The Expanse: Osiris Reborn - third-person action-RPG from Owlcat Games

[Panzerbjorne]

The question of if Owlcat can keep up with Larian on a technical level has been answered.

Just no one expected it to exceed anything Larian has ever done or probably will do in the near future.

When did OwlCat do that? I’m honestly asking.

 

[TheKing01]

The question of if Owlcat can keep up with Larian on a technical level has been answered.

Just no one expected it to exceed anything Larian has ever done or probably will do in the near future.

When did OwlCat do that? I’m honestly asking.

Do what?

You're trying to claim 2018 esque-BG3 graphics are equating to what Owlcat showed (in what is likely outdated pre-alpha footage) which already looks better than Larian's latest release?

BG3 did not look like a current year meme title. It was already old from a visual context at the time of it's release.

 

[Inec0rn]

That it isn't some massive vapid franchise is a good thing, expanse doesn't need star wars, warhammer or mass effect fans stinking up the place.

 

[Mr. Magniloquent]

Farscape would be been an excellent IP to do a Mass Effect type game in. Better than The Expanse. Too niche though. I doubt that IP is known today.

 

[TheKing01]

Farscape would be been an excellent IP to do a Mass Effect type game in. Better than The Expanse. Too niche though. I doubt that IP is known today.

Seen a lot of Stargate as well as a bunch of other what-ifs.

Just a matter of relevancy. Stargate or whatever is not as relevant as The Expanse in modern day. Argue your subjective feelings on which is better but Stargate (or Star Trek/Farscape/whatever) is not going to resonate as well from an immediate marketing point as The Expanse.

However, The Expanse is a harder show to get into considering it's hard sci-fi genre. So as always, there's a tradeoff.

 

[Rhobar121]

Farscape would be been an excellent IP to do a Mass Effect type game in. Better than The Expanse. Too niche though. I doubt that IP is known today.

I completely forgot about this series but honestly how many people still remember it?

Farscape would be been an excellent IP to do a Mass Effect type game in. Better than The Expanse. Too niche though. I doubt that IP is known today.

Seen a lot of Stargate as well as a bunch of other what-ifs.

Just a matter of relevancy. Stargate or whatever is not as relevant as The Expanse in modern day. Argue your subjective feelings on which is better but Stargate (or Star Trek/Farscape/whatever) is not going to resonate as well from an immediate marketing point as The Expanse.

However, The Expanse is a harder show to get into considering it's hard sci-fi genre. So as always, there's a tradeoff.

Stargate was conceptually a cool material for a game, but when I think about it, it was even more limited than Expanse. It would probably be a better FPS than TPS. Apart from regular weapons, we would get at best some energy weapons and maybe a few ancient.
Atlantis would definitely be a better material for a game of this type than the original series, and replicators and wraiths would be better enemies than Egyptian parasites.

You care more about the franchise than it's worth.
It won't matter that much.
Sure, they could buy the rights to Star Wars, but they would end up having to do what Disney wants or pay a lot of money.
They wanted to make a Mass Effect clone which Warhammer is absolutely not suited for in my opinion.
I'm absolutely convinced it will sell well because BG3 proved that Bioware-style games still sell

What other great scfi franchises do we have?
Dune is completely the wrong type of game.
Star Trek doesn't fit either (I don't know about popularity these days because all the attempted films end in failure)
Stargate is as popular as Expanse right now (same with Battlestar)
What else is there really?

Maybe I am. I guess we’ll see how it goes. My impression is that it is the IP that will initially draw people to a game from a developer they aren’t familiar with. Considerate OwlCat is trying to reach a new wider audience with this game. Many folks played their first turn based CRPG and their first Larian game because it was Dungeons and Dragons Baldur’s Gate.

While I can agree with DnD, the BG brand is over 20 years old and it is unlikely that so many younger people have heard of it.

 

[scytheavatar]

I'm absolutely convinced it will sell well because BG3 proved that Bioware-style games still sell

What is a "Bioware-style" game? Cause Veilguard was literally fantasy Mass Effect and yet it sold poorly. Everything I have seen from this game makes me think it sticks to the usual Owlcat philosophy when it comes to how companions/writing are handled and they are very different from Bioware's.

 

[Tyranicon]

I'm absolutely convinced it will sell well because BG3 proved that Bioware-style games still sell

What is a "Bioware-style" game?

Romances + Millennial writing

BioWare was ahead of its time, hiring proto-millennials for their earlier products.

