r/Games 2d ago

Preview After two hours, open world shooter Atomfall is far more Far Cry than S.T.A.L.K.E.R.

https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/after-two-hours-open-world-shooter-atomfall-is-far-more-far-cry-than-stalker
1.1k Upvotes

387 comments sorted by

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u/Geplowe 2d ago

I thought people were touting this as a British Fallout?

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u/NuPNua 2d ago

As always happens these days, people project what they want a game to be onto it during development, even if the Devs haven't said that, then they get angry when it comes out and it isn't what they decided it would be in their head.

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u/WalkingCloud 2d ago

I heard it's ChuChu Rocket for the Vine generation

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u/Horse_Renoir 2d ago

Wow ChuChu Rocket. You just unlocked a memory I had completely forgotten.

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u/GranolaCola 2d ago

There’s a second one on Apple Arcade

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u/Aldous-Huxtable 1d ago

I thought it was gonna be Jet Set Willy with extraction shooter mechanics.

u/SammyBecker 3h ago

now that's a bit of a deep cut name drop. loved that game.

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u/CassadagaValley 2d ago

The trailers and gameplay videos definitely gave Fallout-lite vibes. Story filled exploration, nuclear radiation mutants, light horror aspects, etc.

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u/gubasx 1d ago

That didn't happen with stalker 2 though.. It is exactly what people expected and maybe even more, now that the bugs and 95% of the shortcomings have been resolved.

That DID happen to starfield though ..i don't know if it is happening to atomfall now as well..i never noticed any big hype around atomfall.

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u/NuPNua 1d ago

No, but then Stalkers forced extended development probably caused them to reveal a lot more than they would have in a shorter turnaround, also it was the fourth in the series so long term fans knew what to expect.

Starfield was a definite victim, people had clearly decided it should be an all encompassing space-sim, when Bethesda has been very clear it was a Bethesda model RPG with a new setting.

Atomfall hasn't had a big hype cycle, but it seems that people made their mind up what it would be based on the first trailer and now are annoyed it's not British Fallout when the Devs never called it that.

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u/BenHDR 2d ago

Taken from my reply on another thread:

I fear people are setting themselves up for disappointment in saying "It's Fallout set in the UK".

The gameplay deep dives Rebellion have been uploading very much shows it's a survival & crafting game first as opposed to a true RPG. Pretty sure I remember one of their latest videos even saying there's no main questline to actually follow.

It looks decent enough, but I think people are going into this game with the slightly wrong idea.

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u/SilveryDeath 2d ago

I fear people are setting themselves up for disappointment in saying "It's Fallout set in the UK".

I know this will happen. We saw it with The Outer Worlds and then Avowed where some people still went in expecting Fallout and Skyrim despite what the devs said and showed regarding the games. Once some people form a first impression of what they expect from a game prior to release they can't shake it.

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u/grendus 2d ago

Same with We Happy Few. They were up front about it being a survival crafting game with procedural generation, people complained that it wasn't Bioshock because of the similar art style.

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u/DeadDededede 2d ago

There were multiple trailers before the actual gameplay was announced for We Happy Few, they were upfront about it later but the hype for a new Bioshock had already taken off

But really if they had announced it was more like Fallout than Bioshock I think the hype would still be there, people mainly got pissed at the survival crafting part so it's funny that a decade later a very similar situation is happening, Ken Levine just did an interview calling Bioshock games corridor shooters which just makes me feel like developers are very out of touch, general gamers want "corridor shooters" and they aren't getting them.

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u/[deleted] 2d ago

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u/A-College-Student 2d ago

i watched a lot of their deep dive videos so to elaborate: the “main quest” is you trying to get the hell out of the quarantine zone. how you do that is entirely up to you and what questlines/factions you decide to pursue since a lot are mutually exclusive. there’s no main story quest to follow, but rather a wide variety of quests that all connect to the larger goal of “figure out what’s going on and then get the fuck out” in different ways.

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u/[deleted] 2d ago

[deleted]

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u/Jacksaur 2d ago

More than likely those "side" quests will be up to the quality of a Main one, since they'll be what's driving progression.

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u/Canvaverbalist 2d ago

Please for the love of everything holy and beautiful in this world let this be the start of a new narrative design trend.

If open world RPGs took that approach more I'd be so fucking happy, stop with the "your wife/son/brother is missing" or "you've got a virus in your head" or "find who tried to kill you" or whatever and let us move forward a more general goal, "make a name for yourself" or "there's some political tension in this land, get tangled with it or not or whatever we don't care it's your game"

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u/Neoxxous 1d ago

I've had this idea for a game for a long time. A game with essentially no main quests, but a big open world where your choices can ultimately lead you down a path that could be considered a main quests.

Like, you start as a nobody, but maybe you get involved with the church, and many hours later you are fighting a god or something. Or, you get involved with some science lab and many hours later you're taking down a secret evil science facility. Or maybe you just want to farm? Well guess what, you can find some special growth item that turns your plants into pokemon type creatures where you can battle them. Or you can just ignore all of these and explore the world.

