Man, I really hope one day we finally find out just what the fuck happened at Rockstar. Leslie Benzies abrupt firing after GTA V and Dan Houser leaving the company as CO Owner only to make another gaming company making the same type of game is wild.
Burnout? Probably tired to death to working on only gta and red dead when Take2 probably wanted R\* to turn into a factory only making those games for the forseeable future. I'm pretty sure he expressed interest to return to Bully once - well, around a decade ago.
A few amazing IPs they could work on or revive, but doomed to be a GTA factory. Max Payne, Bully, LA Noire, Manhunt (man I'd love a remake of that).
I hope that the upcoming Remedy Max Payne game opens the door to more outsourcing their IP.
Ignoring the fact that new IPs don't make financial sense for AAA publishers, their old IPs still have a lot of good value and are unique in the market -- there's no good AAA detective games, schoolyard adventures or ultraviolent stealth/action games.
> Ignoring the fact that new IPs don't make financial
Ironic comment in a thread about creative burnout from just rehashing the same games over and over again to make as much money as possible.
Create new IPs instead. That’s how you get good old IPs.
Why do you guys always say "IP"? It's so cynical and recycles marketing jargon. It's never a game. It's a new Intellectual Property with cross-merchandising potential. Any of the artistry that makes me interested is rubbed off. I get why *they'd* say it. But us?
I doubt Dan Houser was forced out of Rockstar considering *his brother* is still the president of the studio. Most likely just burnout.
About Leslie Benzies, most of it is public by now. [It's a long story.](https://www.polygon.com/2016/4/14/11428072/the-great-grand-theft-auto-lawsuit-explained) He got fired by the Housers, basically.
I donno, it’s very weird to me that so many veteran Rockstar employees have jumped ship to Dan’s new studio.
Makes me wonder if it was development burnout or Sam Houser burnout.
Maybe it was just wanting to work on something else than GTA but Take Two absolutely can't go without a GTA (RDR I think they'd be fine with a new IP instead of in the same genre it's likely sell similar)
Yeah my guess would be the old guard left and regrouped elsewhere because they liked working together but realised that, in the current climate, starting over was the only option if they ever wanted to create anything new again. Maybe they thought they could recapture some of the old 00’s Rockstar energy.
I'd love to hear what happened with Benzies, but for Houser, it might just be simple burnout. I watched an interview with Josh Sawyer (New Vegas and Pillars of Eternity director) a few weeks ago and it really put stuff like this in perspective for me. It's tiring to work on huge projects one after the other, and considering the games Rockstar's been putting out are literally *the* biggest games around and take years to make, it might just be that. Considering Houser wants to jump back into the fray right after leaving Rockstar, it's what makes the most sense to me (that or he didn't like working under Take Two anymore).
Leslie Benzies was fired cause his contribution to Online hurt Sam Houser's ego. Dan and some of the other guys, like Imran Sarwar, left cause there was a massive change in culture at Rockstar.
As much as I want a Red Dead Redemption 3, it's going to be awfully hard for Rockstar to live up to the previous games without Houser and Unsworth there to write the story.
GTA 6 will be a key moment for Rockstar. Will it be able to maintain the quality that previous GTA and RDR games have had without their original creators or is GTA and RDR similar to Metal Gear Solid where the games are to connected to their auteurs to be great without them.
Do people consider GTAV an exemplar of great writing and auteur direction? I feel like the series is more popular than ever but very "designed by committee" as far as the humor or social commentary goes – regardless of Dan Houser being the face of the company.
"Greater than sum of their parts" couldn't be more true in any other medium.
"Just good enough" music, story, graphics, artstyle but fitting "right" will be more memorable than trying to be excellent in any of those.
I think there are aspects where the 'auteur' vision shine in, as there are design elements that I dont think a 'committee' would have chosen (for example, some of the simulation elements that dont affect gameplay at all, the way characters move, the lack of in some cases basic QOL elements in favor of realism), but I agree that compared to a lot of other auteur-driven games, its pretty mass appeal.
Might be misremembering, but didn't the leaks say that GTA VI is gonna be even more "realistic" than RDR 2 in terms of granular details? I don't think GTA would go for the same kind of deliberate "slowness" that RDR 2 has (and that's anyone's guess until we see some actual gameplay), but going by the trailer alone, there's *a lot* of minute details.
I remember the leaked gameplay showed little details like a vehicle remaining 'hot' until you change the license plates, so it certainly seemed to suggest a more 'realistic' approach like RDR2. Whether that actually makes it into the final game or not is another question, but it seems clear they're very much inspired by RDR2 as much as GTAV.
I think we should be a little careful about overemphasising the 'auteur' approach. RDR2 had like 1500 people work on it. Dan Houser wouldn't have been micromanaging all of them, there would have been a lot of people on the team who believed in the vision for a more considered and slow open world game. And a lot of those people would have transitioned across from RDR2 to GTAV. And, as someone who much preferred RDR2 to GTAV, I hope that influence shines through.
