Original link: https://markonreview.com/2023/08/15/2023-aug-upcoming-games/
New this month
Baldur’s Gate 3 / Baldur’s Gate 3
2023.08.03 / PS5, PC, XS X|S (time to be determined)
Polish studio Larian Studios spent about 6 years creating a new series of “Baldur’s Gate” series, which was previously launched on Steam in the form of Early Access at the end of September 2020. After further polishing by the studio and feedback from players for a long time, Finally, the official version was launched earlier this month.
“Baldur’s Gate 3” is based on Wizards of Coast’s “Dungeon & Dragon” (D&D for short) world view (more specifically, its fifth edition rules), and provides The role-playing experience of other real players teaming up, the story is set more than 100 years after “Baldur’s Gate 2” (with less connection with the previous work), this time players will visit more “D&D” world view landmarks, experience Larian claims An adventure story with a high degree of freedom and many event branches; the overall appearance of the game is similar to that of the “Divinity: Original Sin” series from Larian, and the battle is turn-based, based on the fifth chapter of “D&D”. Version rule design, Larian applied adjustments to make it more dynamic and refreshing.
The first two generations of the “Baldur’s Gate” series were released in 1998 and 2000, and were jointly launched by BioWare and Black Isle Studios (belonging to Interplay). In 2003, the series was announced as “Baldur’s Gate 3”. : Black Dog (Baldur’s Gate 3: The Black Hound), a sequel with Black Isle in charge, but Interplay disbanded Black Isle shortly after due to deteriorating financial conditions, causing the project to abort.
Today, Larian’s “Baldur’s Gate 3” has nothing to do with the above-mentioned “Black Dog”. Larian, who is obsessed with this IP, has voluntarily petitioned Wizards since the beginning of the development of “Divinity: Original Sin”, hoping to be responsible for ” A new work in the Baldur’s Gate series, Wizards of the Coast, who did not approve at the time, took the initiative to send out a production invitation to Larian after the success of “Divinity: Original Sin 2”, and Larian, who took this order, has not released it since 2017 Other new works. According to interviews with various media outlets by studio co-founder Swen Vincke, Larian doubled the size of the team for this project. 3: Wild Hunt (The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt) CD Projekt Red.
PC Gamer pointed out in its article looking forward to “Baldur’s Gate 3” that in terms of CRPG, works such as “Fallout” and “Planescape: Torment” used to inspire in their era. Infinitely imaginative text depicts the world, but in the era of “Mass Effect” (Mass Effect) and “The Witcher” (The Witcher) etc., these works that pursue more cinematic performance are exquisite in audio-visual and interaction, but at the expense of the aforementioned low The extremely high flexibility provided by cost works; however, “Baldur’s Gate 3″, which contains 174 hours of cutscenes and 17,000 ending changes, makes the author of this article feel a balanced progress. Expectations are permanently raised.” However, as a CRPG enthusiast, the author still holds a wait-and-see attitude towards PC Gamer’s praise, because “Baldur’s Gate 3” focuses on the promotion of rich and diverse choices, moving audio-visual effects, and little consideration in terms of story and expression. And I think it’s the latter that’s at the heart of what really makes something like Requiem or Disco Elysium famous, and of course, I’m eagerly awaiting Baldur’s Gate 3 Performance.
Stray Gods: The Roleplaying Musical / Stray Gods: The Roleplaying Musical
2023.08.10 / PS4, PS5, X1, XS X|S, NS, PC
An interactive musical set in Greek mythology, developed by Summerfall Studios and published by Humble. Players in “Wandering Gods” will play Grace, a confused college dropout who accidentally witnesses the death of the Muse and gains the power of the Muse, which will make her side People can sing to express their thoughts, but Grace is also suspected of being the murderer of the muse, so she needs to find out the truth and prove her innocence within 7 days.
Although “The Wandering God” is called a “role-playing musical”, the actual gameplay may be more similar to an interactive movie. Let’s call it an interactive musical. Specifically: the game as a whole is like a musical, mainly through singing and dancing. In the development of the plot, players need to make choices in the singing passages and some dialogues. The choices in the singing passages are mostly time-limited. The options are roughly divided into three directions, namely charm, negotiation, and strength, which visually correspond to green, Blue, red UI design. The choice of the three directions will not only directly affect the lyrics and melody of the current aria of the protagonist and the NPC, the three different directions also have their own emphasis on the music genre, and the current choice will also affect and limit the player’s subsequent options (not necessarily Simply by changing the three values, the results of “choose direction A first and then direction B” and “choose direction B first and then direction A” may have different results), and then advance the plot to different branches.
