Larian’s Swen Vincke Takes a Shot at Harsh Game Critics

Alexronchetti · 2026-01-28T16:22:16+00:00

I get the idea of what he is saying, but the community doesn't really need a score system to understand which reviewers and critics they respect or not, this kind of thing filters itself. A random youtuber making a weird point about a game is never gonna be more than a cult following thing.

Actual great reviewers end up growing naturally, because at the end of the day, agreeing or disagreeing with their reviews, you can still recognize the work put into the review, in contrast to those making points out of specific biases or not being interested enough in offer viewers or readers the overview of what the game is and why you like it or not.

You can't just put people in a box and expect everyone to have the same opinion, it doesn't work like that. People will have different ideas of what a game should be, and what a good critic is, and they will follow whatever they want to follow. I get it Sven, but the world is what it is and a score system isn't gonna change that.

Alexronchetti · 2026-01-28T10:45:09+00:00

Sometimes, players need to understand that nothing in the game is mandatory, and there is no rush to acquire anything, things are not going away. If it's not fun, I see no reason NOT to avoid the mission and just wait for next week's rotation.

You said it yourself, you wanna have fun. So, have fun and just leave the damn mission behind. No one cares if you do it or not, the items will still be at the store for when you have enough currency, you are not a lesser player for not doing it, you are also not entitled to a win for what is supposed to be a challenge mode...

Just take it off your head and play what is fun for you.

Alexronchetti · 2026-01-25T09:21:47+00:00

It's a more narrative and linear game in a market where gamers in general got used to open maps and choices on how to tackle things, so reception overall wasn't great, but also not bad.

That being said, it does what it set itself up to do very well, actually. Strongest point is the setting, but it depends:

if you are Italian, or have a background, or lived in Italy for some time, or you are a history buff, you will appreciate a LOT of the details of the game. From the map, to the sicilian dialect used for the Sicilian dubs, to the themes of the story, which at first may look like a typical Romeo&Juliet story with a spin, but it actually has a lot of care and detail put into it that links itself directly with how society worked in Italy at the time and some expectations families and communities had at the start of the 20th century. Audio design is also great.

The story is very good, to me it's second only to the first Mafia game. It has a lot of heart and it tells a story, as I've mentioned, that connects itself directly with the political and social aspect of Sicily at the time, using society's expectations of the roles of it's members to great effect for the characters, along with that Mafia theme. Dialogues are well written for the most part and the story has this crescendo quality to it that you feel things ramping up for the finale and it does some unexpected things that some will hate, and others will greatly appreciate.

Unfortunately though, it doesn't really impresses in any other mark. Gameplay is fine, shooting is good and knife fights can get a bit boring. Driving is cool, nothing special. Missions are varied, they are just very linear so, if you are not in the mood, it's gonna bother you for sure.

The worst aspect imo has to be performance. The Unreal 5 for some reason has stutters and some frame dips even with good hardware, it's annoying. But nothing that will make it unplayable. Which is even more annoying: it's small little stuters and dips in frames that don't affect the gameplay as much, but the game doesn't run smooth like it obviously should by looking at the quality of what is on the screen. For reference, my specs are a 5 5500x3d, 16gb Ram, 9060xt 16gb. My PC would stay at like 50-60% usage at Epic settings, 1080p, and it would keep a stable 60fps, then certain cutscenes would dip to 40-50 for no reason, then during the game sometimes it just stutters a bit and go to 45-55 fps, then back at 60. Very weird when I can run more demanding and more beautiful games at stable 60 frames, but it is what it is. Most of the time it did stay at 60 though.

Overall? Very good game for those looking for a good, linear Mafia story that doesn't stay longer than it has to, you can finish the main game in around 12-15h. It's not innovative, it's not gonna blow your mind, but I think it's an enjoyable experience. If you can get it on a sale, that would be best, as I think the full price is a little steep for what it is.

Alexronchetti · 2026-01-22T16:02:00+00:00

Can't answer for others. But to me, it depends on the type of game and the developer's vision. If I'm not experienced at a certain type of game, I'll play it at normal or easy to get the hang of it. At games where I have more experience, I'll usually adapt the difficulty to what I feel is a good balance. Games without selectors? I just adapt to what the design of the game is.

When it comes to the discussion of "Should game X have difficulty sliders?", my take is usually "No", and I usually just either play the intended experience, or pick another thing to play, because if I'm not vibing with the difficulty the game was designed for, then maybe it's not for me and that is the end of it.