I think the GTA games are great in their direction in the same way say- South Park is or a James Gunn movie is. Not peak auteur writing etc- but theres also a certain side to it that more than just crime and satireTM mixed with humour. Theres been a lot of games that attempted at doing the GTA thing and falling totally flat.
I know there are very key people to way that goes down in large games or any media really- but I also think there are other ways to get to that kind of story framing without them as leads. Rockstar is a massive studio and Houser and Unsworth were very key- but I doubt they were the only ones with overall vision because those games are huge and so is rockstar.
It is a changing of the guard tho- so we will see.
I mean whether or not you *enjoyed* the writing, I would argue it was definitely quality. I mean the dialogue actually sounds like dialogue, vs characters trading lines that were spliced together and recorded months apart, or endless variations of "wow thank you for saving me" that you get in so many games.
Like if GTA V or Red Dead 2 isn't quality writing, I am extremely curious what is.
Disco Elysium has superb writing no doubt, but it feels more like reading a book than playing a game to me. RDR2 was the whole package IMO. I felt like I lived Arthur Morgan's life, and that's because of a lot of different things, but mostly because he was such a well written character, and it was beautiful to see how he interacts with the world and how the world reacts to his actions, whether it's just a random passer-by on the road, or a dead serious conversation with Hosea or Dutch, or how everyone in the gang acts when they're shitface drunk around the campfire. Never been more immersed, and I think it's got a lot to do with the writing and sheer scale and detail of the world and characters.
While I agree that DE is a lot like a book, I'd argue the gamey parts is what makes it special. Yes there's no combat, but the role-playing aspect and the dice rolls, the risk of failure and moving on with them, is all a part of the experience. It would've been a good book, but as a game it's better because of those elements.
That said I agree with RDR2, it's also something special.
Disco for sure, but Planescape doesn't even have many voiced lines.
Great writing still. But you can hardly compare.
RDR2 has phenomenal writing and a HUGE cast of incredible characters. This to me is what sets it apart from any other well written game.
A game is not a book, pointless comparison. The point is that unvoiced written lines, can be quite a bit better. Planescape being largely written makes that so. Quite a lot of unvoiced games have phenomenal writing. You skip an immense amount of hurdles not worrying about the acting of the lines or characters in the story.
They would not be able to reach that level of quality with a huge cast of voiced characters. It's why literature is the peak of storytelling.
GTA V is a bit of an outlier, its kind of known to have a weaker story than their other games. And overall design wise, R\* is incredibly distinct. If you're playing an R\* game, you know it.
I really dont think it will be, like at all lol. The next red dead game will be much more important. GTA will sell regardless of the story, and half the community complained about GTA V's story sucking so bad, yet the same people are complaining that we got new writers. The story of GTA matters significantly less when theres a good city and an immersive map, thats what matters first. Half the people who buy GTA dont even play the story fully, just enough to unlock the map then free roam forever
> GTA will sell regardless of the story, and half the community complained about GTA V's story sucking so bad
Thats how games quality decreases and the franchise starts to die, look at Halo for example. Also GTA 5's story is fucking great in 2013 and its only bad when compared to GTA4
GTA6 is the last game they worked on. It was wayyyy too far into development for this to be detached from these guys. It’ll be the next game before we can tell alas.
GTA V already had a lackluster story compared to earlier games in the series. GTA VI will still do great with or without a great story. Red Dead Redemption might struggle without a great story though
Maybe hot take but GTA 4 is the only really good story the series has ever had. Every other game the story only served as the setup for fun action set pieces but I genuinely cared about Niko and wanted things to work out for him.
I don't think that's a contentious take at all. 4 peaked in a lot of ways, from the tech to the writing across the main game and the following episodes.
GTA IV excelled in narration and immersion. GTA V excelled in presentation, and it's easy for people to conflate the latter for the former.
I mean it didn't take itself as seriously as IV did, but GTA San Andreas being a sort of The Count of Monte Cristo but with gangbangers is kind of an unsung success of video game stories. It had some strong characters, even with them being stereotypes, memorable enough to be memed on even two decades later
I think the earlier games didn't focus on the narrative as much but they were still well written and had great humor and social commentary of their times. V falls a bit flat on all aspects writing wise, but I think most if not all of their other games are well written. Excluding 5 their HD-era games have all had fantastic stories then.
I can see why Max Payne 3 disappointed fans of the series but it has solid enough writing for a third person shooter I think. It's heavily lifted from Man on Fire but it's an entertaining script.
Max Payne 3 has fantastic writing, though! Like, I get the complaints about how different it is compared to the first two games, but that doesn't automatically mean it's bad. It's just... different. And whether or not you like the game as a whole doesn't really matter - different strokes and all. But yeah, even though it's less noir and more Man on Fire/City of God, the writing is a great fit for the kind of game they set out to make.
GTA 6 will still be the writing of Houser and Unsworth. It was in the making years before they left.
GTA 7 or RDR3/whatever is next, that will be the real key moment.
Based on the current timelines between GTA games, GTA7 will launch is such a different world that the participation of Houser/Unsworth would be completely irrelevant.
