Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General What games are you playing while waiting for BG3?/No Politics version.

I started a new thread on this topic because I thought it was an interesting one that suffered from a unfortunate focus on politics and other off-topic, non game-related issues.

So ever since I played Elden Ring I have gone back to play the other Dark Souls games and loved them. I have also been looking for other "Souls-like" games to play. However to me it's not just about replicating the gameplay, challenge levels, and character building aspects but also the storytelling.

Dark Souls games tend to avoid expositional storytelling. The story is built into the world, the art, the prose and the poetry. You can engage with it as much or as little as you want. It doesn't force you to follow all that.

All writers know that expositional storytelling is bad storytelling. It's also insulting to the reader - you are basically saying they are too dumb to figure it out on their own.

One game that I have really enjoyed that hits the Dark Souls mark dead center is a Platformer Souls-Like game called Salt and Sanctuary.

The game was released in 2016, but still gets updates and just had one today.





It's $17 US on the Steam store.

Really a great game. I am enjoying it much more than Hollow Knight which doesn't really hit the same storytelling level.

I'm still playing Hogwarts Legacy. It is really a charming game andI love it .
Other than that I play Guild Wars 2. I'm doing the storyline with my Soulbeast Sylvari Ranger and level an Asura necromancer. The game has it's ups and downs, but I mostly like it. This one I play with friends.

I'm contemplating to do another run of Vampire the Masquerade Bloodlines, my alltime favorite game.

Someone summoned me?

Personaly i curently spend almost all my gaming time on WoW ... Dragonflight is surprisingly entertaining datadisc.
But thats gonna change in two weeks. >:] Im quite curious about SWJ: Survivor. :3

Replaying FFX after almost 20 years. It’s actually much less janky than I remembered and holds up really well all things considered. Still the best overall party of any rpg I’ve played.

I think BG3’s party members so far are serviceable, but playing FFX has really made me just realize that western companies in general don’t do well in this area.

And especially the item descriptions. If you want to try to piece it all together yourself, you should examine everything you pick up. But I don’t think they really intend for most players to try to work everything out by themselves. Following many of the the weirdo NPC quests in elden ring without at some point looking up where you need to or what you need to do is no mean feat.


Interesting, I thought it really did. In tone, depth and impenetrability. I thought there was at least as much to the story as DS1, if not more.

Not at all in the same vein, but Plague Tale Innocence and Requiem are on offer as bundle at steam, until tomorrow I think. Finished Innocence, and about to start Requiem. Innocence is only maybe 10-12 hours long, but I hear Requiem is a bit longer. What really struck me (apart from the thousands of rats of course) is the writing and voice acting, especially as most of the main characters are children. Even your little brother who is supposed to get on your nerves sometimes is kind of lovable.

Also XCom 2 (long war mod), again.

Finishing my custom campaign for S*****a. Currently in the process of pre-prod test playthrough. Took me almost a year, on and off.

Games per se... I practically stopped playing them. So many things to do, so little time.

Still finishing up Midnight Suns, which I am enjoying a lot!😊 I recently got the dlcs and am looking forward to the Storm dlc, which should come out soon!

After that, I am deciding if I should finish WotR or start a different game. Chapter 3 of WotR didn’t end well for me, and chapter 4 is a bit boring so far, which is when I took a break to play Midnight Suns. I also have several other games I am interested in playing and of course can’t wait for BG3 in August!!!

I just finished getting all the achievements for a game called Chorus. It's a spaceship 3rd person arcade action game with a focused narrative. I enjoyed it mostly for what it was, the combat was a power fantasy once you got used to it (and past the AWFUL powers tutorials) and the story was good, albeit a bit spiritual/esoteric in the last act.

Other than that, I'm starting to play a bit of Astrox Imperium, an Eve Online offline clone.

I'm on a sci-fi genre binge as you can see :3

Still battling through demon hoards in P:WotR.

Waiting on the big final DLC for Solasta coming in May. Zoria, which I backed on KS, is coming out in September, as is Starfield of course. Vendir has just released on mobile, so it is expected to release on PC later this year, as is Dark Envoy. So I have a lot of new games to look forward to playing, but all of them a good while from now (I don't play a newly released game until at least 3-4 months after release to give time for essential patching, which I accept as something all games will always need). So that's why I'm taking my sweet time through this WotR run, trying to do as much of a completionist run as I can.

No spoilers, but I'd be curious to see what percentage of people that did the secret ending of wotr looked at a guide for it. I find it VERY hard to believe that anyone could organically figure out all of that. There's no way I would have that's for sure. As it was I was reloading because of mistakes and I was reading a guide!

I looked at a guide for my secret ending playthrough, which was also the last one I did. No way I could have done it otherwise.

