Quick Look: Sable

This does seem to have a bit of that Breath of the Wild spark of just wandering around, seeing something and then traversing to get to it in a beautiful world, something to soak in.

Visually while it is pretty original it does remind me a bit of Zineth by Arcane Kids, though that was a more hectic and brisk version of this style. That game was influenced by fast stylized games like Jet Set Radio, whereas this is definitely got inspiration from Zelda and Journey, but has a bit of the slow burn energy from Red Dead.

<3 to Danny and Tamoor, but couldn't keep watching. The video keeps juttering when they're riding on the vehicle and it is so uncomfortable to look at.

The Link's Awakening reboot was the last time I was this sold on a game so technically repulsive. A scifi exploration puzzle platformer about finding oneself in a new world with a unique culture ticks all my boxes, but that performance... Hopefully they get it sorted. If the PC version runs better I may not even wait for the patch.

For anyone that doesn’t have Game Pass I would describe the Series X performance to be currently “very rough” to put it lightly. The tutorial zone is fine with a bit of hitching but once you get deeper into the open world I’ve been in closed spaces that are chugging at sub 20 FPS on top of all the other issues like a wonky camera, glitches that require a game restart to fix, constant stuttering.

The game is also entirely too big for the movement speed. When your bike gets inevitably stuck somewhere and you’ve finished a bit of platforming and now need to move on it is quicker to back out of the game and reload your save then walking back to the bike. The way the bike handles also stops being charming after a while and makes you wonder why they left it that way. Any tiny bump in the road makes you flip over and cartwheel out of control - if intentional it is a very weird design choice. In a game that is almost purely cinematic traversal the act of movement should be additive to the experience while currently it actively detracts from it.

Frankly I’m a little shocked by the high scores across the board. Sable is visually stunning but the rest of the game seems to be either poorly thought-out or technically inept.

Tried booting up the GamePass version on my PC, and ran into instant bugs and glitches. Every time I tried to enter the settings menu on the main menu, it would instead move my cursor to the "Exit Game" option. Decided to see if things would be better once I was playing the game. Opened the menu after the initial cutscene, and I couldn't even see any of the options in the settings menu. Seems like this game is going to need a patch or two before I touch it again.

Oh my god Tam's Watoo impression just caused a spit-take that almost ruined my keyboard thanks Tam

This was nice; I might purchase it in a year when more bugs are fixed

LADS

@heyitsdale: I had these issues on release. I waited a few hours for a patch and when I booted it up several hours later the menu and UI issues were gone. I'm not sure if a patch was applied on day one or not but the menu problems cleared up when I restarted.

you prolly stopped right before they started addressing that. Devs say a patch is incoming, but who knows if it'll actually fix the hitching.

A little bummed how many times Danny mentioned "you have to remember this is only a 2-person team." Team size ≠ quality bar. Any team, from indie to AAA could have shipped a title with hitching and clipping, and it puts the idea in players heads that they should expect worse products from small teams. Not to mention that there's a ton of other hurdles to overcome that are completely out of the developers hands or unforeseen for a lot of different reasons.

All-in-all a good Quick Look, just important to keep in mind that anyone can ship a game with problems studio size aside. Games are hard, man.

how does this get released in this state. non-existent QA team?

We all wear masks, Mr. Ipkiss… metaphorically speaking.

Thank you for the content.

@merrvk: They must have had a real tiny QA team? There are so many places where you simply clip through solid objects - and not even out of the way corners of the world, like critical paths on the way to a map vendor locations. Plants floating in mid air. NPC names getting stuck for every subsequent NPC. My money counter getting stuck on the screen. Quests not activating properly.

For every really cool moment and discovery you are treated to five things that ruin the experience almost immediately.

Game is fun but definitely runs like junk on Xbox and pc.

If you press the bumper on the controller, it shows which direction the bike is.

Also collecting those seeds and then depositing them will improve your stamina.

@chumplord: also fast travel is good for getting back to your bike

The two framerates at the same time thing is severely off-putting.

Wondered when these BOTW-likes start coming out. Technical issues aside this definitely looks like something worth playing. Also on game pass which is nice.

I do enjoy exploration, and that artstyle is quite nice (reminds me of Heaven's Vault & Falcon Age) but this game just seems to have numerous small area's that are worth exploring, stitched together by 15 minutes of desolate desert. At some point it stops being enjoyable and just feels like a drag to move around the map to get to the authored content. Especially when the bike looks like it's eventually going to screw you over and you'll end up having to reload a save and get back to where you were. That falling animation holding you in between two planes also looks real troubling. Luckily Danny managed to get out of that one.

I'm a full-blown Moebius / Jean Giraud fanboy so I am always ecstatic when a game comes out that is inspired by them.

@heyitsdale: Do you have DS4Windows running? I had the same problem with the controller until I turned it off.

Is there a reason this video doesn't show up in the Quick Looks section? I heard them mention a Quick Look on the Bombcast and came to find it and it wasn't there. Had to search for it.