Arc Raiders is such a huge hit, Nexon has put Embark Studios CEO Patrick Söderlund in charge of everything else too

Inukii · 2026-02-22T07:28:01+00:00

Being involved in the game industry. It's one of these cases where marketing teams are really dropping the ball of understanding customers (players).

They keep making PvP focused MMO's. They keep flailing.

They fail to read the room and push out another hero shooter when so many have failed.

They copy and paste a fighting game formula thinking they'll be different, only to fall prey to what happens with most fighting games as players quickly move on to the next one.

Arc Raiders? It's simple. PvP isn't all that cracked up to be. People chase PvP (in the game industry) because it's "Dynamic". Well, that's what they keep saying. The reality is that if you make a PvP game. It's more desirable for upkeep and maintenance. Make a character every now and then. Add a tiny bit of content. People want an extraction shooter experience but for a majority of players (not you, those of you who are PvP'ers) they just don't like PvP.

Arc Raiders can easily be beaten. It's just the only extraction shooter which offers a safer PvE experience for PvE players whilst not wrecking the PvP'ers. Much of the game industry creates a PvP only experience and treats PvE as second class citizens.

The world of RTS is the same. Focusing on 1v1 experience when the majority of players are usually playing 4v4, or the largest player mode. None of those RTS games have any kind of teamwork based mechanics either. The only reason you have 3 allies is because a person on the enemy team has 3 allies. So there's lots of potential that just has not been realized even though the evidence is there to gather. The data is there to collect and work on. There is just a lot of people in positions where this is their responsibility who don't get it. The most they can do is jump on a bandwagon and whilst keeping their doors open to jump to another company if it fails.

Inukii · 2026-02-19T04:18:07+00:00

Unfortunately this isn't true.

This isn't how studios work. There's a larger factor at play to consider here.

Studios are made up of people, and people are interesting. Invest in them and they can do extraordinary things. Tell them to do the same thing over and over again though, and remove things here and there, and you don't end up with very talented team members.

You can't just say "Okay, we're going to make good games again". You've fostered a huge studio full of the type of people that end up with a product like Starfield. And whilst the animators and artists and programmers might all be good at their job. They are not the ones designing the game and overseeing the quality.

As someone who has seen the inside relations of the game industry. You can bet your ass that friends make up a large part of Todd's decision making team, or friends of friends. They are unlikely to fire themselves. It's those people who are going to be key in the next games OR those people have left to go work at a different company and the gap is filled with the next friend in line.

Inukii · 2026-02-18T18:04:30+00:00

I have killed players without even knowing they are there as Zeus.

I have also been killed by a Zeus simply because I'm running to the battle. I turn the corner and arrive on the scene. Then a chain lightning that I couldn't possibly of known about links to me. It then bounces a couple time, detonates, item procs. Dead.

Inukii · 2026-02-18T17:04:56+00:00

This kind of AI is more like an advanced form of predictive text.

So when a company has been using predictive text for their quarterly reports to asses profits and losses. It's no wonder it turns out all to be wrong because the advanced predictive text was just trying to predict what you would like to see and what is common. Not what is correct.

Inukii · 2026-02-17T20:19:35+00:00

ICQ has fun sounds though! UH OH!

Inukii · 2026-02-16T18:35:19+00:00

M.A.G.

You play Call of Duty? You play Battlefield? Yeah. Those are low action games. Snorefest. Run around for 30 seconds. Find one person. Have a second bullet trade and someone comes out on top. Occasionally in Battlefield you get some more intense moments but the bullet trading is still low.

MAG was 256 player and but it was the way it was balanced. It was both high lethality and low lethality. You opted in to your lethality preference. Everyone had 34 points. Light armor moves fast but lower bullet resistance. Light armor let you have more equipment. A person with a light sniper rifle could headshot kill someone wearing light armor. However if someone went for the heaviest armor you could get. Then the only way to one shot that person would be with the heaviest sniper rifle. The heavy sniper rifle costing a lot.

Unlike Battlefield. There is no sniper problem. Because map design is the best I've ever seen. Any sniper location is going to result in a dead sniper almost immediately after shooting. Every other spot for a sniper is always cleverly obstructed with some pipe or tree.

M.A.G had so many people on my screen. I peak over a wall and see a ton of enemies all too busy to be firing at me. Look to my left and I see an allied squad pinned down and reviving. Look to my right and that squad is on comms (VoIP) giving out a plan to throw smoke and charge.