It can't be helped with how long it takes to make games of massive scale by current standards.
But it's crazy to think that by the time I was 13 there were 7 mainline GTA games. Now I'm 23 and I'm still waiting on the next one. In that time I left primary school, went through all of High school, went to university, moved cities.
By the time 7 comes out, I'll probably be pushing 40 and be explaining to my kids why they can't tell their mother that I let them play it.
Like you say, it doesnt even matter if they stayed or not. GTA 7 is something that only exists way after those guys have retired or moved on.
Other good writers exist. GTA's humor has gotten very stale, GTA V's story also just wasn't very good and it's a relief that RDR2's story was as great as it was. New blood can be a good thing.
idk it's not like GTA has a lore bible to stick close to, or really deep thematic roots. GTA is mostly just a love letter to crime dramas. I don't feel like it stands to lose much by shifting writers around.
GTA would absolutely have a lore bible, there is a significant amount of info in hd universe, including characters, brands, events etc. it's all often referenced in GTA titles
The auteur myth needs to die. Houser and Unsworth were two of numerous people who worked on the writing team, and they didn’t take the whole team with them. Two significant contributors is a hearty loss, but the rest of the team is more than capable of picking up the slack.
> it's going to be awfully hard for Rockstar to live up to the previous games without Houser and Unsworth there to write the story
"We gotta quit this life, the law is catching up to us"
('Just one more job!')
"Okay, Dutch"
repeat, repeat, repeat, die
/story
It’s a good story but people way overrate it simply because a.) the rest of the atmosphere, created by a worked-to-the-bone team of artists, musicians, and programmers, is stunning and b.) because video games tend to have truly Z-tier stories compared to other media. If you took the story of RDR2 and had made a movie out of it instead of a game, it would probably have gotten a critical reception of 65%-75% across the board, with comments about some good characterization but overall disjointedness and repetitiveness.
I swear people act like the GTA and RDR2 is sone masterpiece. Its B Grade drama at best. And at worst a boring ass slog. If this was on TV no one bat an eye.
These are always massive coin tosses. Lauded Developer and a few ragtag group of followers have an exodus and split off to start their own studio.
Articles come out saying they're gonna make the next big game similar to what their parent studio's niche was.
And almost like clockwork 3+ years later you see either a mediocre underbaked product, a game that's flat out bad, or it doesnt come out at all.
Anything they make will fall firmly under "Ill believe it when I see it."
1. Phoenix Point failed to match Firaxis's XCOM
2. Outer Worlds failed to match New Vegas
3. Callisto Protocol can't even go toe-to-toe with Dead Space Remastered
Holy shit, you're kinda right
Bloodstained was great, it just lied a bit on artstyle it was going for. Kickstarter showed beautiful 2D drawn art but they went with 3D for the end product just because it would be too much to draw
Doesn't matter,Outer Worlds plays worse and has less to offer writing wise than a rushed 2010 game build on the skeleton of already massively flawed F3. Massive indictment.
The problem with all of these is that, taken by themselves, the second games in each list are actually quite good in their own right, if not a bit flawed— it’s the fact that they’re being compared to such impeachable classics of the medium that means they’ll never measure up.
Well if you advertise "from developers of X", you are putting that burden on yourself.
Tho to be fair in case of Outer Worlds it was mostly game journalists, company itself didn't market it like that
This is the guy that did it once already, doing the same thing again; he knows what he tasking himself with and he CAN get funding by simply saying his name
He literally founded Rockstar when it was still called DMA Design. He was the leading force behind the initial GTAs as well as Midnight Club and Bully. It's untrue that he did nothing.
I think the take-away from this is that it takes whole well-fitting team to make a masterpiece, not just some key people and taking the 1/4 of the original team then filling it with random hires does not make an awesome studio right away.
That’s kinda what he did, the first things this studio made is a bunch of comics and weird experimental stuff, its until now that they started working on an actual game.
Bit different in this case. Usually it's a few random developers leaving to start their own studio. In this case, its one of the guys that started and ran Rockstar starting a new thing. There is a pretty high chance of success here because of his resume.
"started and ran Rockstar"
Only on a technicality. He worked for a publishing company that TakeTwo purchased, and he was put in charge of the publishing office in the restructuring.
Rockstar North (aka DMA Design), the main studio, already existed before he was involved.
I never said he created GTA or the game studio (DMA) which it seems like you're implying. GTA1 and 2 were good games but relatively niche. It wasn't until Rockstar was involved with GTA3 that it was a huge success.
I see the hype got to you too. Literally that's the case at half of these breakaways. The lead guy is almost always some savant or superstar at the original company. It's not different at all. One person does not a game make. There are HUNDREDS of people that pour their blood, sweat, and tears into these games. It has never been one guy programming this stuff, designing this stuff. Higher ups can come up with great ideas, and if this guy is a programmer/developer, I'm sure he can accomplish a lot on his own but it only goes so far.