On the surface, the gameplay of the game is very interesting. Each song contains many options, and the direction of the story and the song seems to change a lot, but the author still captures a few confusing places:
- First of all, the visual and auditory balance of the game is a bit strange. “Wandering God” adopts a simple 2D hand-painted art style, and the strokes are similar to “Hades”. The different movements and expressions of the characters are also combined with static vertical drawing elements, and the changes are very limited. The game is also a natural choice, but in terms of listening, the composition and dubbing actors of this work are very luxurious. Not only the experience of listening to music is full, but also the dubbing performance including Troy Baker is also full of tension. This is a good thing. But the audio-visual gap inevitably makes the overall experience a bit weird.
- Secondly, it is uncertain whether the dialogue wheel design adopted in this work can accurately summarize the subsequent expressions. The dialogue wheel options in “Wandering God” are basically only a few words, and the player’s options not only determine the expression and attitude, but also affect the melody, singing style, and music style of the song. A large gap may cause the overall immersion to be discounted, not to mention that under the time limit, players will have a lot of pressure to choose.
- Finally, I am not sure whether the two forms of musicals and games share the same mechanism of emotional arousal. I am not a fan of musicals, but in my shallow understanding, musicals feel more abstract and more emotional. Intense and direct, but the game is better at weaving immersion with mechanics and letting emotions happen naturally.
However, regardless of the final experience of “Wandering God”, its exploration in the field of game music is commendable. In the past, the so-called “music game” has almost become synonymous with “rhythm game”. The attempt undoubtedly broadened the boundaries of music games and gave music games more connotations. It’s also worth mentioning that fans of Greek mythology and musicals will probably have more fun with this as well.
Cosmic Wheel Sisterhood
2023.08.17 / NS, PC
Published by Devolver Digital and developed by deconstructeam, The Red Strings Club is one of the developer’s most well-known previous titles.
In Sisterhood of the Cosmic Wheel, players take on the role of a sorceress of prophecy named Fortuna (the same name as the goddess of fate in Roman mythology), whose tarot prophecy caused chaos within the coven, causing her tarot cards to Confiscated, she herself was exiled to an asteroid for a lonely 200 years. In order to regain freedom, Fortuna summoned the forbidden creature Abramar, and Abramar helped Fortuna regain the ability of prophecy, and the story of this game unfolded.
Tarot cards have always been a popular element in the field of games. The drama and mystery of its “sense of destiny” make it play a wonderful role in the narratives of many games, such as “Dragon Age: Inquisition” (Dragon Age: Inquisition), “Goodbye Wild Hearts” (Sayonara Wild Hearts), “Cyberpunk 2077” (Cyberpunk 2077), etc. Most of the time in the “Wheel of the Universe” process, we do not use the original tarot cards for divination. Under the guidance of Abramar, Fortuna will personally create a set of cards for prophecy. The names and faces of these cards The elements and specific interpretation of cards are different from Tarot cards, but the process of divination and interpretation techniques are exactly the same as Tarot cards.
The main gameplay of this work is to influence the branch direction of the plot through the dialogue selection in the narrative process. During each divination, the game will give several interpretation options for players to choose from. Each option will cause different changes in the values of the four attribute elements (air, water, earth, and fire) in the game. It is not clear whether the values will influence the direction of the plot. In the card production part of the game, players can select different art materials for arrangement and combination in three steps, and finally fine-tune the materials to complete the customization of the deck. Judging from the game demo, “The Sisterhood of the Wheel of the Universe” seems to be a somewhat sad and private emotional work, and there is also a sense of humor in it; players will have a lot of dialogue with different characters, including friendship, sex, and intimacy , death, inner longing, fear of the unknown, understanding of fate and so on.
Perhaps one of the reasons for the widespread interest in tarot cards—and similar methods of divination—is that by asking questions about the cards and observing the cards that are turned up, everyone can use “divination” for self-exploration and self-discovery. think. When Fortuna’s wheel of fortune begins to turn, can we, who are in the game, understand a little bit more about our own nature and desire?
