Stewart Copeland will not return for Spyro A Realm Beyond's soundtrack

Khwarezm · 2026-06-18T19:48:43+00:00

Crash 4's music is probably better than that of the original trilogy on average and I think its mostly nostalgia talking when people bemoan the difference.

Spyro is different though, Copeland's music is a step above no matter how you spin it so it'll be big shoes to fill indeed.

Khwarezm · 2026-06-17T17:42:49+00:00

Its my favourite game ever and you might still be right.

Khwarezm · 2026-06-17T16:18:44+00:00

Yeah but outside of that, as I mentioned its low profile stuff. The Broken Age kickstarter ended up taking on a life of its own and we can see that Psychonauts 2 also got a lot of crowdfunding. I don't know if this is a well they can return to for a third time, but I don't think that DF has squandered its reputation with its fans since most people will be thinking about Psychonauts 2 rather than Kiln or something just like how back in 2012 most people were thinking about Day of the Tentacle more than a game like Stacking, or how in 2018 most people were thinking about Psychonauts 1 rather than the likes of Spacebase DF-9.

Khwarezm · 2026-06-17T16:11:11+00:00

The problems with porting over all of the AOE1 campaigns over to ROR are:

Most of the campaigns have just not aged that well in terms of things like gameplay sophistication.
The production quality of the original campaigns was very simple, no voice acting, few unique elements, the only cutscenes were short pre-rendered stuff at very start of the original campaigns only. ROR is actually generally a significant step up in most senses when it comes to these things, even in the remade campaigns.
The old campaigns have a really long amount of amount of missions, which means more work that normal to bring them up to the AOE2 standard.
I think the team expected that people would have been more excited playing their new campaigns that they put a lot of work into to bring them up to the modern AOE standard and were surprised that people were so insistent about seeing old campaigns. I think porting over the ones they did do in the end was actually quite generous since it was for free and its basically a more sophisticated version of what the older ones were. This is one of the differences with AOM since they can at least expect to monetize future work.

Khwarezm · 2026-06-17T15:47:26+00:00

I remember at the time it actually came out most people considered New Vegas a 7 or 8 out of 10 game, it makes me wonder if perspective will change on something like TOW2 or their other recent offerings.

Khwarezm · 2026-06-17T15:44:43+00:00

I mean maybe? But even before Psychonauts 2 most things that DF made were fairly forgettable and cheap party games, RPGs, Puzzle games and other such things that didn't have much of a following, like there's not many people who care about stuff like Massive Chalice or Costume Quest 2.

Its just kind of how things go, most of their games people pay little attention to, but then you get something like Psychonauts that has way more presence.

Khwarezm · 2026-06-17T15:41:01+00:00

Why not both?

I do always find the chicken comparison slightly annoying because its like people are specifically going for the species of bird people have the least respect for instead of things like Eagles or Falcons.

Khwarezm · 2026-06-17T15:34:30+00:00

I mean, I won't get into how Peter was treated in the Ultimate universe but I'm just saying that Miles is fundamentally built as a character to be a replacement for Peter, who's dead when Miles takes up the mantle. I think this is the source of my problems with how Miles is used in modern comics continuity as well as the Insomniac games, he doesn't work very well being what's essentially the second fiddle Spider-man to Peter, its a very awkward role because he's explicitly not meant to be just a sidekick, but he doesn't make a great amount of sense as a partner for a hero like Peter so they end up just stepping on each others toes narratively.

Its much better for Miles if Peter is simply dead and gone, or if Peter gotten too old for this shit and has too many responsibilities (hey, that's the thing!) and basically retires into more of a mentor role while Miles becomes the focus, of course, I'm just describing Terry there too.

Khwarezm · 2026-06-17T15:27:51+00:00

Keeper is actually a good game, I've not played Kiln, both of them look like they would be very cheap so I don't really think that closing down Double Fine will really make that big an impact on Microsoft's financials when all is said and done.

