The Tuesday letters page explores the oldest online games that are still running, as a reader asks what improvements Saros should make over Returnal.
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Low impact
Looking at Microsoft’s line-up for this year it’s true they do have an impressive amount of games coming out and I think a lot of them look good, but I also think it’s true to say none of them are probably going to be big sellers, on PlayStation or Xbox.
The problem is not quantity or quality but impact and beyond the Activision stuff the biggest Microsoft has are Halo, Gears Of War, Forza, and Bethesda role-players. Halo and Gears have slipped off a lot nowadays, to the point where they’re barely draws any more, but I think Microsoft has made a mistake not ensuring there’s a steady supply of new Forza games, like there used to be.
But their biggest mistake has been how Bethesda’s role-players have been handled. I get that they wanted to take a chance on something new with Starfield but it’s going to be close to 20 years between Skyrim and The Elder Scrolls 6 and that’s insane.
Even worse is that Fallout 5 won’t be until after that! They really needed to give that job to someone else, rather than waiting till Bethesda get round to it. The Amazon show will be old news before there’s ever a new game to support it. As far as I can work out it’s more or less impossible for Fallout 5 to be out before 2030 at the very earliest. That’s nuts.
Xane
Live service retro
I have no interest in Rainbow Six Siege, but it is very impressive to me that a game could potentially last 20 years or more and still be popular enough that a sequel isn’t deemed necessary.
It makes me wonder how long some of the other live service games that are popular at the moment will last. The big question is how long can Fortnite last? It seemed to dip a few years ago but ever since they played the nostalgia card it seems bigger than ever.
I’m sure it’ll outlast Rainbow Six Siege so what are we looking at? A game that will last 25 years or more? One that will really last forever? At this point there doesn’t seem any reason to stop it or restart it and I’m not sure what new technology would make them think they should either. Fortnite could outlast us all!
Beaker
GC: People are still playing Ultima Online and that’s 28 years old at this point. Although that’s nothing compared to the original MUD, which has been going for 47 years.
Interesting times
If you’re paying £30,000 for a Switch 2 I don’t know what to say, but I’m pretty sure that trying to sell it to peripheral makers so they know what size case to make is not going to be a very successful get rich quick plan.
Still, it’s more evidence that people are thirsty for new hardware and an escape from the failure of Xbox and the low energy dominance of Sony. I’m sure Nintendo will mess up this ‘open goal’ somehow, since they’re usually at their best when recovering from a failure, but I still think this is going to be an exciting year for games.
The second GTA 6 trailer could drop at any minute and once the Switch 2 is fully revealed in April we are going to have a lot to talk about. Well, argue about probably but I’m looking forward to it all the same.
Charon
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Civilization’s decline
I haven’t seen it talked about much here, but can I just say how upset I am that Civilization 7 has turned out to be a dud? Its Metacritic score may not look that bad (a surprisingly mixed result, although with GC reliably low down the list, along with IGN) but the user score is just 3.7, with the Steam score at a depressingly low ‘Mixed’.
All of the complaints are the same too, with too few features, too many bugs, and the game just stopping in the 20th century, so we’re forced to buy the rest as DLC. How places like The Guardian can end up giving the game a 10/10 I don’t know. I think they just assumed (as I did, to be honest) that Civilization would always be good, but this one is definitely not.
Maybe it can be improved with patches but that’s not the point. They’ve had nearly a decade to prepare for this sequel and it feel like it’s still a year away from a state it should’ve been released in. Awful.
Morph
Speak up
I wish Phil Spencer or someone from Xbox would talk about why they haven’t followed the live service trend. I find that very interesting, that they’re one of the few not to go that route, and yet they’ve never tried to promote that as a positive or explain it. He does all these interviews, but everything is just buzz words and half-truths that I really don’t see the point of doing it.
If I was in charge of Xbox, I’d be looking to take advantage of Sony’s faults by always doing what they don’t. Trying to copy them is a lot more difficult than identifying a weakness of theirs and doing the opposite. If fans are upset that Sony seems distant and uncommunicative then open and up and explain yourself, especially if you know people are uncomfortable with your direction already.
Maybe that’s what Phil thinks he’s doing but when there’s no substance to what he says it’s almost more annoying than if they said nothing. Oh well, at least we know that they haven’t shut Double Fine down.
Focus
The road back
Making the Xbox relevant again is a tricky prospect. It’s too late in the generation to attract many new console owners and any first party games they bring out solely for the Xbox are going to reach a very limited audience.
I genuinely think that their best approach, and possibly their only viable approach, is to set themselves up for the next generation. Release games now multiplatform, ensuring that everyone gets to play their games, maximising revenue and exposure. Then when their new console launches, make sure that you have exclusive sequels to the most popular or best games you’ve produced previously.
Given that fewer console owners are transitioning to new generation consoles immediately, and that Nintendo offering more direct competition (with tech levelling out), I’m not even sure a successful reset would be enough for Microsoft. Still, even then maybe there’s room enough in the industry for them to find a profitable niche – though would that satisfy them?
Matt (He_who_runs_away – PSN ID)
Final leap
I’m not sure Microsoft has given up trying to attract PlayStation 5 owners so much as PlayStation 5 owners have given up being interested in Xbox consoles. Like another reader said recently, it’s usually quite common to switch console at the end of a generation, to sample the exclusives you’ve missed.
I know I’ve done it before but not this time, what would be the point? To end up with a dead console where all the games are going to be on PlayStation 5 anyway. I really don’t see anyway out of this for Xbox unless this giant leap for the next gen machine is as big as they’re claiming. But what happens in the meantime?
Terry Gold
Not a sequel
Since Sony never actually showed it in action, I’m curious what people’s hopes are for Saros, as a follow-up to Returnal? I’m hoping for a major improvement in graphics, for a start, as the original looked like an average PlayStation 4 game, but I wonder whether the randomly generated levels are really necessary?
Variety is important with a roguelike, but the way Returnal was designed it meant you were only ever playing in fairly small rooms before going through a door to the next area, like Metroid Prime. I’d be interested in some much larger, open world style areas. Perhaps they could figure out how to randomise landscapes within that, rather than having to chop everything up into separate sections.
I don’t want to come across as a philistine but I’d also like a story I can actually understand. I still don’t understand what was going on in Returnal, even after the secret ending, and now it looks like I never will, if there’s going to be no sequel.
Although I don’t know why they don’t make a Returnal 2? It’s not as if Saros looks like it’s setting itself up to be any more mainstream friendly. Although looking through their Wikipedia page I noticed they haven’t made any actual sequels before, even if there have been a ton of Stardust games (which I don’t think have a story).
Lefty
GC: We don’t think they’ve ever said, but it may be because of the departure of director Harry Krueger.
Inbox also-rans
I wonder if the Nintendo Switch 2 will have an achievement system? Nintendo has flirted with the idea in certain games but never a system wide thing. I wouldn’t be against the idea.
Lumpy
Say what you will about the Mass Effect trilogy but the suicide mission bit at the end is still the best sequence in any game I’ve ever played. Just got to it again today, in the remaster collection, and there’s nothing like it.
Pearcut
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