Official Newcomer/DLC Speculation Discussion

[LiveStudioAudience]

Given Nintendo's likely strategy of focusing on existing releases for the holiday season, if its not at the Game Awards, I'm guessing first or second week of January for the Smash reveal. Would be fairly close to the time between Min Min and Steve and would be an effective kick off for Nintendo news in 2021.

 

[Michael the Spikester]

One month until the VGA. Still suspecting nothing.

 

[Will]

The only thing that I'm expecting to happen at VGA is Ghosts of Tsushima snagging the GOTY from LOU2 like Sekiro stole it under Death Stranding's nose.

As it rightfully deserves.

 

[NonSpecificGuy]

The only thing that I'm expecting to happen at VGA is Ghosts of Tsushima snagging the GOTY from LOU2 like Sekiro stole it under Death Stranding's nose.

As it rightfully deserves.

I think it’ll be Doom Eternal personally. As long as it isn’t Last of Us Part II which I honestly wasn’t that impressed by, in any way, I’ll be fine with it.

 

[Will]

I think it’ll be Doom Eternal personally. As long as it isn’t Last of Us Part II which I honestly wasn’t that impressed by, in any way, I’ll be fine with it.

As long at LOU2 doesn't take it, I think the world will find peace.

 

[3BitSaurus]

None of you are ready for when Animal Crossing takes GOTY.

 

[XorahnGaia]

I think the GOTY award this year will be a toss-up between Half-Life Alyx or TLOU Part 2.

But honestly, I find it more fun to speculate about the other awards, like who will Best Influencer? Or How are they gonna screw up the Best Music awards this year?

There's also the conference itself: I personally predict at least 2 out-of-touch sketches about Fall Guys and that a V-tuber will present one of the awards.

 

[Michael the Spikester]

I swear if TLOU: Part 2 wins...

"Bu-b-but graphics!"

 

[SNEKeater]

Tsushima is not gonna win. Not because it doesn't deserve it or anything, but mostly because awards are usually a mix of popularity and quality. Until recently the clear candidates were TLOU2 and Cyberpunk, but Cyberpunk got delayed so it won't make it in time for nominations.

So I just see Half-Life: Alyx as the only competitor that actually has some chances to take it.

Also last year Death Stranding wasn't precisely the favorite, if anything last year never had a clear winner (unlike 2018 which was between Red Dead 2 and God of War, or 2017 which was pretty much Zelda or Mario) until, well, the results.

PD: TLOU2 deserves goty, by the way. Best game of the year I've played this year alongside Hades.

 

[NonSpecificGuy]

I think the GOTY award this year will be a toss-up between Half-Life Alyx or TLOU Part 2.

But honestly, I find it more fun to speculate about the other awards, like who will Best Influencer? Or How are they gonna screw up the Best Music awards this year?

There's also the conference itself: I personally predict at least 2 out-of-touch sketches about Fall Guys and that a V-tuber will present one of the awards.

I’m willing to bet Mick Gordon wins best music for Doom Eternal which will be super awkward after their, uh, divorce.

 

[Michael the Spikester]

PD: TLOU2 deserves goty, by the way. Best game of the year I've played this year alongside Hades.

Spoiler

Joel (TLOU): I survived 20+ years in a post-apocalyptic world watching my daughter die in front of my eyes, distrusting any people I don't know as the best chance of survival was not trusting anyone never telling them my name and managed to take down an entire building of miltia experienced men to save Ellie.

Joel (TLOU: Part 2): HOWDY Y'ALL! THE NAME'S JOEL AND THIS IS MY BROTHER TOMMY DESPITE NEVER HAVING TOLD ANY RANDOM STRANGERS MY NAME! HERE LET US HELP Y'ALL FROM THIS COMING HORDE OF INFECTED! OH HEY! WHY DON'T WE COME INTO THIS ROOM WITH Y'ALL WITHOUT ANY SUSPICION THAT NOTHING COULD POSSIBILITY GO WRONG!

Also despite what was probably weeks if not months of pursuing his killer, murdering her way through her friends, proceeds to spare her life due to a brief flashback of Joel.

"You'll be no better than them"/"Revenge is wrong".

You're pretty much beyond that when you already murdered a bunch of people who were alone associated with Joel's murderer.

 

[KillerCage]

But honestly, I find it more fun to speculate about the other awards, like who will Best Influencer? Or How are they gonna screw up the Best Music awards this year?

Never forget XB2. Never forget.