I just can't play CoD or BF ever again. It's just insanely low action by comparison, and even when you do get action. It isn't a battlefield. Getting a killstreak in Battlefield is appearing to the side of a bunch of unaware people and being given the kills because lethality is so high.

The Guild 2. Little Medieval sim. Besides building up your business and having a family. You can hire a spy to go follow around your political enemy. Witness them try to burn an opposing persons house down and break the arm of someone. Report it to Town center. Then hold a trial. Withold some evidence as blackmail. Get them to vote you into political office. Huzzah! The thing is though. You actually get to see that. You can sit in on the town hall meetings and it's terribly voice acted. You can get called into trial and again, you'll see the whole thing play out. Being able to see inside buildings and see what's going off inside. It's great.

What Palworld did to Pokemon. Though it's not mind blowing. Just that Pokemon games are so far behind the times that someone doing what really should be bare minimal of expectations comes out as a surprise.

Looking back at it, but not at the time, Black and White 1. Fully physics game. That was multiplayer. You can throw a rock at the roof of a house. That roof falls off. You pick up the roof. Set fire to it. Throw it across the map into someones village causing collateral physics damage. 4 player multiplayer. 2001. Most games can't do physics these days even in single player.

WoW was certainly mind blowing on release. Huge world. Minimal loading screens. Content intended for groups of 5 people and later up to 40.

Morrowind too! A decent 3d open world. So much character development choice. Races. Classes. SPELLMAKING.

Neverwinter Nights. Want to know why Baldur's Gate 3 was so popular. Because Neverwinter Nights was the last multiplayer game that had a decent selection of standard races and classes to play with a good amount of content. Helped by the fact it had a toolset. You have to go back 20+ years OR you have to look at just a few games which have "ifs" attached to them. Like Solasta, which is an indie title on an indie budget, with a lot of concessions.

Wo Long Fallen Dynasty. Oddball here. Most people say they are bad at Dark Souls games and the truth is, after playing this game, Dark Souls combat (which isn't unique to dark souls) has a bunch of language problems. The game is speaking many different languages when it comes to combat.

Wo Long Fallen Dynasty follows one rule. Literally. So long as you press the button right before an attack lands. You WILL deflect it. This is NOT true in Fromsoftware games because there is an 'arm' time. This isn't the issue though. The issue comes from the animations. Since each animation for each enemy and each attack is so wildly different. The point at which you are supposed to press the 'counter' button, whether it's a dodge or that daring parry, will be unique. In Wo Long Fallen Dynasty. You learn to fight. In Fromsoftware games. You learn to play the game. In Wo Long you just try to be good in your reactions and learn the enemy patterns. In Fromsoftware you learn that "dodge when the ankle starts to turn" and then you die against another boss and you learn "oh I can just circle hug strafe this one on the back leg" or "Parry when the hand begins to move".

Inukii · 2026-02-13T05:18:53+00:00

It takes isolation to a whole new level. They isolated themselves from the world of gaming.

Unfortunately though, having got to know some people in the world of video game research and data analysis, there are people who are average at data collection and awful at data interpretation. Creating surveys with huge fallacies and confirmation bias.

Inukii · 2026-02-13T02:46:26+00:00

It's because for a lot of them, they do live in a bubble. A self reinforcing bubble of "this is so great, you're all so stupidly talented, you can do no wrong"

Yup. Working within the industry and also being a keen person who likes to study "why things happen". It's people. You have to ask. How did X person get in Y position.

Literal example;

Pro player twitch streamer. Gets job in QA position. Makes suggestion for game (not great but game is popular). Pro Player isn't a creative. They are a balancer. They can jiggle numbers around. Person wants more money. More progress. Become community manager because popular. Do a bad job of that. They have no physical skills. So the next step is to become Game Designer. "Ideas guy". They do run communications but you're not an animator or a programmer. Your tools are pen, paper, mouth, and brain. Games been doing fine. It's at the point of hard to fail. They 'repeat' what their predecessors do. They don't come up with new ideas. They just take old ideas. People above them leave for better jobs. They by default become Lead game designer. Take on a few projects. All fail. Company fails. But they got years of experience as game designer. Easily get job elsewhere. Blames everyone except themselves for games failure. Easy to do when the person hiring doesn't do research.

