“I was expecting shrinkage after the sale, because that always happens, but not immediately, and honestly not myself because RPS doesn't have an editor at the moment, so without [me] it just won't have editorial leadership. More fool me, eh?”

Arrowhead has less than 100 employees. Helldivers 1 sold much, much less than 2. It has an all-time peak of 6,744 players, and that was seven years ago.

These were the conditions going in. I’m sure they’re trying to scale up and meet the insane demand for bug fixes and content, but that ain’t done in two months. In most respects this is a small developer who hasn’t planned for this kind of popularity.

You can definitely solo a lot of content, if that’s your jam. There’s plenty of vids on YouTube showing this, at the hardest level to boot.

This was the whole ethos of the first Star Wars films - Lucas made a point of getting everything look worn, to the point of having a term for it: the "used universe". Exemplified by C-3PO's whole look, Luke's clothes or even Han Solos's sweaty shirt.

It's a shame he seems to have completely forgotten this when it was time to make the prequels...

Yeah well I tried this yesterday… it did not go well. I somehow clipped through the tank and merged inside it from my pod, the tank unharmed. I couldn’t hurt it from the inside, so I had to try and wiggle myself out. That didn’t work, so I tried calling in my support weapon on the tank in the holes that that would kill it.

It didn’t. It stuck on TOP of the tank (my teammates were laughing heartily at my situation at this point, and gleefully told me this). Finally I gave up and asked my team to kill it. It took a first hit, and I then got out somehow! And then I was immediately crushed beneath its treads.

I made sure to land well away from it the next time.

Yeah, clearly offering more ways to legitimately purchase their content is predatory… Stellaris is EIGHT years old at this point, it’s hard to find another single player game that’s still supported and updated as well. Every dlc also brings a free update, so all owners benefit.

I think I saw an ad for this when it came out, but I thought it was some multiplayer hero shooter thing, which doesn’t interest me.

Maybe not release it in-between BG3 and Starfield would have been better, hey?

His understanding of global security is that of a low-level mobster, who thinks alliances are a protection racket. What does that tell you about him?

It would, except they transferred all story-related items, regardless of whether the quest was finished or not, including some equipment and alchemy item, and IN BAGS for some reason. It made a whole mess of my MC's inventory whenever I swapped my party around.

Shogo

Firewatch
Well-made story-focused, no combat whatsoever. Very few puzzles, almost exclusively about exploring.

What Remains of Edith Finch
More "puzzley", but lets you discover things at your own pace.

The Eurogamer forum was my place in the early noughties. The forum was suddenly shut down in late 2021, removing about 20 years of discussions.