 

[Rie Sonomura]

Spoiler

Joel (TLOU): I survived 20+ years in a post-apocalyptic world watching my daughter die in front of my eyes, distrusting any people I don't know as the best chance of survival was not trusting anyone never telling them my name and managed to take down an entire building of miltia experienced men to save Ellie.

Joel (TLOU: Part 2): HOWDY Y'ALL! THE NAME'S JOEL AND THIS IS MY BROTHER TOMMY DESPITE NEVER HAVING TOLD ANY RANDOM STRANGERS MY NAME! HERE LET US HELP Y'ALL FROM THIS COMING HORDE OF INFECTED! OH HEY! WHY DON'T WE COME INTO THIS ROOM WITH Y'ALL WITHOUT ANY SUSPICION THAT NOTHING COULD POSSIBILITY GO WRONG!

Also despite what was probably weeks if not months of pursuing his killer, murdering her way through her friends, proceeds to spare her life due to a brief flashback of Joel.

"You'll be no better than them"/"Revenge is wrong".

You're pretty much beyond that when you already murdered a bunch of people who were alone associated with Joel's murderer.

Blame the change in directors for that, the OG director, Amy Iforgetherlastname, was fired and Druckmann took over and... the result is as you see

Amy also worked on Uncharted before this iirc

 

[Michael the Spikester]

Blame the change in directors for that, the OG director, Amy Iforgetherlastname, was fired and Druckmann took over and... the result is as you see

Amy also worked on Uncharted before this iirc

I don't know what Druckmann was on when he thought this decision was a good idea.

 

[SpectreJordan]

I was thinking about it & one thing that could support a third & final Fighters Pass is that there hasn’t been any official word on these being the last characters just yet. It makes me think like it’s been left on the table for now.

I know Sakurai’s made comments but he’s said stuff like Brawl being his last Smash game in the past, so I think it’s easy to change his mind lol

 

[Michael the Spikester]

I was thinking about it & one thing that could support a third & final Fighters Pass is that there hasn’t been any official word on these being the last characters just yet. It makes me think like it’s been left on the table for now.

I know Sakurai’s made comments but he’s said stuff like Brawl being his last Smash game in the past, so I think it’s easy to change his mind lol

If we do get a 3rd pass. This is the following I could see.

An Echo Pack consisting of four characters. Echos wouldn't be as time-consuming.

Also, Sakurai taking a break after the second pass and eventually coming back to it or while taking said break, checks up on the process once in a while.

 

[Rie Sonomura]

I don't know what Druckmann was on when he thought this decision was a good idea.

Amy was unfairly fired too I might add, but that’s neither here nor there

 

[Faso115]

Amy never directed TLOU. It was Druckmann and Bruce Strayley and the latter later left which left the former unchecked and you know what happens next

 

[NonSpecificGuy]

Tsushima is not gonna win. Not because it doesn't deserve it or anything, but mostly because awards are usually a mix of popularity and quality. Until recently the clear candidates were TLOU2 and Cyberpunk, but Cyberpunk got delayed so it won't make it in time for nominations.

So I just see Half-Life: Alyx as the only competitor that actually has some chances to take it.

Also last year Death Stranding wasn't precisely the favorite, if anything last year never had a clear winner (unlike 2018 which was between Red Dead 2 and God of War, or 2017 which was pretty much Zelda or Mario) until, well, the results.

PD: TLOU2 deserves goty, by the way. Best game of the year I've played this year alongside Hades.

Hard disagree. The entire game was built off the foundation of an already disappointing ending which let to a lot of yanking around and mischaracterization of characters I loved. The best parts of the game were Joel’s interactions with Ellie and, well, they were barely there. The worst part is them retconning the hospital from the first game to give one of of the main characters of the second a purpose which just felt entirely artificial. I can get behind a revenge tale against the main character, I think that’s cool concept. I can’t get behind the fact there was no struggle, there was barely any interaction between the two other than the infamous scene, and after that the story couldn’t hook me. I beat it, sure, and the gameplay was fine but because of the story starting out artificial it made the rest of the story seem superfluous and overly masochistic. Like, a big part of the first game was instilling hope in the player to give them a reason to survive, sure the ending of the first game kind of blew it IMO, but the rest of the game was very hopeful and very empowering to you as a player. The second one just doesn’t have that. I had to force myself to keep playing because the reason they gave me wasn’t the reason I wanted to survive. Killing others for the sake of revenge wasn’t the message of the first game, and I was hoping there’d be some serious antagonizing of Joel from Ellie for basically damning the world but if any of that happened it happened off screen.

