2025/02/28 23:20
Game masterpieces after 2025: Either bloody or mediocre to death
2025/02/28 23:20
Text/Isaac
After watching several console/PC masterpieces at the beginning of 2025, my hanging heart is a little half-dead.
Among them, Grape King's favorite one is "Kingdom of Heaven: Deliverance 2". This game is so obscure that the concept of time is obscured - I played slowly and leisurely for two weeks, I thought it would be more than ten hours at most, but I didn't expect to see that the time was already 40+. The sales of this game also exceeded 2 million copies a week ago, not only recovering the cost of 400 million kronor (about 120 million yuan) at the speed of light, but also the Steam praise rate has risen to 92% again.
But looking at other masterpieces, the situation seems to be a little awkward. For example, Obsidian Entertainment, which has launched many RPG legends such as "Fallout: New Vegas" and "Pillars of Eternity", has only 77% praise on Steam for their new triple-A RPG masterpiece "Avowed", and many players evaluate it as mediocre, boring, and improvised.
For such a legendary studio and such a triple-A masterpiece, this kind of feedback is a bit embarrassing, but even my friends around me make no secret of their disappointment in it.
In addition to "The Oath", the new work of the Old Man Ring IP, "Elden Ring: Night King's Landing", has also opened a round of online testing. The result is just as embarrassing: in addition to the large number of complaints caused by server problems, one of the biggest voices you can see on the Internet is urging you to buy cautiously and enter the pit, because it also seems mediocre and sometimes makes people have high blood pressure to play.
Although they may seem unrelated, the two games are somewhat alike.
It's not just that they're like them, and it's not just that they've disappointed some players — behind the overturn of these two blockbusters is more of a change in the gaming industry as a whole. The market feedback from players has brutally drawn a dividing line between the game's masterpieces: either they will be bloody, or they will be mediocre to death.
01
Let's talk about the two masterpieces first, where are the good and mediocre of each of these two masterpieces.
As a first-person ARPG, "Oath" actually does a good job in terms of combat system and exploration experience. The types of weapons aren't new, but your character can use dual-wielding weapons, or you can equip single-wielding weapons in your left and right hands to achieve some interesting combinations.
For example, with a shield in one hand and a spear in the other, that is the shield poke flow; Take two swords or guns to fight each other left and right, and you can rely on rhythmic operations to hit double attack speed; You can also start with a set of monkey shows and add buffs, and then switch to the main set to play output.
The relatively free, combat-oriented combat, coupled with the high mobility of the characters, make "Oath" at least refreshing and smooth in terms of action experience; In terms of map design, the exquisite hand-rubbed scenes, three-dimensional box garden structure, and clear guidance of "The Oath" also make the exploration experience fun and driving enough.
In order to highlight the advantages of these two aspects, Obsidian can be described as well-intentioned, taking the initiative to step out of its comfort zone, and doing a lot of subtractions that break the tradition. For example, your character has a quantum stomach bag and a portable warehouse, stealing things when you want, eating food when you want, and providing an automatic reply when you need it; Long rest can be teleported to the camp on the spot, and then transmitted back when the matter is finished; The washing point is basically cost-free, and it is so friendly that it is not like a stand-alone masterpiece at all, but like an MMO......
Sounds like everything is fine at the moment, right? But the biggest problem is that even though "The Oath" has done so many popular measures in order to attract more players, in Obsidian's most signature CRPG freedom, narrative depth and open world framework, "The Oath" has made concessions and compromises, and finally made it a work that is not outstanding in all aspects.
While The Oath also has branching options and a reticular narrative, it slashes the player's "choice" in terms of free decision-making in the first place. For example, the classic stealing and attacking NPCs were directly banned in this work. You can't behave out of the ordinary, which means that the world is like a well-behaved online game, with a lot less energy for free movement.
In the branching options, although "The Oath" gives many classic dilemmas, in the end, you will find that the results are not too much. No matter how you choose, the impact on favorability and plot development is not obvious - on the contrary, after you choose a position, there will always be people with the opposite position who stand up and run on you...... The classic set of attribute checks in the Obsidian CRPG has also been simplified to the corresponding racial origin and simple card values in "Oath".
So the more you play in the later stage, the more you will feel that "Oath" is always a breath of air: you say the battle is cool, this battle is not as far-reaching and rich in derivation as the real ARPG, more characters and skin-changing monsters repeat each other's attacks and spells; You say the narrative is good, the main plot is actually a little boiled, and the dialogue is all stump performances, which looks quite bland;
You say it's cool to explore, the overall set of "Oath" is still the logic of online games - four maps, four levels of intensity, but the amount of resources on each map is fixed, and the training degree is strictly stuck. Therefore, some players have found that if you speed through the main line to the next map and get high-level equipment, and then come back and lick the first map, it is the most comfortable solution, and this paradoxical design also destroys the fun of exploration to a certain extent.
