Shadow drops are the worst way to release games.

What do you mean!?!? Hifi Rush shadow dropped and I don't remember anything negative happening around that game or it's studio.

I still think that Hi-Fi Rush likely did well enough in key metrics, hence why another publisher was interested in acquiring Tango then immediately spoke about doing a Hi-Fi Rush 2. I still believe that the only reason Microsoft closed Tango was because they needed to cut something and Tango was the only Japanese studio which made it logistically more complicated than others, Mikami had left who was literally the only reason Bethesda acquired them in the first place (Mikami even said he was scared about leaving because he believed the studio would be shutdown if he did) and they had just released a game so it was an easy target for the penny pinching assholes.

I don't think their closure necessarily says that Hi-Fi Rush failed.

But anyway, that's in the past and we don't know for certain. What I will say is that Oblivion Remaster does not need much marketing at all. It could easily shadow drop and do millions, it's The Elder Scrolls after all. Unless it's a broken POS. What I'm more frustrated about is I want to actually talk about it with actually official images and videos rather than a few leaked images not at their full res. I want to talk about all the changes now and since it has already leaked, it's not a shadow drop anymore, it can't be a shadow drop if everyone already knows about it, Lol. Hence why it now makes shadow dropping it dumb, because everyone already knows about it now, the "surprise" of a shadow drop is irrelevant now.

Forza Horizon 5 has surpassed 45 million players since launch. This is up from 40M players in July 2024.

The game launches on PlayStation 5 on April 29.

How many players can it reach with the launch on PlayStation?

[image or embed]

— mauronl.bsky.social (@mauronl.bsky.social) 15 April 2025 at 15:08

It has been fun watching Sea of Thieves and Forza Horizon 5 have a similar amount of players every update but now I feel Forza Horizon 5 will zoom ahead of Sea of Thieves, Lol. Sea of Thieves reported 40m players exactly 1 year ago today, PlayStation has probably put it closer to Forza Horizon 5's 45m but this 45m is before Forza Horizon 5's PS5 release so...Bye Sea of Thieves.

RELEASE SEA OF THIEVES ON SWITCH AND RECLAIM THE CROWN.

I'm happy with Oblivion Remake's graphics, they exceeded my expectations for it, and crucially it looks better than fan made remake in the Skyrim engine, Skyblivion:

Oblivion

Skyblivion

Oblivion Remake

xD

What I appreciate about the Skyblivion mod is how close it sticks to the original games color palette.

Leaked screenshots of the remaster look great still, but not a big fan of how dark it looks. That was one of the big appeals of the original was how brightly colored everything was. As long as it's still the same Obvlivion I loved as a teenager, I'll be more than happy!

I'll have to compare the remaster official gameplay to this when it releases

Forza Horizon 5

• November 2021 - 10M
• January 2022 - 15M
• June 2022 - 20M
• May 2023 - 30M
• August 2023 - 32M
• December 2023 - 35M
• February 2024 - 37M
• July 2024 - 40M
• April 2025 - 45M

Sea of Thieves

• August 2018 - 5M
• January 2020 - 10M
• July 2020 - 15M
• March 2021 - 20M
• October 2021 - 25M
• June 2022 - 30M
• February 2024 - 35M
• April 2024 - 40M

We need an updated Sea of Thieves number but I suspect PlayStation 5 has added an extra few million.

Avowed Thoughts

67 Hours Playtime. 43/50 Achievements. All Side Quests Except 2-3.

Very much enjoyed it and thought it was great. The first-person melee combat is one of (if not the best) for an RPG, it was brilliant fun and is now the bar that The Elder Scrolls needs to hit at minimum. Everything was fun to play with from the swords, to the guns, the grimoire spell casting, it made me want to try out multiple different builds, I wanted to be everything.

Graphics were great and really a looker at times, the performance for me was almost entirely smooth with very little framerate drops on balanced mode. I only encountered a single notable bug in my entire playtime, which was just a side-quest that I couldn't finish in a peaceful manner despite there being an option to do so.