I dunno, I can get behind people liking the story as a stand-alone story but as a sequel it just didn’t deliver. But that’s just my opinion. I really did enjoy the game for the most part, mostly cause of the gameplay, but the story just wasn’t ever on the right track imo.

 

[SNEKeater]

TLOU2 spoilers

First of all, this is spoiler, the game doesn't even have 1 year. At least, I'd mark this as a spoiler just in case. I mean I know this is a Smash forum so it's not like this website is about TLOU (tho sometimes it seems that way...), but still, it's still a major game and you're just spoiling people because yes, just because I said the game was GOTY for me. I mean, story aside because this part is the one that divides people, the game is pretty much superior to the original game in every other aspect, or most of them. So it's not like saying "it's a great game" is an unaccurate thing.

About your post:

Spoiler

You're not gonna accomplish nothing if you try to exaggerate and dramatize. Using caps won't give you the reason.

- For god's sake, Joel didn't said their names. It was Tommy. This is a common mistake on internet discussions and honestly, like most of the people I've encountered that makes this mistake ends up being people who has just read spoilers or watched a let's play. Not trying to say you haven't played the game because I don't know that, but this is an important detail that people who didn't like the game uses A LOT.

- Why, for some reason, people seem to think Joel is some kind of superhero? Yes, he's a survivor in a post-apocalyptic world... like almost everyone else??? As I said, the mistake of saying their names was made by Tommy. But it didn't matter, because if you have played the game, you will know that they were pretty much ****ed up no matter what:
1. They had to go to the house because it was that or dying because of the horde.
2. Once they arrived, it was a matter of time, even if they never said their names. Abby and the others could have tortured them or anything to make them answer their questions, if needed. In the end, Tommy and Joel were outnumbered so it wasn't going to end well regardless, because Abby and their friends could easily deduct that Tommy and Joel were a patrol group from Jackson (mostly because when they saved Abby they clearly knew where to go to escape the horde, something that only someone who knows the area would know).

As for Ellie not killing Abby, it's a thing that isn't really told that much through words. It is told more through images and the player's interpretation. I guess you will understand this as an excuse, but it is not. Ellie not killing Abby because "she had a brief flashback of Joel" is another exercise of simplifying things. Anything can look or sound stupid by being simplistic.
The flashback she had of Joel was basically the way the game had to tell the player she spared Abby's life at that moment, the moment where she realized how she felt and that she didn't really had anything against Abby, to put it in a way. She was mostly mad at herself for not forgiving Joel for what he did in the first game. You have to remember that Joel died just the day after Ellie and Joel were starting to solving things between them, and this is known by the player in the final flashbacks, which are key to all of this.
Then, Abby arrived, killed Joel, robbing Ellie of any opportunity to forgive Joel. I'm obviously not saying Ellie liked Abby or anything, she disliked her for what she did, but as I said, at the end of the game is when Ellie sees that her rage was because she never had any closure with Joel. That is, until the end of the game, when Ellie is able to move on from Joel's death.

Yeaaaaaaaaah I know, here we can discuss that Ellie kills a lot of people regardless during the game (same goes for Abby), this "issue" is in most videogames, where the story sometimes tells us one thing and the gameplay seems to tell us a different one. This is a different discussion, in my opinion, and doesn't affect or not greatly, the story. In the end, Ellie and Abby are also survivors. I mean, the factions we see during the game wouldn't really receive Abby or Ellie with smiles and flowers if both girls were found by those factions.

 

[Cyberfire]

Regardless of the awards this year, Animal Crossing was the literal game of year. Starting New Horizons whilst under lockdown will be a real common joint-memory for people when they look back at 2020 in years to come.


That or Among Us.

 

[Michael the Spikester]

Spoiler

- For god's sake, Joel didn't said their names. It was Tommy. This is a common mistake on internet discussions and honestly, like most of the people I've encountered that makes this mistake ends up being people who has just read spoilers or watched a let's play. Not trying to say you haven't played the game because I don't know that, but this is an important detail that people who didn't like the game uses A LOT.

Sorry, spoiling now. Mind spoiling my post. Also same with you Rie Sonomura

Spoiler

Also Joel actually did say his name.

