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How PlayStation 5 exclusive Returnal is keeping the arcade fires alive, Housemarque on the PT influence, justifying the £70 price tag and the future

DustQueen

Banned
If Sony just came out n said "more money is more money fuck you, we gave you 10tf n Zen2 for 400$ so suck a dick n get a job" I would be ok with 70$ but all this bullshit bout hinting at games somehow being unprofitable now days is just infuriating
 

bender

What time is it?
I loved Nex Machina. I thought Alienation was boring especially related to loot. This appears to be the love child of those two games. I'm not sure what to think, especially with the perspective shift.
 

Kagey K

Banned
Didn’t we just have a similar thread about Destruction All Stars and they cut the price of that awfully fucking fast.

These games aren’t worth the asking price and people that pay it, deserve to be mocked later for it.
 

xrnzaaas

Gold Member
The price will be what kills this game. I don't have it a problem with it costing more than Housemarque's previous work, because it looks like a bigger budget title, but 70$/80€ is unacceptable. This is gonna drop fast or maybe even show up in PS+ in a few months if the sales are terrible.
 

Banjo64

cumsessed
There is nothing that can justify the £70 price tag.

Especially not for this type of game in a world where hades sells for £20.
Greed is the justification. The sales will hopefully reflect the pisstake of a price.
 

TonyK

Member
I really have a problem with a common price for games when ones last long 100 hours and others 10, or when one it took 6 years and 500 people to develop and the other it's almost indie.

However, it works in the same way for cinema, Avengers bluray cost the same as an indie movie. But the difference there is that base cost is assumable in both cases, but in videogames it's excessive in both cases but we can forgive it for the AAA games.
 

bender

What time is it?
PT? Lol. All for that 70 dolla pricetag.

Never fear, the Digital Deluxe version is $79.99.

I hate to join the price pitchfork crowd as this certainly has more effort put into the presentation and narrative than a typical Housemarque game, but it's certainly putting me off of a day one purchase.
 

Rien

Jelly Belly
When she finds the house and enters in first person view, I got real creepy vibes. Had no idea something like that was in the game.

Looks really good.

Yeah that was dope only why show it in a trailer? That would be awesome to experience it as a ‘holy shit’ moment in the game.
Weird to spoil this but hoping there is a lot more of that!
 

cyberheater

PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 Xbone PS4 PS4
I want to get a PS5 but I’m not paying these prices for games.
 

GymWolf

Member
It looks okay, i love roguelite but i'm not a fan of bullet hells type of game.

Also the serious dark prometheus atmosphere get kinda ruined by all that gamey explosions of colors on screen.

Also the price, there is no roguelite in existence at 80 euros, and i sincerely doubt that this game is gonna have more raw contenents like weapons or enemy types than stuff like binding of isaac or hades for 6-8x times the price.
 
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CrustyBritches

Gold Member
iu
 

Cyborg

Member
Man that SoP deepdive was amazing. I love the atmosphere & vibe that this game is giving.
Only complaint could be that if you die everything changes and you will start all over again.... It could be something mainstream gamers wont like.
 
Love Housemarques prior output. Doesn't look like a $70 game tho. $40 launch price would be more appropriate. My backlog is insane, so I'll jump in when it hits $20 and is all patched up a few months after release.
 

Clear

CliffyB's Cock Holster
This thread is depressing. What exactly does a a $70 game look-like?

I mean on one hand everyone seems bored by Ubi-esque open world stuff, and on the other rejects anything that isn't filled with the same sort of familiar gameplay tropes and bloat.

Keep rejecting stuff like this and all that we'll end up getting greenlit are safe-as-milk cookie cutter pabulum or worse.

You're favourite devs are not suddenly going to start shitting out the stuff you like at a vastly accelerated rate compared to years gone by, releases are going to get fewer and further apart because it simply takes that long to make modern games. So allow me to suggest that opening your minds to the possibility of new things actually being good is a necessity unless you are happy with a slow trickle of the same-old same-old until the end of time.
 
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turtlepowa

Banned
What exactly does a a $70 game look-like?
That's a good question and i think personal taste matters here. Would i pay 70 dollar / 80 euro for this? Hell no, because it looks like some 20 bucks Steam game to me. Would i pay 70 bucks for a Witcher 3/Hitman 3/Far Cry 6/Hogwards Legacy/Elven Ring and so on? Hell yeah. But I am sure some people will be happily paying 80 euro for this.
 

sn0man

Member
Street fighter II was $70 30 years ago. This could very well be the first PS5 exclusive that isn’t a remake. I’m interested. I assume no local co-op (sorta like gears of war) though?
 

Clear

CliffyB's Cock Holster
That's a good question and i think personal taste matters here. Would i pay 70 dollar / 80 euro for this? Hell no, because it looks like some 20 bucks Steam game to me. Would i pay 70 bucks for a Witcher 3/Hitman 3/Far Cry 6/Hogwards Legacy/Elven Ring and so on? Hell yeah. But I am sure some people will be happily paying 80 euro for this.

What exactly is Returnal missing is probably a better question? Lavish cinematics, an open world, a famous license or being part of an existing franchise kinda characterize the titles you mention, and I think it kinda proves my point.

I'm not saying this to be critical of your picks in any way, I'm just trying to pick out the commonalities.
 

turtlepowa

Banned
What exactly is Returnal missing is probably a better question? Lavish cinematics, an open world, a famous license or being part of an existing franchise kinda characterize the titles you mention, and I think it kinda proves my point.

