The Strike is a good place to start. It reveals a little more of the world players can expect, showcasing great improvements to Destiny. The most notable thing about the Strike is just how open it felt. Instead of running casually down one big hallway that twist and turns, the Strike makes use of all the space available. The number of paths available was astounding and never has it been so easy to get separated from the group, meaning communication (or keeping an eye out) is key. Party members can’t just run ahead to go off and do their own thing; the Strike actually requires some teamwork and that’s a good thing. More than a few times, imminent danger is awaiting any careless Guardian who might think “I’ve got this.” The mechanics of it all also helped with this feeling, giving the Strike enough complexity, but not so much that it felt bogged down. It’s hard to get an exact read, though, because this is only one Strike and without leveling of any sort, it might just seem tough. This is how every Destiny expansion has played out. Things feel like they were getting more challenging, but level up enough gear and light, and those Strikes become cake-walks. I even encountered some of this already, by just breezing past the giant drill without stopping. What looked like a challenging set piece became just a set piece. No interaction required.
Traveling to Venus, you run into the Vex for the first time and finally get to meet the mysterious Exo who has been watching you this entire time. She informs you that the Vex are the real threat and it’s up to you the find out what’s going on. It’s implied that the Awoken know the location of where you can find the Vex headquarters, so it’s off to the Reef.
The European Dead Zone is a dramatic change from the Cosmodrome. While the Cosmodrome was mostly fields dotted with wrecked planes and boats, the EDZ is a quaint European village overtaken by a lush forest. With more verticality and unique architecture, the EDZ gives off a strong first impression.
With these sorts of compromises becoming commonplace, it’s no wonder that there are many gamers out there who’ve become afraid of the casual audience. More and more often they’re seeing niche series they enjoy getting compromised and simplified for the sake of attracting the casual player. Are they right to vilify the casual audience? No, absolutely not . Like it or not, the casual audience is vital to gaming’s survival and it’s not the their fault that publishers are trying to get their attention. Instead of insulting and ridiculing casual players, hardcore fans should be trying to bring them into the fold. In fact, publishers and developers should be trying to do the same thing. Major departures like Fallout 4 and Dead Space 3 would better serve their creators and IP as side-games rather than mainline series entries. If a given publisher’s goal really is to expand a series’ player base, then use these sorts of games to attract people that can actually be converted into fans rather than simply going for the easy sale. They should be trying to create long-term customers rather than simply attract short-term guests. There is still great value to be found and lots of money to be made in the various genre niches. Their fans are passionate and are willing to support honest effort if it means getting more of what they love. It’s just a matter of respecting them and the series they love when trying to increase their ranks.
Loot boxes make money. This is still the unfortunately reality of things despite the absolutely massive backlash that hit the likes of EA and Activision six months ago. Despite everything; despite the massive outcry and governmental investigations into this slimey practice, gamers are still buying loot boxes frequently enough to make them worth all the trouble they cause. They’re still in Overwatch, PlayerUnkown’s Battlegrounds is still developing theirs and now Bungie has unveiled yet another type of loot box to Destiny 2 as their response to the massive outcry against their baffling insistence on walling-off much of the game’s gear behind RNG loot boxes. The developer has even gone on-record to acknowledge fans’ dislike of the loot boxes and promised to explore ways to improve Eververse for players. Yet here they are with another loot box; they either don’t have any idea what the issue is or they think they’re going to make a lot of money from it. With Destiny 2 Prophecy Dungeon 2 in such a sorry state, they’ll need to make that money fast.
There’s no real choices and trade-offs to be made anymore. The same goes for the rest of the game. The in-depth and often rewarding dialogue trees are gone, replaced with options that boil down to whether or not the player character is going to be either nice or sarcastic nice. There are no karma checks, no skill checks, no special checks, nor even long and interesting conversations to be had. Dialogue might as well just be there because previous Fallout games had it. The list could go on, but is perhaps better saved for another time. As it stands,Fallout 4 has gained massive mainstream success. It just had to become a different game in order to get it; a game that’s much more a shooter with RPG elements than it is an RPG with shooter elements. It became a game one that fans of the old Fallout games have grown to hate and possibly a series that RPG fans in may no longer care about in the future. Taken on it’s own It’s a decent game, but one that has nonetheless been compromised for the sake of short-term sales. The same is true of Dead Space 3.