The Last of Us Part 2 - Joel SPOILER Scene | TLOU 2 Joel Death Scene

The Last of Us Part 2 - Abby Kills Joel Scene | Joel Death The Last of Us Part II is an action-adventure game developed by Naughty Dog and published by Sony ...

www.youtube.com

At 0:58

 

[osby]

It's nice to see a game you like winning the GOTY award but honestly, I feel like people are reacting way too strongly over it.

A game you dislike winning it only means other people have different opinions than you which should be obvious in the first place. It's not like there's a reward for people who played the winner or something.

 

[Michael the Spikester]

Spoiler

It's still a headcanon of mine that while out at sea both Abby and Leve were attacked and killed by a great white shark.

 

[SMAASH! Puppy]

I dunno...From what I've heard about The Last of Us 2 and its development, I'm not sure giving it an award would be morally permissible.

 

[LiveStudioAudience]

Any of the obvious games that will win GOTY this year will just be taking what rightfully belongs to Streets of Rage 4 anyway.

 

[osby]

Any of the obvious games that will win GOTY this year will just be taking what rightfully belongs to Streets of Rage 4 anyway.

That's not how you spell Hades.

Anyway, Zagreus for Smash when?

 

[chocolatejr9]

Say, have they even announced the nominees yet? Because they only have about a month left to do so.

 

[GothicSlenderman]

So we debate on who might be in the fighters pass. But what about the characters that are deconfirmed?

So far I've seen...
-Doomguy (by interview)
-Tracer (Reddit AMA)
-Ryza
-Kiryu (by Interview)

And some rumored to be deconfirmed...
-Arle (rumor based on an interview)
-Sora (rumor based on Disney)

Am I missing any?

 

[SNEKeater]

C chocolatejr9 The nominees are supposed to be announced this month, I think.

Sorry, spoiling now. Mind spoiling my post. Also same with you Rie Sonomura

Spoiler

Also Joel actually did say his name.

The Last of Us Part 2 - Joel SPOILER Scene | TLOU 2 Joel Death Scene

The Last of Us Part 2 - Abby Kills Joel Scene | Joel Death The Last of Us Part II is an action-adventure game developed by Naughty Dog and published by Sony ...

www.youtube.com

At 0:58

Spoiler

I'd swear it was Tommy who said both of their names. I guess I was wrong.
Though I don't think this makes a great difference. Tommy would probably have mentioned his name if he didn't.

As I said, Joel isn't a superhero or anything. Saying this because I seriously got the impression people thinks of him like that. He's a badass survivor which has done ****ty thing to survive. He seems badass to us because we know him and we played as him in the past, so we're attached to him. To Abby, or any random folks in the TLOU universe, Joel is just another random survivor that has done a lot of questionable things to survive.

Why I am saying this, well, basically because it seems he's perfect or something. He's a regular guy like everyone else, and even if he had to survive by himself in the past, he's living in Jackson, which is a "regular" city, where life is a considerably more relaxing. Or at least it is, in comparison to the life of smuggler Joel had before he met Ellie. He doesn't need to be in alert 24/7 anymore.

It's nice to see a game you like winning the GOTY award but honestly, I feel like people are reacting way too strongly over it.

A game you dislike winning it only means other people have different opinions than you which should be obvious in the first place. It's not like there's a reward for people who played the winner or something.

Yeah. I completely agree. Naturally, people likes when the game they support wins something, because in the end, that means some kind of recognition. Even if it's just an award. The Game Awards are the closest thing to the Oscars of videogames, but still, that doesn't mean it's the definitive and absolute truth. Is just a show, and sometimes you will agree with the winners and sometimes you won't. For example, I don't think Zelda was the best game of 2017. That doesn't mean I'll be angry on the internet or anything because the game I was supporting didn't won. That would accomplish literally nothing.


I just take these things as entertainment. And it's entertaining to discuss these things, but people taking this too seriously to the point of "if X game wins/doesn't win GOTY I'll be angry" is a bit stupid. No matter which game wins, there will be always someone who won't agree and that will start acting stupid on the internet.
It doesn't help that a lot of times this toxic behaviour is even worse due to console wars. It happened with Zelda/Mario vs Horizon in 2017, for example, and I guess it will happen again this year, unfortunately.

I dunno...From what I've heard about The Last of Us 2 and its development, I'm not sure giving it an award would be morally permissible.

Nah. Sorry but this line of thinking is a bit dumb. Crunch happens in most if not all AAA developments. Thinking otherwise is being naive.

