OT: Video Games V

[usiel]

For those really excited about the cyberpunk game...

OMEGA Series gaming chairs | Secretlab US

 

[AlexBrovechkin8]

Just finished TLOU Part II. Incredible game. It's brutal and gut-wrenching and borderline disturbing right up until the very end but it's just an amazing piece of art. The story is amazing and I think it's the most beautiful video game ever created. Really enjoyed it once I accepted that I hate every encounter with the infected

 

[g00n]

Pre-ordered FIFA 21, should arrive by the end of the week. Which means Assassins Creed Origins will go unfinished again.

 

[AlexBrovechkin8]

Pre-ordered FIFA 21, should arrive by the end of the week. Which means Assassins Creed Origins will go unfinished again.

I have Assassins Creed Origins in the queue but hesitant to download it since I don't want AC fatigue right before Valhalla comes out. I put in about 100 hours into Odyssey and got so tired of it I just deleted it one night and haven't once thought about re-downloading it. Now that TLOUII is finished I may go with Uncharted 4 or Marvel's Spider-Man.

 

[g00n]

I have Assassins Creed Origins in the queue but hesitant to download it since I don't want AC fatigue right before Valhalla comes out. I put in about 100 hours into Odyssey and got so tired of it I just deleted it one night and haven't once thought about re-downloading it. Now that TLOUII is finished I may go with Uncharted 4 or Marvel's Spider-Man.

The AC games can wear you out if the story/theme isn't compelling since the missions and tactics are pretty repetitive. Origins is clearly influenced by Witcher 3 in combat but is nowhere near that game in depth or gameplay, though the visuals are pretty stunning (if you like ancient Egypt).

Just browsing Odyssey vids and seems like it's probably reskinned Origins. I'll skip that and look to see whether Valhalla has a more developed skill tree and weapons system before pulling the trigger.

Played all 4 of the Uncharted titles in a row during a binge and they're good enough with story that you can overlook some of the flaws. I recall some frustrations with that one but don't remember what they were. I may have posted about it here.

Also have to consider Far Cry 6 is coming out before investing in anything else.......

 

[tenken00]

AC Origins is a long game, but its still shorter than the gargantuan AC Odyssey. I think Ubisoft straight out said that AC Valhalla is going to be much shorter because of all the complaints about Odyssey's length.

@AlexBrovechkin8 Since you got a PS5 pre-order, I would probably hold off on Spiderman, since the PS5 remake is supposed to be a separate game and you won't be able to carry your save over. And it'll look nicer on the PS5. I think the remastered will be included with the Miles Morales game in the Ultimate Edition ($69.99).

And the guys talking about Star Wars Squadrons, wow it looks nice. How's the online gameplay?

 

[AlexBrovechkin8]

The AC games can wear you out if the story/theme isn't compelling since the missions and tactics are pretty repetitive. Origins is clearly influenced by Witcher 3 in combat but is nowhere near that game in depth or gameplay, though the visuals are pretty stunning (if you like ancient Egypt).

Just browsing Odyssey vids and seems like it's probably reskinned Origins. I'll skip that and look to see whether Valhalla has a more developed skill tree and weapons system before pulling the trigger.

Played all 4 of the Uncharted titles in a row during a binge and they're good enough with story that you can overlook some of the flaws. I recall some frustrations with that one but don't remember what they were. I may have posted about it here.

Also have to consider Far Cry 6 is coming out before investing in anything else.......

I really disliked Odyssey at first. It was my first AC since the original and it's such a different game. The size of it felt overwhelming but I grew to really enjoy it, for the most part. The naval combat is annoying and I loathe the gear mod stuff and having to constantly change out your weapons and armor, even after you pay a lot to get it upgraded or engraved. I also think the attribute/skill system is weird. The loot system was probably the main reason I stopped playing, same as with The Division 2. I found that as I got more advanced in the game I was spending less time actually playing the actual game and more time looting for gear, dismantling or discarding old gear, trying to save different loadouts to maximize attributes, etc and it just got tiring.

I really have no idea what to play next. Tried Call of Duty Warzone and hated it. Tried Call of Duty WWII and Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 and similarly hated those, so I guess my CoD days are done. @tenken00 made a great point about Spider-Man remastered so I'll probably hold off there as well...

