As much as Infinite is finally heading towards a better place, man does this video remind you how bad 343 has handled the franchise and how much of a juggernaut Halo once was. 

I'm enjoying it! Very much a slow burn game, but it's nice to kick back and relax from the action games I've been playing like Halo and CP2077 lol. Just from a gameplay perspective though. Pentiment tackles some VERY dark and heavy subject matters! 

My only "criticism" I'd have for the game is MnK controls suck lol. My daughter accidentally broke my controller last week and I haven't had a chance to get a replacement, so I've been having to play exclusively with MnK for all games, but, controls are very confusing. You would think regular left/right movement on the keyboard then use your mouse to click on text choices or a spot to investigate. WRONG! There's 2 different control schemes for the game. Either you only use your Mouse or you only use your keyboard. You can't mix the two because the control scheme completely changes back and forth lol.

It's pretty clear the game was designed with controller in mind. Working on getting that issue sorted soon though! 

The full interview is actually with Josh Sawyer and Adam Brennecke.

- Adam says Grounded was in development before acquisition, it was something the studio wanted to do for a while (make a survival game) so there was already a lot of backing and easier to pass upper management, they did inform Xbox though and Xbox was very supportive, told them to just keep doing it.

It wasn't the same for Josh, he says he started thinking about Pentiment around the end of Deadfire, around the time Microsoft acquired them he thought this game would be very well suited to Game Pass. He asked Feargus if he could take the opportunity right when they were acquired and asked him to have faith and he would keep the scope very focused.

Xbox was aware that the project existed, but they didn't show anything to Xbox until after the vertical slice. When they showed the game and talked about it, Xbox was very enthusiastic and very supportive, at every stage they've been very supportive.

For Josh it's easier to pitch something now due to Game Pass, he is very glad for Game Pass but it's reasonable to look at the trade-offs. Adam doesn't think it will change anything for him.

Josh says he never would have proposed making Pentiment without Game Pass, he doesn't think it would have been possible, the old mentality of publishers and developers is generally focused on larger teams, larger investments for higher ROI. He talks about the fact that Obsidian is over 200 employees, he's the Studio Design Director, been at the company for over 15 years, asking to take some of their most experienced developers to work on a low investment project.

He says even if his boss was supportive, it would have been difficult to get a publisher to pick it up.

He has completely shifted his thinking for this title, it's for a small audience that as long as that small audience is into it, that is fine. There's a lot of relief being under Xbox and under the Game Pass model.

- Deadfire reviewed well, did not sell well which was devastating but he states it sold well in the long term.

- Adam says he thinks because they are under the Xbox family a lot of pressure to hit deadlines is gone. Xbox family gives them flexibility and time. He has been with Obsidian his entire career and says they try their best to never have any sort of crunch culture at the studio, it's something they've been strongly against and do their best to fix it but sometimes they can't because it's out of their hands but now they have a lot more room under Xbox.

- Loved Josh's comment that nobody is too valuable, he says he has never met a single person no matter how talented they are that they can get away with being abusive, he would rather not work with that person ever again than allow it to happen and there is a worshipful attitude towards the big figures in the industry.

Episode 523 - The Year of the Narrative Banger Continues with 'Pentiment' | Waypoint Radio on Acast

Bethesda finally came out with a statement on the id Software/Mick Gordon issue. Marty came out with a public statement on Reddit though.........

...Why...Why...Why.

Marty was the one who released a public statement which led to damaging consequences for Mick and led to that whole Reddit incident, now Mick has finally responded with an extremely detailed account of events along with actual evidence and Bethesda thinks it's a good idea to post a response which can be basically summed up as "Na-uh"

It sounds like it may go to court but the statement on itself is an awful response when it comes with no evidence.

Have to wonder if the reason that Bethesda provided absolutely zero evidence in response to Mick's claims except from "trust me bro" is because they know Mick can't afford to take it to court, not against a billion-dollar company with dozens of lawyers. Bethesda has a history of suing and threatening court against people for ridiculous reasons because they know they won't fight it.

I also don't like them low-key trying to blame Mick for the abuse their employees have received, Mick straight up said multiple times that he wants no abuse directed towards Bethesda and that he has a positive experience working with the vast majority of Bethesda, it was mainly Marty that he had issues with, nowhere did Mick attack the ID Software team at large.

No response would have been better than this response because even after a week nobody was talking about this anymore and the damage to Bethesda would have been almost non-existent. Now Bethesda is back in the spotlight with zero evidence, everyone is talking about it again, Bethesda is going to be called out for not providing evidence and criticised even further.