I'm actually putting a wrap on my playthrough of Midnight Suns, because the Megaman Battle Network collection just came out and has enthralled me more than I expected. So I'll probably replay Midnight Suns when the season pass goes on sale and I can get all the DLC at once. I'm looking forward to that.

I'm playing Scarlet Hollow (episodic, still unfinished), the back catalogue of Hanako Games, Hades, the VtM Choice of Games to exhaustion and actually trying to learn how to MAKE games so that I can have as many Astarions and owlbear cubs as my heart desires.

I remember Long Live the Queen being pretty radical. Have you played the Choice of the Vampire game, I think it's what got the Choice Of people all the VtM work, and I personally think it's a lot more interesting than all the one offs they've done, not that they weren't fun.

What kind of game do you want to make?

I'm working on a horror/romance theme park simulator/interactive novel. I would love to say "visual novel" but my art skills are non-existent.

The four VtM Choice of Games novels are really fun, well written and with very distinct flavours. My favourite one is Night Road, but Parliament of Knives is great if you are into high politics, and Out for Blood is a really fun Hunter / Small Shop manager simulator with lots of winks to Buffy and Stephen King. Sins of Our Sires was much more mystical and also kind of broken on release, BUT apparently they fixed it well enough to win a couple of prizes.

From Hanako, Black Closet is as radical as Long Live the Queen and it also lets you play semi-freestyle, shorter runs. Really fun.

I'm currently obsessed with Hogwarts Legacy, though I do have a NG+ playthrough of Elden Ring awaiting my return. I am in the middle of another Pathfinder: WotR playthrough, as well.

I had also been replaying (not all to completion!) the Dragon Age series, Outer Worlds, Cyberpunk 2077, Fallout 4 and New Vegas, Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines, Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind, ESO, Dark Souls series, Mass Effect series and Andromeda, and GW2 with a friend.

That may sound like a ton of games, but BG3 has been in early access for nearly three full years (and I have part-time hours). <_<

Finished Wasteland 3 (meh) and playing some SIFU. I am thinking of starting Plague Tale2.

What didn't you like about Wasteland 3? I didn't really like it either, it just felt kind of mediocre.

I'm using guides (plural) and have no problem saying so. I use guides quite often for many aspects of all the RPGs I play.

I have been asking myself that very question through my entire playthrough, and I still don't have a 100% solid answer.

On paper I should like it - I think the campaign has a pretty good structure, and there are quite a few choices to make, with a decent reactivity.

I think the biggest issue for me, is "the story" - in this case, worldbuilding and characters, as I think plot provides a strong framework. No matter how many choices or how much reactivity the game has, it matters little if I am indifferent about the characters and the world I am affecting. I found factions of Wasteland3 to be quirky for the sake of it, without much reason or depth behind them - a group of Reagan-AI worshipers, a gang that dresses up using haloween moster costumes, a dictator with a hammer painted in american flag. With choices coming down to screwing zany faction A over zany faction B, I found it hard to have strong feelings about any of it. No really compelling characters that I can think of either. There was also a certain amount of unpleasantness (profanities, violence & gore), which while not unwelcome in a post-apocalyptic game, I don't think was used effectively.

Gameplay wise, W3 landed it in an awkard spot for me - it was streamlined enough for the systems to feel gamey, but not enough to make for a genuinely good gameplay loop. Not quite an immersive RPG, not quite a compelling tactics game. I found UI and menus generally unpleasant to use throughout.

There were also small things - like chain system, making followers run through hazards or unengaged enemies moving in real time, while turn based combat is in place (I didn't notice that one until DLC2, in which it was painfully visible) - which just made the game feel jankier than it needed to be.

My memories of Wasteland2 are very blurry at this point (I remember not thinking too highly of it either, but enjoying it overall), but I remember that game being more player driven - having to pay more attention, use skill more intentionally, different solutions requiring player input. Wasteland3 felt more like a Bioware RPG in some ways - a very passive experience with A, B, C choice everyonce in a while - and I don't think the ride they took my on was compelling enough for me to not check out mentallly.

Do you have anything specific that made you not like W3 much?

I am doing a run for the Throne of Bhaal at the moment. I am about 3/4ths of the way through BG1 with my Dwarf Fighter. I am playing a goody with a reputation of 20 atm. We will see how things go for BG2.

Currently I'm a bit into guns, so Fallout 4, heavily modded, btw the game I played the most of all. I'm pondering wether I should buy and try Colony Ship or not. If my interest turns back to the more primitive past, I'll switch to Mount and Blade 2: Bannerlord, heavily modded.

