It won’t be surprising if Bethesda is announcing Skyrim remakes well into the turn of the 22nd century at this rate. While sales for Skyrim ‘s various remasters and re-releases have indicated that there is still a vibrant market for Bethesda’s most popular take on The Elder Scrolls series, there comes a time when the ability to play as the Dragonborn on every existing modern-day console becomes less impressive. That time could be now, as what would have been a previously riot-inducing announcement in the release date for Skyrim on Switch was met with general fatigue from many RPG fans. Skyrim on the go will no doubt be fun, and the addition of the Master Sword into the game is a nice touch, but it’s beginning to feel as though Bethesda simply refuses to move on from the world of Skyrim at the cost of a new Elder Scrolls title being develo
How far will the trading concept go, will the cosmetic and customization sides be pushed, will the jolly and co-operative nature of fulfilling objectives flourish when it comes to buddying up with fellow players? That is, when the match-making is (and hopefully will be) better fortified. Without question, there’s a pull in Sea of Thieves that will win even the most jaded of lone wolves over, but is life at sea (and just the sea) enough of a justification? I commend Sea of Thieves for its attractive proposal, but with such a lacking world and over-reliance on random encounters, let’s just say Rare haven’t quite convinced me wholeheartedly on this concept just yet.
Delivering sword combat for a network game, especially as part of a first person experience, is particularly challenging. We’re busy prototyping sword combat to get it into exactly the right place before we add it to a build that some lucky players in the Insider Programme will get a chance to play and provide feedback on. We’ve tried a few different approaches and we’re getting closer to a solution we feel happy with. We know where it needs it sit in terms of the overall approach to combat, but we’re still keen resolve some remaining issues before its ready for a larger audience. As always, there will be much more to share in the fut
Ship customization seems to be another thing unearthed by the data-pirates. The files found seem to imply the ability to customize a ship’s cannons, capstan (pirate talk for ‘anchor holder’), livery, mast, and the captain’s wheel. There are additional sections as well, listed under ‘Ship misc’ is a harpoon
But perhaps it’s this deliberate restriction that lends itself to some interesting interactions between players and novel use of player skills as a means at working better together. While the skill at merely turning a map around to show others sounds ridiculously basic, it’s a clever move in context. A means to build bridges between similarly-plucked team-mates and better incentivises Sea of Thieves’ core, principle lesson in working together. Granted the perk is proven moot when, upon agreeing on a particular voyage, you simply get handed the same maps in your inventory, but the physicality of such interactivity in-game is welcome regardless. When it comes to your ship, though, all hands are most certainly on deck. There are sails to align and angle; potential hazards to flag and shout out to the player steering the ship (whom, if the sails are set at full length can’t see where they’re steering, again a nice nudging toward better relationships)…and if worse comes to worse, leaks to repair should you collide. Or even worse, cries of “FRAME-RATE!” — as I had to do when a teammate is barking compass directions but I have no means to control the stuttering performance — when the game (on PC) decides to nose-dive from relatively stable 60FPS to, at its worst, the high-teens — the most notable drops occurring mostly at sea, relatively afar from shore.
The beta for Sea of Thieves tips|https://seaofthievesfans.com/ of Thieves happened recently, and to not many people’s surprise, dataminers got a hold of the game’s data. What perhaps was not expected is what they found hidden beneath the sea of c
An example of this is the fact that we don’t have a UI crosshair for both cannons and guns. Players use the weapons themselves to aim. Crosshairs tend to imply a level of precision and a type of aiming that just doesn’t feel appropriate for pirate weaponry. When you use the gun barrel itself to aim without the absolute certainty of a crosshair, you tend to find that players are a little more considered with their shots. Of course, landing a hit this way feels even more satisfying,
It’s in no way surprising that the mantra of “…but what do I do?” or variations thereupon, has lingered over Sea of Thieves like a pungent-but-irremovable odor. While there was always a strong case that there’d already been a fair amount of intrigue built up for what Rare — proper Rare that is, not Kinect Sports-shackled “Rare” — was cooking-up, prior to and since its reveal back at E3 2015 (which admittedly garnered somewhat of a deflated “eeeeeehhhhhh” reaction from yours truly), details pertaining to its content, its progression, its finer details outside of an odd sample of footage and some rather unfunny plodding through voluntary player commentary, have been somewhat conserved. For what purpose though; after all, you and I both know Microsoft need all the good marketing they can get their hands on if they’re to give Xbox a reasonable chance in 2018.