I was really looking forward to another Arkham style game. Sucks for me that they decided to go in another direction. Doubly bad when that direction (live service co-op) is one I couldn’t enjoy even if I wanted to (and to be clear, I don’t).
So, I don’t get it. Is it going to be F2P and live service like Destiny 2, or do you have to pay for it and it’s live service?
Either way, hard pass on that software model.
I’m pretty confident it’s following closely in the shoes of The Avengers game that came out not long ago, and not in the shoes of any popular co-op game.
I would LOVE to be proven wrong. Rocksteady has (had?) a lot of talent that shouldn’t go to waste.
I doubt any of the devs working on it really wants to.
This game’s existence seems very ordered from the higher-ups. The model seems in tune with that estimate.
I remember when Gotham Knights(game, not the show) and Suicide Squad (game, not the movie) were announced almost back to back. I was more excited about the setting of Gotham Knights, then immediately irked when they made it clear it did not line up with the Arkham story, then immediately completely turned off when they announced it would include a leveling system for the player and enemies since it clearly would not have the feeling of the Arkham series’ combat and was likely to have leveled weapons that have artificially weak feeling impact. Suicide Squad seemed more exciting at the time simply because it sounded more narrative-driven like the Arkham games even though the jump from playing as Batman against the more grounded Batman rogues gallery to literally “Kill the Justice League” sounded extremely jarring and made it seem like the games could not possibly feel like they were from the same development team or storyline. Here we are, years later and I feel very proven right. Neither game so far has sounded even remotely interesting. EXCEPT for the co-op. If Arkham Knight had co-op baked into the game that would have been incredible. That’s all that I wanted from either Suicide Squad or Gotham Knights. Sadly, that’s not what we get.
Destiny 2 wasn’t free when it came out. Those assholes tricked me into paying for that garbage.
Wait, fr?
Yeah, I also paid for Destiny 2 on launch, and then like a year later they went f2p and archived all the original content I paid for. Really, really shitty.
Yes. When Destiny 1 came out, it was famously… an acquired taste. It took many updates to get it to a point where it lived up to its potential. And by the time Destiny 2 was near, Destiny 1 had grown into one of the best games I’d ever played. Then Destiny 2 came out and it was like they completely threw out everything they learned fixing and growing Destiny 1. It was a HUGE step back in almost every respect. A massive waste of money.
And then just to rub it in, they went F2P pretty quickly because that’s what you do when you charge for a live service game and nobody wants to pay for it because it’s crap.
I went back to it a few years later to see how it was because it had seemed to find a following eventually. They completely reworked the beginning off the game to make it almost exactly the same as the beginning of Destiny 1. That’s how they fixed it. They changed it back to what worked in the first place. Pathetic. Insulting. Infuriating.
Destiny 2 killed one of the best games I’d ever played. Then replaced it with a poor imitation whose main advantage was that it was optimized for predatory MTX. Fuck Bungie.
And by the time Destiny 2 was near, Destiny 1 had grown into one of the best games I’d ever played. Then Destiny 2 came out and it was like they completely threw out everything they learned fixing and growing Destiny 1.
Thanks for the reply! I remember reading some stuff from D1 players who were bemoaning the power creep and ridiculous level cap increases with each new installment. They talked about how it felt like a real achievement to max out a character in D1, whereas in D2, you could get to max level in a week.
I never played D1, but I gave D2 a try a few times, and it just never felt like a full game to me. It felt like a demo for a game engine, and I spent a good part of the time going, “Why am I doing this? This doesn’t feel like it matters.” I was never enticed to spend $30+ for the DLCs, so they even failed to create a free experience that drew me in.
Yeah, the biggest issue I had with D2 when it first came out was how disconnected it felt. It never felt like a full world, it felt like you warped into a map and killed some things with no larger goal, just some “kill x things” or “pickup x drops” mini quests. Then you warped back to base and then picked a new zone to warp to for no particular reason.
D1 at least had a story that propelled you forward, including tons of lore (admittedly poorly implemented lore, but it was there!) and secrets and easter eggs. The story and voice acting was one of the big criticisms at the start so it’s one of the things they worked hard on fixing over the life of the game. So it was REALLY off-putting when D2 went back to no story and lore. (And as I said, they decided to fix it by just putting in the story from D1.)
Thinking on it now, Avengers had that same disconnected feel as D2 once you got thru the campaign. I quite enjoyed the campaign but the game stopped being fun after that. Coincidentally right when it started being like D2.
Good old fee-2-play. Not sure how much microtransactiin crap is going to be shoehorned in but they’ve already announced a season pass scheme. They’ve tried to cash in on the Arkham brand history and are promoting it on Steam. The comments are less than happy, let’s just say
I’m really interested for this game to release. I expect it to be a critical failure and a commercial break-even, mostly due to Rocksteady’s (as yet untarnished) pedigree and marketing.
But I also haven’t ruled out that it will be a surprise hit. I didn’t even realize this wasn’t being fully marketed as a live-service game, and who knows, maybe all the hogwash in this article about the “trinity” of gameplay elements and sharing experiences with friends will actually work somehow.
But if it is all the worst things about the live service trend, I do hope it fails for the greater good, all due respect to the individuals who’ve done their best with it.
You think it’ll make money? The Avengers game barely made any money, right? And that was the Avengers. There have been two Suicide Squad movie bombs.
The enthusiast audience who could name Rocksteady already know this thing is radioactive.
You think it’ll make money?
Mainly because of the hype/marketing, but I may be overestimating it. It’s a good point that Avengers bombed, but I do think Rocksteady is a more competent developer than CD (I’m not personally a big fan of their Tomb Raider games).
I also just tend to think anything is possible until it isn’t. It wouldn’t be the first game to buck expectations if it somehow managed to be a hit.
Either way, the fact that this is the only game Rocksteady releases in nearly 10 years will be a deep source of bitterness.
Nah, take a look at the Steam discussions. People are tired of the GaaS shitfest. Rocksteady have tarmished their reputation just by announcing this game.
Live Services, much like their older cousin MMO, are not something people can play multiple of. Each of them takes so much time/money investment that most people who do play them just pick one and stick with it. Making too many of them is a mistake.