The difference is that we "officially" know TLOU2 development had crunch, just like happened with Red Dead 2 and recently happened with Cyberpunk 2077. But if someone thinks other AAA games such as FFVII Remake or Doom Eternal were developed with 0 crunch, well, he's just wrong. It just takes a quick search at how the industry works to see that crunch is unfortunately a very ingrained thing in the industry. At least in AAA games.

 

[NonSpecificGuy]

I think the problems of Part II comes down to the ending of Part I. All things said and done, yes it made sense for Joel to do what he did and save Ellie because he didn’t want to lose another daughter.

Thing is, if Joel was really that selfish to not care about saving the world in the first game, why in Part II does he go out of his way to save people namely Abby? It doesn’t make sense for his character. It dismisses anything that Joel was in the first game for something completely unlike him. And I get it Joel is a tool for the development of Ellie and Abby in this game. But you have to remember this is the character you spent the entirety of the first game with. You played Joel, you were the one who did those awful things, so if you were in Joel’s shoes during that part of Part II would he have saved them? Would he have been as unprepared as he was? Probably not, it’s up for interpretation but from what we learned of Joel from the first game, it’s very unlikely. It just dismisses that personality that was Joel and the scene is just jarring.

I like to compare Part II to God of War (Reboot). God of War IS a sequel. Through and through, it’s the same Kratos, and you see that throughout the story. That spark of rage, his cautiousness to Atreus is symbolic as Atreus is Kratos while Kratos is Zeus. It all makes sense and not knowing Kratos from the previous games doesn’t diminish the effect of the game, but knowing it enhances the game. The same can’t be said for Part II. Knowing Part I actually diminishes the effect of Part II. Tommy doesn’t act the way he did, Joel doesn’t act the way he did, it’s all very jarring. And yeah you can say that Joel changed during the timeframe between the two games but we didn’t see it so there’s no connection in that characterization of him. And if there was there was NO time to get the picture of that in Part II as well he scene happens VERY early.

The ending to Part I was obviously there to make the possibility of a sequel feasible but the set-up never even got the chance to shine, let alone pay off.

 

[CapitaineCrash]

I really hope this year Goty goes to either Ori and the will of the wisps or Hades. Both are smaller scale game that would really deserve it. It's a shame that indie games never win goty despite the fact that sometimes it would have deserve it way more than AAA. Another game that would deserve it imo is Microsoft flight simulator because of how the game is pushing new technology, but it will probably be overshadow by other AAA games.

Personally tho, the only big games of 2020 I played are FF7 remake, Minecraft dungeons, Xenoblade chronicles definitive edition and Paper Mario origami king. I think that none of them deserve goty, Xenoblade is the best game of them but it's a remaster.

 

[clearandsweet]

Any of the obvious games that will win GOTY this year will just be taking what rightfully belongs to Streets of Rage 4 anyway.

Here's the thing with GOTY awards: there's all these biases.

After completing Streets of Rage 4, Hades, and hitting level 45 on Genshin Impact, I guarantee all of these are better holistic products than whatever AAA frontrunners will be nominated, and are undisputedly the highest quality game experiences I had this year.

GOTY is never really about "best" game, because we're trained to not consider mobile or f2p or indie or smaller scope or exercise games as less than your AAA console exclusives. I could and would argue that Ring Fit is one of the best games on Switch.

Thanks for coming to my TED talk.

 

[SNEKeater]

I think the problems of Part II comes down to the ending of Part I. All things said and done, yes it made sense for Joel to do what he did and save Ellie because he didn’t want to lose another daughter.

Thing is, if Joel was really that selfish to not care about saving the world in the first game, in Part II does he go out of his way to save people namely Abby? It doesn’t make sense for his character. It dismisses anything that Joel was in the first game for something completely unlike him. And I get it Joel is a tool for the development of Ellie and Abby in this game. But you have to remember this is the character you spent the entirety of the first game with. You played Joel, you were the one who did those awful things, so if you were in Joel’s shoes during that part of Part II would he have saved them? Would he have been as unprepared as he was? Probably not, it’s up for interpretation but from what we learned of Joel from the first game, it’s very unlikely. It just dismisses that personality that was Joel and the scene is just jarring.

I like to compare Part II to God of War (Reboot). God of War IS a sequel. Through and through, it’s the same Kratos, and you see that throughout the story. That spark of rage, his cautiousness to Atreus is symbolic as Atreus is Kratos while Kratos is Zeus. It all makes sense and not knowing Kratos from the previous games doesn’t diminish the effect of the game, but knowing it enhances the game. The same can’t be said for Part II. Tommy doesn’t act the way he did, Joel doesn’t act the way he did, it’s all very jarring. And yeah you can say that Joel changed during the timeframe between the two games but we didn’t see it so there’s no connection in that characterization of him. And if there was there was NO time to get the picture of that in Part II as well he scene happens VERY early.

