Perhaps the most egregious offense was the fact that Square Enix, almost a year after the game’s initial launch, added new story elements to specific chapters in the game. While the content could’ve been enjoyed by simply going through Chapter select, it’s the fact that the game had already been on the market for a year and people had already played it and moved on. I played through the game at launch and even platinumed the game on PS4. I enjoyed it but shortly after is when news broke that an update would come to Chapter 12 (a section of the game notorious for being dull and grinding the pacing of the game to a halt). The chapter was going to be reworked to not be as dull and to add new story elements. The game felt like it was in a never-ending post-launch reworking.
The games laundry list of issues can possibly be attributed to its development woes. FF15 had an abnormally long development cycle of 10 years, being first announced way back in 2006 as Final Fantasy 13 Versus. The game finally released in 2016 having missed its target platform of PS3 and moving on the newer generational hardware PS4 & Xbox One. It also saw a director change in 2013, seeing Tetsuya Nomura leave the role of director and having Hajime Tabata step in and finish the game under his guidance. Hajime Tabata stayed in that role for 5 years, announcing his departure from Square Enix as a whole during an official company live stream in 2018. His leaving coincided with a company initiative to have Luminous Productions (the internal development studio responsible for FF15) switch focus to large-scale, high-quality AAA game titles. This is when all remaining DLC for FF15 were canceled, except for Episode Ardyn which was already in production. This is also around the time that Square Enix became notorious for announcing games very early in the development cycle such as Kingdom Hearts 3, announced in 2013 and finally released in 2019. As well as the Final Fantasy 7 Remake, a game fans have been wanting for years, announced in 2015 which still has no tangible release date and the current memes on the internet have it as a release for 2021 at the earliest.
Hajime Tabata
When a games-as-a-service launches, such as The Division 2 or Anthem, it’s
a balancing act of the quality of the available content to the quantity of the
content. Now those are open-world looter shooters but there’s a connection here
to FF15. Games like these that launch with solid mechanics but lite on content
get seasons or DLC roadmaps promising more content for you to play on top of solid
foundations of gameplay and story/lore. The ones that have bad foundations get
shuffled to the bottom of the list and if they’re lucky maintain a small but dedicated fanbase. In FF15’s case, it’s not supposed to be an ever-evolving world, it’s about the story being
told. All of the released DLC was meant to fix the quality of the original story.
A common complaint is that games-as-a-service types get more to do over time
and early adopters feel a little burned that they paid full price for less
content. My complaint with FF15 is the story got better over time and as an
early adopter, I paid full price for an inferior story.
Imagine buying a painting and hanging it up in
your living room but the artist wants to come back every week or so to make
some changes. That how this game feels. FF15 is the first time I ever felt
burned by a video game. I hope to revisit the game someday and experience the changes that were made. The game was released
on PC a little over a year after it released on consoles with a lot of changes
baked in, making this version a much more complete package. The Final Fantasy
franchise is a foundation of gaming history and I have fond memories of some of the earlier entries. Here’s hoping that
one day they can return to their former glory.
Looks like Nintendo is looking to refresh the Switch
line-up. Per a
report by the Wall Street Journal, sources close to Nintendo say that the
company is preparing to possibly launch two new models of the Nintendo Switch.
One aimed at the dedicated fan-base and one aimed for the more casual video
gamer.
The Nintendo Switch was never meant to compete with the current gen powerhouse consoles, such as the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. With the new generation of consoles on their way and the Switch already behind, the gap is only going to get wider. This could be Nintendo’s response to that disparity. Give the Switch a spec bump to entice gamers that have already purchased a Switch to pick up the “new and improved” version. If this “Nintendo Switch Pro” would offer better framerates, higher native resolution or added functionality it might be enough to convince people that picking one up would be worth the investment. My wish-list is modest and I personally would like to see a bigger screen. Nintendo games have never required top of the line graphical fidelity or industry defining performance, although they do care about these factors. Nintendo games are just fun, they know that and develop around that. If there is a better way to enjoy the experiences the Switch offers, I’d be interested to see what that is.
