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What is a lesser known upcoming game you're excited about?
Everybody's talking about Fallout 76, Smash, Mario Party, Spider-man... What are some games out there that you're excited about and haven't gotten a whole lot of spotlight that you think others should really know about?
I'm personally really excited about Dreams (which is made by the same team that created Little Big Planet) and this weird indie farming/exploration game I found on kickstarter called Garden Paws.
There's a couple red flags around "This Land Is My Land" if you ask me... firstly, the player character isn't from any actual tribe, they represent an amalgamation of all Native American people, which honestly seems like an excuse not to do any research to me, especially considering the studio isn't American. Secondly, the devs have made a point of saying there are no women in the game at all which is... an odd rule. It might turn out great, but I'm a little cautious about it for these reasons.
Just spitballing, but could that be so that they could show geographical areas that wouldn't be typical to any particular tribe? Tribes were pretty limited to their local areas, so if the game devs wanted to have, say, an Arizona/New Mexico vibe, and then later a Pacific Northwest vibe, or maybe Florida, or Pennsylvania...they wouldn't be able to do that with just a single, localized tribe, so they made the character generic? It's not necessarily nefarious or lazy on their part. They also might have been trying to avoid naming a tribe so that they could use costuming borrowing from many different tribes styles.
You're right that there's benign explanations, but they could still have a character from a particular tribe travel for one reason or another, they could even have the character pick up costume parts from other tribes they pass through. I dunno, it just seems like they could have had their cake and eaten it too if they went to some extra effort. We'll just have to judge the game on its own merits when it comes out, but to me this was one thing that definitely stood out as odd or a little misguided to me.
This Land Is My Land looks too good to be true. I wish there was more information on that site... I'm not familiar with the game studio or their track record. But the concepts sounds intriguing and those visuals are gorgeous.
Wow, Ymir looks like a game I could really get into. I love RTS and building games. I've been digging The Universim but it still does seem to be lacking a few things when it comes to defense and strategy.
Oh wow! Ymir looks great.
Ymir looks right up my alley -- thanks for the recommendation!
Bit of an unusual one, but I'm really looking forward to UFO 50, a collection of 50 "smaller" retro-ish games by some really good indie devs.
Neat! This makes me think of those old collections in the late 90's to early 00's! You'd buy a CD and have access to a whole bunch of weird games you've never heard of before or after. Good times. I'm into this.
I am so stoked for UFO 50!! I haven't been so hype for a minigame collection in my life
Ooblets -- It's a sort of adorable Pokemon-Harvest Moon-Animal Crossing thing. Farming, creature collecting/leveling, decorating, dance battles, and so on... I am all in.
Tunic -- An action-adventure deal. Sort of like top-down Zelda, but with a fox.
Overland -- Turn-based, procedural survival-strategy. Looks neat.
Astroneer -- Third-person space exploration and construction game. In the Early Access version, I like putting together a rover train that makes a sort of mobile base, and then cruising around.
Software Inc. -- It's a software company sim that's one of the more wide-ranging I've seen -- everything from basic research to server provisioning to "The Sims"-status building and decorating. It's in early access but some of the HR/team management micro is not too fun for me, at the moment; with that said, I'll be eager to see what a 1.0 looks like.
Does Mount & Blade II count? It's not God of War big, but it's pretty well known. Dunno. Looking forward to it.
Astroneer looked pretty interesting, and then they showed the voxel control over the landscape, and it looked really interesting! Do you think it's worth a purchase in Early Access or waiting until it releases?
Probably wait for now, if for no other reason than that the final release is quickly approaching. The game is pretty fun and relaxing in its current state but a couple of huge updates are in the pipeline before release. The last update added a bunch of new harvestable materials, for example, but the crafting recipes using those resources haven't been put in the game yet.
Sounds great, thanks!
Just a FYI: the crafting update just dropped, which is immense and adds things to do with all those new materials. The game is still not at 1.0 yet but that's another huge step in that direction.
Oh very nice, thanks for the heads up!
How accurate are the physics in this? If it's anything like coop KSP I'd be pretty hyped.
The physics are semi-accurate but heavily streamlined. You certainly won't find things like real orbital mechanics with delta-V maneuvers etc. in this game. Traveling to a different planet is literally done more or less instantaneously through a couple of clicks. Planets do follow orbits though, and the day/night cycle is authentic.