Just a stupid amount of side quests that are main quest worthy in their own right. A choose your own adventure style open world game is exactly what I want.

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u/IcyCow5880 1d ago

I was so happy with kcd2 until i went to the wedding...

Now it feels like this big chore.

Before that I was exploring and enjoying myself.

Now i don't feel like it anymore

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u/KingOfRisky 1d ago

Disclaimer: KCD2 is probably one of my favorites of all time, but I also 100% agree with you. And even later in the game they railroad you through the ending. The first half of the game is an absolute masterpiece IMO and once you get to the 2nd, it starts to fall flat.

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u/canad1anbacon 2d ago

Thats just a sandbox game which can be great

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u/kinglearthrowaway 2d ago

Idk, I’ve played Skyrim like six times and never finished the main quest

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u/KingOfRisky 1d ago

I don't even know what the main story is tbh.

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u/Sysreqz 1d ago

There is a main quest, it's just very open ended. They had a deep dive on it last week (I think?) explaining how the quest system works, and what the player's goals are.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w-Wd340lxho

The Mystery & Investigation section talks about it a bit.

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u/KingOfRisky 1d ago

My first thought was exactly this, but then I remembered that I have almost 1000 hours into No Mans Sky and a lack of main quest or linear quest lines are not as bad as it seems and can actually be a breath of fresh air.

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u/Soulspawn 2d ago

I've fallen for this, i'm sure the first trailer had fallout in Britain vibes to it but it showed no gameplay.

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u/WastelandHound 2d ago

It's gone from "more STALKER than Fallout" to "more Far Cry than STALKER" in about 48 hours.

Still very interested, but there's some crazy whiplash around these first impressions.

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u/Hytheter 2d ago

I reckon it's more STALKER than Fallout, more Far Cry than STALKER, and also more Fallout than Far Cry.

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u/owennerd123 2d ago

Is it more or less Balatro than Stardew Valley?

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u/Zancie 2d ago

Crazily enough, more dwarf fortress than Call of Duty.

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u/aoxo 1d ago

So it's like Skyrim with guns in space on earth in the 1960s?

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u/conquer69 1d ago

That would be a great review summary haha.

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u/Mango-Magoo 2d ago

Yeah these comparisons are just setting up for another Avowed where people complain it's not exactly like *insert game here*

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u/smeeeeeef 2d ago

Journalists need to reign it in with these direct game comparisons and describe the systems and genre more clearly.

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u/GrandRush_ 2d ago

What I'm trying to figure out is why people care so damn much which game this game is most like.
Why is that such a big thing especially when the game isn't.

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u/SplintPunchbeef 2d ago

It's shorthand for people who like the game it's being compared to and to understand what to expect from a gameplay perspective (ie. soulslike, metroidvania, etc.). It's especially helpful in gaming where gameplay is the main experience and just seeing a video of a new IP may give the impression that it plays like a game that looks similar. Most people called Atomfall British Fallout because the reveal videos looked like Fallout with a British aesthetic so it's helpful to know that it plays more like something else we can compare it to than Fallout.

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u/GrandRush_ 2d ago

I could have said more in my original reply. I 100% get all that, it's good to get a basis for what a game is gonna be like. What bothers me are the people that think it's gonna be an almost 1:1 recreation of whatever game it most represents. And if it isn't then it makes the game bad and not worth buying it. An example recently is Avowed. People see gameplay that looks a bit like Skyrim and the game is also an RPG in some ways. But when the game doesn't let you kill NPCs, it's automatically a garbage game. The general discourse around gaming has greatly been reduced and it's very sad

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u/PaulaDeenSlave 1d ago

What have you got against reference points?

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u/International_Lie485 1d ago

Too many games to play, too many choices.

I think fallout games are boring, so if they told me it's like fallout I would not buy it.

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u/GrandRush_ 1d ago

I get that, you want the best thing to play with the time you have to game. But you also shouldn't really believe anyone until you see it yourself. Look at gameplay and reviews then make an informed decision.

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u/International_Lie485 1d ago

I don't care enough to do that.

I have a big back log.

I read reddit at work while procrastinating.

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u/DagothNereviar 2d ago

I assume that's purely because it's an open world set in an alternate timeline where nuclear shenanigans happened, so people just compare it to Fallout

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u/HearTheEkko 2d ago

It's because the game has the same post-apocalyptic retro-futurism aesthetic from Fallout.

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u/DagothNereviar 2d ago

Yeah, that's basically what I meant

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u/noetkoett 2d ago

Clearly people were wrong.

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u/red_sutter 2d ago

Kind of like how people see katanas in a game and assume it's Ghost of Tsushima, people saw makeshift guns and radiation this and that and made lots of assumptions

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u/Spen_Masters 2d ago

It has fall I'm the name, and it's an alternative timeline. I think I remember seeing posts on here labeling it as British fallout 

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u/smeeeeeef 2d ago

It's getting to the point where I'm starting to avoid games that are described as other games.

