It’s a novel hybrid of two genres, so the recommendations are all going to be split between them. The best (western) turn based tactics game is likely XCOM 2: War of the Chosen. The best deckbuilder card game is likely Slay the Spire.
If you want a tactics game that retains the social/character aspects, you’re looking for Fire Emblem: Three Houses, but that’s on the switch.
Jez Corden correctly leaked the Death Knight class in hearthstone prior to announcement. He seems to have sources at blizzard.
Game companies will literally invent superhuman artificial intelligence to filter rude remarks sooner than they will admit their ranking-treadmill game design breeds toxicity.
The lead is actually buried by this headline. Denuvo is unironically claiming their DRM has no performance impact and that gamers are spreading a myth. And to prove it they will provide a test example, entirely controlled by them, to game journalists in the future.
I should put “accessibility” in sarcastic quotation marks. Here, it doesn’t mean adding options or features to assist someone with different handicaps or needs. It means making the game so easy that anyone, even a toddler or game journalist, can finish it without having to learn from mistakes or think about what they’re doing.
Particularly with regard to excessive guidance. Varying degrees of “mobile game that makes you click exactly what it says for 30 minutes to prove you played the tutorial.” Those games may be the worst offenders, but less-dramatic hand holding happens in console and PC games too.
People are going to be pedantic about this one, because it’s not ALL games, but what you’re seeing is real. Game design, especially corporate design, has changed to accomplish two things:
Games are designed to be playable by as many people as possible for as long as possible. Some would say this is just Western AAA games, but lots of anime games have been doing this nonsense for decades - games with 10 hours of baby’s first JRPG tutorial and 80 hours of grinding and filler. Many of them critically acclaimed games that fans would flog me for if I actually named one of them.
There are indie games that help you escape this, but many take that accessibility-first approach that requires everything to be very structured and corral you toward the right direction.
Again, I think people are going to be dismissive, but you’re right. It’s a tough world out there for someone who just wants to play a game and not be suckered into a live service engagement trap, or ladder system that hides your real MMR to keep you grinding up an imaginary points system. It’s not like the old days when you can just pick something popular, you have to discriminate and carefully judge what you buy now.
Age of Empires 2 skirmish maps are procedurally generated, in contrast to other competitive RTS games of that style. It’s done quite well and makes scouting meaningful for reasons other than rock-paper-scissoring your opponent.
I’m reading your words, Kevin, I am. But my heart is stronger than my brain. It wants that Otter to win.