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Editorial RPG Codex Report: Gamescom 2016 - Vampyr, ELEX, The Guild 3 and Battle Chasers

Self-Ejected

Bubbles

I'm forever blowing
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Tags: Airship Syndicate; Battle Chasers: Nightwar; Dontnod Entertainment; ELEX; Gamescom 2016; GolemLabs; Piranha Bytes; The Guild 3; Vampyr

Our award winning Gamescom coverage continues apace with four of our most popular reports to date.

First we take a look at Vampyr, the next masterpiece from the creators of Life is Strange:

As I see it, Vampyr's biggest selling point is not about butchering hundreds of vampire hunters, or suffering through self-serious barely interactive dialogues; it's about meeting the NPCs of London, learning about their lives, and then choosing who among them should live and who should die. The designers have made the intriguing decision that sucking the life out of friendly NPCs should be the primary source of experience points in the game. Can't beat a difficult battle? Want to unlock a cool skill? Well, then you gotta find somebody you don't like, and get rid of them in a permanent fashion.​

Then we cast a glance towards ELEX, the next masterpiece from the creators of Risen 2:

Jarl: Well, from what you've shown us so far, it really looks like you're saying “Okay, we're now gonna serve you a big fresh helping of Gothic 2!”

Bubbles: [rolls his eyes in a shameful betrayal of his partner]

Jenny: No, this is no Gothic.

Jarl: ...different, but in terms of the principles, of the level design….. ….? …??

Jenny: Well, it's… it's... One is one thing, and one is another. We have deliberately not made a new Gothic. And we think that it would have been a bad idea to make a new Gothic 4 or 5. At the current time, at least. Why? You ask three Germans: “What should the new Gothic have?” And you get at least five different answers. The expectations are there: [raises her arm real high]. And we cannot meet them. Even if we wanted to – if we hired 25 new people – it would not be possible to release a Gothic – right now! – where people would say “whoa, that's great!” Not possible. “Basically, we want exactly what's been done before, but not what's been done before!” And that doesn't work.

And so we thought: let's rather do something that we've had in our heads for a long time anyway, something that we would enjoy making, something where we can use old gameplay mechanics that worked well, which we really liked, where people are saying “that was great!” – we take those on board, and we make a new setting with fresh ideas, a new story that nobody is familiar with, and then we make a great game. And that's ELEX.​

And let's not forget about The Guild 3, which brought some pleasant complexity into the console-dominated Gamescom landscape:

Bubbles: We had a discussion on our forums about the fact that the Guild games are still PC-exclusive, even in this modern age. Why is that – is the UI too complex for consoles?

Heinrich: ...we once tested a version [of an earlier Guild game] on the Xbox; it worked, but the controls were terrible. And it's the same way now; you can make a port to the newest Xbox relatively quickly – so we could get a version for the Xbox One or Xbox 360 pretty quickly – but we see absolutely no way of implementing a proper control scheme with a gamepad. It's just impossible. The game is too complex.

[At this point he notices that Jarl is making inefficient deals at the marketplace, and spends a minute showing him how to do it properly] You should buy a cart to transport your goods… slow down the game speed! No, click there… now, click this first, and then here…

Bubbles: It's nice that these kinds of games are still being made.

Indeed. Finally, Battle Chasers: Nightwar provides us with a valuable insight of its own:

And really, if the guy who made flippin' Darksiders is making a turn based RPG, then what the hell is stopping today's Obsidian from doing the same thing? Get with the times already! The future is turn based!​

We only speak the truth.

Read the full article: RPG Codex Report: Gamescom 2016 - Vampyr, ELEX, The Guild 3, and Battle Chasers: Nightwar
 

Darth Roxor

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the pb folks interview is p hilarious

and also

Björn: I need to mention that there were many decisions that we had to accept. For Risen. Many decisions were not ours. Nothing more needs to be said.

7aEeHR.jpg


Elex better deliver, PB, or I'm putting you into the trashcan right along with Obsidian "It Was Publishers!" Entertainment.
 

Kahr

Guest
Why JarlFrank cuck in interview? Cautious optimism ... Yeah right.

Nobody wants them to change anything on Gothic, they're just unable to reproduce it as they didn't ever understood why it was great.
Random success. Like a peasant shitting out the sistine chapel.
 

Dayyālu

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Shaper Crypt
Ahh, yes. Madureira.

