Something must be going on at Ubisoft. They cancelled their Tokyo Game Show stream without any explanation as well.

    • Zahille7@lemmy.world
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      4 days ago

      I mean cancelling preview copies of Space Marine 2 seemed to work out. They got to finish cooking and it paid off for them in the end with everyone’s minds being blown (I haven’t played it yet myself, but I’ve seen reviews).

      But that’s most likely not the case here.

      • PunchingWood@lemmy.world
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        I feel like Space Marine 2 reviews were mostly just people trying to make a point, either towards the state Helldivers 2 was in (frankly I find these games not comparable at all), or the fact it’s a game that doesn’t pander to LGBTQ and stuff (yes, I understand the franchise isn’t about that, read below).

        Either way, I think the game was highly overrated and overhyped. I played like 4-5 hours of it, it’s an okay game. It has some serious issues that I think doesn’t fit the score it received, like no option to change FOV or camera distance (character often takes up like 1/3th of the screen) or that the game is pretty bad with keyboard and mouse, some in-game screens don’t even allow the use of a mouse, it’s clearly designed with consoles in mind.

        Edit: Not going to bother to respond to people under this thread individually, but you’ve proven my point that real world politics (yes that includes LGBTQ, DEI and whatever) being forced into gaming, other media and franchises where it has no place and it’s just shoehorned in for the sake of pandering to real world situations. Like I said, Space Marine 2 luckily doesn’t suffer from this, and plenty of people celebrate the developers for staying (mostly) true to the source material, but political agendas being pushed is widely prevalent in modern gaming and becoming a serious problem in day to day lives. Anyone that claims this isn’t an issue is just part of the issue.

        • Zahille7@lemmy.world
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          4 days ago

          Taste is always subjective. I watched Charlie play it on YouTube, and he played the whole thing with mouse and keyboard and he fucking loved it. Like he was literally about jump balls deep into the tabletop and mini aspect of the IP.

          Also, “pandering to LGBTQ”? A) it’s 40K, which aside from aesthetics is one of the least sexual franchises of all time. B) fuck off with that shit.

          • PunchingWood@lemmy.world
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            That’s what I said, it doesn’t pander to LGBTQ. Unlike a lot of other games in recent times, even in games where no form of real world politics have a place. So people are gonna encourage games that don’t make that one of their main focus points of the game. Which is what I think is part of the reason why reviews are inflated over what it should probably actually be, I’d honestly rate it more of a 6 or 7 out of 10, but that’s my personal opinion on it.

            People can downvote me all they want but that doesn’t change the fact that a lot of people are done with making games about politics and DEI, and developers putting that above better/more fun gameplay. There’ve been plenty of developers pushing this stuff in their games where it doesn’t belong, let alone add anything of value. I never cared what the main protagonist is like, or what the rest of the game is like, as long as the game is fun.

            • Dremor@lemmy.world
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              24 hours ago

              From the term used I can easily determine you are more conservative than most here, and even if your comment got reported multiple time on the basis of rule 2, I’d like not to overreact and give you the occasion to develop a bit more your arguments by providing examples instead of just “its like that because I feel like it is like that”.

              So, could you please kindly provide, as other in this thread asked, example of :

              • Games where those “political” topics doesn’t belong
              • Review criticizing SpaceMarine 2 for not “pandering to LGBTQ”

              I believe this would help open a more open conversation than some politically opposite attacking each other personally.

              In my humble opinion, Games being a work of art as much as it is an entertainment, it is up to the creator to chose what kind of story it want to talk about.
              Does they want to talk about how the LGBTQ community, which has been oppressed for a long time, in their game ? Fine by me, at lease I can have some insight from the viewpoint of someone of this community, albeit virtual, to better understand said topic.
              Those topics where not talked at all previously, so of course it would feel like it becomes a lot more present in the last years, just by contrast with the absence of it in previous titles. It is also a brand new storytelling topic on which game designer have very little experience with, so it is logical for it to be talked about awkwardly at time (thus the need for specialized consulting firm like Sweet Baby Inc), with some very obvious stitches at times. Just give them time to understand how to blend it better in the story and gameplay, and you’ll get the fun games you wish for, with a diverse cast you won’t even have to complain about.

            • cowfodder@lemmy.world
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              4 days ago

              Lgbtqia people existing is not “real world politics” and they are grossly underrepresented in media.

            • inb4_FoundTheVegan@lemmy.world
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              3 days ago

              where no form of real world politics

              Oh fuck off, queer people aren’t politics. It’s literally just humans existing, but since some bigots want to limit their rights you call it political. This is the same exact thought process of asking “the Jewish question”.

              never cared what the main protagonist is like

              And yet here you are saying a bunch of dumb stuff about devs pushing things in. You can’t have it both ways.

            • Wav_function@lemmy.world
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              3 days ago

              OMG totally agree. It’s so upsetting when my game isn’t just about straight white characters.