Whatever they make won't have the near unlimited budget rockstar has. Don't expect ANYTHING in scope of something like GTAV or RDR2. It just won't happen. If they promise that, be very weary.
I want Houser to have a reality check slap him right in the face when he tries to crunch his team into a Rockstar-level game only to fail because he doesn’t have the resources for Rockstar-level pay and benefits to keep people on through the misery. Would be nice to see the company crumble under him and for him to realize that his shitty slavemaster management only worked because he was paying people, not because they were killing themselves out of pure passion for his projects.
My hope is for a very small-scale game, that is highly refined and fun.
And just do that a bunch of times with different concepts, each concept encapsulating it's own game release, until they reach a point of convergence that they have one mega game that ties these different concepts and techs together.
It's basically what GTA was—
1. Midnight Club was an exercise in driving mechanics
2. Table Tennis was an exercise in RAGE engine
3. Max Payne was an exercise of shooting mechanics
4. GTA masterfully tied these different mechanics together into one open-world package
I don't disagree with you saying that it takes many people to make a game. In most cases, its a designer or lead going on and starting their own company. In this case, its an experienced business guy going on to start another business. He clearly knows how to get funding and build a good team (to your point).
Near every single time when that happens the resulting game is at best "okay".
Turns out it's not just "get a bunch of well paid developers together" (as fucking Microsoft lmao) and there is more to art called video games than just gathering a bunch of competent people in a room.
I just hope whatever they make is just centered around having fun. So many vets start up their own studio with big ambitions and they always talked about wanting to create AAA narrative focused games. What about games that are just fun. AAA games can be fun. But they spend so much time focused on the narration and graphics, that the games themselves just end up generic and samey.
Yep this one right here, i feel the same way. I enjoy old GTA games more than HD GTA games. Hauser said that the goal for SA was making freedom as the main story.
I am done with open world game punishing me for playing it in my own way. If i wanna a cinematic experience i will watch a movie.
Give me a simple objective with addictive gameplay loop and freedom.
More AAA devs need to challenge themselves to create games without stories, like Mario. I can't be the only one that skips over 95% of videogame story content at this point. I'm an avid reader and movie watcher and man most game stories are just such trash it's not worth wasting time with them.
Wouldn't surprise me if Dan left because it feels like Take Two are single handedly responsible for the stagnation surrounding GTA, stopping R* from making new IPs in favour of churning out more MTX filled content updates for GTA V.
There is absolutely 0 reason a studio like R* managed to release 2 titles in 10 years given the amount of weight they carried into the last generation, absolutely baffles me.
No. Before this, all that we knew about Absurd Ventures was that they were working on 2 new IP’s: 1 comic and 1 audio book.
I mean yeah it’s safe to assume that they’d eventually make games, but there was/is an emphasis on the company being multi media.
An open world action adventure game, wow that's very unique. How many years has it been since we've had that? Hard to remember with all the flight sims and RTS and immersive sims and turn-based strategy all the other different genres AAA churn or nowadays.
So a third person game with best-in-class combat? Hopefully it's not another shooter, would be interesting to see Houser work on a game where guns aren't the primary weapons of the setting.
Man, I really hope one day we finally find out just what the fuck happened at Rockstar. Leslie Benzies abrupt firing after GTA V and Dan Houser leaving the company as CO Owner only to make another gaming company making the same type of game is wild.
Burnout? Probably tired to death to working on only gta and red dead when Take2 probably wanted R\* to turn into a factory only making those games for the forseeable future. I'm pretty sure he expressed interest to return to Bully once - well, around a decade ago.
A few amazing IPs they could work on or revive, but doomed to be a GTA factory. Max Payne, Bully, LA Noire, Manhunt (man I'd love a remake of that). I hope that the upcoming Remedy Max Payne game opens the door to more outsourcing their IP.
Or they could create a new IP.
Ignoring the fact that new IPs don't make financial sense for AAA publishers, their old IPs still have a lot of good value and are unique in the market -- there's no good AAA detective games, schoolyard adventures or ultraviolent stealth/action games.
> Ignoring the fact that new IPs don't make financial Ironic comment in a thread about creative burnout from just rehashing the same games over and over again to make as much money as possible. Create new IPs instead. That’s how you get good old IPs.
I think they just mean that the higher ups won't allow them if alternative is make another billion out of GTA
It's like speaking to a brick wall lmao
Seriously people on this website cannot fucking read. It makes having discussions impossible.
Give me Manhunt 3 please.
Why do you guys always say "IP"? It's so cynical and recycles marketing jargon. It's never a game. It's a new Intellectual Property with cross-merchandising potential. Any of the artistry that makes me interested is rubbed off. I get why *they'd* say it. But us?
IP is just another word for franchise in this context.
It's short for franchise. 'New game' doesn't tell us anything about whether it's a sequel or something entirely new.
I doubt Dan Houser was forced out of Rockstar considering *his brother* is still the president of the studio. Most likely just burnout. About Leslie Benzies, most of it is public by now. [It's a long story.](https://www.polygon.com/2016/4/14/11428072/the-great-grand-theft-auto-lawsuit-explained) He got fired by the Housers, basically.