 

[Rhobar121]

I'm absolutely convinced it will sell well because BG3 proved that Bioware-style games still sell

What is a "Bioware-style" game? Cause Veilguard was literally fantasy Mass Effect and yet it sold poorly. Everything I have seen from this game makes me think it sticks to the usual Owlcat philosophy when it comes to how companions/writing are handled and they are very different from Bioware's.

As if this game wasn't one big problem.
They managed to fuck it up so much that even the average redditor wouldn't buy it.

By bioware-style I mean a heavy emphasis on characters, romance, and other things that the average redditor loves.
Almost every game they've created since BG2 has been similar in this regard.
It worked fine for years until Bioware writers had a stroke or got fired.
Then came Andromeda, Anthem, and Failguard, where they completely unleashed all the fucked up morons and let them do whatever they wanted (If it's true that shortly before the premiere they rewrote the dialogues to make them less shitty, then I'd say it's even worse)
What do you think about 90% of the posts on reddit (because it's definitely not about the mechanics)
Why a shitty mechanically and narratively game like ME2 was such a success?
Even ME3 the only reason it was widely criticized was the last 5 minutes of the game with the 3 color ending.

Larian practically made their game better than anything they've made in years and the game turned out to be a massive success
Owlcat games have also been more or less "bioware" games so far.
Trying to copy ME is a natural evolution for a studio that decided not to add anything of its own (like Larian with TB)

It definitely won't be worse than Andromeda or Failguard.

 

[mondblut]

(If it's true that shortly before the premiere they rewrote the dialogues to make them less shitty, then I'd say it's even worse)

And brought back all voiceover actors shortly before the premiere to re-record them? And paid them again? Nonsense.

Thanks to voiceover cancer, dialogues are like the first thing that is finalized during the development. Once some overpriced fag who failed at hollywood spoke the lines (and then another bunch of fags did it for voiced localizations), the only thing you can do with them is cut them altogether.

 

[Zarniwoop]

AI can't replace these dangerhairs fast enough.

 

[Lyric Suite]

BG3 did not look like a current year meme title. It was already old from a visual context at the time of it's release.

What are we basing this comparison on, close ups?

Because BG3 is an isometric game, of course close ups are going to look "dated". Unless you want the game to slow to a crawl once you zoom out the camera.

And if you say that this is a good case for isometric games not having close ups, yes it is. That shit was always unnecessary.

 

[Inec0rn]

? they use entirely different models between isometric and cutscene, sometimes multiple detailed models in cutscenes.

 

[Heroic Liberator]

SG:U

Such a shame that it got cancelled right as it was getting its footing. Understandable given the change in tone and how that alienated a good chunk of the preexisting SG fanbase, but yeah.

 

[Heroic Liberator]

Farscape would be been an excellent IP to do a Mass Effect type game in. Better than The Expanse. Too niche though. I doubt that IP is known today.

Seen a lot of Stargate as well as a bunch of other what-ifs.

If we're going for what-ifs, wouldn't have minded a Firefly game.

 

[Lyric Suite]

AI can't replace these dangerhairs fast enough.

Imagine thinking AI isn't gonna be super woke too.

 

[Inec0rn]

SG:U

Such a shame that it got cancelled right as it was getting its footing. Understandable given the change in tone and how that alienated a good chunk of the preexisting SG fanbase, but yeah.

Was a decent show but shouldn't have had the Stargate name, it alienated SG fans and didn't pull in new viewers. From memory the latter season was a trainwreck as well.

 

[Heroic Liberator]

SG:U

Such a shame that it got cancelled right as it was getting its footing. Understandable given the change in tone and how that alienated a good chunk of the preexisting SG fanbase, but yeah.

Was a decent show but shouldn't have had the Stargate name, it alienated SG fans and didn't pull in new viewers. From memory the latter season was a trainwreck as well.

My memory is a bit hazy since I haven't rewatched it in ages, but overall I think that the whole Young vs Rush dynamic was working decently enough by season 2 and both characters were sufficiently fleshed out. Scott was ok for the most part too as your average action protagonist (same as Sheppard in SGA) and the rest of the main cast was likewise ok.

The bane of the series were the communication stones imho. Could've worked in theory, but their overuse completely went against the sort of BSG atmosphere that they were clearly going for. The Lucian Alliance stuff was enough to introduce more humans beyond those that were already onboard Destiny at the start (and I would've liked to see where things went with Varro long term since I liked both the character itself and the performance of the actor), but the stones had to go.

 

[Zarniwoop]

AI can't replace these dangerhairs fast enough.

Imagine thinking AI isn't gonna be super woke too.