This logic makes the combat and exploration experience of "The Oath" go high and low. "After a few hours, there is no freshness."
Although there are also many players who oppose it, they feel that it is really enough fun to calm down and play slowly. However, with only 30~50 hours of volume and single-week experience, compared with the price of 348 yuan, it still makes more people's impression of it become "2A quality, 3A price".
Martin Klíma, executive producer of Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2, said, "Some people like it, some people don't, some people love it, some people hate it." I think it's better to make a game that gets multiple ratings than a game where everyone gives it a seven. Unfortunately, "The Oath" may be one such game, where everyone gives a seven.
02
Compared to "The Oath", the situation in "Night's Landing" is much easier to describe. Because judging from the current test situation, it may not be a triple-A masterpiece, but a "Miyazaki Hidetaka Theme Park" developed on the basis of reusing a large number of "Elden Ring" triple-level materials.
The gameplay of Night's Landing looks fresh, but it's actually not too innovative. In a word, it is a 3-player online team, a PVE chicken mode with roguelike elements. In the game, you have to choose a character first, form a team, and then jump to the ground while running poison, while fighting monsters and licking pictures, looting equipment, upgrading and strengthening, fighting small bosses to get one of the three random passives, and finally ushering in the boss battle.
In order to adapt to this gameplay mode, Fromsoftware has really broken the tradition of souls games this time - the new character Nighttimer, no longer an undead person who is so cumbersome that he doesn't even have knees, but is more agile than the protagonist of "Wolf", can sprint against walls, has no fall damage, and has super high mobility.
The current four characters are roughly positioned as Thorn Tan, and they each have a passive skill, an active skill, and a "unique skill". The skill design is quite interesting, for example, the Assassin's active skill is to repeatedly deal damage for the previous 1.5 seconds, and the damage of teammates is also counted. This means that if the team has tacit understanding, they can play a lot of wonderful coordination operations.
The skill of the Stalker (Warrior).
But embarrassingly, the current online experience of "Night's Landing" still seems a little behind. In addition to the stiff injury of frequent disconnections, the number of players is designed to force three, and if you team up with a friend, the system will match you with a lone wolf. The only way to communicate between the three is punctuation, and there is no built-in voice or chat system......
The production director of this work, Junya Ishizaki
An explanation of the party restrictions
Of course, people with fixed teams don't care too much about these flaws. But what's even more embarrassing is that in addition to the gameplay overhaul of "Night's Landing", almost 90% of the asset materials are from "Elden Ring", and a small part comes from past soul works, such as the hundred-legged demon in "Dark Souls 1" and the blowtorch of "Wolf". Even if you look through all the current weapons in the game, you won't see a new design.
Therefore, players who have tried it out have given it a nickname, called "Fight for a Good Soul".
If you want to ask if "Night's Landing" is fun, it must be fun. Just like The Oath, its combat experience is also very refreshing and exciting, and there is more cooperation with teammates. But if you think about it, it seems that "Night's Landing" also plays to its weaknesses and avoids its strengths, leaving down the part of content that most players value the most.
This short part, in addition to the backward online system, also includes the design of a combination of roguelike and chicken. While many of the designs in Night's Landing are novel, they always feel like they were come up with a pat on the head. For example, there is a passive effect where the character will fall a shower when walking slowly. It's cool, it's cool, but it's useless, and it's hard to build, which is a little confusing.
Screenshot from Station B @ rookie Lao Tian THE_JOKER
The long part that has been avoided is the carefully crafted box-style levels, the epic boss, and the combat experience composed of a lot of action design and weapon skills. Although the official version of "Night's Landing" will have 8 characters and 8 final bosses, it will still make players feel so bad compared to previous classics - after all, at this level, the experience of playing a few more mods for the old man's ring may be better.
This phenomenon of promoting weaknesses and avoiding strengths has been described by some players as "picking up watermelons and losing watermelons". In a sense, this is not wrong, after all, multiplayer online, repeated play, and resource reuse are great temptations for stand-alone manufacturers.
But the problem is that some watermelons can be found everywhere, while others are unique.
03
Looking at it this way, are "The Oath" and "Night's Landing" really quite similar?
