The sudden flood of perfect scores caught FOW and Zeus a little off guard.
Their original plan was for this year to be their year of great success.
After all, "Wasteland 1978" had performed so well before.
Zeus and FOW had originally planned to first create hype, for example, by suggesting that "Wasteland 1978" was likely to win Game of the Year, as its quality certainly had the potential.
When the hype was at its peak again, they could also work on turning "Wasteland 1978" into a bigger franchise, such as by trying to make a movie or TV show out of it.
Of course, they wouldn't start production right away, just build up some buzz, and release some actual information in two or three years.
After all, making a movie or TV show out of a game can be both good and bad.
The good thing is that if it's good, it's icing on the cake.
The bad thing is that it's very difficult to make a good movie or TV show based on a game, and if it's not done well, it can hurt the game itself.
But all of this was based on "Wasteland 1978" having a clear advantage.
But what's happening now?
"The Witcher: Wild Hunt" is getting almost all perfect scores?
Although it's not like "The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild," where almost every game media outlet gave it a perfect score and praised Zack like crazy.
But "The Witcher: Wild Hunt" is also getting incredibly high scores.
Its worldwide media rating is 9.6.
It may seem like it's only 0.3 higher than "Wasteland 1978," but this is the overall score from all the media outlets.
That's a pretty big difference. Alex has been completely focused on the continued success of "Wasteland 1978" recently, so he doesn't know much about the quality of "The Witcher: Wild Hunt."
But as a top-tier game designer, Alex knows very well what perfect and near-perfect scores mean for a game.
First, it means the game is recognized by mainstream game media and players, and that the game has done something exceptionally well in a certain area, or has even created a new area.
Second, the game either has a major innovation in how it's played, or it has a very deep story.
And as a game industry designer, Alex knows that masterpieces are becoming rarer as the game industry evolves.
For example, some early masterpieces aren't that fun to play by today's standards.
They were more of a breakthrough for the game industry at the time, such as games that defined the PC 3D game era and VR game control schemes, camera angles, and so on.
Or games that created the First Person Shooter and Role Playing Game genres, which are so old that even new gamers haven't heard of them.
After all, game design ideas and quality are constantly improving. When people say older games are more classic and better, they're usually talking about the settings, stories, and gameplay frameworks.
Few players talk about the overall direction and visual details, because these are the product of technological and industry experience, and later games will definitely be better.
But this time, "The Witcher: Wild Hunt," a game for all players and media, has gotten almost perfect scores again?
Alex, who thought there was a 99% chance that "Wasteland 1978" would win Game of the Year, suddenly remembered an old Eastern saying he had heard: "If Yu is here, why bring Liang?"
Since he had already developed "Wasteland 1978" this year, why did Nebula Games have to develop "The Witcher: Wild Hunt"?
While thinking about this, Alex turned on his CosmosVR in his office, contributing to the sales of "The Witcher: Wild Hunt," and prepared to see what makes the game so good, and if he really lost unfairly.
......
While FOW and Alex were feeling depressed, Lucas at Nebula Games was also feeling a bit down.
Mostly because players were pointing the finger at him again.
The biggest feature of "The Witcher: Wild Hunt" is the morally challenging trolley problem choices.
There are no perfect choices, and there is always some regret.
For example, in the Bloody Baron's story, although the Baron's family isn't very good from a character perspective, and their ranking from worst to not-so-bad is probably Daughter > Anna > Baron.
But in the game, the Baron is a victim to some extent. Moreover, Raven Nest becomes worse when the sergeant manages it after the Baron leaves. It becomes a place more poor people suffer, and even where women are forced into marriage.
This shows that when the Baron was still there, the people were actually better off.
So this makes many players want the Baron to live, at least to give him a chance.
However, this ending comes at the cost of the lives of innocent war orphans, and this difficult choice makes many players feel conflicted.
Not to mention the series of side quests later on, and the need to choose between Triss and Yennefer.
Although the game doesn't have many sad moments, the only one is the death of Vesemir. As for Crach an Craite, the old Skellige leader who helps Geralt, he's killed off by Eredin in one hit. It's a terrible end but he is not in the game that much and it's late in the game, so most players don't really remember him much.
In addition, most of the other important characters can avoid tragic endings if you choose the right options in their quests, but the difficult choices still lead many players to complain about Lucas on the official blog.
However, Lucas is somewhat pleased that, in addition to the complaints, there are also many people standing up for him and speaking on his behalf.
It doesn't matter what the ratio is, as long as there are some!
However, as players complained, some of their focus gradually shifted. They realized that Lucas's games were gradually becoming a little dark and twisted.
"Everyone, stop complaining about Boss Lucas. Is the Warrior of Love playing with us? What I'm more worried about is that Boss Lucas's game style is getting darker and darker!"
"Whoa, now that you mention it, it really seems that way!"
"Thinking about it, it really is like that! Between 'Resident Evil' and 'Bloodborne,' 'Hades' also has weird and strange monsters. Now 'The Witcher: Wild Hunt' has nightwraiths, ghouls, and drowners!"
"I didn't think about it before, but now that you mention it, I'm actually a little scared. Some of the enemies in Boss Lucas's previous games were barely okay, but now they're all demons and monsters!"
Players online discussed this, but they didn't expect Lucas to actually respond to them.
(End of Chapter)
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