Maybe it'll be FIFA 21 since I'm addicted to FIFA. I think I have Batmax: Arkham Knight in my Library somewhere as well. And I did recently purchase Tony Hawk so maybe I need to sink my teeth into that a bit more. Or maybe I'll read a book?

I do know one thing though, I am getting a 65" LG C9 OLED before I get that PS5 and am very excited about that.

 

[HeyMattyB]

And the guys talking about Star Wars Squadrons, wow it looks nice. How's the online gameplay?

I'm not a hardcore flight-/space-sim superfan, but I've played a handful of online matches (in addition to the campaign stuff) and I guess my initial take is it's... fine? I don't regret buying it, but I'm not super engaged with it yet. I think it'll take more time to learn the controls, and more playing with friends instead of online randos.

There's a pretty steep learning curve in terms of flight controls, and the game can be really frustrating (and also boring/repetitive) until you get a better handle on those controls. On the spectrum between hardcore flight simulator and goofy arcade space pew-pew, it definitely leans more toward the former. More experienced flight-/space-sim types will have a much easier time settling in. The more I play, and the better I get at learning the controls, the more I enjoy it, for sure.

The gameplay options are pretty bare bones. Right now, there's only two match types: 5v5 dogfights (which are boring, IMO) and 5v5 Fleet Battles (which also include a bunch of AI ships, and are longer tug-of-war-type affairs). But, even in the Fleet Battles, the whole thing feels pretty small scale, seeing as how there's only a total of 10 human players. Also, the maps aren't that interesting--lots of empty space with some space debris, but little personality. The good is that each of the ships has a different feel/specialty to them, which is nice. There's also lots of ship customization. I haven't spent a ton of time trying everything out, but it's probably worth checking out some min-maxing guides to getting the absolute best meta loadouts instead of doing all that trial and error. Hopefully they'll introduce more match types, maps, ships, and customization options in the future, and increase the number of players in any given match.

In terms of teammates, I've yet to play a single dogfight where someone didn't quit a minute or two into the match. And, like any online multiplayer, there's very little communication/coordination. There's usually like one dude on voice chat who won't stop chattering away and/or breathing heavily into the microphone the entire match, so I normally turn voice chat off. There are a few helpful in-game communication options (including comm/targeting wheels), but I haven't seen a ton of people use them. Your teammates, more often than not, will just speed forward into oncoming fire and then either get killed or fly in opposite directions chasing kills. (God help you if you decide to play healer/support.) Often, instead of falling back and regrouping, your constantly respawning teammates will repeatedly stagger into outnumbered/losing dogfights. You'll be much, much better off playing with people you know (or finding randos who communicate well and trying to stick with them). But yeah, that's a problem with the online multiplayer gaming community in general, not this game itself.

The single-player campaign is pretty disappointing. Everyone agrees that it's essentially a looong tutorial, which is fine and actually very helpful for multiplayer. But if you're in it for the story, it's pretty awful. It's just a bunch of one-dimensional stock characters staring at you and giving you clunky, long-winded backstories you didn't ask for (because you can't say/ask anything). Most of the voice acting is pretty poor, often to the point of being distracting. And there's weird/awkward gaps between every line. I would have loved to have had a compelling/engaging solo campaign with memorable characters I learned to care about (one of my favorite aspects of the original Wing Commander games), but this ain't it.

It probably sounds like I hate the game, but I don't! It'd not bad, and if you like Star Wars and you're looking to jump into an X-Wing cockpit, there's a lot to enjoy here. But there's also a lot of room for improvement.

 

[tenken00]

The gameplay options are pretty bare bones. Right now, there's only two match types: 5v5 dogfights (which are boring, IMO) and 5v5 Fleet Battles (which also include a bunch of AI ships, and are longer tug-of-war-type affairs). But, even in the Fleet Battles, the whole thing feels pretty small scale, seeing as how there's only a total of 10 human players. Also, the maps aren't that interesting--lots of empty space with some space debris, but little personality. The good is that each of the ships has a different feel/specialty to them, which is nice. There's also lots of ship customization. I haven't spent a ton of time trying everything out, but it's probably worth checking out some min-maxing guides to getting the absolute best meta loadouts instead of doing all that trial and error. Hopefully they'll introduce more match types, maps, ships, and customization options in the future, and increase the number of players in any given match.

Haha or obnoxiously blasts music on and leaves their mic unmuted the whole time. I usually just voice chat with only friends though. 5v5 does seem kinda small.

