Also one must consider the likes of Hideo Kojima who can sell ~7 million copies of a new IP that is effectively a cinematic Walking Simulator as an Auteur acrimoniously splitting from the traditional studio system.
Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 also shipped over 5.4 million copies as a AA, in what is also arguably an interactive cinematic on-rails RPG.
God of war is plainly movie on rails compared to E33
Yeah, he split from the traditional studio system to create... his own traditional studio system.
Kojima is precisely what happens when you stop thinking of games as actual an interactive entertainment format and start thinking of it as a "cinematic experience" instead.
Death Stranding is only a game by the narrowest of margins. What it is is a movie with Kojima's Spotify 'favourites' list as the soundtrack that so happens to have one interactive element or two thrown in there for good measure.
It's pretty telling that all he's done after splitting away from Konami and surrounding himself with his own sycophantic group of developers is Death Stranding. Kojima is the direct result and pretty much the face of a lot that is wrong with the games industry right now.
And for Western devs, we have Rockstar doing that. RDR2 is a wonderful movie, but a pretty poor game. Unfortunately, they forgot what medium they were working with.
It's a decent movie, yeah.
> ... but a pretty poor game.
I disagree.
> Unfortunately, they forgot what medium they were working with.
I strongly disagree.
You didn't like what RDR2 was doing, and that's fine. I had a blast with it, but I'm the kind of psycho that loves games whose big thing is traversing gorgeous terrain. Similarly, there are games that people absolutely adore that I absolutely cannot see the point of.
I strongly disagree. I'd say that Death Stranding has an incredible open world "sandbox", rivaling the ones of GTA. I can spend dozens of hours there without worrying about the campaign - it's not a Hollywood movie.
Perhaps you are mistaking them with Ubisoft's open world games? or describing another installment of Life is Strange?
I can't even entertain this notion, never mind agree with it. Death Stranding and its sequel are among the best games I've ever played, and I've played several hundred, maybe thousands of games spanning every decade and genre.
Man, the sequel made the combat totally trivial. I'm at the sequel's "Episode 10", and I've the opinion that DS2 took nearly everything that anyone ever complained about in Death Stranding and made it effectively optional. I don't like the decision, but I'm still enjoying the game.
> yeah the game has long cinematic cutscenes...
It really wouldn't be a Kojima game without them!
that said especially the ending is such a unique experience i cant say i didnt have a great time anyways
In regards to vehicles: there was exactly one location that I couldn't drive the truck to... but I pretty quickly got the upgrade to the truck that let me drive it there. :/
In DS1, I regretted building the roads because of how they mostly eliminated the need to walk around. Going into DS2, I'd assumed that refusing to build the roads would have made me spend way more time on foot, but, nope! Should they ever make a third, I do hope that they put the walking back into the game.