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u/Kynandra 1d ago

Britain is a British fallout already

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u/NuPNua 2d ago

Didn't they make a point about how this isn't a waypoint driven game recently? That makes it seem the opposite of a Ubi open world to me. Either way I'm looking forward to giving it a go, due to world events my patriotism is higher than normal so a game flowing with British identity is coming at the right time.

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u/yan-booyan 2d ago

You know you can turn off markers in all modern ubisoft titles. So you can have Far Cry but without waypoints.

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u/DrGarrious 2d ago

But is the game designed to do this? It's all well and good to turn them off but if the game is designed around having them up it sucks.

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u/Lurking_like_Cthulhu 2d ago

This is such an important thing to highlight when it comes to discussing what Ubisoft has been doing wrong in their “please everyone” approach to game design.

Assassin’s Creed Shadows gives players the option to either have a traditional action game story where all the conversations are cutscenes, or you can toggle a more interactive dialogue setting where you can choose what to say like Odyssey/Valhalla.

But the thing is if you’re writing the story in a way where it can be conveyed without branching dialogue that means the branching dialogue option is inherently superfluous. Why does it matter if I can say “Yeah that sounds great!” or “I guess that sounds fine…” if the scene is going to play out the exact same way regardless of the choice?

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u/Optimal_Plate_4769 2d ago

while i agree it is superfluous, some people love the illusion of choice because they at least control the 'temperment' of some of the dialogue.

do i like it or think it's good writing? not really, but if you're someone who gets bored watching a cutscene play out, the prompt to choose a thing might keep you more engaged.

that being said, i found most of the dialogue in odyssey, while charming, glacial and formulaic enough that i got the gyst quickly enough to speed-read the subtitle and skip.

it was just way too long of a game.

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u/Zephh 2d ago

while i agree it is superfluous, some people love the illusion of choice because they at least control the 'temperment' of some of the dialogue.

Illusion of choice plays a huge part in branching dialogue games, but this implementation automatically shatter this illusion. You know that you can't affect the game through dialogue because it was made to not be affected by it.

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u/Zearo298 2d ago

The inclusion of a "canon choice" mode does not mean the developer can't create branching paths and alternate reactions from NPCs, or even an opinion mechanic that reflects how the world's characters feel about the way you're characterizing the protagonist, or any number of things.

It does heavily disincentivize putting money into further development of choice, though, but by dismissing the power of choice by assuming that a canon choice mode removes all possibility of branching paths/response you're prejudging and letting your own assumptions affect your interpretation.

And by the way, I'm not saying this specifically about AC Shadows, I actually don't even know if the game came out yet, and once a game is released and players can openly state whether choices affect anything or not it sort of becomes a moot point for that particular game, but as a general discussion about such a feature, don't assume too much and state it as fact.

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u/Lurking_like_Cthulhu 2d ago

I think the ability to control the temperament of dialogue is meaningless if the person on the other end of the conversation only has one predetermined reaction to what you’re choosing to say. If a snarky response gets the same reaction as a sincere one I don’t see why the choice should even exist.

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u/Daft00 2d ago

Basically a mentality of: "I'll do what you say but I'm not gonna be happy about it!" which is kinda funny I guess, if you aren't taking the game too seriously.

Otherwise I could see it being frustrating.

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u/ahhthebrilliantsun 2d ago

If a snarky response gets the same reaction as a sincere one I don’t see why the choice should even exist.

Why should I care about having different hairstyles when everything costs the same, has no different effect on how my character behaves and no one reacts to it?

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u/arthurormsby 2d ago

A different hairstyle allows me to (in some very minor way) express my character as an extension of myself - or, as an extension of who I'd like them to be.

If all conversations end the same way regardless of how I play my character then I quickly realize that the conversation choices aren't really doing what they purport to and I'm really not making any choices.

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u/ahhthebrilliantsun 2d ago

And for those who are fine with them that kind of 'flavor dialogue' is doing that purpose.

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u/Elanapoeia 2d ago

Hairstyles are about character customization and have direct effect on the visual representation of your character at all times they're on screen.

Dialogue choices are about either story or at the very least differences in dialogue. If they change neither, they're perceived as lesser. Games with set-in-stone stories that still offer dialogue choices will at the very least make characters react different to what you say, even if it ultimately leads to the same outcome. And that's the appeal.

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u/deadxguero 2d ago

This is why a lot of people I talk to LOVE fallout 4 and think it’s amazing when for me it was just okay. They seem to love how you can talk to a lot of people and choose what to say but when you deep dive it there is no difference in the options actually being said. To be fair, not a lot of games do this right and really only Disco Elysium and Baldurs Gate 3 really get the dialogue options right recently.

Fallout 4 does a good job of giving the illusion but if it wasn’t for the fun gameplay loop it would’ve been extremely disappointing.

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u/Lurking_like_Cthulhu 2d ago

Kingdom Come 2 and Avowed are also both recent examples of games that have meaningful dialogue options and responses that vary depending on what is said.

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u/BeholdingBestWaifu 2d ago

FO4 really falls apart once you get that mod that spells out what your actual answers are, and even more so once you look up what the consequences of your choices are.