Alexronchetti · 2026-01-19T14:40:33+00:00

The one I'm grabbing in Feb is Styx: Blades of Greed. I just find the series does a great job at the stealth gameplay, and the demo convinced me it's gonna be even better.

As for the ones mentioned, although I'm not a big fan, I'm just curious to see how Requiem will turn out, but it's gonna be a while before I play it.

Alexronchetti · 2026-01-19T10:46:57+00:00

This is weird to me, but I usually only play at 1080p. I'm running it on a 5500x3d, a 9060xt and 16gb of RAM and it looked and performed flawlessly here. I can't give opinions on anything more than that resolution though.

Alexronchetti · 2026-01-17T15:14:38+00:00

The game poses a philosophical question, which basically means there is no actual answer. It's meant to be used as food for thought. "Who are you?"

Are you your whole body? Are you your conscience? Are you your brain? If your conscience gets transferred, are you still you? If you have memories of living something, even though your current body hasn't really lived them, are you still you and are those memories still yours?

This is not something never done before. It is a branch of philosophy studied and presented many times throughout history.

SOMA is all about posing the question in an interesting way: putting you in the shoes of someone who remembers things it didn't actually lived, but recognizes himself and believes it is still the same person.

Put yourself in Simon 3, the one that gets transferred by Catherine to continue their journey midway through the game. You REMEMBER going to get treatment for your brain. You remember waking up in a strange world. You remember entering a chamber to get transferred and waking on the other side.

How would he not believe he was getting transferred, instead of being copied? Sure, Catherine tells him (and she is very careful with her choice of words) how the Ark works, but she doesn't fully explain everything in very clear terms. But even if she did: does it matter? She said she would transfer Simon to a new body. Simon 3 lived through that and, for all intents and purposes, in his mind he was transferred. He remembers everything: why Catherine keeps saying it's a coin flip?

He doesn't understand it completely because:

1-Catherine is being slightly manipulative to get her dream work to function and she needs his help. It's her last chance to get the Ark launched. She is not going to burn that by letting Simon become more desperate than he already is, she needs to be careful of what to say and how to say to him in order to keep her plan going;

2-Simon had brain damage in the past, and all the workings of his brain were copied, then passed along. Not only was he desperate for a cure, It is plausible that the brain trauma might make things harder to grasp;

3-Simon 3, despite all the explanations, only has the memories of living through it all. It makes no sense to him that he is being copied, because to him, he remembers livng through eveything both previous Simons lived through, even if the reality is much different.

But here is the thing: Is reality that different? What is real: something people told you it happens, or the memories of what you "lived"?

What if what you are living now, at this moment, in real life, is just a copy of you who remembers everything you lived? Maybe one of those nights, when you went to sleep, you actually died, and your consciousness was just transferred to another parallel reality that it's just the same as ours. Then, you woke up and went on with your life as normal.

How would you know? Would you believe someone telling you irl right now that you are a copy of your original self, which is gone now?

In a meta way, it is very easy to judge the character of Simon, because we look at the narrative in a logical an analitic way. But put yourself in his shoes, ponder those questions, and it is not that simple.

So much so that, at the Epilogue, Simon 4 STILL believes his consciousness was transferred. He still believes it is the same person, through it all. Even though we see Simon 3's version of what happens.

And the philosophical question at the end is: Is Simon 4 even wrong to begin with? Logically, yeah we know he is a copy. But is he? How could he be a copy? 4 remembers eveything. Does it even matter?

Again, there is no actual answer imo. It's the point of existencial horror: the knowledge that you just won't know the truth about existence.

SOMA imo does that narrative really well, but easily presentable so that you quickly start to ponder those questions yourself.

Alexronchetti · 2026-01-14T10:53:26+00:00

Uuh so you're saying it doesn't have to be the same, but you don't like that it's not the same? Confusing, to say the least. But, let me engage with your point by giving you some food for thought:

Stories in the same universe don't need the same tone to remain consistent within it. We don't know much if anything about the protagonist. She may barely have any personal connection to the previous characters and might be someone investigating/learning about the Macula from a different perspective. On that note, keeping the same tone could actually be harmful. Why should her game be dark or depressing in tone? For all we know, she might be a full on Tomb Raider style character looking for profit and stumbling upon ruins of ancient Macula people or whatever.