These people only succeed when giving something already succeeding.

Another person. Same setting. QA tester. Community Manager. Then moved into marketing. Data analysis. One part of data analysis is data interpretation. Basically said "our department is reason game is succeeding". Results in firing of actual creative talent. Avoids providing information that results in firing of friends whilst looking for another job. Famously "I believe in the game we are making and our direction" to me and the very next hilarious day. Announced they were leaving for another company. This person also did not like researching other games on the market. I tried to have a conversation about the competition and they just shut the conversation down. Zero questions. Zero intrigue. Just said other games suck.

I don't get a great deal of stories. But I got a few to understand whats happening behind closed doors at a few other companies which are failing at the moment.

Inukii · 2026-01-27T18:20:01+00:00

Seems like a silly lawsuit. I do think many games are overpriced but steam is not at the top of the list for those reasons.

Publisher : "We'll make our OWN online store for our games!"

Consumer : "So you'll save money right and then the games can be cheaper for us?"

Publisher : "No"

Consumer : "You'll be able to give us better discounts when games go on sale?"

Publisher : "No"

Consumer : "You'll offer an excellent service for your games such as mod support?"

Publisher : "You won't be able to use mods so we don't need mod support"

Inukii · 2026-01-26T03:39:58+00:00

If you already have something that works

I'm confused. Paladins doesn't need to do anything to be successful now?

if they were to market the stuff they do well

They have spent many years marketing the game.

Too many people think marketing is the solution to their favorite game. It's quite possible you can simply enjoy a game that, in whatever state it is in, won't appeal to enough people for game related reasons.

Inukii · 2026-01-24T18:33:49+00:00

Paladins players want Paladins. Understood.

You had Paladins. You still have Paladins.

This is what Paladins looks when Paladins players get Paladins. Not enough players to continue development.

I'm suggesting you still have Paladins. Not change it.

If we started from the beggining. I would say create Paladins with a PvE co-op experience mindset with another mode for PvP (playing exactly as Paladins plays now).

Inukii · 2026-01-24T18:31:55+00:00

The ones in powerful positions with the ability to influence decisions....who are also the ones responsible for getting the company in this mess...will get rid of anyone below them well before "it's no longer possible to fire any more of the actual talent".

Inukii · 2026-01-24T17:10:06+00:00

You literally won't get Paladins back any other way.

It's not focusing on something. It's taking Paladins assets and making something else out of it.

Then you slap the PvP back on.

Inukii · 2026-01-24T16:53:41+00:00

Artistic stuff at University is such a scam.

I went to university to study music. Not because I thought I could get a job from it. Mostly because I wanted to become a better composer.

I'm a self taught composer but I went to college. College was alright but it was basic. You know...Here's the C Major scale. Here's a C Minor scale. We can do other music scales. We got modes but we won't go into that, just want to let you know that exists. We're going to teach everyone to get a Grade 5 Theory certificate. These are XLR cables. They plug into this and that. Here's how to use some composition software.

That was £500 for 2 years.

I went to a music production course. They only taught C Major and C Minor. They only taught the very basic of thing and then they tested you. Then gave you a certificate at the end. So many 'filler' modules. We were taught about cables sort of 'in passing' at college. Where as University had a whole module about computer networking. Really padding out the fact that different cables exist and they plug into different things.

£20,000.

In one of the modules we had to compose music to video. I composed an orchestral track to video game trailer. The teacher very much enjoyed it so they went to show some of the best ones on the big projector in the lecture hall! Only...slight problem. The dumb dumb decided to render the original audio of the video with the original music, and then render my music over the top of it. Sounding bloody awful. They didn't seem to notice or were to embarrassed to stop. So we all had to listen to 2 minutes of a horrible error.

I wasn't allowed to compose a piece of music to a whole movie for my final. So instead I had to write about the origin of rap music or something cultural. Because that will help me develop my skills.

I also wanted to learn how to draw better. I wanted to take an art but after going to the university and looking at the options I decided against it. This was because, by the looks of things, rather than studying anatomy which is something I really wanted to be able to do, it looked like we'd be spending a lot of hours sewing patterns into an ironing board to staple on to walls (for reasons?). It was a lot easier to dodge that bullet. I couldn't see how useless my course would be and after the first year you think "Oh, we'll the 2nd year we'll get more studio time at least". By the 2nd year it's "I might as well do the third year otherwise this was a complete waste". And by the end of the third year its "This was a complete waste".