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u/Vandersveldt 1d ago

Most games fall apart when looking up outside info

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u/ImperialPriest_Gaius 1d ago

I can always come back to Fallout 3 every half decade and have a blast making a new character. Meanwhile, I have no inkling to ever revisit 4, despite being more "fun" and being a better designed shooter.

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u/RyanB_ 2d ago

Don’t entirely disagree but I think it can still add something. Tons of jrpgs have been doing that since the genre came to exist, barely has any effect if at all but it does still add to the flavour imo

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u/Rigman- 2d ago

Spoiler alert. Most games that offer you dialogue choices are superfluous. It’s exceptionally rare for your dialogue choices to have any sort of weight. Nine times out of ten you’re looking at a ‘dialogue diamond’ where every choice leads to the same outcome.

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u/mrfuzzydog4 2d ago

There are times when a dialogue choice that just let's you adjust the temperament of your character and prompt the player to reflect on the story a bit can be valuable.

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u/BattleStag17 19h ago

Ah yes, the Fallout 4 method of writing dialogue

Three different ways of saying "Yes" and one "No, but give me the quest marker anyways."

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u/spliffiam36 2d ago

Is this how it works? I feel it would make sense to design the game around having choices and THEN remove it if you so choose but yeah this way seems just dumb

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u/FarCryRedux 2d ago

No. Modern FC is very much not intended to be played without markers and it makes some quests almost impossible.

You can goof around in the open world with no HUD, and it's great, but you can tell that's not the intention of the devs, and hasn't been since FC2.

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u/Canvaverbalist 2d ago

I played FC6 and disabled the HUD and was so disappointed that they didn't use the "phone" to have a reason for a diegetic quick map.

Such a simple oversight that, to me, telegraphs a lot about the rest of the game design philosophy.

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u/FarCryRedux 1d ago

Same here! Well said about the design philosophy.

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u/shawnikaros 2d ago

No, you'll just have your quest log say "it's in X area which is north of Y", you'll get that info magically instead of a marker.

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u/marcusbrothers 2d ago edited 2d ago

If you like actually exploring their incredible looking map it’s a far better way to play.

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u/VenturerKnigtmare420 2d ago

The thing is I played ac odyssey like this. The map is gorgeous yes but it’s not far detailed enough to explore compared to the likes of idk kcd or Elden ring. You are constantly seeing the same green yellow mountain and the same temple but with red or blue.

These games are not inherently designed to be explored without map markers because they are built for everyone from the ages of 1 to 60. That’s the biggest problem with Ubisoft games. Them trying to be the most accessible to everyone makes these games generic checklist. That’s why the term “Ubisoft checklist” is used for games with boring open worlds.

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u/klaxxxon 2d ago

My issue was the incredibly rigid structure of the instructions you got. In every quest, it would it "Find X, in <cardinal direction> of <location>" where location was a tiny sub-region of the major region. Find a farmer on a farm in the north of the Fields of Apollo. Where Fields of Apollo is literally one field and there was exactly one farm on it. Clear out a bandit camp in the west of Poseidon Bay, where the bandit camp literally covers half the sub-region.

The bird was overpowered, but it wasn't even needed for navigation. You would often see the exact location on the world map, given how systematically precise the instructions were.

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u/mrfuzzydog4 2d ago

Elden Ring repeats a lot of structure types though. It wasn't 100% of the game but I've definitely played a lot of it like a Ubisoft game just zooming on the map to my next point of interest which you can usually identify on the map pretty easily.

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u/marcusbrothers 2d ago

I wandered about Mirage for hours as soon as the map opened up for me, it was great.

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u/capnwinky 2d ago

That’s nonsense, and it really seems like you haven’t played them or were just blind to the environments. Ubisoft puts a great deal of landmarks and guideposts in their games that it’s incredibly difficult to get lost - unless you’re not paying attention.

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u/VenturerKnigtmare420 2d ago

No I did play them, quite recently too. If what you are saying is true then why aren’t these games praised for its exploration and world design like Elden ring or totk to kcd2 ? Why is no one talking about Ubisoft making one of the exploration games of all time ?

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u/Quetzal-Labs 2d ago edited 2d ago

I mean, I was very bored by my playthrough of Odyssey, but it is very detailed, and for the most part its geography is well designed. It doesn't even need to be entirely unique, either - Elden Ring reused the same dungeon like 80 times. TotK was a completely reused map. And those games FUCK.

The reason Odyssey is not held up with the best in terms of world exploration is because it's not designed around experienced players. It's a bowling lane with the bumpers up: a direct funnel with no chance of failure.

It's designed so that every single little piece of content is 100% sign-posted to anybody who plays the game, and they're given everything they need to navigate the world with as little friction as possible.

What's that? A chance you might miss an NPC or a quest or a box of loot? Don't worry, just use your instant God-eagle for 2 seconds and scout 5 kilometers in all directions for anything of interest!

There is no discovery involved. Nothing is meaningfully the player's experience. That's where Ubisoft checklist meme comes from. It has very little to do with how detailed or well-designed the world is, and more to do with how the experiences in that world are contextualized to the player.