Currently Megaman Battle Network collection while waiting for the final Solasta DLC. These games have a premise and combat system that's still entirely unique among the entire gaming industry, but holy hell I forgot how WTF-tier the writing was. It's either hilariously stupid or unintentionally brilliant commentary about what will probably happen if the world it depicts becomes reality.

Pathfinder, Wrath Of The Righteous here.... On my 3rd attempt at this I think I might have finally figured out Chapter 4....

A lot of it was the stuff you mentioned. it just wasn't that fun overall - but it SHOULD have been.

Also I kind of hate InExile and Brian Fargo for what happened with Torment: Tides of Numenera. That entire project was a shitshow that just dragged everyone down with it.

They never fulfilled their backer promises either.

Divine Divinity.

First, thanks for the new thread. Great idea, love the topics.

Currently playing The Forest. 50 days in, and now it's gotten a little tedious. I've been enjoying it, but there's no direction, and I don't want to look online for it. I'm feeling that if Timmy has been with the cannibals for over a month and a half...
I like the openness to do what I want, I like the stress popping up during times of relative peace, but not being able to examine things better, or find clues that seem to mean anything, makes it a bit boring.

Back on Fallout 4, playing a modded play-through that adds a bunch of quest mods. Bethesda game are like comfort food on a rainy day for me, very relaxing, time disappears, even when I'm not progressing the main story, I don't care, I just play.

I have been playing the shit out of a game called Control. Apparently it was GOTY in 2018 and they have 2 DLC's out for it. Just blown away by how good every aspect of this game is, from the cinematics to the voice acting to the actual gameplay.

It took me a second to understand that gaining ability points didn't really have anything to do with how many Hiss (the evil resonance invading the Federal Bureau of Control) you killed but rather Missions completed and Hidden Areas discovered, but everything else about the game just kills it.

Like if Fringe was a video game set inside a massive bureau that deals with Paranormal craziness. The case files and the behavior of altered items just keeps you moving through the story.

I found myself once asking the question "Ok, what kind of shit is this Altered Rubber Duck going to try?"

It seems to exist in the same world as Alan Wake, which I have not played.

Really just blown away by this masterpiece. I am sure most of you have played this already.

I've been tempted by Control for many of the reasons that you list, and I actually bought it (without installing) a year ago. However, I've heard that it has "dynamic difficulty scaling" which is a thing that I utterly loathe as a matter of principle, and I have not had time to dive in and explore this. Have you observed this in your play through?

I am not a fan of DDS either but in this case I barely noticed it. You become so insanely powerful with your abilities that if they didn't scale the health/damage of the enemy you would just steamroll everything - which would kill the end game/after end game play. However you can adjust the difficulty in other ways to make things easier.



I played with all this off and I did occasionally get my ass handed to me - but that wasn't random encounters but specific scenarios that I had to figure out good tactics for.

One thing, don't waste points in either Melee or Ground Slam. Go Right down that Launch ability path and grab everything, along with Health and Energy, Levitate, and then Shield/ Shield Burst and Charge. Seize can be fun if you have extra points after that. Launch is amazing fun though.

Also the DLC adds the ability to Charge with your Shields up like the Vanguard ability in Mass Effect 2.

Control was a great game!

I played a couple of Indies recently. Finally played Stray which I thoroughly enjoyed. And Witchwood which was cute and fun.

Tried to play DoS2 again but quit it at about the same point as last time because I really hate all the surfaces in the battles.

Then randomly fired up DAO again after not playing it since 2013. Took 2 days to find, edit, and load all my favorite mods! But it is nice to sink back into the lore and fun tactics for a while. Nothing as satisfying as having Wynne turn an ogre to stone, then having Sten smash him with a great sword, so that Zevran can run up his body and slow mo sink twin daggers into his chest. Never gets old! Lol

Ah yes. I liked this one. Good to see Remedy being back in peak form.

Probably my only complain would be goot ("garbage+loot" as coined by Monty Zander), otherwise an atmospheric adventure.

Jesse is dynamite.

Edit. Alan Wake is... unique. I really liked the concept, but found the actual game rather dull. It still stands out as a quite unique title, though. I am looking forward to seeing what Remedy does with the sequel. It's been long time coming.

I liked Control a lot as well! I wasn’t very good at it (and I don’t think they had Assist Mode when I played it) but still had a lot of fun. I think they are working on a sequel, which I am looking forward to!
😂😂😂

I have been meaning to play that! That will be next on my list!🐈

Control was way harder than I was expecting, I'll admit, I got very frustrated and tried to turn on the assist mode. Then the 'you're bad for playing this mode' pop-ups (exaggerating) made me feel bad lol, and I stopped playing.

Throw is the answer to everything. Now that I mention this, I did have some issues with combat - for all the skills and weapons the game provides only few are truly useful. Enemy variety could have been much better as well.