Immortals of Aveum
2023.08.22 / PS5, XS X|S, PC
This work was first officially released at the TGA 2022 event. It was developed by Ascendant Studios founded by Bret Robbins, the creative director of Dead Space (2008). Robbins served as the game director of this work, and EA Originals, which mainly publishes independent games under EA, is in charge. issued. This game focuses on first-person magic combat. Players will play the role of Jacques, a battle mage who learns and uses various combat abilities. During the process of exploring the game world, he collects 25 types of magic from three genres, and gradually builds his favorite skill set. Driven by Unreal Engine 5, the gorgeous magic light effect of this work has also become one of the selling points deliberately shaped (although the author thinks that the old UI design weakens the look and feel of the screen).
According to relevant interviews with EA executives in recent months, the focus of EA Originals is to shift from small and medium-sized independent works such as “Unravel” and “Fe” to 3A, and in the eyes of this business department, “Legend of the Immortal” is exactly establishing this turning point I don’t know if EA Originals can successfully “jump the carp over the dragon’s gate”; but it is worth noting that in the first quarterly report of this fiscal year that has just passed, EA did not do its best to promote this game (it boasted “FIFA” etc. The impressive performance of online service content), this may not be a good signal for this self-proclaimed 3A.
Armored CORE VI FIRES OF RUBICON
2023.08.25 / PS4, PS5, Xbox (smart distribution), PC
The mech-themed third-person action shooting game developed by FromSoftware and published by Bandai Namco Entertainment is the latest work in the folk old translation “Armored Core” series, which has no direct connection with the plot of the old work; the series was released in 1997, and the previous work “Machine War Mercenary: Judgment” It’s been 10 years since Armored Core: Verdict Day.
In this work, players will drive a combat mecha known as “Mechanical Mercenary” to explore high and low non-open world levels. The parts of the mecha can be replaced, and finally form a highly customized combat method according to the player’s preference. Although FromSoftware is also known for producing the “Soul” series of action games, the producer of this work, Yasukuni Ogura, and game director Yu Yamamura said in an interview with Game Developer that although Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice (Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice) Die Twice) and “Dark Souls” (Dark Souls) and other series have drawn experience to improve control, compactness, flow, etc., but this work is not what many people imagine, it is just the “soul” of the mecha action theme Game; By waking up this classic IP, the team wants to present the characteristics of the “Mech Mercenary” series in terms of strategy and combat freedom, reflecting that the series does not need to rely on other FromSoftware games to exist.
Ogura also mentioned in the same interview that FromSoftware has been making this work since 2018. “Mechanical Mercenary” is a game series that many FromSoftware colleagues, including Hidetaka Miyazaki, have wanted to make for a long time, but the studio The scale of the game is not large, so the development of this game requires a suitable resource base and timing. This revival of a classic IP shows FromSoftware’s ability to juggle the Souls-like ARPG and mech-action genres, and in some ways marks the beginning of a whole new phase for the studio.
Under the Blue Waves / Under The Waves
2023.08.29 / PS4, PS5, X1, XS X|S, PC
“Under the Blue Waves” is a narrative adventure game developed by Parallel Studio, and the publisher is Spotlight, an independent game distribution brand established by Quantic Dream, the developer of “Detroit: Become Human” in June this year.
The story of this game took place in the North Sea in the 1970s. The player plays the role of diver Stan. Stan had a traumatic experience in his previous life on the surface. In order to avoid the painful past, he chose to dive under the surface to live. Stan lived in a small yellow submarine in the ocean, and his daily underwater work followed the rules, which also gave him more time to think about his life. One day he began to experience some strange events, and his life changed. From the preview and interviews, it is speculated that the main gameplay of “Under the Blue Waves” is to interact with various environments, advance the main story, and freely explore the seabed.
The protagonist Stan has a strong trauma mark, and the empty and dark seabed is also like a portrayal of his lonely spiritual world. Stan seems to have a tendency to depression. Ronan Coiffec, CEO of Parallel Studio and game director of “Under the Blue Waves”, said in an interview It is revealed that Stan may suffer from certain medical conditions (such as narcolepsy), so it is not surprising that the game as a whole has an extremely lonely, melancholy and even slightly depressing atmosphere.
