I wish companies could do genuinely good things like release big games on more platforms, without everyone’s response being hand-wringing about what bad things it might mean for their own hardware.

Especially when it’s Microsoft, whose Xbox platform already extends into this tiny other thing people might have heard of, called Windows… I think they’ll be ok, somehow.

I’m more interested in this being FH5, which is just switching into a kind of maintenance mode, where weekly activity playlists repeat instead of doing new things, and both of those before there’s even talk about FH6. Adding significant new players to FH5 now seems an interesting choice.

Seems like a strange problem. I’d suggest playing more different games, and focusing on getting your hands in tune with the specific game rather than the type of game or perspective, and being more aggressive about remapping controls to fit how you want to play.

I switch games a lot and don’t generally have issues settling into a game just because its controls are off from another game, but if a dev puts something common somewhere weird, I’m absolutely going to move it to one of the places I expect it to be.

Combat Complex

Twin-stick shooter against various bugs and robots with some ARPG gearing, and the action here is fantastically tight with probably three key factors:

• Enemies target you but hit each other, so you manage their attacks to help your fighting instead of just staying out of trouble.
• “Frenzy” orb pickups, which act a bit like combo meter fuel except instead of chaining hits you make frequent choices about whether an orb drop is worth chasing, keeping you close to danger.
• Instant gun switching with overheating instead of reloading, so you fight hard and switch constantly between your three guns to keep any one from overheating while getting the best out of their specific properties.

I play a lot of twin-stick and top-down shooters, and this does a great job mixing the arcade twin-stick feel of high intensity fending off a swarm with tactical top-down dungeon crawling elements, and it’s just really special feeling to play. The core action feels not just well designed but like it was made just for me, and I’m genuinely glad someone made it (or is making it, since it’s early access). Plus, it’s extraction style instead of being a roguelite, so you’re always right at the best action while still getting procedural levels, so each run is a little different.

I used to be very patientgamer, but my patience model changed after finding again and again that buying late meant devs had wholly moved on from a game by the time I got it, and would hardly ever do basic needed fixes, things that needed to have been talked about earlier in the project. I also noticed how some early access sales would take years for the price to go up and then back down again for what amounted to only a few dollars of savings. Savings that, as I watch games I’m interested in fail in obscurity over and over, I don’t feel quite right about strictly withholding from the few devs taking chances on such projects for me, on top of not being around to try and help the project deliver a better game to players.

So, now I do buy some games in early access or even newly released, where I can poke the dev while they are still around, and my patience includes waiting for games to get through those after-buying growing pains instead of just waiting for them to drop into the discount bins, mostly forgotten by their devs and players both.

I’m still generally more strictly price-patient on most anything larger scale, both by devs and by audience.