I like to play kenshi, vampire survivor, and the black grimoire : cursebreaker

Kenshi is fun to squal build level make towns/bases and just make up your own story

Vampire survivors when i wanna just mass kill monsters and level skills

Cursebreaker new early access game, a little like runescape , just testing the waters seems promising

I'm having another go at Battle Brothers, which is one of the best things since sliced bread.

Just kidding. Never gave a damn about sliced bread. Not even sure why that's a saying.

I need to give it a go. Bought it when Josh Sawyer was gushing about it, but I am yet to launch it.

That reminds me. Has anyone played WarTales after the release? About a year ago I've read some rather conflicting reviews of their EA on Steam, and was wondering if the game is any good.

Well, I tried an EARLY demo and I was genuinely unimpressed with it, but I heard it improved a lot now, so I'm on the fence on giving it a second chance.

Well, perhaps I should try it too, then.

I've always been happy with baguettes and loaves. But if sliced bread made it into phrases, it must be quite the thing.

I played EA but also found it frustrating and annoying. It felt like a poverty simulator.

Battle Brothers is permanently installed on my hard drive.

I did a top ten list for games - Mostly by hours played - across all genres'. I left out MMO's - which would have just been World of Warcraft Classic and The Secret World anyway.

1. Elden Ring
2. Bg3*
3. Fallout 4
4. Master of Orion 2 (1996)
5. Temple of Elemental Evil (Troika)
6. Control
7. Planescape: Torment
8. Salt and Sanctuary
9. Divinity Original Sin 2**
10. Neverwinter Nights


*Conditional on full release - or eventual incorporation of full multiplayer and DM mode. I have faith though and my hours played are through the roof.

**off of pure hours played 1,200+ but after the bg3 system I can't play this anymore because BG3 is so much better.


What about you guys? Top ten across all genres regardless of age?

Stray was a lot of fun, and it's a beautiful story. Not a lot of replay value but the game rewards you for acting like a cat and doing pointless stuff. They really nailed proper cat behavior.

Can't seem to get into anything released after 2020, except Elden Ring. Which also got stale after 100 hours.

Every big game is either extremely boring (Horizon, God of War etc.) or extremely disappointing (TW:Warhammer 3, Deathloop etc.)

Just bought TLOU 2 for like 7$, maybe it will be something that will finally hook me.

Thank you for recommending P Wotr guys, I just bought it and so far I am glued to it.

I have no objective measure of hours played due to different formats, lost data and use of now defunct streaming platforms, but in some order or other I’m sure it’d be BG3, the three Dragon Age games, and the four Mass Effect games. I’m not sure what would take the final two slots, possibly BG1 and/or BG2 but more likely Civ VI or Rome: Total War. NWN is an outside possibility, if we include the HotU expansion in that.

In terms of a subjective top 10 ranking … that’s much harder as there are games I think are better than at least some of those listed above, but which don’t have as much replay potential. I’ll have to ponder that!

By hours played, that's tough.

I probably spent an unhealthy amount of time in Morrowind when it came out, and I return to Baldur's Gate II every few years, sometimes I check to see what new mods the community has got to. Speaking of mods, Neverwinter Nights is a game that existed for me mostly though the modding community it has.

All the Modern era of Bioware are games I've played and replayed, but Mass Effect and Dragon Age both peaked for me in their second installments. The Witcher too.

And being who I am, both Knights of the Old Republic games were very important to me. I may have replayed them more than Mass Effect and Dragon Age. Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast would also qualify here.

There are few games that cause me to have a lost weekend, but didn't quite carry through after that. As I said in the other thread, despite playing Baldur's Gate II so often, it still probably doesn't reach the number of hours sunk into grand strategy games I've played. Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri is a game that deserves a remake, and a RPG set in its universe. A game called Terra Invicta gave me similar feelings as Alpha Centauri, it started out as a X-Com mod, and it's optimized like a bloated game mod too.

Then you have games that really confound the amount of time I've put into them. MMOs like The Old Republic, the Discworld MUD, Fallen London and its spin-offs.

Then there is a long list of adventure games that I don't know how to work in. Myst, Riven, The Long Journey; Wadjet Eye games like Gemini Rue and Primordia. And a slew of text only games that come out from such places as Choice Of games, like the Sabres of Infinity series, Choice of the Vampire, and Choice of Robots.
I don't know how many would feel about it but I consider Planescape: Torment close to a Point and Click adventure.

Just on Steam (don't have hours for non steam) including mmos:

1. FFXIV
2. ESO
3. Ark
4. Fallout 4
5. Warframe
6. Payday 2
7. Skyrim
8. SWTOR
9. Empyrion - Galactic Survival
10. Rainbow Six Siege

Huh, looking at just the top hours played, I wouldn't even consider most of those my favorite games of all time.