Of course it will be woke (it already is).

But using it means these prima donnas won't get a penny, so they won't be able to afford their lives of leisure while lecturing everyone about how it's their fault for not liking shitty games because they're racist and have to do better .

 

[Lyric Suite]

? they use entirely different models between isometric and cutscene, sometimes multiple detailed models in cutscenes.

I had no idea.

Still, the fact the game is isometric means they probably aren't putting as much resources on close ups as they would if the game was third person.

 

[Israfael]

Understandable given the change in tone and how that alienated a good chunk of the preexisting SG fanbase, but yeah.

What's funny the first 10 series of SG1 or so are exactly this sort of 'what if' fiction (bringing unknown diseases to the home base (the broca divide thing), consequences of meddling with the ecosystems (white mime guys) / societies (that mongol series), and later it moved to the more action-y format (which was carried by RDA actorship and then the late Baal). Same can be said about Farscape, first half of Season 1 is markedly different as compared to what followed else (and even the intro got let acid-trippy for some reason, I was literally bewildered when I watched the pilot for the first time)


As I said, SGU had the same 'problem' as Caprica had - the rubber face crowd didn't find someone to root for (which is very ironic considering that Eli (what was his name, the math nerd guy) is clearly supposed to be the typical SG viewer, and he was mistreated by the senator daughter chick, Rush and whoever else badly (apart from the redhead Lucian Alliance girl which proptly died)), so the rating fell down. Although I'm not sure it'd be better if they simply continued the setup they had in Atlantis, it seems SciFi channel and all its produce was destined to wither anyway. Also, props to Robert Carlyle and the guy who played Sgt Greer, on par with Pygram Wayne's Scorpius.

Farscape would be been an excellent IP to do a Mass Effect type game in

Not sure if Owlcat writers can properly keep the tone of the setting, it'd be all like 'never get fooled again', but not that funny

 

[Lyric Suite]

Farscape would be an amazing setting for a game but yeah, good luck with that given the average quality of video game writing.

 

[scytheavatar]

I'm absolutely convinced it will sell well because BG3 proved that Bioware-style games still sell

What is a "Bioware-style" game? Cause Veilguard was literally fantasy Mass Effect and yet it sold poorly. Everything I have seen from this game makes me think it sticks to the usual Owlcat philosophy when it comes to how companions/writing are handled and they are very different from Bioware's.

As if this game wasn't one big problem.
They managed to fuck it up so much that even the average redditor wouldn't buy it.

By bioware-style I mean a heavy emphasis on characters, romance, and other things that the average redditor loves.
Almost every game they've created since BG2 has been similar in this regard.
It worked fine for years until Bioware writers had a stroke or got fired.
Then came Andromeda, Anthem, and Failguard, where they completely unleashed all the fucked up morons and let them do whatever they wanted (If it's true that shortly before the premiere they rewrote the dialogues to make them less shitty, then I'd say it's even worse)
What do you think about 90% of the posts on reddit (because it's definitely not about the mechanics)
Why a shitty mechanically and narratively game like ME2 was such a success?
Even ME3 the only reason it was widely criticized was the last 5 minutes of the game with the 3 color ending.

Larian practically made their game better than anything they've made in years and the game turned out to be a massive success
Owlcat games have also been more or less "bioware" games so far.
Trying to copy ME is a natural evolution for a studio that decided not to add anything of its own (like Larian with TB)

It definitely won't be worse than Andromeda or Failguard.

Past Owlcat games have "heavy emphasis on characters, romance, and other things that the average redditor loves" yet they didn't sell as well as Divinity Original Sin 2 let alone BG3. Owlcat has always skew closer towards being Obsidian than being Bioware or Larian, with their games being more nerdy/intellectual and having more world building than character development. I am not seeing anything to suggest things will change anytime soon.

 

[Kem0sabe]

Hopefully it has ship to ship combat, that was a major part of the expanse, even if it's instrumentation based and you are only seeing shit happen on your ship screens.

Anyways, despite not being a fan of the expanse lore and setting, I think this will sell well, there's a gigantic hunger for the next mass effect, and this is it.

 

[Tuco Benedicto Pacifico]

? they use entirely different models between isometric and cutscene, sometimes multiple detailed models in cutscenes.

I had no idea.

Still, the fact the game is isometric means they probably aren't putting as much resources on close ups as they would if the game was third person.

he's not even exactly right.
More specifically there's a LOD swap and models that you see during a close-up dialogue are scaled down in detail when looked from afar (i.e. they don't even animate facial features or labials when voicing lines).