@killem_dafoe: Yeah, you're right - I don't mean to paint Danny in a bad light or paint his enjoyment as fake. I just recall him mentioning design discussions with Arkane folks, and even got into a disagreement with him on Twitter where he was defending their "risky decisions".
He's obviously a really sharp guy and his time closer to development lets him provide great insight when talking about games, I just felt the defensiveness to some criticisms was coming from a place of "I'm defending my friends' work" rather than "I am defending this work".
Honestly I think it's just a case of bad timing, rolling from doing the Arkane NoClip as a fan/documentarian/entertainer straight into something journalism adjacent (or however you'd catalog GB).
@topcyclist: I know I'm not @therealturk but I would say I agree with what they've said. To me, DL was a massive waste of potential.
I should start at the top by saying that I think this game was designed with console in mind. I think I would have enjoyed it a lot more on PS5 instead of PC.
In terms of specific issues, I think that a big issue is that it's just incongruent in its design. I'm also a big stealth fan and don't mind revisiting locales (I love Hitman and all the other modern Arkane games), but they load you up on arsenal so heavily (and incentivize gearing up through quests, dialogue, loot system, etc) that stealth really isn't required. Sometimes it will make things a bit quicker, but is honestly not as fun as melting through the legions of AI with massive shotguns.
On the note of AI - it's some of the dumbest I've ever played against. I think this is because it's designed with the slow turning of a thumbstick in mind. On PC, you can practically run circles around the enemies in combat - if you're handy with a mouse you can headshot most enemies from any range with even your starting weapon (and in the starting mission, they immediately tip you off on how to unlock the armory and weapons that are sufficient to carry for the rest of the game). Your extremely loud gunfire also only alerts enemies in the same "area", which doesn't really make sense given that the levels are really not so big. Feel free to indiscriminately machine gun down an area only for guards ~50 meters away have no idea you're there. I think the game would have been much improved if you could carry more powers and less guns, but then it wouldn't fit their vision for PVP as well.
The story was a big letdown - really cool ideas and really cool setting, but there is no time to ever get a feel for anything. I don't feel I really understood most of the visionaries or their motivations apart from being smart and rich. Everything is a hodgepodge. I feel like I somehow remember more about those Twins from the first level or two of Dishonored 1 than I do about any of the visionaries, and I haven't played that for like 10 years.
All in all I think their scope kinda fucked them - the multiplayer thing (while cool) was a huge waste of resources imo. It was always destined to die after week or so, and constrained a lot of the other design (different level layout, smarter AI, etc.).
Also, from a Giant Bomb perspective, I was irritated by how hard Danny went to bat for this, on Twitter as well. He has obviously formed friendly relationships with the folks at Arkane from doing NoClip, and was REALLY drinking the Kool-Aid on this one, imo. Taste is subjective and all that, but as a big fan of the studio and these type of games it was a big shortfall.
tl;dr
AI is too easy
Guns are too good
Stealth not required
Too many characters, not enough getting to know them
Scrap the multiplayer
It's linear as hell, even if it doesn't appear to be. It's like solving a Rubik's cube while reading a guide on how to solve a Rubik's cube
All this said if you can get it on sale, you might have fun! No need for pitchforks on Reddit, but a huge bummer for me personally.
While it and smash are obviously very nearly the same thing, I feel like you can really see the Slap City roots in this which is awesome. I love the way it plays.
So glad to have Ben on here. You rule Ben! Fuck the haters
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