Both are striking a balance between the large size and slow pace of a stand-alone RPG and the lightness and fast pace of modern online games, but "Oath" is to let go of the immersion of old-school CRPGs, while "Night's King" is to let go of the traditional hardcore crucifixion experience of souls.
But if you really want to get into the details, there are some differences. The biggest reason is that none of them are going to the goal of a triple-A masterpiece in the traditional sense, but they are each playing with other ideas.
For example, Bloomberg's report mentioned that the development of "The Oath" began in 2018 as a proposal made by Obsidian to attract buyers before it was acquired by Xbox. Initially. The game was conceived as a multiplayer online game that blended Destiny and Skyrim, "but ultimately the idea was abandoned."
Later, in 2021, the "Oath", which had been done for more than two years, was restarted due to design problems, the leadership team was replaced, and the entire project was reorganized; It wasn't until 2023 that the game announced its plans again, and it also skipped tickets for a few months. In addition, in the past few years, Obsidian has also been developing "The Outer Worlds 2" at the same time, and the development process of "Oath" can be imagined how chaotic it is, and it was not until the later stages that the various parts were finally in place.
Obsidian may have a lot of troubles, but "The Oath" has indeed become this mediocre because of the unclear direction, R&D changes and rush work.
And "Night's Landing" looks like Fromsoftware saw that "Elden Ring" is so popular, and the assets of this generation are so huge, so it is not a pity, so it decided to find a way to use these resources to live the whole life. So I chose Roguelike, the most utilized and cost-effective gameplay mode.
So although it is highly anticipated by players, "Night's Landing" is not even a sequel to "Elden Ring" without the participation of Hidetaka Miyazaki, without the participation of George Martin - it can only be regarded as a side story. Hidetaka Miyazaki just initiated the project, gave director Junya Ishizaki the "green light" permission, and devoted himself to other projects.
In other words, both Obsidian and Fromsoftware have reasons not to invest in their new products.
Of course, their choices are reasonable, and they should be encouraged to break with tradition and step out of their comfort zone. Just like in recent years, both the game industry and gamers are also disenchanting the "suffering" tradition of souls games. Instead, it is a spirit of service for the player, just like "Black Myth: Wukong" will not be a brainless boss to fight, but incorporates a large number of convenient mechanisms. Looking back, even the old man's ring is the same.
Liang Qiwei, the producer of "Shadow Blade Zero", also said: "Outside of the game, FormSoftware, or Hidetaka Miyazaki's signature is loud enough, so players will play their games with a preset 'I'm going to suffer' position, but if this 'suffering' setting is not endorsed by a celebrity, then players may not be able to tolerate it." ”
At the end of the day, what must be held on to, and what needs to be left behind? This is the most critical question.
You see that so many players will complain about the suffering and inconvenience of the masterpiece, but "Kingdom of Heaven: Deliverance 2" is the most inconvenient - there are requirements for saves, there are many weight restrictions, various debuffs, and it is easy to die in the early stage...... Why is it still on fire?
The reason may be that when convenience becomes the standard answer, this "inconvenience", which is extremely expensive to develop, has become a luxury in games.
How high did Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 cost? To give a simple example: there is a "true and false hermit" task in the game, and the player can only investigate the matter after playing for about ten hours, and finally after a series of tasks, it is found that the hermit in the mountains is actually fake, and the real hermit has long died. But some people have found that if you don't pick up any main line at the beginning and go straight to the location in your memory, you can see the dying true hermit.
Content that can't be played normally still has corresponding motion capture performances
What does this mean? It shows that the R&D team not only wrote a frighteningly thick script, but also really made all the character trajectories according to the timeline in the most stupid way - even if most players will never trigger these contents. With this kind of extravagant blood, how many teams can be stupid enough to go down?
04
In fact, if you really want to talk about mediocrity, it may also be a little unfair to "The Oath" and "Night's Landing". After all, this is our evaluation with the powerful filters of our predecessors, and they are still the best in the industry in terms of production level. Masterpieces with worse decisions and lower quality than them are also gone.
It's just that by 2025, the so-called "masterpieces" are really not so easy to fool in the market.
Today's players are well-informed, the threshold is constantly rising, and after receiving a variety of divine and classic education, the requirements for new works will naturally be high. The content should be large and full, the branch lines should be delicate and hand-rubbed, the battles should be refreshing, and the narrative should be immersive...... In short, if you can't do it to the extreme, it's mediocrity.
Of course, there is no need for big manufacturers to work so hard - they are not like a team that travels alone, either they succeed or die, and they can always choose the decision of insurance.
But if you want to make a masterpiece that can be remembered, there is no way to do it. After all, mediocrity has always been the enemy of the gaming industry.
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