Like DtD. Concord's attempts at humor feel a decade late and it's a poor imitation of that trend. Most are. GotG made it work. Everyone tried. DtD didn't get the push Concord has and Concord has come out in an era where there are a million Gaas games and so many flop and so many want to be wacky like Overwatch and other tired trends. It's exhausting to see them. Predatory kinds of games. DtD felt like Spike TV/G4/Edgy PS2 era shit maybe 2003-2007 ish. Both are just as cringe-worthy in their own right. Concord is the how do you do fellow kids of that genre.

The GaaS push will go down as one of the biggest (and most expensive) mistakes PlayStation has ever made. Sony should just stick to what they’re good at and stop trying to chase trends, trends that the bar for success in today’s market is near impossible to reach. Hopefully when (not if) they close Firewalk (and let’s be real also Haven) they transfer the devs to other studios instead of just adding to the layout counter for the year.

And if it pulled a Helldiver, the bandwagoners would be boarding the hype train lol. 

Don't get me wrong, I think PS is making loads of mistakes this generation, taking a stab at GAS isn't one of them. 

Much harder said than done, but imagine if SIE is able to figure out and ace the existing GAAS formula, or come up with a new working GAAS formula.

That's why. The rest is mostly just background noise.

If PS has it's constant banger single player (solo) games, as well as consistent enough banger GAAS (online multiplayer) games, then as hard as it is to compete with them already, it'll become next to impossible if they're able to achieve that.

That's just assuming exclusivity as well. Imagine if SNY GAAS games were bangers and made to be multiplatform.

I personally don't want Sony to spend time and money on GaaS, but what I want to know is what is so bad about Concord for it to be thrased this much.

I know a part will always be from console warriors and agenda filled people, but what I can personally see is an overwhelming hate because the game is being called woke.

But is there something wrong with the game itself?

I'm completely sure it lacks, by a lot, the kind of quality from a Naughty Dog game, but to this day there are a LOT of people that hate TLoU2 while having no clue about the game at all.

I'm sure they are not missing a masterpiece like they are with TLoU2 but if being a masterpiece is what it takes for it to even survive this kind of hate campaing if Sony makes a game there is one or more characters that don't fit on this people agenda... yikes!

And they think they are fighting "the woke culture"... while being the whiniest pos that involve their politics distorted view in everything, even if not politic oriented in the slightiest.

It's pretty hard to get a mostly neutral view about the quality of the game right now.

I'd argue just having Helldivers 2 blow up has made Sony's live service pursuit worth it. 

Isn't it rumored that Naughty Dog's next IP has a black character as the lead?

That may be too woke for some gamers!

Don't worry, there's also a rumor that their new game will be first person so maybe people who talk about woke this woke that all the time may not notice the color of the mc skin lol.

So I'm trucking away at the Dreams plat (getting to level 30) and having a good time playing some random stuff people have made. Most notably, I've been spending time with my kid playing Tren, the last game MM made in Dreams. And it really got me thinking about the future of MM and how I honestly believe that future is Tren 2 and Dreams 2.0

One thing about Tren is just how fun a game it is. It's basically a game designed around train sets with levels that are either time-based (fun to a degree) and those that expect an objective to be completed (much better levels). I let my kid do explore mode for the time trials then I finish those off. For the objective ones, they do it themselves.

But Tren really does open up as you go along. After a while you're controlling helicopters, and even a ship. And I can't help but feel that exploring these concepts in a more focussed game would really be very exciting. Even going further would be adding a sim like quality to it where users can have their own city managed by a train system (even busses too), something that can even be level based itself. Adding in a first person view and allowing users to pretend they're driving the train etc I think would be a lot of fun.

But on top of this, one thing Tren has is 2 secret levels dedicated to MM's previous games: LBP and Tearaway. The LBP level is done in 2D, and is essentially a LBP level just using the Tren train structure. it looks the part too and you can even collect the bubbles. The Tearaway level is obviously not replicated gameplay wise, but the look, sound and feel is essentially Tearaway. It's incredible how accurately the game is portrayed. All courtesy of the Dreams engine.

Now, the thing about LBP is that the game and creation were the same thing. And this is true of Dreams as well. I can't help but feel that MM does not need to just let Dreams die: they can keep building upon it as an engine and use it for all their future games, with the creation aspect of their games utilising the engine (just like how LBP did).

In this sense, Dreams as an engine can continue to flourish and receive updates, but the main iterations of the engine requires gamers to buy MM's next game (whether that is a new LBP, Tearaway ,Tren or something new). So for example, Dreams is Dreams 1.0. Whatever game MM makes next can be Dreams 2.0. Whatever comes next is Dreams 3.0. in this way, MM can still continue to make core games, users can still utilize the engine but the 'fee' to continue using version upgrades it the purchase of MM's next game.

There's a lot of benefit to this I feel: the Dreams engine doesn't just fade away. MM continues to make games. The engine can be ported to PC (due to Sony's PC strategy), and that engine can evolve to becoming a means for users to really get into game design.

But coming back to the beginning of this post. There's a lot of lovely content on Dreams (and not so great stuff), that has the potential to really evolve into bigger and better games. And Tren is just a fantastic addition to MM's game lineup that I truly hope they make a sequel. I'd buy it.

That'll turn the game into a horror for them when they get jump scared at seeing the colour of the MCs hand.