The “Nintendo Switch Lite” is to me
the more interesting of the two. The 3DS, Nintendo’s previous hand-held device just
finished its final lap. As of December 31st,
2018, Nintendo
reported that the 3DS has sold 74.84 million units. With Nintendo going on
record and saying that 3DS sales are falling
faster than expected and no
big 1st party game releases slated for the remainder of the year.
It looks like and is safe to say the 3DS has had a great run. The “casual” Switch
refresh is looking at taking up some of the market
that the 3DS is leaving open. The Switch is already a great handheld machine,
but Nintendo has never shied away from calling it a home console first. This
new model would be a great way of replacing the portable only 3DS as well as
offering up a device that families with multiple kids can benefit from. My
nephew and nieces each have a 3DS, replacing all of them with Switches is a
steep ask for any parent and/or videogame loving
uncle. This may be the answer to that. My only hope for this one is that the
price has to be just right and that it be compatible with the dock (even if it doesn’t
bring it included).
The WSJ article states that the
plan is to release these 2 models later this year. Which makes sense with the Pokemon Sword & Shield games
slated for late 2019. Lowering the barrier to entry for what is usually a
franchise that moves hardware would be a smart move as the Switch enters its 3rd
year in the market. If these redesigns are real it’s likely we’d hear about
them at Nintendo’s E3 conference in June, along with the software line-up that
Nintendo has for the remainder of the year. With some heavy hitters on their
way, as well as a possible hardware refresh, Nintendo shows no signs of slowing
down on the Switch hype. Looks like it’s going to be another big year for the
Switch.
Usually when two companies compete the winner is the customer. That’s what we’ve been led to believe. One company having unrivaled dominance of the market leads to stagnation in innovation. There’s no need to evolve because nothing will take my spot away. It’s a very comfortable position and train of thought to be in. Which is why competition is necessary, but competition to get your business can be a brutal battlefield.
This recently boiled over into the
digital storefront market of PC gaming in an interesting and unique way. Steam
which has been the top dog in digital
distribution was standing as king of the hill with little to no competition. Sure,
there’s uPlay, Origin, Battle.Net and a few others but these are mostly
publisher owned and operated storefronts for their own products and a handful
of curated other games if even that.
Digital marketplaces being bankrolled by companies that could afford to set-up
shop in their corner of the internet, peddle their own wares and avoid the
behemoth that is Steam.
Image courtesy of gamewatcher.com
Enter Epic Games, the scrappy
underdog in this fight. Epic Games, founded in 1991 by Tim Sweeney, up until
recently has been involved in a very different sphere of the video game world.
They’ve been busy making games and making the tools that make games. They are
responsible for making the Unreal Engine, one of the predominant video game
engines that developers are using this generation. Everyone from Nintendo with
the recent release of Yoshi’s Crafted World on Switch to Square Enix’s recently
released Kingdom Hearts 3 run on the Unreal Engine. The Unreal Engine is also
used in-house for Epic’s own games, the Unreal series, Gears of War back on the
Xbox 360, and Paragon which was canceled
back in April of 2018.
Fornite, Epic’s most recent game,
has been a runaway money train. The game breaks down into 2 modes, Save the
World and Battle Royale, the latter being the money printer. The success of
Fornite Battle Royale is what has allowed Epic to branch out in the ways that
they are. In July of 2018, they announced
that any Unreal asset makers will have a retroactive rebate due to them
changing the fee structure for the Unreal Engine marketplace. Previously at a
70-30 split Epic Games changed compensation structure to 88-12 and backdated it
to 2014. And in December of 2018, they
announced that throughout 2019 they would be rolling out a framework that would allow developers to enable
cross-platform support in the game they’re making, all for free.