In terms of my favorite games over the past 5 years or so, in no particular order:

- Elden Ring
- Wrath of the Righteous
- Mass Effect Legendary Edition
- Final Fantasy 14
- Fallout 4
- Baldur's Gate 3 (the potential at least)
- Elder Scrolls Online
- Cyberpunk 2077
- Hogwarts Legacy
- Minecraft (modded)

My most played games are Baldurs Gate 1 & 2, the Dragon Age games, Morrowind, Vampire the Masquerade Bloodlines, SWTOR.

I'm currently playing Guild Wars 2 again. I like the game and the community and am still doing the main story for the first time. I started Heart of Thorns with my Soulbeast ranger Sylvari. And I just finished getting the necessary Hero Points for my Asura necromancer to make her a Harbinger. She will be my Event/World Bosses/ group content character for now, while I keep doing the storyline with my ranger.

It is great that they are getting a bigger budget for Control 2 (50 million vs 30 million)!
https://investors.remedygames.com/a...-agreement-with-505-games-for-control-2/

Sounds perfect!🐈🐈🐈

In just my current playthrough of WotR I'm at over 400 hours.

Yes GW2 is nice, especially the diving, but I stopped with Cantha. On the HoT maps you should get the Smokescale for your Soulbeast.

I reinstalled TESO yesterday to continue with the One Tamriel story and to bridge the time to BG 3 release with thieving tours. The lock picking of the treasure chests I find very nice made should BG 3 take over instead of the stupid dice rolling.

It is great that they are getting a bigger budget for Control 2 (50 million vs 30 million)!
https://investors.remedygames.com/a...-agreement-with-505-games-for-control-2/

OMG! This is the best news! Thank you! It will be years before it gets released but damn that is exciting!

I am playing Alan Wake right now, and will check out Alan Wake II when it gets released this year since they are both the same universe. I am enjoying the story and gameplay although ideally I really want to play more Control.

How is Quantum Break? I can't buy it now because it's de-listed due to Music Licensing issues but I was thinking about checking it out.

That's easy for me as during covid I have been playing around with some favourite top 10s. It what I would call my favourite titles of all time - if I were to list "the best games" some titles would get swapped.

• Baldur's Gate 2
• Thief: The Dark Project
• Deus Ex
• Spelunky HD
• Sid Mayer's Pirates!
• UFO: Enemy Unknown
• Fallout: New Vegas
• Dark Souls
• Mafia
• Celeste

Honorable mentions:
Max Payne, Super Meat Boy, Invisible Inc., Planescape: Torment, Portal, Fallout1, DMC5


Movie list:

I haven’t played that one yet. Should add it to my list!

Hmm. Top 10? After thinking about it really quick, I realized I can't order them properly. My list is kinda out there compared to most people here, but it's very gameplay systems-focused, since I've played very few games where I'd say the writing is actually legitimately good rather than written as an excuse overall.

- Dragon's Dogma
- FFXIV
- Crystal Project
- Megaman Battle Network series
- Divinity Original Sin series (I shit on 2 constantly for the balance in the last third of the game, but I can't deny the first 2/3rds is magical)
- Monster Hunter (series)
- Octopath Traveler 2 (first one was average at best, 2 improved so much that it's legitimately the best JRPG released in the past decade)
- Freelancer
- Disco Elysium
- Pathfinder series

---

I've been trying out Honkai Star Rail just to see what the hell the big deal is, and especially because pre-release interviews indicated that they were huge fans of the Trails series, considered the best written JRPGs overall (though I consider it highly overrated now, after how badly the Cold Steel arc jumped the shark and were clearly increasingly leaning towards fanservice crap to majorly pad things in the latter half to the point where it was obvious the writers didn't have an actual plan).

The game strangely enough has flavor text for lots of random things, like trash cans, mailboxes, and street lamps. All of them indicate the player character is not that well adjusted.

And even closets.

https://www.reddit.com/r/HonkaiStar..._closet_must_have_a_deep_lore_behind_it/

That combined with some unexpectedly mindfuckery lore things that would take way too long to explain the context...


Someone on the dev team has definitely played Disco Elysium.

I heard it is not as good (a bit awkward mix of game and TV show). It just now popped up back on Gamepass.

As a side note, MandaloreGaming just published one of his long form reviews/retrospectives about Wrath of the Righteous.

Oh, and since it was mentioned before, Armored Core VI looks like a potential instant classic.



Then again From Software didn't really had a single miss since Demon's Souls.
Even at their worst (*aheam* Dark Souls 2) their output generally remains stuff well worth spending time on.