I guess I'll just stick to my quest of beating all the dark souls games.

 

[Hivemind]

And the guys talking about Star Wars Squadrons, wow it looks nice. How's the online gameplay?

It's definitely a genre game. If you're into flying Star Wars ships and want to do more of that, buy it.

I've heard good things about the VR support, but I don't own a VR set.

The single player campaign is relatively short, but I don't have a huge qualm with that (I rarely finish longer campaigns these days). For a big Star Wars nerd like me, I enjoyed the campaign and the story (and especially the inclusion of Hera Syndulla). The plot isn't on the level of Jedi: Fallen Order or even the Battlefront 2 campaign, but it's hard to have as engaging of a plot in a space fighter game, as you basically only get to tell plot developments in cut scenes and the segments between missions. Between missions, there's a Wing Commander-esque environment where you can walk between a couple rooms on the ship and talk to your squad mates and watch the mission briefing. There wasn't a ton of depth to this (you had no chat options), and the other characters are pretty flat. I appreciate that they tried to flesh out the mentality of the people who would stay committed to the Empire, but some of the Empire characters in particular were pretty cringey. But overall, I still enjoyed the campaign quite a bit. The missions obviously get you into each type of ship at least once, let you play around with different load-outs, and have a decent variety of activities. I may go back and try and earn full medals on all of them. There are a few mission cliches (and the fact that both the Empire and New Republic final missions both end with a "boost fly away from an explosion" like Star Fox 64 kinda made me cringe) and missions often end up being "shoot a bunch of enemies down before time runs out" but they do a decent job keeping the scenarios fresh, in differing environments, and balancing times you're spent attacking or defending as each faction.

The game play itself rests somewhere between hardcore space flight sim and an arcade-like flight mode from games like Battlefront. It's definitely not nearly as hardcore space sim as something like Elite Dangerous, but the fact that it's Star Wars likely has a large part to do with that. Star Wars ships have always flown closer to planes than true spaceships, so you're not going to find a ton of zero thrust maneuvers or drifting. But it's first person only and there's a lot more control options than games like Battlefront, so it's definitely a bit daunting for someone without much space or plane game background to pick up cold. That being said, I'm the type of person who loves arcadey space games (Star Fox 64 is one of my top 5 games of all time) and don't have a ton of hardcore space sim in my background, and I picked it up very quickly. There's still some of the niche controls that are a bit awkward (I'm playing on a game pad since all HOTAS units are outrageously overpriced right now, but I might try mouse & keyboard soon), such as having to take my thumb off the throttle stick to adjust engine power or having to swap adjust my flight stick to a different direction if I want to change my shield charge mid-climb. But that's almost to be expected when you're packing as many control options as they are into one controller layout.

In terms of online play, there's only 2.5 game modes currently. There's unranked dogfight (team deathmatch), fleet battles vs AI, and ranked fleet battles. The actual ranking system might not be working properly right now, but that's a different discussion (and I presume it will get fixed). I really wish there was a ranked version of dogfight, and hopefully it gets added soon. Fleet battles are tug-of-war style mode in which you destroy the enemy flagship to win. In essence, they basically boil down to something similar to a MoBA, but without much incentive to lane/farm. Killing the AI ships rewards you with momentum that you can use to shift the fight between attack and defense, but the points for killing them are less than the points for killing enemy players, so its pretty rare they get focused down (that being said, there are some layouts that can get passive kills on them along the way, so you might as well). Right now, the fleet battle meta seems to be all about bombers, since the rotary cannon load out can rip apart basically everything. A well flown interceptor can definitely lead KDR and farm some bomber kills, but it just can't do nearly enough damage to the cruiser and capital ships to actually win the game unless its teammates are flying bombers. I'm not one to overreact to very early metas though, as it's hard to judge a game's balance when everyone is still bad at the game (I remember people bitching that Bastion was overpowered in Overwatch early on, and that clearly wasn't the case in the long run). Fleet battles definitely seem like they would have more depth if played with organized teams rather than solo queue, but that's hardly a unique problem to this game. Voice chat also sucks, but that's also not unique to this game, other than to say that the default microphone setting is to detect audio because it's difficult to jam a push-to-talk button into an already over packed controller.

There's an unlock system for both cosmetics and ship parts, but the ship parts can be unlocked quickly. You can basically get load out item for one ship within 10 or so games. The cosmetics will take longer to unlock. None of them are paid micro transactions, all earned by leveling up or completing daily challenges.