I loathe american comic books in the majority of cases, but the guy was hot stuff in the '90ies with a weird blend of Jap-inspired art. Then he got cocky and went indie, and his masterful creation ("Battle Chasers", as the game) had a glacial pace of releases worthy of the best kickstarter scam. He managed to sell atrocious (to me) character designs for the Darksider games in the mid '00, and then went back to superhero crap. I have read BC, and it's a terrible blend of the worst D&D fanfiction and poisonous tropes of american capeshit. And dead in ten issues, good riddance.

In short, he's a hack. The only reason people remember Battle Chasers is thanks, to, well....

77223-90491-red-monika.jpg


Should I explain?

First game looks kinda terrible, but I was quickly bored by Life is Strange. About ELEX....hmpf. We'll see.
 

Bumvelcrow

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Codex 2013 Codex 2014 Make the Codex Great Again! Strap Yourselves In
How very strange - I'd written off ELEX (should be in bold with lots of exclamation marks) and never heard of Vampyr (totally not pronounced like Vampire, no matter what the developers says) but the latter sounds interesting and the former could potentially be another Risen (never liked Gothics 1 & 2). I tried reading The Guild section but couldn't make it past the first paragraph as it sounds so uninteresting, but for the honour of the hard working scribes I will do my best over the weekend. I think there was another game but the memory keeps slipping.

Bubbles, question for you. Does JarlFrank ever smile? Do you have any photographic evidence? If so keep it to yourself but I trust you.
 

Tigranes

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Christ.

We know that PB had an awful publisher relationship that affected G3-R3, and that they probably wouldn't even have made 3 Risen games if they had a choice. So fine, that's what's made me give elex a chance, despite how messy and disorganised everything looked.

That interview though. It's like watching a well-intentioned Sarah Palin. Their English wasn't great, perhaps? But literally every answer was contentless waffle, and maybe that's why folk like Pete Hines actually get some credit for at least speaking strategically designed waffle.

The questions, though. Did every single question really have to be IS IT LIKE GOTHIC IS IT IS IT?
 
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Bubbles

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No stealth whatsoever.

So, you'll have to approach the A.I. in front combat; you wouldn't be able to have predator-like gameplay similar to Dishonored?

Here's a blog post from a dev:

Full brawls are not the only options open to Doctor Reid — he can also stalk his prey, or even utilize his vampire speed and agility to avoid combat entirely.

http://blog.us.playstation.com/2016/09/29/get-to-know-the-combat-system-of-vampyr-on-ps4/

On the other hand, our presenter was adamant that Vampyr was not a stealth game but an action RPG. Dealing with enemies was about direct combat; he stressed that repeatedly. Apparently people always ask about stealth options, and the devs always have to disappoint them. I think they may have made an error in their design there.

And no, no mention of Bloodlines.

Their English wasn't great, perhaps?

I translated it from German, and quite accurately at that. I ended up being annoyed at their waffling myself, so the questions get a little harsher towards the end.
 

JarlFrank

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Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
The questions, though. Did every single question really have to be IS IT LIKE GOTHIC IS IT IS IT?

I kept coming back to that because everything they showed us looked like Gothic 2 with Guns, and they kept saying "naaah it's not a Gothic clone this is different and unique", but I still don't believe it :M
 
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Bubbles

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It basically plays like a Diablo/Victor Vran type of title until you enter the combat screen. It's like someone took an action RPG and made the combat turn based.

It's hard to gauge whether you still want to call that an "action" game, but it reminded me so strongly of those other titles (jumping around traps and bashing chests in top-down view, procedural generation everywhere, item fever, smacking the same enemies again and again and again) that I kept the developer's description.
 
Last edited:

Zed

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Living in a day and age where sequels to the Guild and Mount & Blade are being made and they don't look/sound like shit
:hailcthulhu:
 

Machocruz

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It's hard to gauge whether you still want to call that an "action" game, but it reminded me so strongly of those other titles (jumping around traps and bashing chests in top-down view, procedural generation everywhere, item fever, smacking the same enemies again and again and again) that I kept the developer's description.
I was going to say I don't, but looking at some footage it is an unusual melding of that kind of dungeon crawling with turn-based battles. Strikes me as a very JRPG type of thing, but at the moment I can't remember any JRPGs that were like that. Valkyrie Profile is the closest I can come up with.
 

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