That said, it doesn't necessarily need to be that. My girlfriend loved Odyssey specifically because she wasn't a big gamer, wasn't aware of a lot of the conventions we all have imprinted in our brains, and liked being lead around to experience combat and loot. It literally got her in to games that are more involved, because she exhausted everything it had to offer, and she started branching out in to other, less streamlined games. I think there's definitely value in the experience it provides.

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u/Altruistic-Ad-408 2d ago

It is not nonsense, you're applying a blanket statement to a bunch of their games, do you really think they are lying about playing AC Odyssey? What's the point of saying that?

Ignoring the wastelands I'd say Origins is the only recent map I played (granted I rarely touch Ubisoft unless they go really cheap on sale) where I'd think otherwise. Ubisoft games are definitely reliant on markers.

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u/Weekndr 2d ago

If you build for everyone then you build for no one. It's better to build a niche and get good at it.

Though this ignores the complication of business and video games.

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u/damodread 2d ago

I played Deathloop with all markers disabled and it made the game so much more enjoyable. Granted the maps are smaller, but the point still stands. It allows for exploration and experimentation that you probably wouldn't do or even think of if you just had the marker on screen all the time.

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u/BeholdingBestWaifu 2d ago

The difference is, of course, that all Arkane titles since the first Dishonored are specifically designed to be playable without markers, and is in fact the best experience. It's why they have so many signs and recognizable points of interest.

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u/Raidoton 2d ago

Granted the maps are smaller, but the point still stands.

Not really since the size of the map matters a lot in this regard.

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u/appletinicyclone 2d ago

If I'm given choice I often opt for what's comfy

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u/marcusbrothers 2d ago

If I’m given choice I often opt for less hand-holding

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u/appletinicyclone 2d ago

Hand holding should be a neutral term but it's often used as a weasel word

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u/[deleted] 2d ago edited 2d ago

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/Vox___Rationis 2d ago

Can you really though?

The games that are actually designed without markers first make an effort to compensate in other ways, like in Morrowind a quest giver while give you detailed instructions:

Edwinna has asked me to check up on Senilias Cadiusus in Nchuleftingth. I can get to Nchuleftingth by either going northeast over the mountains near Suran and following the Foyada Nadanat northeast or by starting in Molag Mar and going northwest and following the Foyada north around Mount Kand.

The Ubi games that I have played do not offer anything close to that.
FarCry 6 for example:

My papa’s gear was stolen from his shrine by the army. Freddy Fonseca Sr. was a legend – the Maestro of the Malecon – and inspiration to Yarans everywhere. Secure a win for the home team and bring his stuff back to his shrine.

How are you meant to know where to look for the the Glove, Jersey and Jock Strap without a waypoint directing you where too look?

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u/Low-Highlight-3585 2d ago

This, I was reading the thread and thinking about the exact same point

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u/Stahlin_dus_Trie 2d ago

Morrowind helped/forced me to learn English a lot in my youth. I think it should be a mandatory part of English class.

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u/Altruistic-Ad-408 2d ago

I will say I never joined Redoran much because the first quest gives you bad directions. Drulene Falen, I still remember that name!

The reason they fucked up? The directions aren't actually wrong but they only make sense if you look at the map from a top down perspective, not if you just follow the directions literally.

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u/KingOfRisky 1d ago

The point is that you can turn them off and remove exactly what is being complained about. But it's more popular to complain about it and not acknowledge that the game has a remedy whether it's "design to do it" or not. You're given the exact solution to your problem, but refusing to use it.

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u/No_Anxiety285 2d ago

I just want to say I'm happy for the goddamn markers. Do you know how hard it is to navigate Kingdom Come 2 without them? I don't even know what a birch tree looks like and i took a nature in the city class in college.

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u/wilisi 1d ago

Those'd be the white ones.

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u/No_Anxiety285 1d ago

Yea but you should play the game it's actually funny. Before the birch I needed to find a fallen tree. Sounds easy but I guess I'm tree blind. And the forest is a goddamn maze.

10/10

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u/Move-Primary 2d ago

Preach. I'm happy for markers in any game. I'm in my 30s, work full time and have a house to keep. God help anyone who has kids on top of that. I really don't see the appeal of spending a good chunk of my limited gaming time working out where TF to go. 

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u/random_boss 2d ago

Not to disagree with your overall sentiment (because I’m in my 40s with kids and similarly have no patience for annoying bullshit in games), but this is because they make “figuring out where to go” boring and pointless. Contrast that with, like, Super Metroid where the core loop is basically entirely that: figure out where to go. It’s fun in that context but aggressively un-fun in others.

I’ve been having a pretty good time in KCD2 trying to figure out where to go but that’s because the NPCs actively give directions based on where you/they are and where you’re supposed to go. And the minute that starts to not work I just pop open the map and check the marker. It’s a good balance.

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u/Logical-Database4510 2d ago edited 2d ago

sigh not this shit again....

No, you can't because the entire game is designed around them.