            • baguettefish@discuss.tchncs.de
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              Do you have examples of DEI’d games? Do you have sources for saying devs don’t want to do it anymore? So far I only know of guys that record videos of themselves screaming “fucking pronouns” being offended by the mere presence of pronouns, and that’s not even “DEI”. There’s also that weird steam recommendation character who criticizes every game that has a woman who isn’t meant to be a sex object, but these are all very fringe and often severely disturbed people, not at all representative of any real impactful opinions.

              EDIT: Of course I don’t mean to say that these anti-woke beliefs aren’t dangerous in the right hand, or that anti-woke anti-justice warriors can’t pose a danger to anyone, but their beliefs do not need to be discussed and argued with every time, and definitely not in good faith.

          • Zahille7@lemmy.world
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            3 days ago

            I mean I will say that apparently Concord has the characters’ preferred pronouns under their name in the top corner of the screen, but I literally had no idea that was even a thing until I saw someone make a post bitching about specifically that. Like even Charlie didn’t notice (or didn’t say anything) either time he played the game.

  • hesusingthespiritbomb@lemmy.world
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    I feel like a lot of companies that put the most emphasis on making diverse IP make the worst products. I don’t think that the lack of quality is due to diversity. Rather, I think that companies with soulless corporate leadership have a habit of producing mediocre content and attempting to obfuscate said mediocrity by making an otherwise uninspiring game a referendum on the culture war.

    I’m willing to bet that there are developers who can make a game that is more organically diverse and genuinely fun, but that they don’t get an honest shot due to the state of modern gaming.

    Anyway this game is gonna be crap, IGN is gonna give it a 10/10, and Polygon is gonna go on a tirade when it underperforms in the same way every AC game since black flag has underperformed.

    • pyre@lemmy.world
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      what do you mean by diverse IP? Ubisoft has notoriously done the exact opposite by eliminating every distinguishing characteristic of their games and converging all of their designs into assassin’s creed with another name. Ubisoft has one of the least diverse portfolio of any AAA company, and that’s saying something.

      the only good (and diverse) things that come out of Ubisoft have been from a small team inside that somehow missed all the rituals to sell their souls to Asmodeus so they keep making bangers like Rayman and the recent Prince metroidvania.

      • jeeva@lemmy.world
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        Sadly, I think this person is railing against “having more than just white guys featured” (as if that’s forced, when you start making games in new locations around the world) rather than the bland Ubi-style open-world map checklist that you might expect to be the sane complaint.

        • pyre@lemmy.world
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          oh. going through their profile certainly suggests that way. it’s weird to call that “diverse IP”… but weird is pretty on brand for that crowd i guess.

        • hesusingthespiritbomb@lemmy.world
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          I’m railing about corporate making a mediocre game and then jamming some culture war shit into it in a blantant attempt to distract from the fact that the game is mediocre.

          Also AC has had “more than just white guys” featured since the first game.

            • hesusingthespiritbomb@lemmy.world
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              Exactly. The problem isn’t diversity. The problem is soulless corporations who put out mediocre games, and then try to shoehorn diversity in a fairly surface level and lazy fashion as a distraction.

              It would have been weird if AC1 didn’t star an individual of MENA descent, because the game was set in the middle east. Origins had minority protagonists for similar reasons Connor being Native American in AC3 added a lot of depth when it came to the concept of freedom and how it relates to the American revolution.

              I feel like I’ve seen the same story a million times. Mediocre IP, lazy forced diversity, culture war commentary, undeserved stellar reviews, underperformance with audiences due to fundamental issues.

  • CosmoNova@lemmy.world
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    4 days ago

    Luckily Ubisoft of all companies can totally afford that sort of stuff right now. It’ll be fiiiiine.

  • mechoman444@lemmy.world
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    3 days ago

    Sweet Baby leaves its taint over a long lasting beloved franchise yet again!

    Thank God for Space Marine 2!

  • PunchingWood@lemmy.world
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    Gonna wait and see what their statement is.

    If it’s that they’re gonna change something in the game, I doubt it’s gonna be related to the (black) main character. I can’t imagine it would be an easy fix to fully replace him with a different character at this point.

    If people really find it such a big deal I think best they could do is to let people choose their own main male character, like Odyssey and Valhalla.

        • lowleveldata@programming.dev
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          3 days ago

          Ya. What I have seen is mainly related to Ubisoft saying the game is history accurate but it is not at all that. Also they used some stolen / AI generated assets when promoting the game. Also it is disrespectful to have a foreigner going around killing Japanese.

          • Ledivin@lemmy.world
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            3 days ago

            :Also it is disrespectful to have a foreigner going around killing Japanese.

            This part is fucking stupid but the rest makes sense.

            • lowleveldata@programming.dev
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              3 days ago

              It’s one of those things that you won’t care generally but stands out when other things make you think they might be not respectful

    • VelvetStorm@lemmy.world
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      From what I understand he is not THE main character he is one of the two main characters.

      It would be impossible to replace him at this point in the development and other than the super hard-core racists I don’t think anyone wants that at all.