While the game in its entirety borrows heavily from reality and is at least semi-realistic in places, the whole game is extremely streamlined. It is the diametric opposite of KSP in that regard. This can be a good thing, even if or even especially if you also like KSP, because this game is as relaxing as KSP is challenging, so they serve as great counterweights to each other. As for comparison, I would say it's more fair to describe Astroneer as much simpler and more intuitive version of No Man's Sky than particularly akin to KSP.
Hmm... I think it would really come down to expectations. I've found it to be very fun, and don't regret getting it in early access at all; with that said, they're still filling out the upper stages of progression, and as a result it can be a bit repetitive once you're near the top of the tech tree. There's also not too much impetus at the moment for interplanetary travel, provided that your base has plenty of resources. I don't think there'd be too much downside to waiting, unless what you see in the trailer hits "gotta have it now!" status for ya (as it did for me, admittedly).
Gotcha, thanks! Yeah, it hooked me pretty good, but it might be best to wait for that to settle down before buying.
i played astroneer with my wife pretty hard core when the early access first came out. it was a tone of fun. we stopped because it was still pretty glitchy but that was a while back now so i bet they've patched it. i would definitely say it's worth checking out.
Nice, thanks!
Tunic looks gorgeous! i had never heard of it, but it's definitely on my radar now. hopefully i'll be on pc as well as xbox.
PC seems like a pretty sure thing -- they've given it a Steam page. Yeah though, I can't wait to check it out...
Not quite lesser known, but A Hat In Time (AHIT) release for the Nintendo Switch. I was wishing for it ever since I bought my Switch, and it's finally becoming a reality.
In case you're not familiar with AHIT, here's the Steam description:
That's quite accurate. It's like SMO with a decent story and a ton more cuteness. And it's on Steam, PS4, XB1 and is soon coming to Switch.
I really enjoyed that game FAR more than I expected to. I got it in a Humble Bundle and then I just couldn't stop playing it. Every world is so wonderfully crafted and it reminded me of SM64 on a personal level for some reason... It makes me FEEL the same as I did the first time I played it. I'm definitely purchasing it on Switch.
I had a blast with the game on PC. I didn't expect it to actually flow and control so well, but I was very pleasantly surprised at a smooth, fun, and very enjoyable game.
Hey, I just realized I got this game in a humble bundle too. Going to try out based on your recommendation!
I've had this game for a while but barely played it, I'll give it another look!
Noita
Morning Star
What The Golf
Satisfactory
Psychonauts 2
Beyond Good and Evil 2
And, still waiting for it like it was Godot, Miegakure. Yes, the one from the 8 year old Xkcd. It's still being worked on.
I stopped waiting for Beyond Good and Evil 2 years ago. It's turned into a Duke Nukem Forever: even if it ever releases, it's not going to be good.
The last E3 had a bunch of information about it.
It's also been in development for 10 years, appears to have a completely different engine than it has been seen in before and a completely different art style. It also has no release date and they haven't even said what platforms it will be on. Nothing about this game is giving me any confidence.
He's said it will be on PC, which is all I care about.
I loved the first Psychonauts but I'm still bitter about the Meat Circus.
You mean how insanely hard it was, or how they nerfed it in the rerelease?
How hard it was in the original
Ungodly.
Wait, if you never played the original, what are you bitter about?
What do you mean?
You said you were bitter about Meat Circus. What specifically about it?
The escort mission at the beginning sticks out specifically to me but that whole level was just a slog.
Sunless Skies
Technically it already exists as an early access game but I don't want to play until it's in a finished state. And based on what I see as far as dev reports they have added a whole lot to the game and the end should be in sight.
They’re also working on more stuff for fallen London, there’s a whole new site for it!
Rimworld is about to be released at last!
After 18 betas, he's finally coming out with version 1.0.
Anytime now.
I don't know if this counts as the game is still in pre-production, but I've been following the development of Alice: Asylum by American McGee. I loved Alice: The Madness Returns so I'm really hoping we get another installment. There's lots of info on their YouTube channel about where they are in the process.
I had no idea this was happening! Now I'm excited too! Thanks for bringing that up. That reminds me that I'm also excited for Psychonauts 2.
Yes! Have you seen the concept art for the twins yet? OH MY GOD. AM's Alice and Madness Returns were two of my favourite games of all time.
Phoenix Point. Julian Gollop, the designer of the original 1993 X-Com finally returns to the tactical turn-based genre with a new interpretation that will combine the best elements from all X-Com games released thus far, including Apocalypse and the Firaxis remakes. It has garnered a little bit of attention and publicity but nowhere near as much as it deserves.