Also in this interview, Coiffec talked about the creative background of this work: Coiffec’s father was a sailor, and he spent a lot of his childhood by the sea, so he has a special concern for the marine ecological environment, and the North Sea suffers The environmental pollution caused him to choose this place as the background of the story. The World War II shipwreck in the North Sea has always had an impact on the environment of the sea area. In the game trailer, we can also see scenes of shipwrecks. At the same time, the North Sea is rich in oil and gas resources. After the oil crisis in the 1970s, oil companies invested heavily The development of North Sea oil fields, mining and oil spill accidents have caused huge marine pollution, and the 1970s also happens to be the time background of this work.
Today, with the climate political game, war, and energy transition, environmental protection has actually cut into our lives, and the related term “Anthropocene” has become more and more mentioned in popular culture. The buzzwords in the field of games, and the thinking about the impact of human beings on natural ecology in the field of games are nothing new, but “Under the Blue Waves” gives a more humane perspective on environmental protection issues──players’ concern for marine ecology and Stan’s personal state of mind is inseparable. Coiffec mentioned that they didn’t want to make a game that just called for environmental protection, but wanted to deliver a story about life and poetic marine life. When a person who has suffered a major blow like Stan chooses to withdraw from his grief, stop and take a breath, and start trying to explore life itself, it is easier for him to pay attention to the circumstances of his life, and it is easier to care about Nature, and nature will give Stan the strength to move forward.
Agatha Christie Hercule Poirot: The London Case Agatha Christie Hercule Poirot: The London Case
2023.08.29 / PS4, PS5, Xbox (smart distribution), NS, PC
As the name suggests, this is a reasoning puzzle game featuring Agatha Christie’s Poirot, developed by Blazing Griffin and published by Microids. “Agatha Christie-Hercule Poirot: The London Case” is Blazing Griffin’s second mystery work in the Poirot series, and the story follows on from the previous work “Agatha Christie-Hercule Poirot: The First Cases (Agatha Christie – Hercule Poirot The First Cases), both of these works tell the story of Poirot, a legendary figure, before he became famous. Different from the previous work, this work adds Poirot’s partner Arthur Hastings in Agatha Christie’s novel; in terms of mechanism, this work improves the mind map in the previous work, and adds a new timeline mechanism to help It is easier for players to tease out clues.
In addition to the games mentioned above, Microids also has two works in the Agatha Christie series, one is “Agatha Christie – The ABC Murders” developed by Artefacts Studio in 2016, and the other is developed by Microids Studio Lyon “AGATHA CHRISTIE – Murder on the Orient Express” (AGATHA CHRISTIE – Murder on the Orient Express), which is expected to be released this October, is based on the original novels.
recently played
Maquettes
I haven’t purchased the newly released “Viewfinder” this month. It just so happens that “Maquette” has entered Game Pass, so I immediately played “Maquette” as a meal replacement for “Viewfinder”.
“Maquette” is a circular puzzle game. The entire game scene is essentially an “infinite matryoshka”: shortly after the game starts, the player will enter a pink dome with some buildings around it, and there is a set of dolls in the center under the dome. The miniature model (Maquette means “model” in French), is the dome and surrounding buildings that are one size smaller, and the “normal size” dome that the player first sees has a giant dome that is scaled up; the player Every behavior of the game will happen simultaneously in the three worlds of “big, medium and small”. For example, if you throw the medium-sized key on the ground in the medium-sized world, you can go to the same position in the small-sized world to pick up the key that is shrunk to a small size ( Some locks may only fit a small key), and so on. The space puzzle design of the game is very distinctive and innovative, but the author feels that some of the puzzle design is a bit far-fetched, which is reflected in the fact that the instilled puzzle-solving experience is difficult to help figure out the follow-up new mechanism.
Of course, the really surprising part of Maquette isn’t the puzzle design. The game tells a story about an intimate relationship. The buildings that the player visits during the decryption process are all key locations in the memory of the protagonist, carrying important memories of this relationship. The protagonist sorts out this relationship like a model. Whether it is the curiosity and excitement of the unknown, the fear of smallness in the process of going from the model to the outside, or the confusion and anxiety of repeatedly tossing between several models, they are all true portrayals of various experiences in intimate relationships. Finally, after going around countless times, the scenery outside the dome has also changed countless times. The pink dome is still there, but it has changed from brilliant to broken.