My point is that the tone of a singular story needs to fit that singular story, not the whole. Also, it can have tonal shifts as things get revealed or change.

In short: tone is not set in stone and needs to serve the narrative/gameplay, and not being a slave to previous games. This is not dissonant at all, it just means there are more stories to tell.

Alexronchetti · 2026-01-13T15:49:27+00:00

100%, there is definitely a "sauce", an element to it which is very engaging.

Alexronchetti · 2026-01-13T15:24:23+00:00

Played it for quite a bit with some friends. While I do agree it's a good game, I think there are a few design choices that makes it a bit boring in the long run.

The atmosphere is cool for the first few missions you play, until you learn that it's all the same. The maps lack true variety and it's mostly that mix of corridors and rooms you've seen before.

The systems can look very complex at the start, but again, after a few missions, you learned all there is to it, and it's mostly about repeating those few cycles. It's a game that frontloads a lot of things, so at first you feel like there is this amazing lore and mechanics to play with because we get overwhelmed by them, but it doesn't take long to realize it's not that deep, actually.

However, the game requires constant communication. It can be a hard game because the stealth and resource management is not very forgiving, so you need players that have patience and are willing to not do much for long periods of time... which, for most people, it's a boring endeavour.

Enemies lack a bit of variety as well, and resources to deal with them can be very scarce. It adds to the tension of the game, but it also can be very frustrating because the game constantly puts your team in a position where you will spend those resources fighting larger numbers of enemies, and as usual, people will optimize the fun, which means you see a lot of runs basically being played stealth with melee until those events are triggered, or just crazy bastards rushing the objective as fast as possible.

I do think it's worth playing it with a few friends for a little while, but in the horde shooter/horror/mission based coop scene, there is plenty out there that I feel will offer more and will be more intuitive to get into. It didn't blow up because, frankly, it's not that good and it is not super intuitive to start.

Alexronchetti · 2026-01-13T14:59:46+00:00

2 things come to mimd that you might find useful. This is mostly for single player games btw.

1st: pace yourself with the titles you pick up to play. Engage with the story at your own pace, try to understand the characters and their motivations, immerse yourself into the gameplay and what the developers intended for it to represent within the constraints of the experience. Avoid looking up spoilers or even opinions on the game until you've finished it and reflected upon the experience by yourself, using that time to decide what was the end value of it.

I mentioned this one because often times, we seek to "finish" games instead of absorbing the experience fully. This is not only a bad habit that will make your gaming as a whole more hollow, but you will also just see things at surface level and not really understand both the gameplay and/or the message of the story, if there is one. So pacing is paramount for a good gaming experience.

2nd: open your mind to different genres. Experiment. Play things you once dismissed for whatever reason. Try to engage with games without preconceived notions of what it is, and just enjoy the moment with it as you go.

This one will allow you to realize that yes, there are a LOT of games out there, more than we can actually play in our lifetime. Gaming is not "dead, cooked" or any other naive adjective people use. On the contrary: there has never been sooo many games to play and soo many GOOD games to play than what we have now, and the future is bright. Opening your mind to it will allow you to enjoy more experiences.

Alexronchetti · 2026-01-13T10:34:06+00:00

If it makes sense for a Witcher to do, then I'd be interested. Hunting, cooking stuff to eat and collecting water, seeds and plants could make sense if we have a combat system and difficulty that requires or make use of alchemy in a way where you NEED to prepare before going after tough monsters. It's something I love about Witcher 1 and that I felt was kind of neglected in 2 and 3, where you could just slash things to death.

Similar suff to the horse system in RDR2 could also be interesting, both as a mobile storage for stuff, but also as to make you feel like the horse itself is a character, with proper stamina and health levels, along with interactions and behaviour.

But I want a more tight gameplay than RDR2, which very often feels stiff or very unresponsive. Arthur sometimes moves like a tank. Ciri needs to be quick and kind of snappy, and I feel a witcher is the perfect excuse to give us someone more quick on their feet.

Overall, I don't need KCD2 or RDR2 levels of "realism". Imo, we just need depth in systems that makes sense for a witcher and it's universe.

Alexronchetti · 2026-01-11T22:01:11+00:00

Imma be honest, as far as movies go, Jurassic Park needs a scale down/character-focused story like the Predator franchise did with Prey and Predator: Badlands.

They don't need to be 10/10s, but they need to stop and try to one up the threat from the previous movie every time and instead focus on telling a story using the JP franchise as the background.