I'm not saying this to be critical of your picks in any way, I'm just trying to pick out the commonalities.
It just doesn't look high qualitiy enough to me to spend that amount of money. I know it sounds crazy, but i would rather spend 70 bucks on a ~30 hours game like Far Cry than on a game like Terraria even though i spent 350 hours in Terraria.
 

Clear

CliffyB's Cock Holster
It just doesn't look high qualitiy enough to me to spend that amount of money. I know it sounds crazy, but i would rather spend 70 bucks on a ~30 hours game like Far Cry than on a game like Terraria even though i spent 350 hours in Terraria.

I'm not sure hat you mean by "high quality" because visually it looks a whole lot closer to Far Cry than Terraria!

I mean, objectively, what would you add visually to increase the quality without fundamentally changing what the game is; i.e. a solo astronaut fighting across an alien world populated by bullet-hell monsters and psychological "gotchas" ? You have to accept that in order to support the nimbleness and traversal required to evade and survive the sort of particle onslaught you face, environments need to be built in a certain way. In simple terms its not going to work very well in intricate, windy, spaces like you see in a Souls game where generally stuff happens within melee distance.

It feels like that shmup DNA that they've tried to retain is considered a devaluing factor, compared to if it took a more close-combat tack.
 

SkylineRKR

Member
It looks like a fun game, but what rubs me the wrong way is the procedural shit and the randomness. So you get empty rooms, and then unbalanced set pieces all of a sudden? Or a loadout thats more shitty than the other.

Perhaps they pull it off but most procedural shit I just don't enjoy. And I don't like roguelikes either.

Their reasoning for the price tag is pretty much that this is a PS5 game and bigger than their previous work. How much bigger and how meaty this game is remains to be seen.
 

turtlepowa

Banned
I'm not sure hat you mean by "high quality" because visually it looks a whole lot closer to Far Cry than Terraria!

I mean, objectively, what would you add visually to increase the quality without fundamentally changing what the game is; i.e. a solo astronaut fighting across an alien world populated by bullet-hell monsters and psychological "gotchas" ? You have to accept that in order to support the nimbleness and traversal required to evade and survive the sort of particle onslaught you face, environments need to be built in a certain way. In simple terms its not going to work very well in intricate, windy, spaces like you see in a Souls game where generally stuff happens within melee distance.

It feels like that shmup DNA that they've tried to retain is considered a devaluing factor, compared to if it took a more close-combat tack.
It just doesn't appeal to me and it's not always just the graphics. I mean Agony also looks much better than Terraria :messenger_beaming: . Returnal has too much blingbling, over the top effects, levels are too dark/grey/ugly. Everything i have seen so far says 20 bucks Steam game to me. It's a case to case gutfeeling for me what game i'm willing to spend 70-80 bucks for and this is not one of them.
 

SkylineRKR

Member
This thread is depressing. What exactly does a a $70 game look-like?

I mean on one hand everyone seems bored by Ubi-esque open world stuff, and on the other rejects anything that isn't filled with the same sort of familiar gameplay tropes and bloat.

Keep rejecting stuff like this and all that we'll end up getting greenlit are safe-as-milk cookie cutter pabulum or worse.

You're favourite devs are not suddenly going to start shitting out the stuff you like at a vastly accelerated rate compared to years gone by, releases are going to get fewer and further apart because it simply takes that long to make modern games. So allow me to suggest that opening your minds to the possibility of new things actually being good is a necessity unless you are happy with a slow trickle of the same-old same-old until the end of time.

Well at least not a roguelike single player alien shooter with a so far rather repetitve and procedural generated setting. And I think because of how its being structured, the game probably doesn't take long to beat but encourages replays or score attacks. I wonder if its at least going to be as meaty as RE3, which was bare bones but I enjoyed it regardless. I bought RE3 for sub 30 bucks however, i'd feel ripped off if that game was 60, let alone 70 or 80.

I think a good example of a full price shooter would be Gears 5. It has a meaty campaign, co-op, a full multiplayer. Not everyone likes the game, but I can see why that game was offered for full price. Still, it was cheaper than Returnal is going to be.
 
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betrayal

Banned
You should make the acceptable price dependent on the game, not the genre. There are enough SP games that are 10 or less hours long and worth the full price. Returnal will probably surpass that time.
Although we'll have to wait and see, but Returnal could eventually have 50+ hours (or way more) of gameplay and relatively easily expandable through DLC. The potential for a "classic" is definitely there and I find it interesting that a rogue-lite game is coming out that has at least a few traits of triple A games.
 

Banjo64

cumsessed
For context as to how absurd the £70 price is; Switch games vary in price between £32.99 and £42.99. Only BoTW and Smash are £49.99. Monster Hunter Rise is £42 with a steel book. First party games like Link’s Awakening, Animal Crossing, Mario Kart, LM3 - all sub £37. And this is Nintendo, who are ripped for the price of their First Party games and the ‘Switch tax’.
 

Ogbert

Member
£70 in the UK, so that's what, $100.

Just way, *way* too much.

Sony need to be really careful here. Gamepass has it's flaws, but value is not one of them. You cannot charge this much for AA titles. I don't care if it looks pretty, it's still AA.
 
Housemarque is great, but hard to understand they won't acknowledge there's more than a hint of Metroid straight influence in this. It's not likely a Metroidvania at all with exploration upfront, just an arcade bullet-hell rogue-like, but definitely the world building feels and smells straight Metroid to me.

still the only PS5 title I'm really willing to checkout, but a little less hyped about. In any case, it's good to see roguelikes taken up more seriously by AAA studios - Dead Cells and Sundered are great and the latter even made a great mix of Metroidvania in a rogue-lite setting.
 
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