Gaming
Required Internet Connection and Microtransactions Mar Metal Gear Survive
Konami just doesn’t seem to want to learn from its past mistakes, which is a shame. As a fan of the company’s past games, I want Konami to succeed and win over customers, but that doesn’t seem likely if it continues to implement features in Metal Gear Survive known to piss off customers.
Konami recently talked with Gamespot regarding a few key features of Metal Gear Survive, specifically multiplayer. Since the game is built around the ability to switch between single and multiplayer modes, Konami decided players need to be online to play the game regardless of mode.
Konami explained, “Metal Gear Survive’s online connectivity requirements were built to support a seamless integration between single player and co-op. This will also enable us to provide ongoing content post-launch.”
History does not look back fondly on games that require players to always be online. These games always suffer horrendous server issues at launch. Arguably the most infamous of these launch debacles was Diablo 3, as players were plagued with “The servers are busy at this time. Please try again later. (Error 37)” messages; many cite the game’s disastrous launch in arguments against requiring online connections to play single-player modes. While these games were eventually patched so gamers could play them offline, they all left horrible first impressions, and Metal Gear Survive is already off to a rocky start when it comes to impressions. The title alone is reason enough for many gamers to boycott the game; the last thing Konami needs is to give gamers a legitimate reason.
Speaking of reasons gamers boycott games, according to Gamespot, Konami will also place microtransactions in Metal Gear Survive, which will mostly (or exclusively; details are vague) boost the rate at which players obtain resources. While these microtransactions are nowhere near as offensive as loot boxes or Metal Gear Solid V‘s Forward Operating Base insurance, they raise a serious question: just how grindy is the final version of Metal Gear Survive? Is Konami just being greedy, or did it intentionally manipulate the rate at which players earn resources to incentivize purchasing resource boost microtransactions? That is, after all, a common practice among free-to-play mobile game publishers. Ever since EA made Star Wars Battlefront 2 pay-to-win with loot boxes, gamers have started eyeing any game with microtransactions with suspicion. Konami knows players hated microtransactions in Metal Gear Solid V, yet the company is implementing them in Metal Gear Survive nonetheless, which is a horrible business decision from any perspective.
Metal Gear Survive has been fighting an uphill battle ever since it was announced, and these recent revelations are not doing Konami any favors. Most companies would realize that you shouldn’t put microtransactions and a mandatory Internet connection in a game many players want to hate, but Konami has a history of making poor decisions and not caring.
Gaming
Ubisoft says that future Assassin’s Creed games will need more time to be made
As Assassin’s Creed Shadows is about to sneak up on people in November, Ubisoft says that the time between developing games needs to be longer to find the “right balance.” Shadows has been in development for four years, longer than any other game in the series up to this point. That includes the huge open-world epics Assassin’s Creed Odyssey and Assassin’s Creed Valhalla.
Shadows lead producer Karl Onnée (thanks, GamesIndustry.biz) says that the latest AC game took 25% longer to make than Valhalla. He says this is necessary to keep the quality of the series that it is known for: “It’s always a balance between time and costs, but the more time you have, the more you can iterate.” You can speed up a project by adding more people to it, but that doesn’t give you more time to make changes.
Onnée says this has as much to do with immersion and aesthetics as it does with fixing bugs and smoothing out pixels. This is because the development team needs time to learn about each new historical setting: “We are trying to make a game that is as real as possible.” We’re proud of it, and the process took a long time. In feudal Japan, building a house is very different from building a house in France or England in the Middle Ages. As an artist, you need to learn where to put things in a feudal Japanese home. For example, food might not belong there. Get all the information you need and learn it. That process takes a long time.”
You’ll have to wait a little longer for Ubisoft to work on each game. Are you okay with that? In what part of Shadows are you now? Is it interesting to you? Leave a comment below and let us know.
Gaming
You can now pre-order Lollipop Chainsaw RePOP on PS5
You can now pre-order Lollipop Chainsaw RePOP, a remaster that Dragami Games and Capcom both created. You can now pre-order the PS5 game on the PS Store for $44.99 or £39.99. If you have PS Plus, you can get an extra 10% off the price.
The company put out a new trailer with about three minutes of gameplay to mark the start of the pre-order period. Lollipop Chainsaw RePOP is a remaster of Grasshopper Manufacture’s crazy action game from 2012. You play as Juliet, a high school student who fights off waves of zombies.
The remaster adds RePOP mode, an alternative mode that swaps out the blood and gore for fun visual effects. It also adds a bunch of other features and improvements that make the game better overall. You can expect the graphics and sound to be better as well.
The game will now come out on September 12, 2024, instead of September 12, 2024. Are you excited to get back to this? Please cheer us on in the section below.
Gaming
This Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 zombies trailer is way too expensive
Is there really anyone who is following the story of Call of Duty’s zombie mode? We’ve known about the story in a vague way for a while, but we couldn’t tell you anything about it. It looks like the “Dark Aether” story will continue in Black Ops 6, but we don’t really know what that means.
For those of you who care, here is the official blurb with some background: “Requiem, led by the CIA, finally closed the last-dimensional portal, sending its inhabitants back to the nightmare world known as the Dark Aether, after two years of fighting zombie outbreaks around the world during the Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War timeline.”
Wait, there’s more! “Agent Samantha Maxis gave her life to seal this weird dimension from the inside out.” Even worse things were to come: senior staff members of Requiem were arrested without a reason by the Project Director, who turned out to be Edward Richtofen.
Black Ops 6 will take place about five years later, and it looks like it will show more about Richtofen’s goals and motivations. The most important thing is that you will probably be shooting an unimaginable number of zombies in the head. This week, on August 8, there will be a full reveal of the gameplay, so keep an eye out for that.
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