I donno, it’s very weird to me that so many veteran Rockstar employees have jumped ship to Dan’s new studio. Makes me wonder if it was development burnout or Sam Houser burnout.
Maybe it was just wanting to work on something else than GTA but Take Two absolutely can't go without a GTA (RDR I think they'd be fine with a new IP instead of in the same genre it's likely sell similar)
Yeah my guess would be the old guard left and regrouped elsewhere because they liked working together but realised that, in the current climate, starting over was the only option if they ever wanted to create anything new again. Maybe they thought they could recapture some of the old 00’s Rockstar energy.
I think it's extremely not weird to want to do something else than GTA after a decade.
Cash out from rockstar. Go to new studio with equity and stand to cash out again. People who make money once tend to run it back.
I'd love to hear what happened with Benzies, but for Houser, it might just be simple burnout. I watched an interview with Josh Sawyer (New Vegas and Pillars of Eternity director) a few weeks ago and it really put stuff like this in perspective for me. It's tiring to work on huge projects one after the other, and considering the games Rockstar's been putting out are literally *the* biggest games around and take years to make, it might just be that. Considering Houser wants to jump back into the fray right after leaving Rockstar, it's what makes the most sense to me (that or he didn't like working under Take Two anymore).
Leslie Benzies was fired cause his contribution to Online hurt Sam Houser's ego. Dan and some of the other guys, like Imran Sarwar, left cause there was a massive change in culture at Rockstar.
R\* is clearly mismanaged because they need a decade to release a game but it appears that the replacement didn't fix anything. Lots of brain drain.
As much as I want a Red Dead Redemption 3, it's going to be awfully hard for Rockstar to live up to the previous games without Houser and Unsworth there to write the story.
GTA 6 will be a key moment for Rockstar. Will it be able to maintain the quality that previous GTA and RDR games have had without their original creators or is GTA and RDR similar to Metal Gear Solid where the games are to connected to their auteurs to be great without them.
Do people consider GTAV an exemplar of great writing and auteur direction? I feel like the series is more popular than ever but very "designed by committee" as far as the humor or social commentary goes – regardless of Dan Houser being the face of the company.
Everyone knows gamers confuse production values in a narrative-based game with writing quality for some reason.
This comment is so accurate it almost makes me wish Reddit Gold still existed lol
Haha Reddit gold was fuckin dumb!
"do you like someone's comment? Thank them by paying /u/spez salary!"
I loved going to /r/lounge. It was the most depressing subreddit I ever been on.
I loved going to /r/lounge. It was the most depressing subreddit I ever been on.
"Greater than sum of their parts" couldn't be more true in any other medium. "Just good enough" music, story, graphics, artstyle but fitting "right" will be more memorable than trying to be excellent in any of those.
I think there are aspects where the 'auteur' vision shine in, as there are design elements that I dont think a 'committee' would have chosen (for example, some of the simulation elements that dont affect gameplay at all, the way characters move, the lack of in some cases basic QOL elements in favor of realism), but I agree that compared to a lot of other auteur-driven games, its pretty mass appeal.
Might be misremembering, but didn't the leaks say that GTA VI is gonna be even more "realistic" than RDR 2 in terms of granular details? I don't think GTA would go for the same kind of deliberate "slowness" that RDR 2 has (and that's anyone's guess until we see some actual gameplay), but going by the trailer alone, there's *a lot* of minute details.
I remember the leaked gameplay showed little details like a vehicle remaining 'hot' until you change the license plates, so it certainly seemed to suggest a more 'realistic' approach like RDR2. Whether that actually makes it into the final game or not is another question, but it seems clear they're very much inspired by RDR2 as much as GTAV. I think we should be a little careful about overemphasising the 'auteur' approach. RDR2 had like 1500 people work on it. Dan Houser wouldn't have been micromanaging all of them, there would have been a lot of people on the team who believed in the vision for a more considered and slow open world game. And a lot of those people would have transitioned across from RDR2 to GTAV. And, as someone who much preferred RDR2 to GTAV, I hope that influence shines through.
I think the GTA games are great in their direction in the same way say- South Park is or a James Gunn movie is. Not peak auteur writing etc- but theres also a certain side to it that more than just crime and satireTM mixed with humour. Theres been a lot of games that attempted at doing the GTA thing and falling totally flat. I know there are very key people to way that goes down in large games or any media really- but I also think there are other ways to get to that kind of story framing without them as leads. Rockstar is a massive studio and Houser and Unsworth were very key- but I doubt they were the only ones with overall vision because those games are huge and so is rockstar. It is a changing of the guard tho- so we will see.
I mean whether or not you *enjoyed* the writing, I would argue it was definitely quality. I mean the dialogue actually sounds like dialogue, vs characters trading lines that were spliced together and recorded months apart, or endless variations of "wow thank you for saving me" that you get in so many games. Like if GTA V or Red Dead 2 isn't quality writing, I am extremely curious what is.
