I have a lot of feelings about both EA and Microsoft these days, and most of them are bad. I even recently had a big ol’ rant about exclusivity and how big publishers owning everything is bad for everyone.
That said, GamePass is a good idea. While the XBox software sucks on PC, which I will repeat until that changes, GamePass has a pretty solid selection for the monthly cost, and with EA Play’s standard library now being included in the Ultimate plan, that selection just got a whole lot bigger. Not that I’m a huge fan of EA titles, especially those with exploitative microtransactions, or limited content for the “AAA” price, the fact that I can now play them for all-in-one price of a GamePass subscription means I don’t have to pay for any of it.
This is pretty tempting.
I’ve had a GamePass subscription since November which is currently valid through May. While I never actually paid for it (ok, technically $1) thanks to various promotional offers, it continues to get more and more tempting, at least on short term bases. With a lot of big titles available to pay for a single monthly cost, there are plenty of games that I know I’ll only play once, or games I just want to try out… picking up GamePass for a month or two could be well worth it.
Mostly though, I use it to check out games I eventually want to buy for my Steam library, because games are typically more stable there. Although, recent reports say that the new version of Neir Automata which just arrived on GamePass is a new build that is more stable that its Steam counterpart.
I’ll likely check it out for myself.
/gameon
Electronic Arts
Something, Something Game News – Dragon Age 4: Multiplayer is dead. Long live the single-player RPG
According an insider report from Bloomberg, (which fails to name sources, and doesn’t seem to understand what “games-as-a-service” are, so take with a few grains of salt) Dragon Age 4 is being retooled as a single-player only RPG.
This apparently comes as a result of both the success of Star Wars: Jedi: Fallen Order–an exclusively single-player title, which EA even admitted at the time was more successful than they expected–and the failure of Anthem, which recently had previous plans to revamp many of its problems, cancelled.
Is EA learning from past mistakes?
It’s hard to say. The Anthem NEXT cancellation is disappointing, though, hardly surprising. But the apparent renewed interest in single-player titles is a good thing, as modern “games-as-a-service” tend to come across more exploitative than fun. I think we can agree the most recent travesty; the Square Enix developed, Marvel’s Avengers game was an absolute abomination, and should serve as an example of what not to do with a popular IP.
This also comes as a quite a turnaround from the previous (2019) insider description of the game as, “Anthem with dragons,” asserting the game would have a heavy multiplayer focus. This was supposedly a significant reason for departure of long-time BioWare legend, Mike Laidlaw in 2017.
So… maybe?
We can only hope a single-player Dragon Age 4 won’t include a cash shop or paid loot-boxes, but that’s probably a bit too optimistic for an EA publish.
/gameon
The Hyperbolic Gamer 