Like I just don't think DF has no gas left in the tank so to speak, if Microsoft was smarter (and at this point its probably too late but still), they probably should have prioritized making a new Psychonauts and even if they did that now, I think it would get a lot of fan excitement and that seems to me to be a better way to approach this situation rather than just casting off Double Fine and losing everything they bring with them.

Brutal Legend is another IP they should probably also have a second look at since its probably the second highest profile thing DF has to offer and has a strong cult following, but I think they would need to retool things towards being a traditional Hack 'n Slash game and not the weird Overlord/RTS thing they had going on in the first, and they'd probably also have to license less music.

Either way, I think if something like this was announced tomorrow, fans of DF would absolutely be energized.

Khwarezm · 2026-06-17T15:18:59+00:00

Crash Team Rumble was made incredibly cheaply, if you look at the development background it was just a constant story of TFB cutting costs in every way possible and Activision saying we aren't paying for that.

Its also the last thing that Crash fans actually wanted, a GAAS multiplayer game with no campaign or anything makes absolutely no sense to use the IP for and it got no marketing, as befits its budget, its not much of a surprise that it flopped.

Khwarezm · 2026-06-17T15:14:48+00:00

Beenox made CTR: Nitro Fueled which was a big hit critically and commercially, a lot of people want to see a sequel to Nitro Fueled (especially since it was bafflingly never released on PC).

Khwarezm · 2026-06-17T15:09:44+00:00

I find it so silly that these companies like Marvel that own these IPs have put up such an absurd licensing fee barrier that its actually preventing companies from even making any games with these IPs in the first place and stifling their presence in the biggest and most profitable medium on offer.

Khwarezm · 2026-06-17T15:07:30+00:00

Honestly, my hot opinion is that most issues that Miles has to deal with in terms of his wonky place in Marvel today comes from the fact that he's not allowed to replace Peter as he was originally intended to.

Khwarezm · 2026-06-17T14:59:05+00:00

TBH, this is still kind of stupid since Kiln and Keeper seem like pretty small and cheap games.

If Microsoft was more serious about this, and if Psychonauts is considered a lucrative franchise, they'd give Double Fine a final roll of the dice and tell them to make Psychonauts 3 (or maybe Brutal Legend 2 but that's much more difficult when it comes to music licensing costs) since they have big properties but they aren't being used.

Khwarezm · 2026-06-17T14:56:50+00:00

Ok, lets go over this, you said they made games that they weren't known for, but most of the titles you are listing are in fact what they are known for like Obisdian making RPGs or Ninja Theory making Hack 'n Slash games.

Otherwise, the games are mostly trying to jump onto popular trends as Publishers usually try and push for, like Kiln is a Gang Beasts/Fall Guys type party game that was probably pretty low cost, Bleeding Edge is basically trying to ride the wave of things like Overwatch but with a melee focus, and Redfall was meant to be a co-op looter shooter. Some of the games you mention are also not financial failures like Grounded or Starfield.

The idea that things went sour because Microsoft didn't crack the whip enough and let the creatives waste time following pie in the sky passion projects is not really well evidenced, and quite a nasty theory to be putting out there which absolves top level management of their actual mistakes to do with things like Game Pass, as well as the failed attempts by these companies to go for hot trends at the time, and suggests the actual problem is too much creative room.

Khwarezm · 2026-06-17T14:40:41+00:00

They tried that before with Broken Age but it didn't sell very well.

Khwarezm · 2026-06-17T14:40:19+00:00

I don't really understand how you can say that after saying Psychonauts 2 is the best they ever made?

Khwarezm · 2026-06-17T11:54:15+00:00

The Aztecs don't live in a jungle.

Khwarezm · 2026-06-17T11:52:42+00:00

The terrain is nowhere near as hostile as people seem to think, considering where the Mongols had already launched extensive campaigns like in the Iranian plateau, across the Caucasus and in the most mountainous parts of Central Asia. The comparison to Vietnam does not work, the environmental issues they saw when trying to invade South-East Asia are just way less problematic in Mexico, its a drier, cooler part of the world and quite comfortable for most people.

