A regular look at gaming-related stories from the past week or so whereby conclusions are drawn from anything and everything. These may be incredibly well reasoned based on events from the week. Alternatively, they may be highly speculative, drawn from very little evidence. More likely, they will be somewhere in between.
Conclusion One: Destiny is destined to fail
With Bungie, the masters of the first-person shooter, and Activision, the gigantic publisher with money to burn, Destiny was pitched as a ten year platform built game-by-game. Things haven’t gone quite to plan. Yet we’re three and a half years into the ten-year cycle, having received the second game late after a lot of issues and changes during the first game’s life, and its expansions.
Right now though, every step Bungie or Activision takes meets criticism from the fans, as Eurogamer indicates with the latest problem. If this keeps happening, why would the players stay with Destiny for the next expansion, or the third game? There are other shooters like Destiny now, The Division as one example. The Division with every update improves things and the love for it grows.
Destiny may have been the first shared-world shooter with regular events and daily/weekly happenings. It may have been the most high-profile. But it’s definitely the one with the most missteps and they keep on coming. Sure, the developer and publisher can support it due to their resources, but at what point is it just not worth the effort?
Conclusion Two: 2018’s first truly big hitter is Norse Kratos
In 2017 we said goodbye to Nathan Drake and hello to Aloy -- the defining character of the last ten years of PlayStation and possibly one of those to define the next ten years. But neither will be seen this year. Sony needs something big and it has it in the form of soft-reboot Kratos, now living amongst the Norse Gods having destroyed Olympus and travelled to start a new life, with his young son, Atreus.
The time is ripe for a wonderfully balletic third-person action adventure with all kinds of rage, RPG-lite components and a companion. Kratos was the big man for Sony until Drake came along. With new life in the story and the gameplay, I suspect once again Kratos will rule.
Conclusion Three: The Avengers game is going to be brilliant
Crystal Dynamics of Tomb Raider reboot fame are making an Avengers game, and my word are they adding talent to the already very capable team. A Naughty Dog ex-Creative Director, an alumnus of Dead Space, partnership with Eidos Montreal - the folks behind the Deus Ex reboot - have all been added to alongside those already with the studio. With this calibre of developer and the rich set of characters, history and lore, this game whatever it is and whenever it comes will be amazing.
Conclusion Four: Trap Adventure 2 caught everyone’s attention
The internet has gone crazy this week thanks to a one and a half minute video showing somebody’s attempt at beating the early parts of Trap Adventure 2, a slightly insane iOS game.
Personally it doesn’t exactly look like fun to me and I’m not entirely sure why this video gained so much traction this week, but I’m guessing that in the next set of downloads data from the app store, this will have seen a sizeable spike!
Conclusion Five: Microsoft crosses the streams
Sorry, I had to get a Ghostbusters reference in there once it came to me, despite the fact it’s not quite what’s happening. What is happening is that Microsoft today announced that Microsoft Studios games released on the Xbox One will be added to Xbox Games Pass on the day and date of the game’s release.
That means you can actually stream the latest Gears game, Halo title or most imminently, Sea of Thieves. Stream it. Xbox and chill, anyone?
Microsoft have lost this generation, that’s clear. But if Xbox Games Pass can get to a level where it is Netflix, for games, and if Sony don’t properly sort their PS Now offering (where do we start - the library, the subscription, the everything) the next generation could flip again. If we ignore Nintendo, at least...
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