Spoiler

I don't know, I feel you're dismissing some things as well. I don't think saving Abby dismisses his character at all. You're forgetting that Part II doesn't happen just after Part I. Some years had passed. People change, and Joel and Ellie (and Tommy) went to live on Jackson, the closest thing to an actual and regular city in the post apocalyptic world they're living.

We did see Joel during the timeframe between the 2 games. I mean, during the multiple flashbacks, which are enough in my opinion to compensate timeskip. I guess this can sound like an 'excuse' of some sorts, but I don't think a story, or all stories, need to be super clear and guiding to the viewer/player/reader. I don't think the game needed to show us how Joel changed during his time in Jackson. The flashbacks, the playable intro with him, other info and logical deductions are enough to reach that conclusion.

I don't think he's out of character, as I said multiple times. I always felt I was looking at the same Joel.
I honestly just think some people had a hard time seeing him dying to the point they started to search reasons as why he's out of character in order to justify his death was a bad decision and feel "better" with themselves, instead of doing the logical thing in my opinion, which is thinking why he died, what led him to that fate, his role in Ellie's and Abby's story, and more. The priorities are wrong here, in my honest opinion.

Anyway, as for the God of War example, we do not see what happened to Kratos between God of War 3 and God of War 2018, something that some people criticized and felt it was needed in the game. So I don't know if it's the best comparison.

 

[Rie Sonomura]

...anyway, can we save the TLOU2 discussion for the Social Thread? Unless Ellie’s coming to Smash I don’t see how this is relevant

 

[SMAASH! Puppy]

Nah. Sorry but this line of thinking is a bit dumb. Crunch happens in most if not all AAA developments. Thinking otherwise is being naive.

What I've heard was much worse than crunch time.

 

[LiveStudioAudience]

Is it unrealistic to think that if there are more characters after Fighter Pass 2 that they might not come with a stage and songs? Basically is a more stripped down set of fighters to round out Smash but without the same production/resources for levels/songs unlikely given Nintendo and Sakurai's preferred method of doing DLC or somewhat possible given that such a pass would still likely make money and finally allow both to wind down work on the game?

 

[SMAASH! Puppy]

Is it unrealistic to think that if there are more characters after Fighter Pass 2 that they might not come with a stage and songs? Basically is a more stripped down set of fighters to round out Smash but without the same production/resources for levels/songs unlikely given Nintendo and Sakurai's preferred method of doing DLC or somewhat possible given that such a pass would still likely make money and finally allow both to wind down work on the game?

Not sure what I'd expect from a 3rd pass. To be honest I...I kinda don't want one. No idea why either.

I'll roll with it if we get one, but it's not something I'm actively hoping for, which is kinda weird considering my usual "more is more" train of thought.

EDIT: I guess that's the thing with being satisfied with what the game has. It's hard to be disappointed sure, but its also hard to get excited...ooor I'm just emotionally drained.

 

[3BitSaurus]

Here's the thing with GOTY awards: there's all these biases.

After completing Streets of Rage 4, Hades, and hitting level 45 on Genshin Impact, I guarantee all of these are better holistic products than whatever AAA frontrunners will be nominated, and are undisputedly the highest quality game experiences I had this year.

GOTY is never really about "best" game, because we're trained to not consider mobile or f2p or indie or smaller scope or exercise games as less than your AAA console exclusives. I could and would argue that Ring Fit is one of the best games on Switch.

Thanks for coming to my TED talk.

I mean, think of it this way:

How many mobile-first games stand up to Genshin's level? How many Indies stand up to Hades or Celeste?

It's not that we're "trained" to think otherwise, it's just that for every Hades or Hollow Knight there's over 6000 indies every year that don't come even close. Same for mobile, which is dominated by match-3s and P2W. Games like these are sadly the exception and not the rule - which in a way is a consequence of how the market works.

And this is all coming from someone who would put Hades as GOTY, by the way.

 

[SNEKeater]

What I've heard was much worse than crunch time.

Then I honestly don't know what you're talking about. I pretty much followed the game since it's announcement so I don't know what it could be.

But yeah, we should stop talking about this, at least here, as Rie said.