Image courtesy of ghacks.net
In December they also announced the Epic Games Store, entering the fight to wrest control away from Steam as the de facto place to buy digital PC games. Announced December 4th, 2018 just two days before the Game Awards. They came out of the gate swinging with an unprecedented and revolutionary revenue share model that divided up everything 88-12. 88% going to developers/publishers and 12% going to Epic Games. A much more enticing reason to publish your games with Epic as opposed to Steam and deal with a 70-30 split. For gamers, they had another way of enticing us into the store. During the Game Awards ceremonies, many trailers were shown for exciting new games that were branded Epic Games Store exclusives. Games like Hades, a rogue-like from Supergiant Games, Ashen, Rebel Galaxy Outlaw and Super Meat Boy Forever were announced and only available from the Epic Games Store and the list has only grown since then. This past week at GDC, Obsidian’s highly anticipated space-RPG The Outer Worlds and Remedy’s 3rd person action adventure game Control switched over to Epic. The store currently has about 37 games that are unique to its platform.
While I am excited for a few of the games exclusive to the Epic Store, I’ve yet to feel compelled to actually purchase one. As a gamer, exclusives are nothing new and it’s something that we’ve all been dealing with for years. If you game primarily on PC there are some console exclusives you miss out on. Even as a console gamer it’s possible to run into exclusivity issues, be it from another console platform or a PC exclusive. I will say this, exclusives aren’t fun and using that as your sole reason to entice users to your store definitely leaves a little to be desired. While exclusives are fair, don’t just make the Epic Games Store the only place to get these games, make it the best place to get these games. For a store that is still in its infancy, it has a lot of ground to cover to stand up to its 15-year-old competitor. Here’s hoping that Epic Games Store matures into a worthy competitor because they have a long and winding road ahead of them. It’ll be interesting to see if they can shake up the game enough to take the fight to Steam.
Gaming is fun! We all know that, it’s why we love it so much. For PC gamers, sometimes where you play your games can be turned into a game itself. The never-ending hunt to keep your frames high and your temperatures low. Recently Nvidia launched their Turing RTX line-up of desktop graphics cards. RTX was announced last August at Gamescom 2018 and started shipping in September of that year. The RTX cards were meant to replace the Pascal GTX cards which launched back in 2015.
As with any launch of a new product, there were a few hurdles. One of the challenges the new RTX cards faced at launch was pricing. The highest end consumer card for the RTX line, the 2080ti, launched at a suggested MSRP of $999. This was $300 more than the highest end consumer card for the GTX line, the 1080ti. Continuing down the line of announced RTX cards the 2080, 2070 and 2060, they were all markedly more expensive than the counterparts they were replacing. This was met with some criticism from the PC Gaming community. While some people are totally fine with the suggested MSRP on some of the cards, others thought the performance to price ratio worked against the cards favor. Even more so when the cards were compared directly against the cards of the previous generation. The GTX line-up just showed to get you more bang for your buck, and the community voted with their wallet. Nvidia reported a 45% drop in gaming revenue, citing lower than expected sales of their RTX cards. With RTX being the flagship product, and Nvidia ending production of GTX cards, it’s apparent that RTX cards are the cards of the future whether the masses like it or not.
Which is why it’s surprising that during GDC 2019, Nvidia announced that ray tracing was coming to older GTX cards (GTX 1060 6gb and higher) via a driver update in April. One of the main features of the RTX cards is the presence of the RT cores, which allows for dynamic lighting, shadows, and reflections on levels previously not possible. This feature is known as real-time ray tracing.
Unreal Engine Real-Time Ray Tracing Demo
On RTX cards, the RT cores do all the work. Enabling ray tracing features does have an impact on game performance, but there is dedicated hardware for ray tracing. However, on GTX cards there are no RT cores. This means ray tracing will need to be done on the shader cores, a component that is already used in many of the graphics functions of the card. GTX cards are about to be put to work.
Image courtesy of Nvidia
Nvidia has a reason for making our cards work over-time. The goal in magically backporting this feature is to capitalize on the current install base of the GTX cards. As of writing, per the most recent Steam hardware survey, RTX cards make up 1.11% of the cards being used to access Steam, while GTX cards make up for 41.18%. This is a huge difference. Adding ray tracing to a game hopefully looks more appealing to developers since instead of adding a niche feature, now a sizeable portion of the gaming community will be able to access ray tracing. Coupled with updates to popular game engines such as Unreal Engine 4 and Unity to better support ray tracing, hopefully, this means we’ll see an increase in the adoption of this next-gen feature.
