Its been a while since we have had any sort of gaming discussion, and with a new year, I figured it may be fun to see what are the games people are most looking forward to. For me:
Victoria 3: Probably the most hyped I have been for a game in a long time, and so far the dev AAR and diaries have showed that its coming along pretty well, short of some balancing and stability (they have had an issue with the last few games of the AI going full chaos when it wasnt supposed to). But other than that, everything about it has been exactly what I wanted, and looks like it is a pretty major step in a positive direction for Paradox games.
Kerbel Space Program 2: Loved the first game, and it looks like KSP 2 is just going to be more but better.
Elden Ring: Me and everyone else I am sure, but still looks like it could be a very fun time. FromSoftware don't miss, and it looks like it will continue their trend as long as you are willing to git gud.
Frostpunk 2: The original is one of my favorite games of all time, so you better believe I am interest. Unfortunately, not much is known about this one other than it will take place about 30 years after the first game, and that the main conflict will revolve around oil instead of coal.
Two Points Campus: A throwback to the old, silly tycoon games, which I loved growing up. And I enjoyed their other game (Two Points Hospital), so it looks like this one is shaping up to follow the same ideal.
Well shows you how much it really doesnt stand out, at least to me. Because I am only just now learning this (which one BTW?).
Sticking to strategy and totally new IP:
Age of Darkness: Final Stand: Takes the style of They Are Billions, but improves it in just about every way, with a better gameplay loop and some more strategy for dealing with the Nightmares compared to TABs zombies (basically, there is a day/night cycle where Nightmares are tougher at night but can drop rare loot).
Call to Arms, and Gates of Hell: Ostfront: Putting them together because Ostfront is technically a paid expansion to Call to Arms, but absolutely worth it. Both are made by the devs of the Men of War games, and so are supposed to be "realistic" RTS games, as in your guys with rifles arent going to kill a tank. CTA is modern military/War On Terror era stuff, while GOH is Russian Front WW2.
Iron Harvest: Literally WW1, Dieselpunk Company of Heroes. Walkers were invented instead of tanks, and each faction plays significantly different from each other, so you can hop around and actually have a different experience. The campaign is also pretty good.
Also not a strategy game, but I love Project Wingman, which is a love letter to Ace Combat and improves on the best aspects of the game and even fixes some things from AC. Its also got a story worthy of its master, and there too in some ways passes it.
Behemoth, the chick with the man face. Although an internet search tells me it was a friend of the lead dev, and also that they pulled up at the last second and made the character fully female due to feedback from Beta backers like myself. There was mixed pronoun dialog for this character still at launch, and apparently that got cleaned up at some point post launch. So I guess that's a win and I didn't even know we'd won it. Nice.
Iron Harvest is in the humble right now, and Age of Darkness has the best pitch of the three. I'll grab one of those after I wrap up with Rogue Lords, thanks for the suggestions.
See, I always thought Behemoth was just a very butch woman. Sure, she had a deeper voice and tougher build than you would normally expect, but I just wrote it off as "Of course she does, she is a Mechwarrior." I guess I didnt hear about that whole situation and since it seems like it never made it to the launch thing, I didnt even know.
And I hope you like Age of Darkness. While I still like TAB, there is just a certain character to AOD that TAB just doesnt have and I cant really explain it. I also think the whole "Expand by day, hunt by night, prepare for the Death Night wave" flows a lot better and more naturally, so it makes it simultaneously easier and harder. Mostly because your best units are melee instead of ranged, so it forces you to get in close, while TAB was just about setting up a gun line and hoping you had enough DPS.