A Blaugust Diversion
Oh boy, it’s all happening right now. I rather intentionally inserted a day’s gap between the end of the posting challenge of Blaugust and this, the next post, to give myself a bit of a break. But now I regret it! I regret everything! Because now I still need to do a wrap-up post but we’ve also had the No Man’s Sky Frontier’s update actually come out, plus the first taste of gameplay for the Firaxis Marvel game – Marvel Midnight Suns.
… squeeeee …
Alright, I’m clearly not going to get anything else done if I don’t deal with those two first. So! Today the diversions, tomorrow the wrap-up!
Diversion 1: No Man’s Sky: Frontiers
As I write this, I haven’t had a chance to step in and take a look for myself yet as the news broke while I was working. But the trailer there, and the more detailed notes for the update have arrived, giving us a proper look at what this update entails.
From the predictions I made, only one actually came true — and it was an offshoot of the main prediction, so I think I can only take half a point for it — player-controlled settlements have arrived! Complete with a rudimentary Dwarf Fortress/RimWorld/Sims 4 style settler psychology system.
I think what surprises me most about this update is that it didn’t end up being as big as I — and I suspect many others in the community — thought it might be for the fifth anniversary. It’s a point update (taking us to 3.6, from the 3.5x line) rather than a full version jump to 4.0.
So I’ve had to reset my expectations somewhat, and — I won’t lie — I was a little disappointed. Purely as a result of my own expectations vs. the final reality rather than any sort of broken promise. The dangers of hype, I suppose, particularly when driven by us and our own imaginations. That aside, still keen to jump in when I can!
Someone has already drawn the parallel between defending your settlement from Sentinel attacks and the settlement raids of Fallout 4 though. *shudder* Although perhaps it won’t be so bad here, where it seems like you can only own a single settlement at a time.
Diversion 2: Midnight Suns
When I picture myself watching this, I see myself sitting there with my head tilted to the side like a curious puppy.
I feel like this barely counts as a gameplay reveal, even in the linked ‘extended’ version here.
Don’t get me wrong; I’m still somewhat optimistic based on the pedigree of the studio and people involved — but oh man. If I was coming to this cold? Not knowing what else they’d done? This would have done nothing to assuage any doubts I had — if anything it might’ve put me off further.
It feels very much like the steering hand of Disney/Marvel is all over this thing, right down to the fact very clearly vaporised enemies insist they were merely “KO’d”.
There is another trickle of gameplay coming Sept 7th to show a battle with Sabretooth, so maybe that will be a little better. Really missing the days of a gameplay reveal being something more substantial though, that’s for sure!