Ultimately, the long term health of online play is going to come down to how much support the developer and EA give the game. I hope they release a ranked dogfight mode, more game modes in general, and periodic balance patches to say the least. More maps and more ships would also be nice to keep things fresh. With continued support from the developer, I could see an actual competitive scene arising in this game (albeit it already seems like it will be a niche one). Without it, this game will die out to all but a hardcore bunch.


TLDR - If you like space flight games and Star Wars, buy it now. If you just want a Star Wars campaign, wait for it to go on sale. Online competitive play will depend on developer support in the long term.

 

[tenken00]

It's definitely a genre game. If you're into flying Star Wars ships and want to do more of that, buy it.

I've heard good things about the VR support, but I don't own a VR set.

The single player campaign is relatively short, but I don't have a huge qualm with that (I rarely finish longer campaigns these days). For a big Star Wars nerd like me, I enjoyed the campaign and the story (and especially the inclusion of Hera Syndulla). The plot isn't on the level of Jedi: Fallen Order or even the Battlefront 2 campaign, but it's hard to have as engaging of a plot in a space fighter game, as you basically only get to tell plot developments in cut scenes and the segments between missions. Between missions, there's a Wing Commander-esque environment where you can walk between a couple rooms on the ship and talk to your squad mates and watch the mission briefing. There wasn't a ton of depth to this (you had no chat options), and the other characters are pretty flat. I appreciate that they tried to flesh out the mentality of the people who would stay committed to the Empire, but some of the Empire characters in particular were pretty cringey. But overall, I still enjoyed the campaign quite a bit. The missions obviously get you into each type of ship at least once, let you play around with different load-outs, and have a decent variety of activities. I may go back and try and earn full medals on all of them. There are a few mission cliches (and the fact that both the Empire and New Republic final missions both end with a "boost fly away from an explosion" like Star Fox 64 kinda made me cringe) and missions often end up being "shoot a bunch of enemies down before time runs out" but they do a decent job keeping the scenarios fresh, in differing environments, and balancing times you're spent attacking or defending as each faction.

The game play itself rests somewhere between hardcore space flight sim and an arcade-like flight mode from games like Battlefront. It's definitely not nearly as hardcore space sim as something like Elite Dangerous, but the fact that it's Star Wars likely has a large part to do with that. Star Wars ships have always flown closer to planes than true spaceships, so you're not going to find a ton of zero thrust maneuvers or drifting. But it's first person only and there's a lot more control options than games like Battlefront, so it's definitely a bit daunting for someone without much space or plane game background to pick up cold. That being said, I'm the type of person who loves arcadey space games (Star Fox 64 is one of my top 5 games of all time) and don't have a ton of hardcore space sim in my background, and I picked it up very quickly. There's still some of the niche controls that are a bit awkward (I'm playing on a game pad since all HOTAS units are outrageously overpriced right now, but I might try mouse & keyboard soon), such as having to take my thumb off the throttle stick to adjust engine power or having to swap adjust my flight stick to a different direction if I want to change my shield charge mid-climb. But that's almost to be expected when you're packing as many control options as they are into one controller layout.

In terms of online play, there's only 2.5 game modes currently. There's unranked dogfight (team deathmatch), fleet battles vs AI, and ranked fleet battles. The actual ranking system might not be working properly right now, but that's a different discussion (and I presume it will get fixed). I really wish there was a ranked version of dogfight, and hopefully it gets added soon. Fleet battles are tug-of-war style mode in which you destroy the enemy flagship to win. In essence, they basically boil down to something similar to a MoBA, but without much incentive to lane/farm. Killing the AI ships rewards you with momentum that you can use to shift the fight between attack and defense, but the points for killing them are less than the points for killing enemy players, so its pretty rare they get focused down (that being said, there are some layouts that can get passive kills on them along the way, so you might as well). Right now, the fleet battle meta seems to be all about bombers, since the rotary cannon load out can rip apart basically everything. A well flown interceptor can definitely lead KDR and farm some bomber kills, but it just can't do nearly enough damage to the cruiser and capital ships to actually win the game unless its teammates are flying bombers. I'm not one to overreact to very early metas though, as it's hard to judge a game's balance when everyone is still bad at the game (I remember people bitching that Bastion was overpowered in Overwatch early on, and that clearly wasn't the case in the long run). Fleet battles definitely seem like they would have more depth if played with organized teams rather than solo queue, but that's hardly a unique problem to this game. Voice chat also sucks, but that's also not unique to this game, other than to say that the default microphone setting is to detect audio because it's difficult to jam a push-to-talk button into an already over packed controller.