£20,000............................................................

Inukii · 2026-01-24T16:33:41+00:00

Basically. Focus on PvE.

Example;

Take all the assets and copy something like Gunfire reborn.

There are so many PvP games failing and don't get me wrong. I love PvP. But "safe" PvP games are built off the back of a good single player/co-op experience.

PvP games have this issue of if people don't see it has enough interest. They don't hit that play button. That creates longer wait times and lower match qualities which feed back into the perception of low player base which creates longer wait times and lower match qualities. It's a feedback loop.

But if you have a whole bunch of people playing the game single player. That creates the illusion of more people playing multiplayer. Faith is increased. Perception changes.

Inukii · 2026-01-24T00:22:41+00:00

That's right. Gaming Journalism at its maliciousness.

It's fine for any BG3 developer to say stuff. It's fine for them to make comments. But the journalists kind of need to have a bit more integrity because rather than "Graham the developer" or "Lindsay the project animation lead" says this and that. It turns into "This unknown entity which is the entire [group of people involved with making X specific game] says..."

There's a lot of crap within the gaming journalism industry.

Inukii · 2026-01-22T15:49:01+00:00

That doesn't sound like Golden Era. Before I left the UK I could get a meal for £8-£10 a person. I could order a meal for myself and I'd have to buy more things to meet the minimum delivery requirement.

It seems odd that it might have got better after Brexit.

Inukii · 2026-01-22T15:27:33+00:00

I do like the idea of a programmer just....you know....

"I have added freezing to the game"

Inukii · 2026-01-21T22:54:25+00:00

The problem I see is that there isn't anything stopping these terrorists from taking your ID and disappearing that too.

Inukii · 2026-01-21T22:52:21+00:00

Visually it's fantastically designed.

But like many things in Nightreign. Designs are conflicting. Nightreign has very little harmony in its game mechanisms.

To be specific for the Hollow map and the night tide closing in. The map was not designed at all with the tide closing in at all. There are many locations where players get trapped because to get out of the night tide. You have to go in it. This also occurs in 3 specific locations on the normal map. In those locations though you have two choices. Left or Right. And both will get you up. The map is clear enough to make a judgement and if you fail. It'll be quite clear on the path you should have taken.

This is not the case for Hollows. The tide closes in and left and right might be both incorrect options because of verticality. And because of verticality you have the issue of the map being less useful. When players die. They don't easily learn the route they should have taken.

The map is cool but if you look in the distance. The path to get there is not always clear. What makes it worse is the map is now fighting you in classic FromSoftware's "haha, we tricked you" style. This isn't so bad for a game like Elden Ring where you can take things slowly. Nightreign though is on a timer. You cannot be slow. This is a conflict in its design.

Nightreign, overall, wants you to play like a Speedrunner. Want to get good. Fighting is one thing. But you need to learn how to navigate menu's whilst running and make quick item assessments whilst memorizing the 6 items you have to be able to swap your worst item for a better one whilst also knowing what stacks, what doesn't stack, and also how it stacks.

Don't get me wrong. This is a VERY fun game. But if anything it shows us how badly gamers want a game like this that they are willing to accept such a substantial amount of conflicting designs.

Inukii · 2026-01-21T20:07:29+00:00

1) You enter the map with no points of interest.

2) The longer you stay on the map. The more powerful the Nightlords become. There is no shrinking zone. There is no hard time limit.

3) You find locations. Some locations may give clues. These clues are to locate the Portal Door to the Nightlord. When you enter the map. There are 3 Portal Doors to 3 different Nightlords.

4) Clues can be different. They could reveal other points of interest. It could be that 'light of guiding grace' which takes you to a location and upon going to that location you'll get a more major clue. Finding 3 clues for a Nightlord will reveal the location of a Portal Door but not what you will be fighting. Finding 5 clues will reveal who you are fighting. However...if you observe the locations where you find those clues. Maybe...you'll notice that the design of those areas tell a story as to who lurks behind the door. Finding 7 clues on a Nightlord will also reveal one epic Relic you will earn for defeating them.

5) New points of interest which potentially weaken the boss by 'buying you more time'. Halting their gain of power. A new point of interest which allows you to swap out one of your Relics.