The patch goes live in April, we’ll have to wait and see what type of real-world performance we can expect. I’m cautiously optimistic to see how this performs on my GPU (I’m using a 1070ti), but I’m going in expecting this to be a feature that gets activated depending on the type of game that I’m playing. If this has the outcome that Nvidia wants and more devs add real-time ray tracing, story-driven narrative games that focus on expansive and beautiful worlds will get an opportunity to augment environmental story-telling in new and exciting ways. While my next GPU upgrade is still a ways away, I’m glad I get to dip my toes into the latest tech features that are available. I’ll update this article once the driver is out and I give it a spin.
The Google empire is gearing up to tackle gaming head-on. A few days ago, a mock-up for a controller made the rounds on social media. The render was based on a patent Google filed in January of 2019. While the inputs on the controller look familiar if you’ve played videogames within the last 10 years (2 joysticks, a d-pad on the left, 4 face buttons on the right and a set of bumpers and triggers) there are some noticeable standouts. Mainly the start/select combo is replaced with the familiar home and menu buttons from older android devices. In the center of the controller is a rather large Google button which typically works as a home button on other controllers, it’ll be interesting to see what type of function is mapped here. And in a surprising twist, there appears to be a button to activate the Google Assistant, found typically in Google Home device as well as most Android phones. There also appears to be a USB-C charging port. While there are definitely some new additions to the controller, the core inputs remain unchanged from your typical PS4 / Xbox / or Nintendo Controller. Why fix what isn’t broken?
Luckily it doesn’t look like we’ll have to wait long to find out new information on the controller either. Google has sent out invites for a press conference on March 19th during GDC 2019. While we don’t know officially what’s being announced until the day of the event, it’s easy to guess that the announcement will focus heavily on Project Stream and where it will go in the future. Be it an actual hardware console you connect to your TV, or a service you can sign-up for and pay a monthly fee a-la-Netflix to play any game you want from your browser. It’s apparent that Project Stream is Google’s entry into the video game space.
Project Stream was a beta service that ran from October 5th through January 15th, that allowed you to play a copy of Ubisoft’s Assassin’s Creed Odyssey within your Chrome browser. Regardless of what type of processing power your device had, be it a $100 Chromebook or a beastly $2000 gaming PC, you were able to play the latest installment in the Assassin’s Creed franchise by literally just plugging in a controller to your computer via USB and visiting the Project Stream web-page on your internet connected device. Even more impressive than getting it to run on any laptop or desktop computer (mobile version of Chrome was not supported in the beta if it will in the full release remains to be seen) is the fact that latency and lag were kept to a minimum. In my short time with the demo, on a computer with an approximate 100mb connection, I didn’t experience any significant slow-downs or delays. The game was playable and enjoyable. While that in no way says that it was issue free, the fact that the game ran smoothly and didn’t stop every 5 minutes to buffer or have 5 – 10 seconds of input delay speaks volumes to how optimized the tech is that Google has.
Google’s not the only one who’s putting their eggs in the “streaming video games” basket either. Sony has their own version known as PlayStation Now, available on both PS4 and PC. Microsoft recently announced xCloud, which’ll be their offering. And in Japan Nintendo has experimented with offering timed access to certain games such as Resident Evil 7 and again Assassin’s Creedy Odyssey, directly to Nintendo Switch. Neither of those games are available in the west (streaming or otherwise) or even offered to play locally on the Switch.
I’m really excited about this tech and the possible applications that this will mean for gaming in regards to accessibility. However, not everyone has access to a gaming pc hooked up via ethernet to a 100mb connection. Some people have way less speed and stability on their devices, and this may not be an option for everybody. Optimization of network code will only get Google so far. If the infrastructure isn’t in place in rural or remote areas, there may be some customers who are left behind with this direction the gaming industry seems to be going in. Hopefully, Google has taken this into consideration and is prepared to make gaming history.
