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teaandgames · 4 years

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The Tea Times - February 2020

Well, we’re well into the year now. Christmas is a distant memory and all we’ve got to look forward to now are the distant, chocolatey eggs of Easter. Presuming, of course, that we’re still alive by then. It’s gonna be a rough year. We’ve got political upheavals, countries glaring at each other and an extremely infectious virus making the rounds. We’re in for a fun year, folks.

In fact the coronavirus pops up a couple of times in the news section. Was only inevitable, really.

At a Glance

Zombie Army 4, Florence and Lair of the Clockwork God released.

Prince of Persia: The Dagger of Time and Baldur’s Gate 3 announced.

Coronavirus delays!

Bioware are overhauling Anthem

Metro Exodus arrives on Steam

ConcernedApe urges everyone to chill out!

Quantic Dreams goes independent

The Releases

Everyone’s favourite slow-mo zombie shooter got its fourth installment this month. Adolf Hitler has now been banished to hell, which is nice, but Zombie Army 4: Dead War proves that the zombies are still dead and kicking. I’ve played a bit of the preceding game, the Zombie Army Trilogy and it seems like it would be good fun with friends. It was released on the 4th February.

Florence seems like a bit of a funny one. It’s a narrative focused interactive story centered around the life of a girl named Florence Yoeh and the cellist, Krish, who she begins to date. Its dialogue involves puzzles that become progressively easier as Florence gets used to talking to Krish. I love that idea, and how it eschews standard difficulty progression. Looks like a charming game too. Florence released on PC, Mac and Switch on the 12th February (though has been on mobile devices since 2018).

Lair of the Clockwork God may not leap out at most people but it’s by the makers of hilarious ‘Time Gentlemen, Please!’, Size Five Games. Time Gentlemen, Please had a ridiculous sense of humour, which was helped along by the very rough graphics, that just made it a joy to play through. It had Nazi Dinosaurs, after all. Lair of the Clockwork God looks to be fairly similar, albeit with much better graphics. It splits itself in between the classic point’n’click adventure and ‘indie darling’ platformer which are headed up by Ben and Dan respectively. Dan’s Head is larger than his body so it fits at least one of the Indie Darling qualifications. Lair of the Clockwork God was released on the 21st February.

The Announcements

Prince of Persia: The Dagger of Time is an unusual continuation of the series, given that it’s a VR escape room. Still, this is a series that has had quite a few odd continuations in its time. This is not an escape room that you take into your home, though. There won’t be any knocking over of coffee tables. It’s a proper dedicated space that you, and a few friends, can visit. There’s time manipulation mechanics too, which seems pretty damn interesting. It’s coming to places across Europe and the US, so might be worth checking out if Escape Rooms are your cup of tea.

While technically announced in January, I’d be remiss not to bring up Baldur’s Gate 3 at some point. It’s an old classic and laid the groundwork for a lot of modern RPGs. It’s being developed by Larian Games, who made Divinity: Original Sin and its sequel. So there’s some decent chops behind it at least. There aren’t too many concrete details at the moment, but sections of the city of Baldur’s Gate will be available. It’s also based on the 5th Edition of DnD, which I’m sure will annoy people. No release date yet but as we haven’t actually seen any game footage, it’ll be quite some time I imagine.

Viral Delays

There have been quite a few delays thanks to spread of the Coronavirus. The PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X are both being manufactured in China, so they could both see delays to their release date, effectively delaying the next console generation. It’s not for certain at the moment, but given the spread of the disease it would not surprise me. Rather a delayed console than people working when sick, though.

The Outer Worlds is also facing a delay for its switch release, thanks to the virus affecting Virtuos, the team behind the Switch port. The physical will now be a cartridge as well. Still, a decent game delayed is still a decent game.

The virus has also caused Sony to pull out of PAX East, over very reasonable concerns. My thoughts go out to everyone battling this virus.

Anthem’s Getting Some New Notes

It’s not often that a company admits their issues so much that they retool the entire game. In a blog post, Bioware acknowledge that the players - and they themselves - wanted a lot more from the game than is currently being provided. They’ll be retreating back to the workshop to work on loot droops, long-term progression and the end-game. Apparently, it’s going to be one hell of a rework, as it’s going to be more than an update can realistically provide.

They’ll still be running the current Anthem though, so it shouldn’t disturb any current players. It’ll be interesting to see how people react to the rework, given that there seems to be a lot of effort planned.

No Longer Exiled

One of the first games to become exclusive on the Epic Games’ Store and spark a lot of fury (me included), Metro Exodus, has now slunk its way onto the Steam store after a year of being exclusive. It’ll be interesting to see what this does for Metro Exodus now. Will it see a decent spike in sales or will it go down quietly? Time will tell I guess.

It got respectable reviews either way, so if you were bothered by the choice of game store then you can be bothered no more.

Keep Calm and Play Stardew

ConcernedApe, the one-man-band behind Stardew Valley, put up a tweet reply saying that he was working on two new games. The first definitely takes place in the Stardew universe, though is not a farming game. The second is a little different. He’s unsure where it sits, world-wise, but will likely have some links back to Stardew. As is expected, the tweet blew up massively, with gaming sites picking it up and running with it. A lot of pressure on a man just trying to make games he likes.

As a response, he’s put out a second tweet telling people to calm down. He doesn’t want to generate loads of hype about it as nothing ruins good games quite like hype. In his own words, he is ‘not setting out to make the next indie smash hit’. He just wants to make games he’s happy with. I think we can all respect that.

Quantic Dream is Dreaming Alone

The developers of Detroit: Become Human have decided to go alone. They’ve worked with an all star cast, as well as a handful of big publishers, but it seems they want some control themselves. Not that David Cage didn’t have control, mind you. There’s no doubting where his control was. Either way, they are now free to make the games they want. What that will result in will be anyone’s guess.

It does also mean they are in a position to help other developers, though. A good gesture by them, so I hope we can get some interesting indies out of this. Either way, we’ve had twenty-three years of Quantic Dream being shackled to publishers. Good or bad, it’ll be interesting to see what they’ll do with twenty three years unshackled.

That’s all for February, see you in March!

#Florence #Baldur's Gate 3 #Lair of the Clockwork God #Zombie Army 4: Dead War #Stardew Valley #Metro Exodus #The Outer worlds #Anthem #Prince of Persia: Dagger of Time #Gaming #video games #Tea and video games #The Tea Times #Article #News

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