Summer of Games: Fallout: London, Star Wars: Outlaws, Once Human and More
Plus, the undignified end of Game Informer.
The world needs more games like Fallout: London.
This game-sized DLC/mod hybrid is fun, packed with detail and free if you already own Fallout 4 on Steam or GOG (and if not, you can usually pick it up for around $15 on sale). But more importantly, it points the way towards a valuable but under-utilized product category for game developers and publishers.
Because Fallout: London was made by a team of unpaid fans over the course of several years, it's essentially a homebrew Fallout game. It's kind of a pain in the ass to install, it crashes all the time (I've installed some other mods to help with that), and it's definitely not as polished as an official Fallout game. But it's still pretty freakin' awesome, and possibly one of the best new games of the year.
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So the question becomes, why don't we see more full-size add-ons for games, more total conversions (as we used to call them), and more "living" games that can adapt and change over time? GTA V has done a good job with this, as have online-only games like Destiny and a few others, like No Man's Sky. But why not a whole new Baldur's Gate 3 storyline with just a few new assets and new VO? Why am I not playing a new Deadpool and Wolverine story arc in Marvel's Midnight Suns (still one of the most underrated games of the past several years)?
Solasta: Crown of the Magister has done a pretty good job with some official add-ons that play like entirely new games, on top of a lot of great user-created dungeons. I'd like to see more game publishers release construction kits and either embrace community creators or even bring the most promising content mods in-house.
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With the cost of developing a new AAA game pegged at $60-$80 million and growing, maybe there's a wall we hit where everyone says, let's stop recreating the technology for every single new game (shared engines and assets aside), and just build new content for games we already know work and that people like. If I were a corporate risk analyst, that might be where I land after seeing enough big-budget flops kill a game studio.
Read more: How to Get (and Install) the Free Fallout: London Game
Star Wars Outlaws
I don't care what anyone says, Star Wars: Outlaws looks pretty cool, and it's probably the upcoming game I'm most looking forward to. Yes, there's clearly a design-by-committee vibe to what I've seen, but sometimes a game can just be fun comfort food -- which describes most Star Wars projects anyway.
What's potentially missing, I think, is something games, especially open-world games, are traditionally good with, and that's a sense of subversiveness. By putting players in the driver's seat -- literally in the case of games like GTA -- open-world games practically encourage you to try and break the rules, create emergent story beats and not take the expected path. But almost anything Disney-related is allergic to subversion by default, so maybe I'm asking for too much.
Once Human
I'm not an MMO guy, I'm not a free-to-play guy, I generally like single-player or co-op games with coherent storylines and non-grindy play mechanics. That said, I liked Once Human, the free-to-play game that has you fighting monsters with TVs for heads in a Fallout-like apocalyptic future.
The base building reminded me of Fallout base-building, so I got really into designing my house and property. And unlike so many other free-to-play games, it doesn't feel like you actually *need* to buy anything, which counter-intuitively, makes me more likely to actually buy something.
Back to Baldur’s Gate!
I sample a lot of games -- an occupational hazard -- but almost never finish any. With that in mind, I got the idea in my head that I should actually, you know, try to finish a single-player narrative game.
So I went back to the excellent Baldur's Gate 3 and have been cranking away at it. I'm mostly playing on a gaming laptop hooked up to a big TV, so I'm getting the less-optimal gamepad controls, but it's still a pretty addictive experience. Am I anywhere near done? Unlikely. I've only just arrived at the actual city of Baldur's Gate (to be fair, I went back and cleared both pathways to it), but it's great on a laptop, on a TV, and on the Steam Deck, so I'm, sticking with it til the bitter end!
Also, I've pretty much picked my A-team of companions and find it hard to swap now. Lae-zel, Asterion and Shadowheart. Occasionally I'll sub in Karlach or Halsin. Who's on your go-to BG3 team?
Read more: Why Everyone is in Love with Baldur’s Gate 3
Next Up
That's enough game talk for right now, I'll be back next time with more laptops, back-to-school tech picks and AI stuff.
But in the meantime, I have some thoughts, and not happy ones, about the sudden closure of Game Informer after 33 years. Like The Messenger and other shutdowns, this was handled in a very unprofessional way. You can read my full thoughts and a lot of insightful comments, on LinkedIn.
One of the things that really bothers me about media outlet shutdowns, especially when they're owned by larger companies, is when you *could* wind down the business in an orderly way, but instead choose to call the staff into an HR meeting Friday morning to tell everyone they're laid off immediately and the site is dead.