There's an unlock system for both cosmetics and ship parts, but the ship parts can be unlocked quickly. You can basically get load out item for one ship within 10 or so games. The cosmetics will take longer to unlock. None of them are paid micro transactions, all earned by leveling up or completing daily challenges.

Ultimately, the long term health of online play is going to come down to how much support the developer and EA give the game. I hope they release a ranked dogfight mode, more game modes in general, and periodic balance patches to say the least. More maps and more ships would also be nice to keep things fresh. With continued support from the developer, I could see an actual competitive scene arising in this game (albeit it already seems like it will be a niche one). Without it, this game will die out to all but a hardcore bunch.


TLDR - If you like space flight games and Star Wars, buy it now. If you just want a Star Wars campaign, wait for it to go on sale. Online competitive play will depend on developer support in the long term.

Both of you guys with lengthy writeups on this game

I do love Star Wars, although my love has been fading for a bit now. And I love the old wing commander games, those are the ones with the cats right? And I like online competition. It has all the things to pique my interest, just seems I guess from yours and @HeyMattyB's review that it might be better to wait and see if they work on some things first. I still have yet to try Fallen Order too.

 

[Hivemind]

Both of you guys with lengthy writeups on this game

I do love Star Wars, although my love has been fading for a bit now. And I love the old wing commander games, those are the ones with the cats right? And I like online competition. It has all the things to pique my interest, just seems I guess from yours and @HeyMattyB's review that it might be better to wait and see if they work on some things first. I still have yet to try Fallen Order too.

Yup. Wing Commander had the cat aliens and somehow a better cast of actors in the video games than was in the live action movie.

 

[tenken00]

Yup. Wing Commander had the cat aliens and somehow a better cast of actors in the video games than was in the live action movie.

I dont know about that... the movie did have Freddie Prinze Jr...

 

[Hivemind]

I dont know about that... the movie did have Freddie Prinze Jr...

Freddie Prinze Jr vs Mark Hamill, Jonathan Rhys-Davies, and Malcolm McDowell. Definitely a hard choice there.

 

[usiel]

I'm not a hardcore flight-/space-sim superfan, but I've played a handful of online matches (in addition to the campaign stuff) and I guess my initial take is it's... fine? I don't regret buying it, but I'm not super engaged with it yet. I think it'll take more time to learn the controls, and more playing with friends instead of online randos.

There's a pretty steep learning curve in terms of flight controls, and the game can be really frustrating (and also boring/repetitive) until you get a better handle on those controls. On the spectrum between hardcore flight simulator and goofy arcade space pew-pew, it definitely leans more toward the former. More experienced flight-/space-sim types will have a much easier time settling in. The more I play, and the better I get at learning the controls, the more I enjoy it, for sure.

The gameplay options are pretty bare bones. Right now, there's only two match types: 5v5 dogfights (which are boring, IMO) and 5v5 Fleet Battles (which also include a bunch of AI ships, and are longer tug-of-war-type affairs). But, even in the Fleet Battles, the whole thing feels pretty small scale, seeing as how there's only a total of 10 human players. Also, the maps aren't that interesting--lots of empty space with some space debris, but little personality. The good is that each of the ships has a different feel/specialty to them, which is nice. There's also lots of ship customization. I haven't spent a ton of time trying everything out, but it's probably worth checking out some min-maxing guides to getting the absolute best meta loadouts instead of doing all that trial and error. Hopefully they'll introduce more match types, maps, ships, and customization options in the future, and increase the number of players in any given match.

In terms of teammates, I've yet to play a single dogfight where someone didn't quit a minute or two into the match. And, like any online multiplayer, there's very little communication/coordination. There's usually like one dude on voice chat who won't stop chattering away and/or breathing heavily into the microphone the entire match, so I normally turn voice chat off. There are a few helpful in-game communication options (including comm/targeting wheels), but I haven't seen a ton of people use them. Your teammates, more often than not, will just speed forward into oncoming fire and then either get killed or fly in opposite directions chasing kills. (God help you if you decide to play healer/support.) Often, instead of falling back and regrouping, your constantly respawning teammates will repeatedly stagger into outnumbered/losing dogfights. You'll be much, much better off playing with people you know (or finding randos who communicate well and trying to stick with them). But yeah, that's a problem with the online multiplayer gaming community in general, not this game itself.

