J4MES OX4D

Some excellent footage

October 10th so the leaks were right. Beta's this month also. Kinda wish they didn't go all Call of Duty in the trailers but it was nice to see Operation Firestorm returning and hopefully we'll see some other classics come back. My main worry is everything being too destructive and chaotic especially on the smaller maps. I love Metro and Locker but a relentless barrage of rubble and smoke effects could make the smaller maps look a bit messy. I trust it will play well so we'll have to wait and see.

I finished Lightfall yesterday and was glad to put it to bed. I had to drop the difficulty to normal because it was no fun playing on legendary here unlike the Witch Queen. Firefights were just full on spongey spammy enemies and you would get obliterated from all directions in some battles. A couple of missions were enjoyable to a degree towards the end especially the tank one which reminded me of Halo but most were forgettable with boring objectives and predictable fights. The story was ok but written poorly and the likes of Nimbus and Osiris were both unbearable characters throughout. Worth finishing for the subclass and the story conclusion though. Completed the intro mission to The Final Shape which seems a much better location but I'm not sure if I'll start it yet.

I'm definitely more confident about this one especially as most people who made 2042 have long left the company and proper and proven developers were brought in instead. I knew instantly that 2042 would be a catastrophe because it had no campaign, no squad system, no voice chat, no scoreboard, 128 players, barely any guns, no server browser, no stat tracking, stupid specialists, map-changing levolution replaced with temporarily inconvenient weather effects, awful interface, no rush, TDM or dom, no progression, overly-large and empty maps and bot-filled lobbies. It was literally the most anti-Battlefield game imaginable and clear the developers didn't have a clue what the series was about or what they were doing. They were removing staples of the series and the genre without any logic. My only worry with BF6 is if it leans too far into COD. We desperately need these big BF4-style tactical maps.

That's a very strong offering. Lies of P also has just released some very impressive DLC too

I've done a few hours on Lightfall now and it feels really off and I'm not sure why. Definitely a step back over The Witch Queen in narrative terms along with mission design but the does look fantastic. Really not a fan of the characters or writing either. The Journey page is ideal as it lays out everything so much easier so you know what needs to be done and what you can do. Better than ducking in and out of the world map trying to find things haha!

So I've just begun Lightfall and this seems like an interesting location. However I've noticed the DLC has been appallingly received by many so I'm kinda dreading what I am walking into particularly on legendary. I did the first mission which felt like spongy busywork with an irritating boss that I had to cheese to a degree. Already not sold on the story or characters and it seems like a big step back from The Witch Queen. I'm still going to keep an open mind but I am expecting a tiresome and frustrating slog

Some new stable gameplay

This is brilliant and so true

The gameplay coming from the test environment looks very good especially from a mechanics standpoint. Looks quite refined now plus there's cool things like being able to drag and heal injured team mates for revive. Definitely seems much closer to BF4 and 2042 but I hope there are larger maps that aren't as chaotic and bloated with effects. Who would've thought that ex-COD developers would save Battlefield lol!

I did the Shadowkeep campaign earlier which took about 4 hours over a couple of days. I completely forgot about this back in the day as I did a lot of activities on the Moon but didn't actually buy into the expansion itself. Kinda glad I didn't pay full price for it when it released as it's largely just a load of busywork. The location is great but the story and quests are absolutely mediocre and progress being tied to bounties sucks. I can't complain too much as I got to experience it for free but this pales in comparison to the work and structure that The Witch Queen had. Beyond Light was even a solid step up although still lacking in some respects.

Reveal trailer coming later today. Looking at Call of Duty right now, this may be our last hope of a decent military shooter. This game must have a campaign though.

I'm really enjoying this campaign - just finished the Savathun's right hand mission which was bloody challenging on solo legendary and took me well over an hour. Beyond Light I seemed to fly through in about 6 hours even with 34 quest steps but this one you really seem to get bang for your buck as every mission seems detailed, challenging and lasts longer than 15 minutes.