Loved the exploration, I actually wanted to explore ever nook and cranny, find the chests. The verticality to the game was awesome and unexpected to find myself wanting to climb up everything. Loved the level designs of the "open-zone" regions, the vistas were beautiful and the art-style really popped out at times in a beautiful way.

Core story was solid Imo, I took an interest in most of the dialogue and found myself paying attention, I found "The Voice" to be an interesting character whose motivations are understood better overtime and loved my conversations with them, I found myself sympathising with them. It's a solid told story which has made me even more interested in this world.

I would have liked for the other Gods to play a larger role in the story though, like they do in The Elder Scrolls because I find those to be the most interesting parts, I would have also liked to see heavier politics in the story too as in, more involvement from the Aedyr Empire because I want to learn more about them, more involvement from the Rebels, etc.

Choices felt like they had some weight to them and I did spend a lot of time thinking about some choices, only to revert to a previous save on a couple of them, Lol. But still had to think hard about if this is what I want to do, there's a really difficult choice in the later half of the game. There was also a side-quest where I saw the consequences of my choice later and felt like shit. Other choices I questioned if I made the right decision. I liked a few of the heavier tones involved in some side-quests. Deciding to forgive a certain character was a good complex decision, I even found myself agreeing at one point with the obviously bad guys, the Steel Garrote, it felt like the better of two bad choices.

Companions are fine but could have done with more fleshing out, I didn't care for Marius at all and he does improve in his final quest and you understand why he is such a moody dude but by then it's too late to care that much. I liked Kai, Giatta and Yatzil. Giatta was my favourite. Kind of wish Giatta and Yatzil had companion quests even though their stories were woven into the main story itself. Kai's companion quest was well written, but I felt Giatta and Yatzil had the strongest reasons for joining your quests over Kai and Marius who both sort of feel like they came just because.

I think the companions should have been handed out sooner or should have been 1-2 more companions, it would have been cool to have optional companions like the Smuggler at the start of the game or the leader of the rebels, both of these could be more morally grey characters than the rest of the cast who are more clear cut good people.

Loved how easy it was to respec, inventory management was simple, all the QoL things like being able to breakdown in inventory, send to stash wherever you are, makes encumbrance a non-issue, crafting items being weightless, merchants not running out of coin, unlimited stamina outside of game. A lot of the game was simply focused on taking a fun-first approach.

Stealth sucked and there's a lack of enemy variety, the extremely fun combat sort of hides it for most of the game though, I still would have preferred more creatures and doubling down on the fantasy element creature wise, NPCs are a bit too static, I wish they would change up their routines more, have more random dialogue, have different reactions to their environment.

Would have liked deeper customisation and more faction questions, one for the rebels, one for the Steel Garotte, one for the Aedyr, etc. Could have had faction quests for factions in each region too. Honestly it's just because I'm interested in this world now and just wanted more of it.

While playing it, I had "classic Xbox 360" title vibes, like Indiana Jones, it's a title that is just focused on being fun, it cuts out all the extra noise and focuses on its strengths, it's simple and straight to the point, cosy and fun, it knows what it wants to be and with no MTXs or live service shoved in, I had both Oblivion and Mass Effect vibes whilst playing it. But I would describe it as a "Arcade RPG" and agree with others that it's more Mass Effect than Elder Scrolls, it's a narrative/combat focused RPG like Mass Effect way more than a sandbox focused RPG like Elder Scrolls.

Considering this is Carrie's director debut and it went through two reboots, from a multiplayer focused title to a classic Obsidian title, they've managed to set down a very strong foundation that can be built upon for sequels and I very much hope we see more sequels, I am more interested in more Avowed than The Outer Worlds and I liked The Outer Worlds but I find myself now more interested in the world of Eora.

I'd score it around 8.5/10