But yeah also worth mentioning that updates are also more effective for perpetual play experiences over say, linear narratives.

We Need To Go Deeper definitely got more legs out of years of updates as a multiplayer roguelike, since replayability is kind of exponential there. But it was also a hit.

No shade to the dev at all, if it works for them it works for them! It just didn’t pan out well for any of our games that didn’t already sell well to begin with!

I guess we’ll see if it works out for us but yeah I just don’t know if I agree from our own experiences that updating games that sell poorly necessarily helps them sell better 😬

We only got out okay because the small scale HSH was a cult hit, and now we’re trying the community thing but focused on the same niche instead of forever-updates, though we did update HSH with one free update and then paid DLC and it only paid off because we had ground to stand on.

I understand the sentiment of building goodwill with an existing audience to keep the long tail going, but in my experience that only works for games that have a decently sized audience to begin with?

Camp Canyonwood sold poorly, then we did a year of free updates… and still it sold poorly.

It’s like - ya know if it’s just a happier atmosphere at work this kind of happens by default.

But we can’t have THAT, so we get this vibe instead:

Seriously! It’s such a layered experience that has a really great understanding of each medium’s strength. I think it being such a multimedia experience additionally highlights choices to BE interactive because it selectively chooses, at times, to be a passive experience. It’s so smart.

Cameos/references of past Remedy games take on new meaning when they’re recontextualized as being the characters and worlds that would make telling this “big fish” story possible. It’s a game built on the studio’s legacy and they wear that on their sleeve by injecting them directly into the story.

It’s just such an earnest story hitting me at different angles. On one hand it’s a reflection on large scale creative collaboration and the horrifying responsibilities that come with it, but it’s also celebrating the accomplishments of everyone they’ve worked with and the feat of its own existence?

Okay someone tell me how 24 hours later this game has me crying on my couch just thinking about it. This is not a common occurrence, what the actual fuck Remedy. You’ve broke me.

Sometimes I have a fan art piece that needs to purge itself from my system before I can be normal again.

I did! I marathoned them both for spooky season, though 2 was longer so it bled into November a bit. Loved them both! Agreed though they NAILED the vibe.

I want to live in the Pacific Northwest so bad 😣

Now I finally understand why!

I can already tell I’m gonna be a bit insufferable about this one. 😅

👀👀👀