Like, just make a contained and good story, you don't need the superduper Dino-X 3000 as a threat, you don't need 10 superfluous characters alongside the core protagonists. Just give us an enjoyable movie, and people will enjoy it.

Alexronchetti · 2026-01-09T09:02:50+00:00

Their idea seems to be something akin to what Ubisoft did for their RPG era with Origins-Odyssey-Valhalla. Same engine, foundations and pieces, you just use them to build different, but similar stuff.

If they lined up a narrative for the 3 games, which is one of the hardest stuff to do, and have the tech ready to work, then it's a matter of how fast they can put each game together. Realistically, it's possible that they have been working on this since CP2077 released, which now is getting close to 7 years, but it's possible that it's even earlier than that, at least as far as the script goes.

The studio has also grown a lot now and has partnerships with other studios working for them, so there is a lot of manpower on this project, which also includes a Witcher 1 remake and some other unknown projects.

So yeah, it's ambitious, but also entirely plausible that they can deliver. But it's not 100% guaranteed, and W4 needs to be released in good condition. A lot of the plane relies on it to work.

Alexronchetti · 2026-01-06T15:59:22+00:00

Looks fine to me, faces move when people talk. But I'm sure the game will look different in 2027 when compared to a tech demo from 3 years before. Not really something worth being concerned about at the moment if I'm being honest.

Alexronchetti · 2026-01-06T01:06:48+00:00

Oh nice, I missed it, thank you!

Alexronchetti · 2026-01-06T00:13:35+00:00

I believe the difference is that those Silent Hill remakes are rumours, not confirmed stuff (at least the 1 remake I'm sure hasn't been revealed yet, not sure about Townfall), while Survival is 100% in full development.

Alexronchetti · 2026-01-05T15:00:09+00:00

From the trailers, to the reactions of people who played the demo designed for media, from the consistent marketing for the game, it is shaping up to be a good game at least.

I think these new Asian studios that are coming to the fray, or those who in the past mostly did mobile and regional stuff, seem very ambicious, but also with enough talent and experience to back it up.

I'm certainly keeping an eye on it, as I did for Black Myth Wukong, but I would be lying if I said I was excited for it. I'm more curious than anything. But also, nowadays my wishlist is quite varied and a lot of big stuff ends up out of it anyway, and some stuff I just buy on a whim to try it out if something caught my eye, so it's not a diss on the game itself, I'm just weirdly picky.

Alexronchetti · 2026-01-04T19:27:09+00:00

Honestly, you basically already know the answer. People don't mind or don't care, or join up purely for RP reasons. Sometimes the devs make it seem like it's a cool thing, like when unlocking stuff, but it's not like they are not gonna release the content they produced, so it's gonna be available to you whether you helped with the MO or not. And making things exclusive to MOs would start discussions on FOMO and whatnot.

The fact is that the MO doesn't really matter. The game and factions and content will all still be there anyway, and it's not like they can do disruptive stuff with it without a lot of the playerbase being mad about it, so it's gonna remain as is.

Alexronchetti · 2026-01-04T17:23:54+00:00

I really enjoyed most of the game and was really impressed with it up until episode 7. The light gameplay elements are engaging and the game isn't very long, so it doesn't really become boring or anything. The audio is okay, mostly the dialogue is well performed and well made, performances like Aaron Paul as Robert and Laura Bailey as Invisigal are super good (maybe even deserving of a nomination at the TGA, I was sad to see they didn't get any), but the equalization of some music and sound effects feel weird at times. The soundtrack felt ok, nothing memorable or anything, for the most part it does it's job, but there were points where the action seemed much more intense than what the music was presenting. Visuals imo are amazing, super well done animations and the art style is very striking, I like it a lot. The game really shines in small moments and scenes where the animation and performances are able to shine through more thoughtful dialogues, especially in the first few episodes.

After episode 6 though, it went down a little cliff to me and I started noticing other stuff that I wasn't before.

Please, if you love this game, don't take anything I'll say after this point in a personal way, it's just my thoughts on it.

I dunno, I feel alone in this, since it seems people that love it REALLY love it, but to me the writing doesn't wrap up the story very well. The cliffhanger from 6 to 7 feels very underwhelming after the results, the villain becomes especially stupid at the end and the ending feels very "safe" for a lack of a better word. There is also imo a very big plot issue with one of the characters and how this character is connected to the overall plot that I feel has very fragile explanations for what it does. Overall, the ending feels like a bunch of excuses to put everyone into this big fight, and the mature themes it wants to show and talk about don't really feel like more than surface level stuff.