The single-player campaign is pretty disappointing. Everyone agrees that it's essentially a looong tutorial, which is fine and actually very helpful for multiplayer. But if you're in it for the story, it's pretty awful. It's just a bunch of one-dimensional stock characters staring at you and giving you clunky, long-winded backstories you didn't ask for (because you can't say/ask anything). Most of the voice acting is pretty poor, often to the point of being distracting. And there's weird/awkward gaps between every line. I would have loved to have had a compelling/engaging solo campaign with memorable characters I learned to care about (one of my favorite aspects of the original Wing Commander games), but this ain't it.

It probably sounds like I hate the game, but I don't! It'd not bad, and if you like Star Wars and you're looking to jump into an X-Wing cockpit, there's a lot to enjoy here. But there's also a lot of room for improvement.

Man the SW gameplay here sounds like a childrens game compared to Eve Online. There is one major war and the last battle had 3000+ player involved all over the world.

 

[Hivemind]

This Wing Commander talk led me to this interview with Mark Hamill on the set of Star Citizen.



Mark Hamill is a national treasure.

 

[Cush]

Speaking of Wing Commander

 

[Drake1588]

The controls for Squadrons hearken back to the space flight games by Totally Games for LucasArts: X-Wing, Tie Fighter et al, as far as managing power for things like shields, engines, and armaments are concerned. Get a good flight stick if you're on PC, or bust out your old one.

 

[PB12]

New Caps legend possibly in NHL 21

 

[Cush]

The Steam Game Festival: Autumn Edition On Now

Lots of demos for upcoming games

 

[usiel]

Baldurs Gate 3 anyone?

 

[Jacoby4HOF66]

 

[Marshall]

Baldurs Gate 3 anyone?

Can't talk. Playing.

Quick review so far - combat is good, think DOS2, but the storytelling is usually done in cinematics, which is a big plus. The companions seem interesting, and I can't stop shoving people around the battlefield.

Think DOS2 with BG lore, and you're pretty much spot-on.

 

[HeyMattyB]

Extremely disappointed to hear that EA just announced they won't be providing any post-launch content for Squadrons--an announcement that came after the game has been out less than a week. On paper, leading up to release, the game had so much going for it: Cross-platform play, HOTAS support, VR support, a fleshed-out single-player campaign, a low price tag ($39.99). But the launch product is extremely bare bones: Despite having a decent array of customizable ships, there's only two game modes--5v5 dogfight, 5v5 + AI Ship Fleet Battles (I'm not including the unranked five-player co-op against a full AI Fleet Battle option)--across a handful of maps. And the single-player campaign is a poorly written extended tutorial. Even at that affordable price point, this isn't a whole lot of content here.

IMO, it seemed like the general consensus upon launch was, "This is a decent framework for a Star Wars-themed space sim, but it'd be much better with ongoing updates/support/balancing, including new ships, new maps, new game types, possibly even new story-based/non-tutorial campaign missions." But yeah, none of that is coming. I hate to be that "This game will be dead in three months (if not much sooner)" guy, but yeah--without the possibility of the most basic level of ongoing support, I can't imagine this maintaining the interest of anyone other than the most hardcore Star Wars fans who also happen to be fans of flight simulators (which is a pretty niche genre).

I'm already pretty bored with the extremely limited launch options. I'll probably just dedicate whatever time I was planning on spending on this threadbare experience to Star Citizen or Elite Dangerous instead. Like, even Star Citizen--which is still in Alpha and is seriously never going to come out--has more content than Squadrons. I'm pretty bummed.

 

[Devil Dancer]

Can't talk. Playing.

Quick review so far - combat is good, think DOS2, but the storytelling is usually done in cinematics, which is a big plus. The companions seem interesting, and I can't stop shoving people around the battlefield.

Think DOS2 with BG lore, and you're pretty much spot-on.

How's the difficulty? DOS2 was a little harder than I would have liked, though I slogged through to the end.

I'm playing Plague Tale through GamePass PC, which I just got for the first time in anticipation of my XSX.