I'd really be curious to know wtf some of these regulators are actually doing on a day to day basis. Like, how do some of y'all, especially in smaller markets, need a million fucking years to look at something that has really had all the pertinent information out there for ages now. It makes you look so incompetent.

The German mythos of our Beamtenstatus spread around the world it seems

You know, Sony could just sign that agreement and all this goes away.  I am sure Sony doesn't want any of their laundry shown to the public so this is a pressure tactic on MS to get them to just go away.  Once the CMA and EU drop their decision, if they pass the deal I am sure there will be no need for Sony to continue on this journey and they will back out.  Once that happen, the FTC case is pretty much done.

Less cringe than some of the earlier IGN gameplay for Redfall

I feel personally attacked!

I’m really thinking the game will review better than many are anticipating. 

But he ain't wrong tho

This weird expectation this game is going to be bad because of what? No performance mode and always online? Last I checked, neither of those are features that should make or break a game. No respected reviewer should blast the game based on those reasons except if the game runs like crap in quality mode. There are a dozen other things that are way more important.

It's looking to be a really tough one to predict imo. Back at the preview event, the reception was mostly positive, lots of people praising the world design, the story, and the 4 playable characters. Gameplay was a bit more divided with some saying the combat felt slow, others that the game felt poorly balanced for solo play (the preview event was solo play only, IGN were the first to get to use Co-op in this new preview), and others felt like the open world activities could begin to get repetitive in the full game. PC Gamer was by far the most negative of the outlets invited to the preview event, they had criticism for just about everything, said the art style lacked something compared to Arkane's earlier games, said the combat felt too easy and the enemies too dumb, called the story fairly bland, said the world felt empty; their preview was titled something like "Redfall feels like a sad stumble", and insinuated that the game bears the scars of a troubled development cycle caused by Covid and Arkane struggling to design a game that can achieve mainstream success, after Dishonored 2 and Prey each had an underwhelming commercial performance.

Then since that preview event, we learned about the 30 fps only on launch. I look for that to cost them with any developers who care about technical performance and factor it into their scores. 

So I do think we will see a fair few good reviews, just like with the previews. However, I'm fully expecting a low review from PC Gamer as well as any other outlets who hold a similar opinion, as well as any technically oriented outlets docking some point for the 30 FPS. Overall I think the game still has a chance at an 80+ average, but I'm not optimistic for anything over low 80's, which is why my prediction in the league is at 81 right now.

Yeah my thought is, if the game turns out to be crap, that’s not something a 60fps patch is gonna fix Arkane has yet to let us down and I don’t think they’ll start here. We’ll find out soon enough!