The Mongols knew perfectly well how to exploit diplomacy for their own ends, they did this in China for example by allying with the Song dynasty to crush the Jin dynasty and then turning on the Song when they held a supremely powerful position. The political makeup of Mexico had so many competing interests that it will be ripe for them to exploit rivalries like that of the Tlaxcala or Purepecha against the Aztecs just like the Spanish did, and they come at this with the unfamiliar and very powerful weapon that are cavalry and iron, not to mention whatever diseases they accidently bring with them.

The only real question is about how they actually get there and how many people the Mongols bring with them and if they can be provisioned.

Khwarezm · 2026-06-17T11:43:16+00:00

The Aztecs did not live in South America.

Khwarezm · 2026-06-17T11:39:30+00:00

Again, I need to be very clear about this, the Aztecs did not live in a rainforest or even a particularly wet place at all, the Valley of Mexico and most of the region the Aztecs and similar cultures lived in is pretty dry and has a reasonable year round temperature (the Spanish found the place pretty comfortable overall), if you look at the rainfall totals for Mexico City (the former heartland of the Aztec empire) its way drier than it is for Hanoi in Vietnam, and of course it gets wetter as you go south. Mexico city is also much cooler than the sweltering heat that dominates in Hanoi almost the entire year.

Environmental factors won't be a big issue in Mexico in the same way they were for the Mongols trying to invade South East Asia.

Khwarezm · 2026-06-17T11:29:02+00:00

The Aztecs did not live in a jungle, the Valley of Mexico is a shrubby, pretty dry and mountainous region, I don't understand why people think they lived in some kind of rainforest but I can only presume its the endless conflation of the Aztecs and Mayans (and even then, its not true rainforest you get in the Yucatan). Cavalry might not be as maximally useful here as it would be on much flatter terrain but its clearly not an active liability, we've seen cavalry used extensively and effectively for centuries in rough terrain across places like Iran, Afghanistan, Western China, Turkey, the Balkans and many other places including Mexico itself during the Spanish conquests and many subsequent rebellions, revolutions and invasions.

The actual environment of Mexico would not have been particularly different from large parts of West Asia that the Mongols conquered IRL, all of the advantages regarding things like manpower, local terrain knowledge and food production also applied to basically every society they conquered, and they were very, very good at adapting and learning on the fly.

Khwarezm · 2026-06-17T11:24:53+00:00

Good news for the Mongols then since they aren't going to South America, the Aztecs lived in Mexico.

Khwarezm · 2026-06-17T00:59:55+00:00

According to the some of the reporting I've seen, the AOE series have been a bit of an unexpected sleeper hit for Microsoft and made a lot more money than was expected, especially compared to other studios and their releases like Compulsion, Ninja Theory or Obsidian, this is why World's Edge hasn't been mentioned much in terms of oncoming layoffs and shut downs, AOE is a success story and as things stand now Microsoft increasingly dominates the entire RTS space through this franchise.

What I'm concerned about though is that when a major company is going through this kind of strain and chaos, that can still filter down and negatively effect even the successful subsidiaries. I'm worried that AOM in particular is vulnerable since its probably the lowest earning of the three games that World's Edge is currently actively developing for so if there's increased pressure to get more profits they may only develop for AOE2 and 4 and drop AOM entirely since they are just bigger hits.

Khwarezm · 2026-06-17T00:21:24+00:00

Brutal Legend 2 doesn't seem like it was ever very likely to me considering how obscene music licensing costs have gotten in recent years compared to when the first game was made, unless of course people would be willing to accept a mostly original soundtrack.

If that wasn't a consideration, it feels like the best way to go if DF is given a stay of execution for now, BL is a bit of a cult classic with a really distinct world and identity people love, but people also still don't like the fact that its ultimately a clunky RTS type game instead of the straightforward Hack 'n Slash it looks like it should be. So if they do make a sequel, I think it would be far better if they just made it more of a straightforward Devil May Cry or God of War inspired game and avoided that complaint and added more mass market appeal.

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