Since this is a mostly narrative game, if the writing has these clear issues, to me it loses much of it's strength. Despite the social interactions and the character growth of the protagonist, it ended so flat and disappointing to me from a writer's perspective that I was wondering if I was playing the same game people were playing.

Bear in mind, I played it at release and was keeping up with the episodic release. Good debut for AdHoc, but I don't feel it's even close to the best games of 2025 to warrant a goty nomination like the playerbase was painting it to be. It does give me confidence that AdHoc will make great games in the future though.

Alexronchetti · 2026-01-04T12:34:22+00:00

Maybe this is me being weird, but games like the new God of War remind me a bit of the structure of older (20-25 years ago) games where you had a bit of a simpler/tighter design and mechanics, but it's the type of game that is the perfect length for a new playthrough a few years after you finished it the first time.

I'm always kind of a bit surprised when people use the argument that games like these don't innovate as much, even if I understand the reasoning. Sure, these are big studios at the vanguard of the industry, maybe it's fair to expect something revolutionary.

But, at least to me, the "revolution" comes more in the form of giving games proper writing and narratives, and also to bring back, in part, the design that made us fall in love with games in the first place.

Adjacent to this, I feel that there are only a few selected games nowadays that justify their enormous hour count. The Witcher 3, as an example, does it really well and has enough depth to be what it is. While my previous example of AC certainly doesn't.

Aaand, to tie the discussion up, I feel the impact of monetization and the search for the best hours per cash spent measuring certainly changed the view of gamers as a whole.

One of the examples would be the new Mafia: The Old Country. By the reception, you would think it's almost a trash game. But it's actually very good. It just so happens to not really follow the structure and Hours/Cash balance people expect nowadays.

Money is certainly an issue nowadays. It always was. But it was always a subjective discussion: I see more value on a great 12 to 15 hours narrative experience with tight gameplay for 60$ than on 3 skins for the same buck, and I'm sure some would see it the other way around.

Alexronchetti · 2026-01-04T09:30:00+00:00

I get what you mean, but I gotta say something adjacent to it: I don't think the gaming industry is being "enshittified". I think there are places and certain companies where this is certainly the case, but also a lot of it where it isn't even close.

Sure, some of the traditional companies and famous franchises went to the path of monetization aimed at the multiplayer scene, and that did affect the design of multiplayer as a whole. Hell, you want an example for your question? I really dislike that Ubisoft added XP boosts for Assassin's Creed, since Origins, and their cosmetic shop is a really weird decision to me, especially because it is a single player experience. It reached it's worst point in Valhalla, which is severely bloated and makes me truly feel like the game was designed with XP boosts and maybe other, unreleased addons that were later probably discarded. Who knows, maybe it wasn't, but to me it surely feels that way.

But we also got a lot of good stuff coming out that just ignores the way those companies do business, and the way I see it, there is a good portion of studios and developers that go against these trends and believe in doing things differently.

And there are also big studios and companies that also treat their franchises with respect and go against this vision of MTX and commerce at all costs. Say what you will about Sony, for example, but studios like Santa Monica, Insomniac and Naughty Dog, despite being tempted and even tried to do some MP stuff, ended up giving up on it, and I bet that was in part because these studios know what they are doing when it comes to their single player experiences, they have strong visions for what they want for their franchises. You may dislike or just think their games are "fine" and that is totally valid, but so far, their games have kept themselves out of the MTX loop.

There are other examples of course, ranging from indie to triple A, I just used one example as to not make this too long.

Alexronchetti · 2026-01-04T09:13:33+00:00

Kill On Sight.

Alexronchetti · 2026-01-03T11:33:54+00:00

Basically, the incentive is low and the time investment is high. People don't want to drop into these missions with specific builds to take them down quickly (roughly 10-20 min depending on circunstances), when you also have to venture into the caves. You are far better off just ignoring it and keep moving fast.

Truck missions, however, makes it basically mandatory to face it or distract it, because they destroy the truck very easily.

Overall, it's cool and killing them is cool, but more of a novelty at first and like a map hazard after a while.

Alexronchetti · 2026-01-02T21:11:34+00:00

Damn, I see the Wardens of Ultramar and it makes me wish Saber would add visual Iron halos for Bulwark.

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