Man, Skywind and Skyblivion both look great, really wish that Bethesda would do some official remakes for some of their older games like Morrowind, Oblivion, and Fallout 3.

Kingdom Hearts Diary Day 30: Take back what I said. I'm now in shit hole San Francisco for some reason. F Kingdom Hearts, glad I'm almost done with this poverty franchise on Xbox.

So Im like 2 hours into Redfall and I kinda sorta like it? Am I crazy?

I definitely feel like Bethesda/Zenimax had a major identity crisis last gen. Their singleplayer games, which they were known for, weren't selling quite as much as they had hoped, and so they got the crazy idea to try and work multiplayer into their games to try and boost their revenue with GaaS microtransactions. We ended up with Fallout 76, Wolfenstein Youngblood, Deathloop, and Redfall each having varying degrees of multiplayer integration, and each ended up disappointing many fans of each of the series/developers. It definitely feels like Redfall was a part of that Zenimax multiplayer push from mid-late last gen, even though it released much later than the other 3 did, we know it started development in mid 2018, before Fallout 76 and Wolfenstein Youngblood had released and subsequently underperformed both commercially and critically. Feels like by the time those 2 had released and flopped they felt like Redfall was too far along to cancel it, so they just redesigned it to remove the microtransactions and tried to increase it's singleplayer appeal, but to no avail. 

Arkane in particular really suffered under Zenimax leadership it feels, Dishonored 2 and Prey didn't sell as well as Zenimax had hoped, so Dishonored 3 ended up getting rushed out too early as Dishonored: Death of the Outsider (a mistake of a game as killing off the Outsider too early will complicate making future Dishonored games). Then Zenimax ended up cutting the budget they had to work with on Deathloop and Redfall, which lead to cost cutting measures like dropping their internal Void engine, artificially lengthening Deathloop with it's time loop mechanic, and cutting corners on the graphics on Redfall via mediocre texture work and lots of reused assets sprinkled throughout.

Arkane I feel will really benefit from being under Xbox moving forward. Before their games needed to meet Zenimax's rather high sales expectations, but thanks to Gamepass a proper new Dishonored or Prey game could be made by them, without cost cutting measures, since the goal is now Gamepass players rather than high full price sales like it was under Zenimax, and we know those games will pull in big player counts. Arkane needs to return to what their fans love about them, immersive sims.

I doubt it's as bad as the twitter fanboys are making it out to be, to be honest. Haven't played it yet, but so often when games get this panned, years later they become cult classics. 

Game already had a lot of bias against it with the 60 fps and while I'm sure there are criticisms that is deserved such as lack of focus and tech issues, I don't see it being as bad as like a 4.. 

If they do go back to there roots and give us an immersive sim, we are looking at what earliest end of this gen release? Just seems like this gen for MS is almost a write off at this point and just needs a strong finish to give them even a shot at competing  next gen 

Well, Arkane Lyon should definitely release something else this gen. They released Deathloop in 2021, so I would imagine their next game will be out by 2026 at the latest. The question is, what will that game be? A sequel to Deathloop, a new Dishonored, a new IP? The 1 year update for Deathloop added a new epilogue scene which teased a sequel, though with the timeloop broken I would assume said sequel would be more of an immersive sim and less of a roguelike, and since Deathloop is set in the Dishonored universe but about a century afterward, would they even bother to call it Deathloop 2 since the loop mechanic would be dead, or would they just make the sequel to Deathloop a new Dishonored game since it is set in the Dishonored universe? Or will they make a new Dishonored game set much earlier in the timeline than Deathloop 2 would be set, say 20 or so years after Dishonored 2 in the late 1800's? Or will they make a new IP?

Arkane Austin, their next game is definitely looking to be next-gen Xbox territory around about 2028 I'd guess. Hopefully they make a new Prey or a new immersive sim IP next.

Deathloop 2 would take a huge budget to make a proper sequel, and did it even sell that well? I know it was critically acclaimed but dunno about sales numbers. they are at a weird spot now it seems, a new GOOD ip would be a nice shot in the arm and give confidence back in the studio and peoples perception of MS management if a new ip was a hit and good. 

I just wonder what happens next. Aaron en Phil will probably just pretend the game is fine etc on social media, but surely some discussions will be held internally.

I disagree with this, they should've delayed until 60fps was ready and it would've helped. Maybe not with review scores but who cares about those. But smooth and pleasant gameplay could make it a game pass hit like Outriders (which scored better than Redfall, I find that odd). This negativity around 30fps isn't helping and I'm sure because of it plenty players will think gameplay just doesn't feel right.

I've got my eye on you buddy.