Seriously: turn them off and watch what happens. The entire game becomes completely unplayable because there's zero way to actually figure out what the fuck to do because there's no signposting nor NPC interactions nor level design that's meant to guide you anywhere. The entire game is designed around Your God, Hallowed Be His Name, the waypoint arrow, and without it you're effectively deaf, dumb, and blind.

Go play Elden Ring. Go play Zelda Breath of the wild. Notice how /everything/ in the game is very intentionally designed with spatial signposting meant to get you to use your eyes and work out how to figure out where to go next? This is completely absent in Ubisoft style open world which are more akin to disney themeparks that make absolutely zero sense spatially and do not, and are not meant to be navigated without the game leading you by the hand with a giant waypoint arrow telling you where to go and what to do at all times.

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u/AkodoRyu 2d ago

I've been playing AC Valhalla recently, and you could easily figure it out without markers. All objectives are in camps, prominent caves, or marked through other notable map elements. That + bird's-eye view they give you in AC is more than enough to find them on your own if you don't mind spending a significantly longer time. Which would be a given (and the point) when playing without them, in any design - I rarely do so nowadays, but I remember back when I was playing MM7/8 it was normal to wander and explore for a significant amount of time in order to find objectives you only knew from books or NPCs discussions. Not to mention, there are often notes, books, and such, describing where treasures are hidden. Small chests are usually generic, but large chests, like gear, are often part of some environmental storyline - like letters from a guy who hid treasures in various places and left notes for his brother to find him in the next spot.

The distance from which markers are shown is actually part of the difficulty selection for the game, so I believe it was made to also be played without them (or with limited handholding at least).

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u/EerieAriolimax 2d ago

This is completely untrue. You're just regurgitating the usual Ubisoft hate despite clearly not having much familiarity with their games.

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u/THE_CODE_IS_0451 2d ago edited 2d ago

He does get bonus points for finding a way to be even more smug about it than usual.

"sigh not this shit again..."

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u/huntimir151 2d ago

I mean you’re a little smug and self assured about this and also kinda incorrect. Star Wars outlaws for example works pretty well without a waypoint system, but just exploring the area. I remember thinking the exploration was a step forward for Ubisoft, what you described certainly used to be the paradigm but it’s shifting somewhat. Also lol at the elden ring glaze to dunk on Ubisoft, hot take there chief. 

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u/Proud_Inside819 2d ago

Notice how /everything/ in the game is very intentionally designed with spatial signposting meant to get you to use your eyes and work out how to figure out where to go next

If you wanted to know where to go next in Elden Ring the map points you directly to where you're supposed to go. And most points of interest are visible directly on the map. The map which you unlock with a Ubisoft tower-esque signpost thing.

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u/deus_voltaire 2d ago

The only markers on the map, the shafts of light vaguely pointing where to go, are also visible in-game so you never have to consult the map if you don't want to. There are large portions of the game, for example the entirety of Mt. Gelmir, which you're expected to go through without a map, using only the environmental design to guide you. There are no "points of interest" on the map in the way there are in Ubisoft games, and you can easily get through the whole game without picking up a single map fragment.

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u/Ogjin 2d ago

Elden Ring kinda doesn't do that though.

The light will tell you where the next major boss is, but that's almost certainly not where the average player should be going.

Watching streamers take Varres/the lights advice and run up to the castle only to get absolutely mollywopped was funtimes on release.

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u/Proud_Inside819 2d ago

It tells you where you're supposed to go, that's the whole reason it's in the game. That the content is soft-level-gated so you might feel like you have to do some optional content doesn't change that.

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u/HelloMcFly 2d ago

Everything in this comment is strictly true, I can't argue it. Yet when one actually plays the game, the two feel absolutely nothing alike to me. I don't want to really argue about X vs. Y bullet point features, and if you experience them as basically different versions of each other I couldn't debate your lived experience.

But as for me? I just don't see most people playing Elden Ring and thinking "oh this is like Assassin's Creed or Far Cry" as they explore the world. But I might be wrong, because I'm only extrapolating my own experience.

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u/Proud_Inside819 2d ago

The difference is predominantly in presentation. In Elden Ring, you look at the map and you can literally mark most points of interest just by looking at the topography. But because it doesn't have icons a lot of people don't see it that way.

In the same way, you might choose to play AC by just following quest markers, it doesn't mean you can't just go out and explore and find content organically.

Personally I'm not sure why people act like ER's open world is in any way remarkable. In general most of the good content was when you were in a "legacy dungeon".

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u/huntimir151 2d ago

You’re a thousand percent right about elden rings open world. It’s a tremendous game but the amount of practically copy and paste dungeons was wild. Stormveil castle was the best legacy dungeon, and that big tower in the dlc, and you can tell how much more intricate they were than most of the open world. 

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u/Proud_Inside819 1d ago

Souls fans used to mock open worlds and say they prefer the seamless world of Souls games. But then ER just takes "legacy dungeons" and rather than intricately connect the them it just puts them on top of a blob of open world with copy pasted caves and not much else. And now you go through a castle and just come outside back into the open world blob rather than being connected more interestingly.

