I played the demo for Shadow Tactics. It was too stressful for me (lacked an active pause), but it seemed like a quality game and was historical enough. No garish colors or magic skeletons. Later on I played the demo for Desperados III. It had an active pause and I liked it a lot, bought it, haven't gotten around to it in the queue just yet (I'll be using the LONERIDER code to get to where I left off). Once again, no garish colors or magic skeletons (apparently there's a voodoo character later on? That's not too out-of-place, being rooted in folklore).
So what if they're not 100% historical? You're using that annoying wordcel argument that progs do when they pick apart tiny exceptions and go "and that's why you shouldn't complain when we do whatever the hell we want." Mimimi acknowledged in a couple of dev diaries that Shadow Tactics was a radical departure from what they did before
https://www.shadowgambit.com/why-shadow-gambit-the-cursed-crew-had-to-be-a-pirate-game-dev-diary-1/ https://www.shadowgambit.com/why-sh...so-different-from-desperados-iii-dev-diary-3/
So not historical. Thank you. For a moment I though you wanted to have a conversation about back when a ninja teamed up with two girls and an old fart with a trained raccoon
in the Edo period Japan. I can work with "grounded" or "realistic".
Sorry you're being upset about me wanting to stick to definitions, but right back at you: twisting words to fit an agenda is exactly the "enemies of mankind" are doing.
No argument that there's been a departure in style. My previous post says just that. Not going for grounded and realistic doesn't mean it's now "woke" or "dangerhair".
Going all reee: there's a melanin-positive womyn on the game cover, that's disgusting - is also exactly what the "enemies of mankind" are doing.
You dislike a creative decision they took, that's fair. No need to be a dick about it.
https://www.shadowgambit.com/why-sh...so-different-from-desperados-iii-dev-diary-3/
It was a terrible risk that did not pay off, they just did this thing without thinking or any market research that would tell them that a good chunk of their audience would be disgusted and just nope out.
The decision to wrap up the studio has already been made, from what I read in their statement, so not sure if "paying off" was even a factor for them.
Perhaps they still chalk it up as a win if it's a game they wanted to make, which they admitted.
Your gut feeling is right. This genre is slow burn when it comes to sales. A lot of people aren't really looking to play a commandos clone after a commandos clone after a commandos clone.
(this also means stats such as peak players don't really mean anything).
Just to wrap it up, disgusted is a strong word to use. I would argue that their core audience knew pretty well what to expect from this developer (and, let me repeat, mechanically - they delivered).
The new IP and a less grounded approach was a hard sell and that's that. No need to push current day politics into this, because it's not even close to being the focus of the game,
no matter how try you want them to be. I object to taking this road, because this shit sours and makes any sort of meaningful discussion impossible.
If you're going to paint Mimimi as full on woke advocates who recently took a U turn from being all kosher... they're not.
They already did strong female characters in their previous games. They also did female protagonists, c.f the first DLC to Shadow Tactics called Ako's Choice.
They're not the enemy, and I can't for the life of me fathom why you desperately want them to be.
Without putting words into Infinitron's mouth, I believe that's what he meant when he said you've (and not just you) lost the plot and it's hard for me not to agree.
