The whole Redfall saga had gotten me thinking about why I have been so disappointed with Xbox recently. I stuck with the brand because the first party output from Sony had gotten so stale/creatively boring/safe. There is so much potential with the MS first party but it’s taken so long for it to coalesce


I think a lot of it has been just how hard it is to upscale studios in the current climate. IIRC, arkane Austin is like 150 developers or maybe even less. By AAA that’s insanely low, and I think the primary reason Redfall is struggling to meet deadlines is the fact that by AAA standards it’s a very small studio.

But this goes to so many other XGS studios. Very few of them were large when Xbox bought them, and a lot of these games have taken an eternity to release because in every instance we have been hearing how the studio has been massively upscaling operations/trying to increase the scope of the games and hire more people

We are still probably years off from Xbox getting close to reaching its potential and to me that’s kind of sad.

Man. This deal has people so enraged, Lol.

How long until someone physically attacks a Senator for talking smack about Sony.

Wish FTC wasn't being a dum dum and we can get this shit over with.

I'm both looking forward to updating the OP and also not looking forward to updating it, Lol.

Going to have to streamline it some more thanks to ABK.

Might have to cut other VGChartz things and just focus on Empire again.

Wish we had Klobrille here to make me some professional banners.

Can't wait for when the deal passes and then the real gerber baby whining can begin.

They gonna form an activist party at this point.  

People have often said a major 3rd party would have no chance at power in America.

But the Democrats and Republicans have came for our games. Now it's time to make our voices heard.

The Gamers Rise Up Party.

Finished The Dark Pictures Anthology: House of Ashes.

Considering quite a few people call it the best in the series, I didn't enjoy it quite as much. It's still way better than Little Hope but better than Man of Medan?... maybe, maybe not. In any case, the formula used in House of Ashes and Man of Medan is almost identical.

Let's start with the positives: The game is quite a bit longer than the previous ones. Also, this time around, there are actual supernatural things happening without some lame ass excuse that explains why nothing of what happened was real. Should've been like that from the first game.

Now on to the bad stuff: They chose the silliest supernatural stuff they could come up with in this game. In Iraq of all places! GTFO!
Characters suck for the most part. Salim is the only real likeable guy (and pretty much the only guy that gets things done).
Gunfights in this game are silly to watch, they never hit each other even when they don't take cover.
Obvious plotholes such as the evil Iraqi general who could've easily killed a defenseless marine but doesn't for some reason even though he was chasing after him (and no he doesn't take him prisoner, he just leaves).

Not too bad but left me a little disappointed. 7.0/10.

To me that's just exciting. And many of the Xbox games past couple of years have been very good to great imo.

If they'd only make sure these bigger games were released with all the important features then we're golden.

I personally liked it more than the first two, though none of the 3 were as good as The Quarry, which they had a much bigger budget for them to work with. Still haven't watched or played the 4th one, not sure how it compares. 

Yup. Xbox 1st party has been pretty creative lately, but it unfortunately flies under the radar because it isn't AAA. You're right it's hard to upscale studios, Arkane Austin only has around 150 employees, heck as I just posted, even Avowed only has "near 100" Obsidian employees on it, so closer to 100 than 200.

Nevertheless, some of these studios acquired have had to double in size, at a minimum, a combination of COVID + An expansion from AA to AAA for many studios + Some of these studios are literally working on their biggest creations ever and for most of them, they literally started only in 2018 or even later, I'm not talking started production in 2018 but pre-production/concept phase.

As I've said before, AAA sequels nowadays take 3 years at a minimum, it's closer to 4-5 years now, new IPs and reboots will take even longer, especially with a team that has to be built up and tackle a global pandemic, problem isn't that these games are taking a long time, it's that Xbox revealed them too early because they were forced into a situation of their own making where they had to inject some positivity into the future.

Yeah, I mean, the quality is no doubt there from their studios, the releases from Xbox owned studios or XGSP from 2020 - 2023.

• Bleeding Edge (66)
• Ori and the Will of the Wisps (90)
• Gears Tactics (83)
• Minecraft Dungeons (74)
• Wasteland 3 (86)
• Battletoads (73)
• Flight Simulator (92)
• Tell Me Why (81)
• Age of Empires II DE (79)
• Psychonauts 2 (89)
• Age of Empires IV (83)
• Forza Horizon 5 (92)
• Halo Infinite (87)
• As Dusk Falls (78)
• Grounded (83)
• Pentiment (86)
• GoldenEye 007 (83)
• Hi-Fi Rush (89)
• Minecraft Legends (73)

Average of 82, a few really drag that score down, Lol. Looking at you Bleeding Edge.

They really need to fix their AAA consistency though, so that they have a AAA title releasing regularly, before they lose a bunch of console sales.

Forza Motorsport and Starfield are almost guaranteed high 80s. Shame Redfall is feeling a bit uh, neglected, I guess, Lol. They need to get together and sort out that release consistency for AAAs but without hurting quality because I think most of us agree that Redfall should be delayed. But it is an inevitably that at some point the studios will be ready and the AAA's will release on a consistent basis.