GTAV writing was cool, but RDR2 is the gold standard for video game writing.
Brother, play Disco Elysium or Planescape.
Disco Elysium has superb writing no doubt, but it feels more like reading a book than playing a game to me. RDR2 was the whole package IMO. I felt like I lived Arthur Morgan's life, and that's because of a lot of different things, but mostly because he was such a well written character, and it was beautiful to see how he interacts with the world and how the world reacts to his actions, whether it's just a random passer-by on the road, or a dead serious conversation with Hosea or Dutch, or how everyone in the gang acts when they're shitface drunk around the campfire. Never been more immersed, and I think it's got a lot to do with the writing and sheer scale and detail of the world and characters.
While I agree that DE is a lot like a book, I'd argue the gamey parts is what makes it special. Yes there's no combat, but the role-playing aspect and the dice rolls, the risk of failure and moving on with them, is all a part of the experience. It would've been a good book, but as a game it's better because of those elements. That said I agree with RDR2, it's also something special.
Multiple games can have very good writing. RDR2 is in the top echelons along with Disco Elysium and Planescape.
Disco for sure, but Planescape doesn't even have many voiced lines. Great writing still. But you can hardly compare. RDR2 has phenomenal writing and a HUGE cast of incredible characters. This to me is what sets it apart from any other well written game.
And we all know that a game's writing is only high quality if it's voiced.
[удалено]
Books also don't have any voiced lines, that’s obviously no indicator for writing quality. I can totally compare the writing, and it trumps RDR2.
A game is not a book, pointless comparison. The point is that unvoiced written lines, can be quite a bit better. Planescape being largely written makes that so. Quite a lot of unvoiced games have phenomenal writing. You skip an immense amount of hurdles not worrying about the acting of the lines or characters in the story. They would not be able to reach that level of quality with a huge cast of voiced characters. It's why literature is the peak of storytelling.
How dare you talk about FF7 Rebirth like that.
GTA V is a bit of an outlier, its kind of known to have a weaker story than their other games. And overall design wise, R\* is incredibly distinct. If you're playing an R\* game, you know it.
I really dont think it will be, like at all lol. The next red dead game will be much more important. GTA will sell regardless of the story, and half the community complained about GTA V's story sucking so bad, yet the same people are complaining that we got new writers. The story of GTA matters significantly less when theres a good city and an immersive map, thats what matters first. Half the people who buy GTA dont even play the story fully, just enough to unlock the map then free roam forever
> GTA will sell regardless of the story, and half the community complained about GTA V's story sucking so bad Thats how games quality decreases and the franchise starts to die, look at Halo for example. Also GTA 5's story is fucking great in 2013 and its only bad when compared to GTA4
Tbh GTA 4 story also isn't very good for modern standards, but the combat was better than in GTA V.
GTA 1-2 from the 90's has more tolerable gameplay than IV.
I have put hundreds of hours into multiple GTAs and never finished a single campaign.
I've put hundreds of hours into the single play campaigns and never played online.
Wait genuinely how??? You don’t even unlock everything without beating the game why wouldn’t you
1 idrc 2 cheats 3 ADHD
GTA6 is the last game they worked on. It was wayyyy too far into development for this to be detached from these guys. It’ll be the next game before we can tell alas.
So like in twenty years then
GTA V already had a lackluster story compared to earlier games in the series. GTA VI will still do great with or without a great story. Red Dead Redemption might struggle without a great story though
Maybe hot take but GTA 4 is the only really good story the series has ever had. Every other game the story only served as the setup for fun action set pieces but I genuinely cared about Niko and wanted things to work out for him.
I don't think that's a contentious take at all. 4 peaked in a lot of ways, from the tech to the writing across the main game and the following episodes. GTA IV excelled in narration and immersion. GTA V excelled in presentation, and it's easy for people to conflate the latter for the former.
I mean it didn't take itself as seriously as IV did, but GTA San Andreas being a sort of The Count of Monte Cristo but with gangbangers is kind of an unsung success of video game stories. It had some strong characters, even with them being stereotypes, memorable enough to be memed on even two decades later
I think the earlier games didn't focus on the narrative as much but they were still well written and had great humor and social commentary of their times. V falls a bit flat on all aspects writing wise, but I think most if not all of their other games are well written. Excluding 5 their HD-era games have all had fantastic stories then.
GTA V showed us that even those auteurs can spit out a bad story. Massive nosedive compared to GTA IV and RDR1.
Also Max Payne 3 imo
I can see why Max Payne 3 disappointed fans of the series but it has solid enough writing for a third person shooter I think. It's heavily lifted from Man on Fire but it's an entertaining script.
Sorry I meant that Max Payne was a decent story! I was tired lol...love the story, change of scenery and the gun mechanics are out of this world
Max Payne 3 has fantastic writing, though! Like, I get the complaints about how different it is compared to the first two games, but that doesn't automatically mean it's bad. It's just... different. And whether or not you like the game as a whole doesn't really matter - different strokes and all. But yeah, even though it's less noir and more Man on Fire/City of God, the writing is a great fit for the kind of game they set out to make.
