vanquesse

quarterly reports of MAU for blizz went from 45mil at OW2 launch to 27mil to 26mil and the last one has 10mil diablo 4 players. It may not be dead but it’s hemorrhaging players like there’s no tomorrow.

Launch quarter for OW2 also had a wow expansion launch but it sounds like it was mostly bought by the smaller, core fanbase who have kept playing. Either way, adding 10mil MAU in Q2 and not being able to get the number above Q1 via a new game does not speak well of their retention.

It seems to be more or less on life support now. Recycled battlepasses, not a lot of fresh content, slow rollout of promised features. Still, you can have a lot of fun with that game if you’ve never played it before.

Two Worlds 2 had a very interesting idea for a magic system where you find cards and slot them to create and modify spells. It’s pretty jank but maybe worth a look. The game also had one of the most interesting multiplayer setups for open world rpgs I’ve ever seen.

If you have the steam version of Skyrim it’s very simple to get running.
https://store.steampowered.com/developer/SureAI/#browse has both versions (depending on if you have the launch version or special/anniversary edition). Also found here is Nehrim, their total conversion mod for Oblivion

I would argue that the problem with gaming on android isn’t as much the quality of the games as it is the quality of google play.

Most games on the platform are not something I’m interested in, and while that goes for any platform google aggressively don’t care about my preferences and would rather use most of the available space for ads instead. Sure, it has an algorithm suggesting stuff to you, but when “no” isn’t an answer the algorithm isn’t really useful to me (which is by design). There’s no search for tags, no way to filter and even searching for the exact title of a game will present you with several other games before the real result shows up.

It also doesn’t help that the ratings system is terrible. When (almost) every game has a 4.1 rating it isn’t really of much use.

Halls of Torment is probably my favorite “clone”. Feels like “Vampire Survivors, but Diablo”.
Soulstone Survivors is also pretty good.

The destruction of queer rights in the US will harm me regardless of me ever setting foot in the country.

Twitter hired a well liked (in that industry) ad exec. I think she started in early June. I’m guessing her credibility and connections are at least partially responsible for the increase.

“Path of Achra” for a pretty traditional roguelike that focuses on short runs and setting up “broken builds”. Highly rated and pretty cheap.

“Halls of Torment” It’s vampire survivors x diablo. My favorite of the genre beside the “original”. Not sure how hidden it is though.

“Stone Story RPG” Not really sure how to describe this one. ASCII art sorta-idle game?

“Siralim Ultimate” mystery dungeon type monster rearing rpg with some wild synergies and buildcrafting. Tonnes of ways to “break the game”

There’s bound to be a few uncracked eggs out there about to feel some strange emotions over a little indie platformer.