Kind of annoying how this almost overlaps with BG3 and Starfield, though. August-to-September is getting busy.

Despite me not being a fan of Sekiro, From really doesn't miss. I'm not even a big AC fan, but I'll be picking this up on PS5 for sure. Starfield on the other hand..as long as they have creation kit for it, I have faith, but if they don't, oof, that could get nasty.

I wouldn't probably call Sekiro my favorite FromSoft game, overall, but it has by far the best combat mechanics and boss battles in one of their games.
And arguably one of the absolute best in action games, more in general.

Recently I've been playing Path of Exile, Hogwarts Legacy, Pillars of Eternity, Diablo 4 betas and the last one-STAR WARS Jedi Survivor. Yet to finish any of them.

If you're looking for turn-based party strategy - take a look at 'last spell'. It's rogue-like indie though, the graphics are close to 'none' there.

P.S.A. we are barely days away from the release of Age of Wonders 4.


The previews going around are making me think this will be one I'll spend a lot of time with.

Smokescale is next on my list. I made a detour to get the Jacaranda and now it is more HoT. My necro Asura meanwhile is doing Tequatl with avreally fun group.

I played a lot of GW2 back in the day (it’s crazy that the game has been out long enough to say I played it “back in the day”). It’s very fun and well made.

At this point in my life I no longer have the time or inclination to play any live service forever games, but that one will always have a special place in my heart. Good times.

Ranger was my second most played character after my Mesmer. It’s a fun time. Good choice.

Yeah, it is a nice game. I have a Mesmer too, but she is currently on hold.
I don't know, how long I will play, but I want to do the story at least once. And get the Skyscale. But everything in my own time and without pressure.
The world is really beautiful and unique.

I recently added Conan Exiles to my Steam wishlist. Will be the next game I pick up.

Because I don't have a lot of time to play games I have a long game-playing backlog. Once I finish my current P:WotR playthrough, it will be Black Geyser, then the final Solasta DLC, then Conan Exiles, then Starfield.

Played through Demon's Souls on PS5 over the past 4 days. 5 worlds split into different levels, 1-1, 1-2, 2-1, etc up to 5. So around 16 levels total. The x-3 levels are mostly boss levels. Oddly enough, I had the most difficulty with the level 1s. Once I remembered how to play and got a decent sword, I sailed through the 2nd half of the game, and didn't die on the last 5 bosses or so. Was fun though, the remake looks ridiculously good.

Also tried game pass for a month to check out a couple of titles like Redfall, Forza 5, and the Anthem campaign. Redfall was..well, it was a game I guess. I won't be continuing to play it.

Just finished Jedi Survivor ...
And even tho all those technical dificiulties, and lots of problems with powers of protagonist ...
... it was really great game to kill few dozen hours!

Kinda basic story, hardly anything surprising there ... but still, quite fine.
If you liked Fallen Order, you will like this aswell ... if you didnt, well, its the same thing in many ways.

Yay for Storm Midnight Suns dlc coming out next week!

Speaking of Firaxis I started Ironman playthrough of lightly modded XCOM2:WotC. Never done Ironman for that game - felt it was a big too buggy for that. We will see how this one will go. So far so good. One casualty already, when I tried to abuse AI behaviour forgetting that I installed AI mod

edit. I have also been playing some Hitman3 Freelance mode. It's better than I thought it would be. A nice procedural generator of targets and optional objectives making me play maps I know so well in ways I haven't played yet. Definitely the best side content Hitman trilogy got.

I played 600 hours of Elden Ring when it came out. Then I took an 8 month break and now I am playing again and it is still amazing. I don't see playing anything else until BG3 comes out.

Control and Alan Wake was a nice diversion though. Alan Wake wasn't quite as good as Control, and was more survival horror which I am not a huge fan of - but it was cool being inside an AWE from Control.

Can't wait for the Elden Ring DLC - wish we could get a timeframe on it.

I have tried to play Dark Souls 1 but it's frustrating to play after Elden Ring. Its too slow. Dark Souls III was great though but it feels like a sketch of ER. I was warned away from DS2.

Haha. That a reason I am kinda afraid to dip back into DS1. I remember disliked immensly faster combat of Dark Souls2 after playing DS1. The series did become better action games, though I feel DS1 was better action-RPG. I wonder how I will respond to the original combat now.

I didn't spent nearly as much time in Elden Ring as you did (one full playtrhough took me 150hours), but I prefered DS3 combat for the most part. I thought jump attack broke a lot of the combat in Elden Ring. Still, a kickass game, can't wait for the DLC.

Did you try Sekiro?