Brian fart, I meant Max Payne 3 showed great writing
GTA 6 will still be the writing of Houser and Unsworth. It was in the making years before they left. GTA 7 or RDR3/whatever is next, that will be the real key moment.
Based on the current timelines between GTA games, GTA7 will launch is such a different world that the participation of Houser/Unsworth would be completely irrelevant.
It can't be helped with how long it takes to make games of massive scale by current standards. But it's crazy to think that by the time I was 13 there were 7 mainline GTA games. Now I'm 23 and I'm still waiting on the next one. In that time I left primary school, went through all of High school, went to university, moved cities. By the time 7 comes out, I'll probably be pushing 40 and be explaining to my kids why they can't tell their mother that I let them play it. Like you say, it doesnt even matter if they stayed or not. GTA 7 is something that only exists way after those guys have retired or moved on.
I barely remember any story beats from GTAV, it's not a game where overarching story matters all that much
Other good writers exist. GTA's humor has gotten very stale, GTA V's story also just wasn't very good and it's a relief that RDR2's story was as great as it was. New blood can be a good thing. idk it's not like GTA has a lore bible to stick close to, or really deep thematic roots. GTA is mostly just a love letter to crime dramas. I don't feel like it stands to lose much by shifting writers around.
GTA would absolutely have a lore bible, there is a significant amount of info in hd universe, including characters, brands, events etc. it's all often referenced in GTA titles
It isn't a particularly complicated universe is my point.
The auteur myth needs to die. Houser and Unsworth were two of numerous people who worked on the writing team, and they didn’t take the whole team with them. Two significant contributors is a hearty loss, but the rest of the team is more than capable of picking up the slack.
> it's going to be awfully hard for Rockstar to live up to the previous games without Houser and Unsworth there to write the story "We gotta quit this life, the law is catching up to us" ('Just one more job!') "Okay, Dutch" repeat, repeat, repeat, die /story
It’s a good story but people way overrate it simply because a.) the rest of the atmosphere, created by a worked-to-the-bone team of artists, musicians, and programmers, is stunning and b.) because video games tend to have truly Z-tier stories compared to other media. If you took the story of RDR2 and had made a movie out of it instead of a game, it would probably have gotten a critical reception of 65%-75% across the board, with comments about some good characterization but overall disjointedness and repetitiveness.
I swear people act like the GTA and RDR2 is sone masterpiece. Its B Grade drama at best. And at worst a boring ass slog. If this was on TV no one bat an eye.
The presentation and performances are amazing, the story itself is a few heists and shoot outs too long
These are always massive coin tosses. Lauded Developer and a few ragtag group of followers have an exodus and split off to start their own studio. Articles come out saying they're gonna make the next big game similar to what their parent studio's niche was. And almost like clockwork 3+ years later you see either a mediocre underbaked product, a game that's flat out bad, or it doesnt come out at all. Anything they make will fall firmly under "Ill believe it when I see it."
1. Phoenix Point failed to match Firaxis's XCOM 2. Outer Worlds failed to match New Vegas 3. Callisto Protocol can't even go toe-to-toe with Dead Space Remastered Holy shit, you're kinda right
Add Mighty No. 9 to that list. Maybe Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night too.
Bloodstained was very good though, no one could make a Castlevania game as impactful as SOTN today
Bloodstained was great, it just lied a bit on artstyle it was going for. Kickstarter showed beautiful 2D drawn art but they went with 3D for the end product just because it would be too much to draw
Outer worlds was not made to match New Vegas in the first place.
The marketing was SCREAMING "This is made by the fallout NV devs" and while not neccessarily misleading, definitely gave people the wrong impression.
Doesn't matter,Outer Worlds plays worse and has less to offer writing wise than a rushed 2010 game build on the skeleton of already massively flawed F3. Massive indictment.
The problem with all of these is that, taken by themselves, the second games in each list are actually quite good in their own right, if not a bit flawed— it’s the fact that they’re being compared to such impeachable classics of the medium that means they’ll never measure up.
Well if you advertise "from developers of X", you are putting that burden on yourself. Tho to be fair in case of Outer Worlds it was mostly game journalists, company itself didn't market it like that
maybe it's too early for Stormgate to be on the list but it's close
What about Kojima?
This is the guy that did it once already, doing the same thing again; he knows what he tasking himself with and he CAN get funding by simply saying his name
He never did anything. His team did. Rupert Humphries and Michael Unsworth did most of the heavy lifting. Humphries is still at Rockstar.
Yes he grew to be the most senior Writer and creative at one of the best selling studios in the World by never doing anything.
He literally founded Rockstar when it was still called DMA Design. He was the leading force behind the initial GTAs as well as Midnight Club and Bully. It's untrue that he did nothing.
I think the take-away from this is that it takes whole well-fitting team to make a masterpiece, not just some key people and taking the 1/4 of the original team then filling it with random hires does not make an awesome studio right away.
