TGO Daily | May 31, 2021 | Far Cry 6 Detailed
A Far Cry on the Horizon and AllStars left Bloodstained
TGO Daily | May 31, 2021
Hey everyone, Adrian here!
Just wanted to remind you again that I have officially been replaced as the lead writer on this newsletter by Brandon. For more details about this change, be sure to check out the update email that was sent out yesterday!
Starting today, I move into an editor role. It’ll be an interesting transition for me, and I hope it all works out okay! I’ll pop back in here every now and then, and rest assured that everything that is written in the newsletter will have my eyes on it for the foreseeable future. Adding and subtracting as needed :)
Brandon and I will both appreciate your patience and leniency for any bumps we might experience over the next few weeks. We’re trying to bring as much value as possible, and we want to do it right! Feel free to leave feedback at any time as well.
Hope you’re doing well, and I’ll check in with you soon. Cheers!
Adrian
In The News
Far Cry 6
Ubisoft have announced that the latest addition to the Far Cry series is releasing on October 7th, 2021. Far Cry 6 will be launching on PC, Google Stadia, last-gen, and current-gen consoles. The developers are touting this entry as having the biggest map in the series - having built a fictional country (with Cuban inspiration) from the ground up.
Considering the game’s scale, there is cause for concern to those playing on the Xbox One or PlayStation 4. CD Projekt Red’s Cyberpunk 2077, and its poor optimization on last-gen consoles, is still fresh on the minds of many. Ubisoft did address the concern, just as CDPR did at the time, stating in an interview with VGC:
“…that doesn’t mean that the previous generation is abandoned in any way. We’re really, really cautious about that, so we’ll show more detail and more info very soon.”
— David Grivel, Lead Gameplay Designer for Far Cry 6.
Time will tell if their words hold truer than CDPR’s did.
If you’re interested in the franchise, there is some pretty neat stuff they revealed in the the newly released trailer. Check out the cute little puppy in it!
Horizon Forbidden West | State of Play
Horizon Forbidden West is officially the most watched PlayStation State of Play event dedicated to a single game. It took only three hours to take first place and, at the time of this writing, is sitting at 4.6 million views. To give that some weight, second place goes to Demon Souls which is at 2.2 million views - and the Horizon video was only just posted three days ago. While it hasn’t been given a release date yet the developer, Guerilla Games, did announce they’ll have an update regarding it “very soon”.
This goes to show how valuable the Horizon franchise is to PlayStation, despite being a relatively new IP. Beating out games like Demon’s Souls and The Last of Us Part II is no easy feat. Guerilla have really struck gold, and hopefully this encourages Sony to continue investing in new IPs.
When you have about 20 minutes, I’d recommend giving the State of Play a watch - it’s absolutely gorgeous.
Destruction AllStars Adds Bots to Matchmaking
Destruction AllStars is a car-derby destruction game that has had some wrecks in its short life. If you haven’t heard of it, it’s a PS5 exclusive that was released this February, after being delayed by three months. It was also originally going to be a full-price game, but Sony changed that as well, releasing it instead at $20 USD. Beyond the big reduction in price, they also made it free through PlayStation Plus on launch day for two months.
Now, only a few months after its erratic release decisions, AI bots are being added to matchmaking. On their dev update on Reddit the development team indicated that bots would only fill matches when the player count is too low, and that the competitive mode would never contain bots.
The game has a 63% Metacritic score, which, when combined with the rocky start, could indicate the lower player count. Couple all that with an environment where competitive games have better success as Free-to-Play (looking at you, Apex Legends) and you have a really rough recipe. However, the majority of fans seem to be welcoming the changes and perhaps, with some continued support, the game can get its wheels firmly planted on the ground.
Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night Sequel in the Works?
Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night is a metroidvania throwback that may be getting a sequel. Publisher 505 recently released a financial report that briefly discussed some successes with Bloodstained. Interestingly, the final bullet point on the slide says “second version in development”. The title sold well with more than one million copies sold and over $36 million in revenue. It is also the second most pledged game in Kickstarter history, beaten only in pledges by Shenmue III. If you’re a fan of metroidvania-type games it’s sitting at 81% on Metacritic - maybe something you should check out!
Miscellanea
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