Read this article about the combat balancing philosophy in Midnight Suns, and it is a design choice I like a lot! Everything is fun but not perfectly balanced. Seems like it might be BG3's philosophy as well!

Here's a bit from the article:
"That's why a game like Midnight's Suns - also XCOM - in their current iteration couldn't be like a 'play forever' [game] like Diablo, for example, which is such a finely tuned game," he continues. "All the stats are so finely tuned and they're brilliant at that. Destiny, too - brilliant! But they have less leeway in terms of their design. I don't care if you said somebody could matrix out all the [Midnight Suns] heroes and their DPS and how powerful they are. They could score the heroes, and I guarantee they'd be way all over the place."

For Solomon, he's absolutely certain "there's clearly a best hero, and there's clearly a worst hero" in Midnight Suns, but levelling them out to make them more Diablo or Destiny-like wasn't ever a concern for him. "That's not our focus," he says. "We focused on the moment to moment of every time you get something, you go, 'Yeah, that's awesome.' I don't care how it matches up on a very, very fine level. We view it from more of a holistic level, they all feel generally equal, as opposed to something that's really finely tuned, like League Of Legends design or Diablo design."

It worked, too. In my Midnight Suns review, I wrote that it wasn't just the best Marvel game I've played, but one of the best superhero games full stop, precisely because it does such a fantastic job of selling you on that superhero fantasy. It's not a total pushover, of course - the sheer number of enemies you have to face with each passing turn does a great job of always keeping the pressure level nice and high. But yes, I must admit that I also probably didn't actually care too much if Iron Man ended up wiping the floor with everyone thanks to his brilliant missile strike cards, or if Magic was able to set up delicious, ricocheting portal grabs so I could drop a massive crane on top of my perfectly placed goon pile at the end of it. It just felt good in the moment, which is what Solomon and his team were striving for.

"The meta isn't as important in a single player game," he concludes. "I think that's the thing. We sacrifice the meta sometimes to make sure that the player's first experience of the game really feels awesome."

Yeah, I saw the article. Solomon games are still balanced well enough for the first playthrough and maybe 2nd playthrough to hold well, while BG3 is more on the broken side. It has more fundamental problem than having "a meta".

To quote the article:
"If you're never going to take this ability, it feels like it breaks the entire hero. You really want the player to say these are all so good, I want to use this ability, I want to use that ability…"

That's where BG3 falls short to me. Too many potential choices just feel underwhelming. The EA has gotten better, so I still hope for a major rebalance for 1.0.

Edit. On further point, BG3 has additional challenge of using same mechanic for players and the enemies. Both XCOMs and Midnight Suns are highly asymmetrical with player character and enemies working of a different ruleset. It is not quite so in BG3, and unbalanced abilities are significantly less fun if one is on a receiving end of one.

Midnight suns is a weird one. It's like Titanfall 2, gets crazy critical reception, but it's just not popular for one reason or another.

I didn't buy it right off, either, and by the time I did, it was already considered a commercial failure! I couldn't tell if I would like the game because I had never played a card-based video game before and also I wasn't sure if it would be story- and character-based enough for me (it was!). When it went on sale, I tried it out and thought it was great!

Did it? RPS was probably the only source that I follow who really loved it. Others were mixed.

I thought it was generally agreed that social sim part is between poor-meh, and combat is fine, if a bit shallow and lacking in variety. At least that was what most of reviewers I follow thought - and when I tried the game during the free weekend it was more or less my impression as well, thought thankfully, due to not particually caring about Marvel I wasn't offended by the writing. I will be picking it up once it drops to a price I will be more satisfied with.

I do think it is an awkward title. I am not sure how appealing is to mainstream Marvel fans, while it will probably be a bit too shallow for strategy fans. From what I played it seemed like it would be better suited as a mobile game - a nice think to pick up and click for a bit, but not something you want to sit and play for a longer period of time. If I had a Steamdeck, I would play it there.

Metacritic has it at 83 from the critics for the pc version.

I enjoyed the story and characters. I wouldn't have liked it if it was all combat with minimal story or characters, so tastes vary on that!

I liked it too. Didn’t love it. It definitely doesn’t have the replay value of XCOM 2, which I adore and replay endlessly and will probably continue to do so for years, but it was a neat take on turn based combat.

I’m sad that Solomon is stepping away from turn based games. Between what he was doing at Firaxis and Larian’s games, I was hoping we might be seeing more turn based tactics games in the AA / AAA space, but it might still be too niche.

I’d love to see a new, AAA Final Fantasy Tactics done on a similar budget. Crossing my fingers.