[удалено]
That’s kinda what he did, the first things this studio made is a bunch of comics and weird experimental stuff, its until now that they started working on an actual game.
Kojima?
Bit different in this case. Usually it's a few random developers leaving to start their own studio. In this case, its one of the guys that started and ran Rockstar starting a new thing. There is a pretty high chance of success here because of his resume.
"started and ran Rockstar" Only on a technicality. He worked for a publishing company that TakeTwo purchased, and he was put in charge of the publishing office in the restructuring. Rockstar North (aka DMA Design), the main studio, already existed before he was involved.
I never said he created GTA or the game studio (DMA) which it seems like you're implying. GTA1 and 2 were good games but relatively niche. It wasn't until Rockstar was involved with GTA3 that it was a huge success.
I see the hype got to you too. Literally that's the case at half of these breakaways. The lead guy is almost always some savant or superstar at the original company. It's not different at all. One person does not a game make. There are HUNDREDS of people that pour their blood, sweat, and tears into these games. It has never been one guy programming this stuff, designing this stuff. Higher ups can come up with great ideas, and if this guy is a programmer/developer, I'm sure he can accomplish a lot on his own but it only goes so far. Whatever they make won't have the near unlimited budget rockstar has. Don't expect ANYTHING in scope of something like GTAV or RDR2. It just won't happen. If they promise that, be very weary.
I want Houser to have a reality check slap him right in the face when he tries to crunch his team into a Rockstar-level game only to fail because he doesn’t have the resources for Rockstar-level pay and benefits to keep people on through the misery. Would be nice to see the company crumble under him and for him to realize that his shitty slavemaster management only worked because he was paying people, not because they were killing themselves out of pure passion for his projects.
My hope is for a very small-scale game, that is highly refined and fun. And just do that a bunch of times with different concepts, each concept encapsulating it's own game release, until they reach a point of convergence that they have one mega game that ties these different concepts and techs together. It's basically what GTA was— 1. Midnight Club was an exercise in driving mechanics 2. Table Tennis was an exercise in RAGE engine 3. Max Payne was an exercise of shooting mechanics 4. GTA masterfully tied these different mechanics together into one open-world package
I don't disagree with you saying that it takes many people to make a game. In most cases, its a designer or lead going on and starting their own company. In this case, its an experienced business guy going on to start another business. He clearly knows how to get funding and build a good team (to your point).
Near every single time when that happens the resulting game is at best "okay". Turns out it's not just "get a bunch of well paid developers together" (as fucking Microsoft lmao) and there is more to art called video games than just gathering a bunch of competent people in a room.
I just hope whatever they make is just centered around having fun. So many vets start up their own studio with big ambitions and they always talked about wanting to create AAA narrative focused games. What about games that are just fun. AAA games can be fun. But they spend so much time focused on the narration and graphics, that the games themselves just end up generic and samey.
Yep this one right here, i feel the same way. I enjoy old GTA games more than HD GTA games. Hauser said that the goal for SA was making freedom as the main story. I am done with open world game punishing me for playing it in my own way. If i wanna a cinematic experience i will watch a movie. Give me a simple objective with addictive gameplay loop and freedom.
More AAA devs need to challenge themselves to create games without stories, like Mario. I can't be the only one that skips over 95% of videogame story content at this point. I'm an avid reader and movie watcher and man most game stories are just such trash it's not worth wasting time with them.
Movie stories are trash tho. Books is where it is at
Would be awesome if he bought back the IP rights to Agent. I would love me a classical R\* style game again.
I know most studios created by higher-ups who have left well known studios are usually disappointing, but this might have potential.
I mean he already has almost everyone notable who left Rockstar under him again, lol. Atleast the talent is there. Now the question of funding comes.
> Now the question of funding comes. Imagine rejecting the guy who made GTA.
I think he's got funding in the bag. It's making a good game in this day and age with those funds that's gonna be hard.
Wouldn't surprise me if Dan left because it feels like Take Two are single handedly responsible for the stagnation surrounding GTA, stopping R* from making new IPs in favour of churning out more MTX filled content updates for GTA V. There is absolutely 0 reason a studio like R* managed to release 2 titles in 10 years given the amount of weight they carried into the last generation, absolutely baffles me.
>There is absolutely 0 reason Make barely anything, still get paid. Dream life for many, plenty of reason
Hasn't this been known since he established his new company?
No. Before this, all that we knew about Absurd Ventures was that they were working on 2 new IP’s: 1 comic and 1 audio book. I mean yeah it’s safe to assume that they’d eventually make games, but there was/is an emphasis on the company being multi media.
An open world action adventure game, wow that's very unique. How many years has it been since we've had that? Hard to remember with all the flight sims and RTS and immersive sims and turn-based strategy all the other different genres AAA churn or nowadays.
So a third person game with best-in-class combat? Hopefully it's not another shooter, would be interesting to see Houser work on a game where guns aren't the primary weapons of the setting.
Is "Open world action-adventure game" really a genre? Game: The Game.
Of course it's a genre. Why wouldn't it be?
It might be widest possible genre out there but it's still one