The storyline of the game is not uncommon, and it is not too difficult to reproduce a life experience in the form of a game, but it is possible to capture the emotional details of personal experience, perfectly abstract it into a game mechanism, and make others empathize. It’s really admirable. Although Maquette is a single-player game, I think it would be a good choice to play with a lover or other close people. The beginning and result of each relationship may be different, but the difficulties and emotional experiences in the process are easily similar.
The Veneba Family / Venba
This work has very attractive audio-visual effects. Whether it is the portrayal of characters and scenes, or the presentation of food, kitchen utensils, and cooking process, it is very realistic and interesting. More importantly, this work is divided into multiple chapters, and the climax of each chapter is closely related to cooking, which can not only evoke some fun related to cooking (players who like to cook may be more useful), but also let the game carry Emotions are conveyed to the players silently through “cooking”, a segment of life that is extremely close to everyone, and evokes more thoughts.
This work seems to bear a lot of special labels, such as “immigrant family”, “Indian cuisine”, “integration into foreign culture”, etc., they are likely to be far away from your life, but after the author finished the game, he found that this is not the case at all. It is true that this work is indeed spreading and promoting Indian food and culture in a very specific way, but there are more life fragments that can empathize with us: staying in the hometown, or taking root in a metropolis with exponentially increasing opportunities, desperately pursuing ideal careers, Or compromise with more realistic opportunities, what kind of relationship can be chosen between partners, parents and children, what is the meaning of home (whether big or small) and origin, and so on. The characters in “The Winiba Family” already have their own answers and obtained the corresponding results, but outside of the game, through experiencing the game’s detailed depiction and close to real life bridges, players who play this work obviously also accept it. same question.
Three Volts / Sanfu
Note: At the end of this paragraph, there will be slight spoilers about the details of the early stage of “San Fu”, please read as appropriate.
The author played this game as soon as it was released. Based on two mentalities, I have great expectations for “San Fu”: one is nostalgia, and the other is curiosity. How will the developers deal with the “special function boom”? “This is a very, very difficult issue to talk about.
Regarding the first point of my expectation, the developer has done a good job. The art materials in the game are large and well-made, restoring the flavor around the millennium. In addition, the game has also put a lot of effort into the visual performance. The game adopts a voyeuristic perspective throughout the game, which greatly increases the overall horror atmosphere. The performances of many passages in the early and middle stages of the game are also unique.
But for the second point, “Three Volts” is much lower than my expectations. Regarding the supernatural power craze that has actually been agitated around us, the game basically only talks about the motives of the “supplier” of supernatural powers. It is nothing more than everyone for their own interests. As for what this huge benefit is, the author It may be inconvenient to dig deeper due to some concerns, but it is understandable, but the narrative logic of whether it is “obsessed with profit” or “a big game of chess” is superficial; Almost completely untouched. I personally think that behind the upsurge of supernatural powers, there are some deeper social issues worth discussing, and they are far more worthy of our consideration than the criminal motives of the villains in the story. Dimensionality reduction strikes have become common crimes.
In addition, I have to mention that the whole story of “San Fu” is basically promoted by the lines of the characters. The writing of the lines has some market-style touches, which makes people feel friendly, but the overall feeling that the potential of the text has not been fully utilized. The plot of this work also makes people feel a little impulsive. When I played the end of the game, I immediately remembered the feelings that Nic Pizzolatto, the screenwriter of the HBO series “True Detectiv Season 1” (True Detectiv Season 1), once talked about. In arranging the ending of a character, using simple dramatic lines to cater to the audience’s feelings will hurt the entire story and deny the real questions that the story has been asking. In fact, this seems to be the case. After the release of “San Fu”, the most discussed topic in the community is no longer the core issue that the story wants to convey, but the emotion of the specific content in the ending.
However, even with some shortcomings, it is still admirable for the developers to challenge such a sensitive topic. I especially like this setting in the game: Once you have watched the VCD of “Peach Sex Secret” in the game, your pupils will change, and you will live in an illusion from then on. The more times you watch, the more serious the illusion is. The investigation also started from this VCD. This setting is like an interesting metaphor. Once you know something, it is impossible to return to a state of ignorance. Then “Sanfu” may be like “Secrets of Love”, a weird disc, which makes people unbearable. Live in pursuit of the truth.
(The pictures in the text come from the Internet)
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