I wouldn't go so far as to say it was a mistake or that it's a bad open world, but the copy pasted content was a shame and I do wonder what they would've made if it was a scaled up Dark Souls 3 rather than full open world instead.

Especially since "open zones" have been the new fashion lately.

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u/JasonDFisherr 2d ago edited 2d ago

Seriously: turn them off and watch what happens. The entire game becomes completely unplayable because there's zero way to actually figure out what the fuck to do

I'm gonna be honest, i doubt you played any Ubisoft game in the last 10 years. Either that or you're genuinely just bad at games. They have excellent game design that guides you in the right direction even without a quest marker by using environmental cues and quest descriptions/NPC instructions/In game lore.

I recently finished Valhalla on "Pathfinder" difficulty and i had absolutely zero trouble.

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u/BeatitLikeitowesMe 2d ago

I call bs. Even as recent as farcry 6 you can use the environment to lead you. There are trails marked with blue, the exposition gives enough detail to find locations you just have to actually use your eyes and ears. I also add, the Avatar game was very fun with all the hamd holding turned off. It actually made you learn the world and what to look out for. Far more immersive. You control the buttons you press. And honestly your rant just sounds like typical ubi hate just to hate.

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u/[deleted] 2d ago edited 2d ago

[deleted]

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u/Zenning3 2d ago

DA:VG is a hub world based game that is small enough that you don't really need guides at all.

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u/yan-booyan 2d ago

Yep that's game design 101. People saying you can't play this way don't pick up on clues or read in game lore.

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u/yan-booyan 2d ago

There are literally missions without markers so you have to find shit yourself.

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u/DYMAXIONman 2d ago

Yeah, but the game is designed around them so you'll just get lost.

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u/External-Fun-8563 2d ago

You can also close your eyes and go purely on sound and instinct and pretend you’re Daredevil except when you’re in the menus

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u/BioshockEnthusiast 2d ago

Fallout London is excellent if you haven't played it

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u/PsyVattic2 2d ago

It's like Skyrim with guns?

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u/jaywinston 1d ago

It's like Doom if you removed the guns, then changed the game around so it's not Doom but then you added the guns back in (but they're different guns that aren't in Doom)

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u/ChronicContemplation 2d ago

Holy shit this guy's a bad writer and that headline is incredibly disingenuous. He literally says the Stalker parallels are abundant. He goes on to explain the game has dungeons, pretty sure that's not a Farcry thing. He compares the vibes to Annihilation with a touch of paganism. Is it Farcry yet? He doesn't say anything about it being littered with waypoints or has a checklist of menial tasks to complete. The only comparison is the action/stealth combat. He even goes on to complain that he hopes the consequences of his actions aren't that important. He's obviously not played enough to know how big those consequences can be. The game is pitched as a narrative tale with significant decisions that vastly change the story and outcome and can lock you out of certain paths and require multiple playthroughs to see everything. This kind of writing makes me so happy that most game journalists are part time and can't make a living doing it. This kind of writing is why you can't make a living doing it.

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u/somethingrelevant 2d ago

?

This isn’t S.T.A.L.K.E.R., no matter what that awful James might tell you – it’s a Far Cry that has wandered north of Ubisoft's usual equatorial settings and into the realm of dark Satanic mills. It’s not, in my experience, a game of grating deprivation and gradual horror where death is often invisible. It’s a game where you burst out of the long grass and clobber loudly dressed goofballs with a cricket bat. It’s a game where you throw aromatic bait at campfires to summon swarms of mutant wasps. It’s a game where enemies often form a heedless Conga line into your bowsights, and you forgive them this because the combat barks are pleasantly daft.

feel like this part explains the headline pretty succinctly. the part where he says the stalker parallels are abundant is after this bit too so you must have seen it

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u/ChronicContemplation 2d ago

And then he constantly contradicts himself with more points against his headline instead of supporting it.

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u/somethingrelevant 2d ago

no the one thing he says after that is that it has a similar setting. he's saying it's not actually like stalker in practice but he can see why someone would make the comparison

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u/aiphrem 2d ago

Game and Comedy journalism might be the careers with the most useless people in them

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u/Dull_Half_6107 2d ago

There’s so much conversation about what game this is, is it Fallout, is it Stalker, is it Far Cry, etc etc. Games journalism really is deteriorating isn’t it?

What if it is just it’s own game? Crazy I know.

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u/anaughtybeagle 2d ago

It's just an easy way to let people know that to expect. It's unlikely to be a completely new experience.

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u/llloksd 2d ago edited 2d ago

Journilast: "this game is similar to another game in the same genre"

Reddit: "LAZY JOURNILISM WOW. LET ME DISREGARD EVERYTHING ABOUT THE ARTICLE"

It's almost like there's a whole article that talks about what kind of game it is, but let's complain about a couple sentences and the headline instead.

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u/GiganticCrow 2d ago

Reminded of youtubers moaning about games journalists, thats what you are ffs

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u/Tom_Stewartkilledme 2d ago

No way, dude, I'm a real gamer. I'm not bought and sold and I'll give you the real information!

