I hoped for some new levels, but Disney clearly wants these done on the cheap(er than id/Bethesda/Microsoft).

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So you're playing a fairly specific character, there's plot, and what looks like... crappy action set pieces? Probably decent thinking to distinguish the game from ETS/ATS, but it also looks like pure slop made out of confused priorities. Not really my bag.

Makes you think. SCS had the luck of not having the kind of budget to hang themselves with, so they designed the game to cut certain corners which in turn lead to ETS2 becoming this really immersive experience.

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Carmack had to fight tooth and nail to get that last source code released. No chance Microsoft is letting go of anything ever again. Especially since they're using idTech.

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Heart of the Machine, Zephon, Distant Worlds 2 (Slitherine, so maybe not literally independent, but still not exactly a major operation like, say, SEGA), Aurora, the still worked on Emperor of the Fading Suns that just hit Steam... Off the top of my head, there's probably some more around these days.

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Hopefully, we'll get Hexen 2 and Heretic 2 before we get a Q3 remaster, and possibly other games as well. RTCW? Not that I don't have fond memories of Q3, but it strikes me as the single most unexciting game of this catalogue to do such a re-release of.

To break it down a bit... For any of the singleplayer games we get a nice new sp campaign extension, new enemies, thus far remixed music, just cool stuff all around. For Quake 3 we'd possibly get some consolidation in terms of the additional maps available in the console ports, models, some entirely new maps perhaps, and maybe some of those consoles modes, which aren't a massive improvement over the OG sp mode from the PC... and with some basic modern functionality and accessibility options that's kind of the extent of what you can do. Better bots? From what I recall Q3 bots were basically about superhuman aim and UT bots seemed more human, more pleasant in gameplay, so in a way we might be talking about nerfing the Q3 bots for a more natural experience. Doesn't seem like a good idea if you're largely targeting the hardcore Q3 players, and if you're not then... who's this game for? It doesn't strike me as a great gamepad game, either, so new player influx will more likely than not be minimal. I'm just not sure how to make it a decent package with broadish appeal, save for bundling Q3 with Q4, and that's two different engines to work with for a single release, so maybe not the greatest idea from a project management point of view.

Then again, if Night Dive has ideas to make a Q3 remaster exciting for the crowd outside of people who both still play Q3 AND cannot stand Quake Live... sure, bring it on.

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Stardock seems to have issues with making their games not just functional, but also interesting to play. Back in the GalCiv2 days this wasn't much of a problem with very little competition on the market, but now, with forever games like Stellaris and a slew of acclaimed indies... I'm amazed they're making their money back and have marketing budget to spare with how they design these. The major change from 3 to 4 seems to be cutting the game up more than before, and spreading base game development across multiple paid dlcs. So, an industry standard, but this isn't a product people seem to value enough to accept getting fleeced by the publisher more so than before. Also, that Epic cash injection that launched the game into complete obscurity that persisted for a year. Probably not helpful in the long run, but I can also see how they may have needed it to make the budget work.

And then there's things like people seemingly only covering GalCiv4 on YouTube when they're paid to do so...

The AI race generator was an interesting idea on paper, but the execution was just about on par with the rest of the game, so a bit underwhelming.

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I was there, 3000 years ago...

...which is why I'll be waiting for proper reviews. And I don't mean the "Let's Have A Look At The New Patch" YouTube payola coverage kind like they're doing with GalCiv4, either.

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Yeah, they're always aligned. Until they aren't. Not wishing this upon the devs, but I do despise corpospeak.

Also, countdown started on key people leaving. The ones excited about this, presumably.

This industry makes you really bitter, I find.

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Amazing. I wonder if this now really is the final final update ^^

I was about to say that in view of the 300 devs just laid off there... perhaps, but it turns out that's "just" 7% so who knows.

https://www.techinasia.com/news/sg-based-game-studio-virtuos-cuts-7-of-workforce [External Link]

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That old title was impossible to remember for me, and I spent months to years trying. Every couple of months I thought to look at the news, or catch up on the progress, and every time I had to track the game down in proper sleuth fashion, because I just could not make it stick to my brain. I couldn't find the damn thing in my wishlist, is how bad it was - the effect it had was actually remarkable.

That said, the new title is incredibly generic. I would never advise this normally, but these devs should outsource the title and pick some decent proposal. They clearly are... having some issues with naming things. Hey, I can relate, but I'm not selling anything.

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