I hope that Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night turns out to be good, but I'm not expecting much.
Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon was fun. Why are you not expecting much of RotN?
I try not to expect too much of any video game. That way I get to be pleasantly surprised by games that exceed my expectations instead of disappointed by games that fail to meet them.
That's totally reasonable. I read your initial post as disappointed with what you've seen to date and was curious what had made you critical of its potential.
It's not an unknown franchise but not as big of a following as most mainstream games but Ace Combat 7 is one I'm excited for. I'm also excited for the stand-alone expansion to Subnautica called Subnautica: Below Zero.
I really wanted to get into Subnautica. I should try it again. I think that standalone expansions are a great idea and I whole heartedly support that.
I think Subnautica is fantastic. One suggestion is to turn on "filmic" mode in the video options. It makes it way more atmospheric.
If your computer can handle it. Subnautica can chug a little on older computers.
Might be stretching the 'lesser known' thing a bit, but a little while ago Windjammers 2 was announced.
I really like competitive games - I find the process of pushing yourself to become better at something really enjoyable. Due to some poor decisions on my part, though, I can't do fighting games anymore even though I did and still do love them. I briefly moved on to playing Rocket League, but I really hate the playerbase, the way Psyonix does things and realistically team games probably just aren't for me. I've dabbled in speedrunning and chess over the years, but I still feel like something's missing. WJ2 Seems to tick a lot of boxes for me, the one big question being whether the netcode is any good.
I understand what you mean. The playerbase in a lot of competitive games is a little more toxic than I would like which is why I also avoid them. The thing about not being able to play fighting games anymore intrigues me, but it's not really related to the topic, so I won't ask for details unless you feel like talking about it.
I'll have to look into that, I'm not familiar with the windjammers series. Thanks for sharing!
The tl;dr of the fighting games thing is that during the period when I was improving the most in my chosen game (SFIV), I decided to take on running a forum and doing community-management-type stuff for another game, and all of the work, stress and drama that came with that completely ruined it for me. I tried getting back into it when SFV came out, but IMO it isn't as good a game and I noticed that I still wasn't able to mentally approach the game properly so I dropped it pretty quickly.
Xenonauts 2 – a modern take on X-COM: UFO Defense, chapter 2. It goes a different way than the Firaxis games – more strategy, soldiers are less cartoonish superheroes and more “realistic”, so to speak. Xenonauts feels much closer to the original, and I hope the sequel is even better.
(And thanks to this topic, I realized that Phoenix Point is a thing I need to keep an eye on).
I just heard about this game called The Quiet Man. I don't really know a whole lot about it, but apparently it has very minimal sound design and revolves around a deaf protagonist.
Once Slay the Spire hits mobile, I'm probably going to be off Hearthstone entirely.
My friends and I have been playing Slay the Spire non stop, it's so good. Even if your not a fan of card games, I would recommend it; I'm not a big fan of many card games, but it hooked me.
Creeper World 4 : Fourth iteration of the Creeper World series, made by one dude, RTS game with some tower defence bits. Highly enjoyable. There is a small web version of it.
I am seriously looking forward to Hunt: Showdown leaving early access, I've been tempted to try it but have had not great luck in previous early access games. Witch Hunt just came out on Steam and is actually on sale on Steam, I've been meaning to pick that up as well.
Pathologic 2 It's a survival/RPG first person game in which you play a doctor in a city affected by a plague. The particular thing is that the game plays in "real time", i.e. events happens as time goes by instead of being triggered like in other games.
Plus you can play as three characters in the story, which gives you different perspective on what's going on.
Pantheon: Rise of the Fallen has quietly attracted the attention of most of my old school Everquest friends. I think we're going to be putting the guild back together for that one. It promises to get back to the best, honest roots of the MMO genre. Losing levels on death, naked corpse runs, hour-long raid boss fights, non-instanced competitive content, tiered and keyed access to end game content, but most of all, guild vs guild fuckery and cockblocking in pure PvE. A lot of the same developers from Verant Interactive who created Everquest worked on this one, so in a way I guess you could call it Everquest 2.0, a re-imagining of the game that created the genre... but this time built on modern design principles and lessons learned from decades of watching all of the other MMOs fail to be interesting. I'm sure it'll be a glorious mess.
This looks great. Thank you.
Untitled Goose Game
The Last Night. The art style alone makes me want to play it.
Overcrowd: a Commute 'em Up! I'm really interested in commuter flow and it looks really good!