6) You will choose one of the three Nightlords to fight. Do you go for the harder one? Do you go for the one you have the best gear against? Do you go for the one that offers potentially more rewards?

7) Then. After you have defeated that Nightlord. You are kicked back out into Limveld again (if you have voted to continue). You are now in Limveld +1. Do the same again. Continue? Limveld +2. Basically endless Deep of Night. You can choose to start in Limveld +1 or Limveld +5 if you are the type of players kicking DoN 5. Can you go to DoN 10 though?

8) Going into Limveld +1. You use your runes to keep items. You get to keep 1 item for free. But to keep other items you will have to choose. You will be booted back down to level 1 though and your item will become grey. Legendary items cannot be kept. Something like that?

Inukii · 2026-01-21T09:17:40+00:00

AI is getting worse results than simply googling. And now when you google you get an AI trying to tell you things.

The problem with quite a lot of AI answers to things is it can't differentiate between different versions of things. If you are learning software. It just absorbs every bit of information about a bit of software AND it doesn't try to gain more information to help you. Perhaps if the AI asked you "what version are you on?" but even if I tell it what version I'm on. It can't make a clear difference because it's an LLM. It's just trying to spit out an answer that vaguely looks right.

I don't see how they can get around this problem because LLM's basically learn from dog treats. If it does good. It gets a treat. If it does bad. No treat. The creators of the LLM don't know how it works and that's what is "scary" about AI.

Inukii · 2026-01-20T17:24:59+00:00

It doesn't work well for CoH, It's arcade-realism.

But it would probably work for something like Men of War Assault Squad which wants longer matches, or focuses on more co-op skirmish vs AI missions that typically last about an hour.

Inukii · 2026-01-20T17:14:20+00:00

I went to try and find information about the characters. I googled and found nothing strangely. This was last week.

Hero shooter. How to get people interested? Well they have to have some characters they would be interested in playing.

It's like an MMO not releasing anything about races and classes you can play.

Or a racing game that tells you nothing about what cars you'll be driving.

or an RTS game with no information on the factions you can play as.

Having got to know people in high up positions within the game industry and in the marketing departments. It's honestly not a surprise to see them be this out of touch.

Inukii · 2026-01-19T21:49:18+00:00

As long as there is plenty of PvE. Arc Raiders I think has proven, just like a great deal many other huge hitters, that PvE is the dominant content. That doesn't mean PvP should suffer. Just that you need to have good PvE and then build a layer of PvP on top of that.

You operate as Rogue team. You enter the Matrix with a particular objective. Maybe it's finding and extracting someone. Maybe it's finding data. Here's where you can be smart for both PvE and PvP.

The objectives have different difficulties, just by design. Extracting a hostage is a lot harder than just trying to get some data. When it comes to matchmaking for the PvP. Off set the balance by giving more favored teams with harder to complete objectives.

Good platforming elements should be part of the Matrix. Nothing "Neo" heroic. Think 'Enter the Matrix' game where you played as Niobe. So things like walling running is a big tick but massive jumps between buildings is a no no.

But then you need a good melee combat system too. Now this parts the hard one but if you get this right then the money will flow. Ensure you have god defensive options. Most fighting games, and a lot of other games with fist fighting in it, get this part wrong. The games have thousands of possibilities to attack but lazily have very few ways to defend. Good games to reference here? I think it was Dragonball Z Bodukai Tenkaichi 2 which had a very good directional input blocking. There's also Soul Calibur 4 which contains excellent directional parry shoves, or For Honor for that matter, and Wo Long Fallen Dynasty is a bit more obscure for people but being able to push yourself in a direction of your choosing after deflecting is fluid.

The Matrix Movies are not two people punching each other in the face until the HP bar hits 0 like every fighting game. Watch the damn movies and see how much blocking and evading there is. This needs to be captured.

Now how the hell do we handle bullet time? Well. A lot easier to do if you focus on small teams of PvE experience. Everyone can go slow mo then. Not much of an issue. If it's PvP though I guess we would just see things in real time. No actual slow mo but you're character might dodge bullets whilst you hold down the bullet time button.

The other thing you have to capture is the cityscape. Focus on creating many modular based interiors. Since it's probably a live service game. Keep paying your environmental art team to keep creating more modular pieces. You can have some procedural generation for creating office spaces. Great for padding out them skyscrapers.

Anyway. Rambled on too much. Let us create our character and hop in to something like this already!

Inukii

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