It’s been a few years, but mostly I just remember needing to go to the shop over and over again from various points in the map and it being a long trek. I don’t remember a custom fast travel point, so either I never got it, or it came so late that I didn’t remember its utility.

So irreparable. They’ll never financially recover from this.

I think it’s fine to litigate that again if the same criticisms go unaddressed in a sequel. It took how many souls games before From ended up putting checkpoints right before bosses? When they finally did it, they had their most successful game to date.

What about people who like the game but have criticisms? This is the time to discuss it.

I liked Hollow Knight, but yes, it kind of was. Frequent destinations were far away from fast travel, and there was a low level area that they transformed into a high level area later in the game specifically so that crossing the map wouldn’t be a cake walk. I’d argue that earning the power to make an area like that into a cake walk is a core part of the fun.

You do you, but the person I responded to initially came into a Borderlands thread to shit on Borderlands, and then held up this other game as some bastion of value that I wholly disagree with.

No, they walked right up to that line with the Fallout 76 doc years ago, and their fans told them it was not okay. When they accept money for a gig from the publisher, they do it under a different label, Secret Tape, which is where those Half-Life and Half-Life 2 documentaries live. When it’s Noclip, it’s always strictly backer funded.

I just started the second one, which didn’t involve Telltale other than the general format. So far, it’s awful. But I’ll also stick it out, because I have a feeling it’s going to be canon, and I came this far through the series.

Physical copies are far from the be-all, end-all of game preservation, especially these days. What you really want is DRM-free. Or, failing that, easily broken DRM, which is where Borderlands lies. BL4 will launch with Denuvo, but like everyone else, it will be phased out after the release period, because Denuvo charges per month, and then it’s as preservable as any other game that can be played offline. What happens if the file gets corrupted? I use a copy that wasn’t. What if the drive it’s on dies? I use another copy. I’m not sure why you think these are gotcha questions or something.

Helldivers II literally withholds the server from you that prevents it from being playable in the future, and we’ve got a graveyard full of games built the same way that are all gone. But if a game is playable offline, it can be copied ad infinitum. If it’s got LAN, its multiplayer can be played forever. I would spend $40 on Helldivers II if I enjoyed the concept of setting my money on fire, because it’s built with an expiration date that doesn’t need to be there. If I was looking for that in the same genre as Borderlands, I’d be playing Destiny 2.

You play it offline. Most of this series even had LAN as recently as Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands. It’s only the GOTY edition of the first game that removed that thus far (with no mention of LAN on BL4’s store page, though Pre-Sequel doesn’t mention it either despite supporting the feature), but it’s still playable offline in single player mode and able to be pirated in apocalyptic scenarios, which I can’t say for Helldivers II.

At least Borderlands won’t be deleted off the face of the earth someday.

The writing in Borderlands 3 is not great, but the gameplay was a huge step up over 2. It’s not a great idea to forget that Borderlands 3 happened, as it’s an excellent game.

They’ve been working on standalone VR for a while now, like the Quest, so it wouldn’t have to be called Index 2, since it’s not just an improved version of what they made before. A colloquial term for glasses is “frames”.

It’s still a good time to get a Steam Deck. Most games fit its spec just fine, it’s one of the cheaper handhelds on the market for the power you get out of it, and it has good battery life for that power, too.

A new Orange Box sounds so much less appealing in an era where Valve’s games are mostly live services now.

They’ve been working on VR hardware for a while, but the market has kind of stalled out on what the technology is capable of. They’d have to be pretty confident that they can jumpstart it again with their own games if that’s what it is.

Yeah, I’ve noticed more hits coming out Europe lately, with the likes of Remedy, Larian, Warhorse, Hazelight, etc., and probably the reasons they could afford to make those games in the first place is that labor costs are far cheaper for a similar result. Where capital is flowing and creating employment, I’d imagine, is tightly correlated with that.

The title on this link really undersells how much interesting data there is there.

Sure, on already thin margins (I don’t remember if PS5 is sold at a loss, but Xbox is), multiplied by millions more units.

Yes, but Moore’s Law has broken down, and the things that used to allow for consoles to get cheaper over time, via new revisions, are not holding true anymore. So in lieu of those things, we’ve got classic shrinkflation.