I absolutely adored Midnight Sun's and I am definitely a Marvel fan. In fact, it even made me a fan of Magik when I wasn't one before. I love the social sim aspect and find that it works to a good rhythm in the game. It diverts me from the combat long enough that I'm missing the combat when I go back to it. I'm looking forward to playing through it again with all the DLC. Once I have that second playthrough I don't predict I'll play it again for a long while, but that's fine. A game doesn't need to be constantly replayable.

Jake worked on a Larian game? Which one?

Eh, I am curious what he will do next. Firaxis way was to shake up leads anyway, so if XCOM3 comes along I think it would benefit from a fresh vision anyway.

I know this is a movie but it's worth mentioning Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves , good special effects, good actors, story a bit meh but anyone who loves BG will love this, definitely worth it.

There’s a thread discussing the film here.

A game called Tape to Tape just hit early access on Steam. It’s a roguelite hockey game which is simple, arcade-y fun. It’s also a good example of how sports games could evolve. I’d love to see an ARPG whose gameplay loop is a sports match of some kind.

Pros: The gameplay loop has been thoroughly vetted; new players have a solid real life reference; sports competitions are rife with emergent story lines and memorable characters; all gameplay is systemic; the narrow scope of the world means there’s a low risk of immersion breakers.

Cons: Electronic Arts have given sports game a bad reputation.

Dodgeball Academia looks like a good example of what a sports/RPG crossover can be (never tried it, but might now). There’s also a passage in Final Fantasy X where the party plays Blitzball, a kind of freeform handball, and it’s the only part that stuck with me.

Should I ever learn Unity, that’s the game I’m making: street soccer with cutscenes and a nemesis system.

No, that sentence was saying Solomon’s games at Firaxis and the games being made by Larian were both indicative of the commercial potential of the genre. Sorry for the confusion.

There are a lot of questionable assumptions in this article.
And the leveling system was one of the most pointless and redundant things in Midnight Suns, anyway. It was just a case of numbers that just kept creeping up and up on both the hero and villain team. Pure Skinner's box design for the sake of it.
Which is indeed in some way "like Diablo", but personally I'm not really willing to count that as a plus.

Their previous game XCOM 2 (as usual when counting War of the Chosen, too, because it's basically a different game without it) did a far better job with a progression system that felt satisfying without having to rely on a constant-but-pointless increase in numbers over time.

And frankly, while there are parts of MS that I loved and I hope to see recycled in some form in their Firaxis' future output, WoTC was a far better game in general.

That's precisely it.

- A milquetoast "abbey exploration" phase that was basically an action adventure with some decent but underused ideas.
- A pseudo-Persona-like "social sim" aspect that was incredibly tedious and shallow (then again I'll admit I've never been that much into it in Persona, either).
- Some fairly bad writing, that usually ranged between "juvenile" and "insipid" with only the occasional moment of charm (when it nailed the fanservice about a certain character... Which wasn't often).
- A solid core tactical combat system, with a lot of fun mechanics interacting with each other, but in the long run harmed to some extent by a general lack in enemies and maps variety.
- The aforementioned leveling system feeling fundamentally a pointless layer of numeric bloat to keep the treadmill going under the player's feet, plus some "pseudo-gatcha" mechanics tied to a series of different virtual currencies for "card unlocks" that reeked of "We were SO planning to monetize this more aggressively until the last minute" and left a bad taste in my mouth.

Wow classic hardcore - awesome fun - go hard or go home !
I’ve died about 15 times so far - so get used to re-rolling a character

Is that a private server? or the official Blizzard server but you just re-roll if you die? I did Elysium and Light's Hope back in the day. We had somebody make it to level 58 and then die.

The rule was if you made it to 60 you get to keep your toon after that even if you die since endgame requires dying basically.

Its the bloodsail buccaneers server (for north america) it is or used to be a RP server (blizzard WOW server not private) now its pretty much all hardcore - no auction house, no grouping (apart from dungeons & raids), no trading, no email, can only run a dungeon once, death = delete - there is an announcement coming 13th May which very much appears like Blizzard are going to put in legit hardcore servers.

Wait, blizzard is doing this? The company that brought us that watered-down version of Vanilla wow that they called classic WoW?

I like removing the auction house, that thing was a gold farmer magnet.

So if you die in a raid is it permadeath? No farming dungeons either, thats crazy. So do you get everything from the dungeon that can drop for each person or something?

I am really tempted.

Sounds interesting ...
But what would you do after? O_o

I mean ... you exp to max level, go every dungeon and raid ... get all gear you possibly can in first run ...
It still takes some time, no doubt about it ... but after? O_o

The last Solasta update is releasing on May 29th.

I noticed that Pathfinder WotR was on sale for ten quid on Steam so, despite the fact I gave up on Kingmaker half way through, decided to give it a shot after reading the positive reviews (and top tips) here. Let’s see how I get on …