I prefer when areas are designed to be handled by higher level characters rather than always scaling with the player like Skyrim does. My ideal is when said scaling is somewhat subtle like in Elden Ring - there’s an intended route, but if you go somewhat out of order it’s not the end of the world and player skill matters more than a few levels anyway. I guess we’ll see how much level matters in this universe.

Cheers, I’ll remember that for next time.

The way I see it - does the game have a final boss? Or a difficult climactic ending sequence? A meaningful resolution? Then I did the part that matters, and feel fine saying I beat the game. The side quests and collectible junk usually is just busy work that wouldn’t pose a challenge, I just don’t have the time or interest.

I never could get into Crusader Kings or Europa Universalis. I generally love grand strategy and play a ton of things like Civilization but for some reason Paradox’s maze of menus and mechanics never seems to click for me.

I have wayyy to much money in Warmachine minis - a hobby I loved that the WotC lawsuit starting killing and the pandemic more or less finished off.

I also have dabbled in creating my own stuff for board games such as Gloomhaven.

I suppose I’ll believe it when I see it. Thanks for the context though!

Just a heads up that with their loosely moderated contributor model, you can find anything on Forbes these days. Up to and including outright scams and misinformation. It’s a far cry from the reputable source it once was.

One article of many.

I know basically nothing about this game but I’m completely burned out on the Ubisoft open world model of a huge map completely littered with mindless collectible junk and grindy side-quests. Is there reason to hope that this will be different than the same junk Assassin’s Creed and Far Cry have been pushing out, or are most expecting the same thing in a Star Wars setting?

Completely agree, some things should be above politics. I mean, just look at the list: in America it’s mostly our best national parks. In other places it’s priceless cultural history. I don’t keep a formal bucket list but the list of places I’d love to see and the list of places UNESCO helps preserve has a TON of overlap.

Spec Ops: The Line looked like yet another generic first person shooter, but it is full of surprises and gets deep in a way I never expected. Highly recommend it, and go in as spoiler-free as possible.

I think it depends on your opinion of what was “wrong” with Cyberpunk to begin with. If your issue was the bugs, it’s a lot more stable now. If your issue was that the story was unengaging and player actions lacked weight and consequence, adding more of the same isn’t going to do much good.

Much like your No Man’s Sky example - if you thought the core gameplay loop was lacking before, you probably haven’t changed your mind no matter how many little goodies the devs have added since launch.

100% agree… I’ve played through the game several times and the only time I meaningfully engaged with crafting was in my bow-only build. And that was out of necessity not by choice.

Bonus points if you have to go out of your way to find resources to CRAFT consumables. Just - why??

I never got into any of the souls games until Elden Ring, but I’m now working through it for like the fifth time. Truly one of the best games I’ve ever played.