It’s a great time to be a gamer, especially if you’re a fan of any IP owned by Capcom. One of the very first games I owned was Mega Man 3 on the NES and I still remember jotting down the battleship-like password after spending an afternoon trying to beat Gemini Man. Another Capcom IP, Devil May Cry, just released its 5th entry on Friday and it’s doing pretty well for itself. Devil May Cry 5 (DMC5) is currently sitting at about 87 on Metacritic on average between the 3 available versions that released (PS4, Xbox One and PC). The game is getting great reviews and many fans are considering it a true return to form for the series that’s been dormant without a mainline entry since 2008’s Devil May Cry 4. The game is currently Capcom’s second most successful Steam launch, right after Monster Hunter World, even beating out the recent beloved remake of Resident Evil 2.
With this release, Capcom is book-ending a busy 13-month period full of high profile, critically acclaimed releases, which started back on January 26th, 2018 with Monster Hunter World (MHW) for the PS4 and Xbox One. MHW marked the first time the series found itself on home consoles after being a heavy hitter in the portable handheld game for a few years. Its success was well deserved and a long time coming as they put forth the effort and care required to translate one of their most popular franchises for a completely different market. They didn’t stop there. They released a new mainline entry in the Mega Man franchise which hadn’t received a mainline entry since 2010’s Mega Man 10, remastered Onimusha: Warlords the series had disappeared since 2006’s Onimusha: Dawn of Dreams, remade Resident Evil 2 from the ground up for modern consoles, as well as releasing collections for Mega Man X, and Street Fighter, as well as announcing a Phoenix Wright collection. They’ve been busy.
However, they’re not just looking to cash in on our nostalgia. While some of the releases are better than others, the majority were well received and solid entries to dormant franchises we thought that Capcom had long-forgotten. They took the time to listen to their customers and treated these franchises with respect and care. PC gamers alone are being treated to heavily optimized games that run great across a whole range of hardware along with a collection of visual settings that allow them to fine tune the game down to the last miniscule details, which isn’t always the case. The games are critical and financial successes and they’re being met with praise from the community for their efforts.
Although, it’s not hard to remember a time where Capcom was on the complete opposite spectrum of where they are now. For the past few years, games like Marvel vs Capcom: Infinite, Resident Evil 6, or Dead Rising 4 were met with lackluster sales, troubled launches, poor reviews, and some games were outright canceled (I’m still super salty about Mega Man Legends 3). Sales expectations were constantly being adjusted and lowered to fit in line with the actual sales numbers. During this period if a game did well, it was the exception, not the norm. With high-ranking executives like Keiji Inafune jumping ship and the shutting down of studios like Capcom Vancouver, at the time it was easy to consider Capcom a fallen giant. Many Capcom fans (myself included) were left wondering, what’s going to happen to our favorite games?
If you’ve played a recent Capcom game you know that the company is currently experiencing a resurgence. As a long-time fan, I’m currently playing through Mega Man 11 for the 2nd time and while not the greatest Mega Man game (looking at you 6), it reminds me of playing Mega Man 3 as a kid. While I did skip MHW, I played Resident Evil 2 Remake and when I wasn’t running from Mr.X I found myself enjoying scavenging for bullets, or trying to take down 1 zombie in a hallway only to have him stand up again 2 minutes later. It was terrifying but it was great. I definitely plan on checking out DMC5 even though I haven’t played a DMC game before, I’ve always been interested and this seems like a good jumping on point. If you’re a newcomer to the series like myself there is a history of Devil May Cry video you can watch from the main menu of the game to bring yourself up to speed with the story. They’ve shown recently that care and effort go along way and I’m glad to see it applied to the release of DMC5 as well. Setting aside recent praise and personal bias I will never buy a Capcom game just because Capcom made it, always wait for reviews and do your research before buying a game.
Leonardo DiCaprio’s famous line from Django Unchained sums it up best:
I’m excited to see what surprise Capcom has for us next.
Save Point: Luna 