4/25/2023 0 Comments Sword coast legends mods camera![]() If Digital Extremes does this, it’s a losing proposition (financially) and without modding tools being available on consoles, there won’t even be a community around to bring the game back to life, or even help it limp along. Now, they’re saying it will still launch on PS4 and XB1 which seems like a terrible idea. The game had huge performance issues at launch, sound issues, poor voice acting, and lots of other rough edges. I know we see this a lot in the PC gaming space, but it shouldn’t be something we’d expect from a AAA development team wielding the might of the D&D brand. Let’s face it, SCL should have been an early access title if they were going to launch it in the state they did. Yeah it’s cliche to blame the corporate overlords, but I’m being realistic. I guess all my guesses point back to Hasbro. Other speculation might include internal pressure to please the folks at Hasbro, or that Hasbro had given them a hard deadline up front. I’m really, really hoping that the studio didn’t put all of their dragon eggs in the D&D basket, but I have a feeling they might have. I’m not sure on the dollars and cents riding on something like SCL, but I would imagine it could be a hefty amount. They focused on the good bits, as you would expect anyone to do, but the fact that they were wishy-washy about very important questions regarding certain aspects of the game was unsettling. ![]() The main thing here is, the whole launch felt odd, the developer live streams were lacking and you could tell they were purposely sidestepping a large swathe of questions regarding the game’s content and design choices. I digress though, that’s a post for another day. Putting the D&D name on bad products seems to be hallmark at this point. Dungeons & Dragons has become a brand and a franchise, more than it has been just a game since 5e’s launch. My first suspect goes directly toward Hasbro/WotC wanting the game launch to line up with other D&D products. Which makes me wonder, why exactly was this game pushed out when it was? ![]() ![]() I think they needed at least, another 6 months, realistically speaking (releasing a game that wouldn’t need a slew of content/community patches to right its course) I feel a year or more would have been a more realistic timeline. They pushed back a few months after the scathing feedback from that first beta, but it still wasn’t enough time. During the first beta event for SCL I realized that the game was very, very far away from what felt like a polished retail release. Hell, they managed to sustain 20 years before releasing SCL. The studio has been around for 21 years prior to their collapse, and while I honestly can’t name too many of their previous titles, a quick google search reveals that they had quite a number of big and successful titles under their belts. One of the first things that comes to mind is wondering what kind of situation Nspace was put in, in accepting the license deal with WotC/Hasbro. Please do not take this post as me wishing ill-will against anyone involved (N-Space, WotC, Hasbro, etc.). Especially being recently laid off myself, I understand the turmoil firsthand. Also, please know that I find no joy in knowing that the people at N-Space are now out of jobs. I think even those who aren’t knee deep in the D&D-o-sphere may appreciate some thoughts here, and I’d love to get some good feedback in the comments. This post will not be a review, but more about D&D videogames themselves, some speculation, and thoughts on moving forward in this space. Unfortunately that has yet to happen, nor will it ever with NSpace closing its doors, and publisher Digital Extremes still debating whether to leave the servers open, it doesn’t look like I have any more time left to hold my fingers crossed. It is well known that I don’t like to write product reviews for things that I don’t enjoy, and I just couldn’t bring myself to write a review for SCL until my opinion of the game had at least reached a neutral state. However, I’ve been waiting on patches and content that the development team had been promising before doing so. I’ve been meaning to write a proper review of the game for some time now, being that I was provided a press key for the game it was a professional obligation of mine. For those of you that follow me on twitter, you probably know that my opinion of the recently released Sword Coast Legends wasn’t the greatest.
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