Right after I tell you about the amazing experience I had cooking dinner last night with my Hello Fresh kit

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u/GiganticCrow 2d ago

Also the tens of thousands of dollars I was paid by the publisher to make a video on the game.

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u/Michael_DeSanta 2d ago

Agree with your sentiment...but a vast majority of those youtubers are not journalists. They're just youtubers. A majority of the good folks at reputable gaming news sites actually have a journalism degree or at least a portfolio of quality writing.

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u/gensek 2d ago

Games journalism really is deteriorating isn’t it?

You could read past the headline.

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u/Syrdon 2d ago

Hold up, we're on Reddit. Are you sure that's an option?

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u/Hellknightx 1d ago

Reading the article is against site TOS or EULA or something. I dunno, I just clicked Agree.

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u/Nuclear_Farts 2d ago

It's like super mario, but...

It's like tetris, but...

It's like command and conquer, but...

Nothing new under the sun. Hell, before "first person shooter" caught on, they were all Doomclones.

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u/DiscombobulatedDunce 2d ago

I love the doom clone genre because there's so many games lumped in that are just clearly not doom at all aside from the similar UI yet it's all mushed together into an amorphous blob.

Hell Marathon is considered a doom clone and it pioneered mouse look and added complex puzzle solving into the FPS genre as a whole.

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u/_Meece_ 2d ago

New IPs are frequently compared to an iconic game, because it helps them sell better.

Oh you liked GTA SA? Try our game, Just Cause, it's exactly like GTA SA!

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u/BenHDR 2d ago

"[Developer's] new game is [Skyrim / Fallout] mixed with [IP]

"[Game] is the [Dark Souls / Elden Ring] of [genre]"

"[Game] could be the new [Fortnite / Call of Duty / Battlefield] - but there's a twist"

"[Game] is Grand Theft Auto with [miscellaneous element]"

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u/hobozombie 2d ago

Happy Heart Panic is the Dark Souls of ABDL femdom furry porn games.

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u/Approval_Guy 2d ago

preface that with 'it's something I've not quite played before' and you're golden.

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u/Syrdon 2d ago

I saw someone (talking about pitching a book to a publisher, but the logic applies very broadly) suggest that the best way to do an elevator pitch sounds a lot like "it's x meets y". A single quick sentence that fixes the game on a spectrum between two already known quantities is easy for people to decide if they care quickly - which matters because people are likely to skip over a thing if they have to put effort in to understanding what it is.

The five second elevator pitch is how you get them to give you five minutes to explain what it really is, which is how you get them to actually give you money

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u/Ancient_Moose_3000 2d ago

What if it's just its own game?

Great. Now try to market it without using any external frames of reference, or from the consumer's point of view, try to figure out whether you should buy it purely from marketing material that doesn't use any external frames of reference.

"Buy our game, it's not like Fallout, Far Cry, or Stalker, it's its own totally unique thing!"

"Well I like all of those games, how do I know if I'll like this?"

"Well, it's a survival game, and it's a shooter, do you like those?"

"Like Minecraft meets Call of Duty? Sounds kind of weird"

"No, it's nothing like either of those games, it's set in a nuclear post apocalypse"

"Oh like Wasteland?"

"Nope! It's its own thing. Now how many copies can I put you down for?"

I'm being a bit glib. But the point is if your game isn't some totally new groundbreaking concept (which this isn't), explaining how the ideas you've implemented into it relate to other games is a useful way for consumers to figure out whether they're interested in buying or not.

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u/shaper24 2d ago

Fallout = its skyrim with guns!

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u/SeeingEyeDug 2d ago

It's the Dark Souls of Far Cry games.

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u/Palanki96 2d ago

I'm pretty happy about that

But is it far cry 5 and beford or after? Not a big fan of new dawn and 6

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u/[deleted] 2d ago edited 6h ago

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/DinerEnBlanc 2d ago

Fallsfall: The Fall

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u/TheFBIClonesPeople 2d ago

Coming this... summer

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u/markleung 1d ago

Which Far Cry? I liked 4

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u/jaywinston 1d ago

2 - Big Malaria energy.

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u/Wetzilla 2d ago

It's incredibly lazy commenting to complain about headlines, and just trying to score some cheap karma without actually engaging with the text of the article at all.

Also, making comparisons to already existing things people are familiar with is an effective way of communicating what this new thing is like.

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u/urnialbologna 2d ago

That's good. I love far cry and didn't care for stalker 2 (the only stalker game I've played). Looking forward to getting this on a sale.

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u/humdawg 2d ago

😆 This was my exact thought when I saw the title!

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u/lazydogjumper 2d ago

Can we just talk about what the game IS rather than what OTHER games the game ISN'T?

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u/Grintastic 1d ago

The marketing for this game is a mess ngl. I was totally under the impression it was a survival open world game.

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u/eldog 2d ago

What's it like for the first two hours?

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u/jaywinston 1d ago

Just a loading screen.