I did the same purge a while ago, and found that most early access indie titles tend to stay on Steam, few make the jump. Also you can forget about getting any modern EA, ActiBlizzard or Sony title as they won’t give up the blasted DRM. Heck, GOG had to even pull warcraft 1/2 from the store a while ago because Blizzard ended their agreement. Also modern Ubi titles tend to not make it because Ubi has a competing store AND uses Denuvo heavily. And speaking of denuvo, Frontier titles also use Denuvo so those are a lost cause.

Well yes, if they didn’t build their studio in Layoff Valley, they would’ve been spared.

Same, was expecting sales to plummet. Guessing gta6 presales tempered the fall

No mention of Cambridge Analytica? I mean, I’m sure the russians put in a coin or two because the breakup was very much in their interest, but I’ve yet to see clear public proof of it other than various politicians claiming ‘it’s clear’.

Meanwhile there’s actual proof CA influenced elections and are probably working with the christo-fascists whose open goal is to break up the EU, so to me, in retrospect, it looks like maga and the US are the bigger fish here.

At this point I’d be surprised to find out they write code fully “by hand” and do not use llms anywhere in the pipeline.

I wasn’t defending as much as offering a different perspective on the game in case someone sleeps on it. I mean, you say “mile wide and inch deep” and it is like that sometimes ( stellar anomalies are drop in, gawk, scan, screenshot and leave ). But they also say it’s “space trucking simulator”, and it is that too sometimes. And that it’s “just a wallpaper generator”, and that’s also true. But these add up. There’s also the “emerging gameplay” which fdev kept yapping on about - things like the fuel rats, hull seals, the dssa and star carrier networks, axi etc.

I’m probabaly wrong thinking you haven’t played in a whole but you might wanna give it another chance. In their defense, fdev corrected the engineering rng bullshit and added a feature to shorten tedious in-system travel. They also reworked powerplay and added some colonization features as well as some squadron activities and operations if you’re on foot. On the other hand, some flaws persist: for one, it still does not respect your time, and it still does not explain much and requires third party tools and websites if you want to dive into anything.

Also I’m genuinely curious what other sandboxes ( preferably space ) offer what elite does. I know x4 does some things much better but the flight model, controls and ui is atrocious every time I play. There’s also SpaceEngine, which kinda does what Elite does with exploration but with a lot less travel time and a lot less interactivity. I was rooting for Starfield for a while but the moment todd said “One. Thousand. Planets” I knew exploration would be shite. Any other recommendations?

I really hate this reductionist attitude towards the game. I can promise you there are much more than 5 types of systems - there some 15 star classes, but then there are giants, sipergiants, you have planetoids, star orbiting othed stars, planets orbiting pulsars, moon-moons, sheperd moons, hot jupiters, gas giant pairs and many more variantions and that’s just orbital mechanics, before you even get planetside or before you see the dozens of space anomalies. Stations, yes, are about 5 main types, but there are settlements, outposts, the odd science station and megaship, tourist outposts etc. The game offers a diversity in exploration that i’ve yet to see NMS match, despite it having landable earth likes and alien life. And Starfield somehow can’t even match what’s in NMS, despite todd bragging about exploration being the main focus.

Elite is a game about flying your spaceship in a space sandbox. If you like the flight model, the combat model, the symphony of sounds your ship makes you’re gonna love doing whatever with it.

Now the game has plenty of flaws, and yes it is grindy ( or it used to be, as it’s been lessend lf late ) but anything is grindy if you’re just doing the same thing over and over. If you find you liked the game but got bored with it, maybe join a community, or join an outgoing expedition. Elite’s community is unmatched in its awesomeness.

Apologies for the rant but I hate people besmirching the good name of Elite.

I was never too bothered by the landing animation ( or the multitude of loading screens for thag matter ) because I figured it’s a limitation of their engine so they won’t be able to fix it easily or at all - and besides other games have been getting away with it: Mass Effect, SW Outlaws etc.

What irks me about this is that a modder has been able to actually do it, without access to their engine and supposedly doing it in their spare time and for free. It really shows how lazy bethesda have become and frankly don’t hold much hope for their future games.

Sky cat! Or maybe the cat is a ground owl?

Same. Smells like a (fairly generic) co-op shooter to me. It might end up being good, but with the state of blizzard and microsoft these days I’m not really excited for this.

Some people love to have a base they can revisit on a planet they liked. Some also build mining outposts for gold and whatnot. Bases are also useful for inter-galaxy travel.

It is fairly shallow, yes, but it’s also open ended so you can set your own goals. It’s also pretty good for creative types, with building bases and ships and such. I have some 700h in it but spread over a few dozen saves, played during updates over the years, and very few go past the 30h mark. I also haven’t touched some gameplay elements so there’s that. But it’s a great game in shorter batches.

Not sure why they’re being upvoted but you’re right. I’ve been using nexus since the skyrim days and it’s always had tiered downloads, account requirement and limited mods/page. Just about the only changes I’ve seen are the “refreshed” layout and the abundance of ads (which I have admittedly used an adblock for)

My misleado-sense is tingling with this article. For one, they don’t compare YoY, they just show the 15% price hike and scream “Panic! Buy now!”. Also some of those msrp’s are ridiculous. ( i.e. 430$ for a 5060ti 16gb? Not sure about the US but in europe it never really went below 500€ )

I daresay the first two are even worth a playthrough, they’re not that long. Okay, maybe the first is pretty janky and you may want to skip it, but a W2 playthrough is a dozen hours or so, and it holds up ok-ish for a 2011 game.

But also they’re all fairly self-contained. Apart from some recurring characters and the general overarching plot ( which are all explained in W3 ) they’re not strictly mandatory.

Ice zone? If it’s the one I think and you still don’t enjoy it you may want to put it down. It’s not gonna get more enjoyable.

Yeah, the game should be wide open for you now. This region is the meat and potatoes for the main quest

The game is notorious for having a slow, boring start and it’s a turn-off for many. Not sure why, but white orchard always feels like a slog. It usually clicks ( it might not for you, but it usually does ) 10-ish hours in, once you get deeper into velen/novigrad.

Another next-gen witcher 3 update? Not to look a gift horse in the mouth but the last one was both underperforming and kind of underwhelming. Why not do a witcher 1 next gen? The old goose desperately neets a graphical and/or combat update.

Nah, I’m standing by this conspiracy as well. Something is off about it - the timing, the fkn amateur “hacker” etc

Plus rockstar have drummed up drama in the past to promote their games