If you are in the mood to play Skyrim or the recent Oblivion remaster, but you don’t want to play a Microsoft-backed game for, oh, any number of reasons, the word on the grapevine is that open world RPG Tainted Grail: The Fall of Avalon is pretty decent. We don’t have a review as yet, but Khee Hoon Chan called Questline’s previous Tainted Grail: Conquest one of the best games you missed in 2021, and The Fall Of Avalon is currently humming along with an Overwhelmingly Positive Steam user consensus as it prepares to leave early access today. The Steam page also harbours a demo, plus the below, moderately thunderous trailer’s worth of first-person spellcraft, shattered cosmic castles and fishing mechanics.

The Fall Of Avalon is set in another dark reimagining of Arthurian myth, one less abundant in beauty influencers than Tides Of Annihilation. It takes place about 600 years after King Arthur’s fall, in a realm of “unending strife” and plague that is divided into three zones.

The game is said to span 50-70 hours, with over 200 sidequests and an assortment of miscellaneous activities such as decorating your house, farming and “sketchbook journaling”. I sincerely hope that last one is a fully fleshed-out illustration subgame, or at least some kind of fantasy photography mechanic. We need more virtual idylls like Eastshade.

    • supersquirrel@sopuli.xyz
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      34
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      edit-2
      23 days ago

      Why do you think it is that way right now?

      What part of the progression to the end stage of Spotify do you think we are at?

      Maybe the stage where they give you a bunch of stuff in an unsustainable firehose because it is meant to destabilize the industry and decisively put Microsoft between gamers and video game developers so they can charge both more rent once there aren’t any popular alternatives left?

      I know that someone like you with your attitude will just say “whatever bro, it is what it is” and frankly I don’t want to live that way because nobody can live that way forever.

      To be clear, Gamepass itself is a totally fine concept, but if you choose to remain ignorant of the context Gamepass is being used in that is your problem and honestly people are going to remember you didn’t care, especially video game developers.

      • skull887@lemmings.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        1
        arrow-down
        10
        ·
        23 days ago

        I find massive value in the service so I subscribe to it. When I don’t I won’t. It’s not the deep “bro”. Maybe Microsoft does have some underlying motive to reshape the gaming industry but I’m not going to think about it that hard. Also things change and it’s ok. Apple started the digital music movement BTW and I’m not an artist so that is theirs and the labels deal to negotiate. Spotify is great value too FYI.

        • supersquirrel@sopuli.xyz
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          21
          arrow-down
          1
          ·
          edit-2
          22 days ago

          It’s not the deep “bro”. Maybe Microsoft does have some underlying motive to reshape the gaming industry but I’m not going to think about it that hard.

          I know you don’t want to, that was obvious from our initial interaction which is precisely why I am taking the time to try to get you to think about it harder or at least point out to others the folly in your shallowness.

            • supersquirrel@sopuli.xyz
              link
              fedilink
              arrow-up
              12
              arrow-down
              3
              ·
              edit-2
              22 days ago

              That is perfectly ok, you don’t have to tackle the world by yourself, thank you for providing me the public opportunity to show why you are so critically incorrect in your approach to things you love so the rest of us can evolve together :)

              Just because we are leaving you in the dust doesn’t mean we won’t care for you, but my oh my you are taking out a big future debt on your soul by going through your life with an attitude like this.

            • luciole (he/him)@beehaw.org
              link
              fedilink
              arrow-up
              4
              arrow-down
              1
              ·
              22 days ago

              You sure are spending plenty of attention on defending that you don’t have attention to spend on this. We all vote with our wallets. There’s no opting out.

    • Eggyhead@lemmings.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      27
      ·
      23 days ago

      Just wait for the enshitication. Once they have a stranglehold on the gaming industry, that’s when the prices go up and the benefits go down.

        • Eggyhead@lemmings.world
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          16
          ·
          22 days ago

          It doesn’t make a difference. They’ll enshitify that service to hell whether you subscribe or you don’t.

          • Kit@lemmy.blahaj.zone
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            1
            arrow-down
            1
            ·
            22 days ago

            Amazing how I’ve been hearing the same thing since the service released 8 years ago. Will it eventually get shitty? Probably. But in the meantime it’s a phenomenal value.

                  • Kit@lemmy.blahaj.zone
                    link
                    fedilink
                    arrow-up
                    1
                    ·
                    22 days ago

                    40% of Xbox gamers are from the US. The US has 132 million households. That means that roughly 1 in 10 US households currently has a Gamepass sub. Hope that puts it into perspective.

                  • Kit@lemmy.blahaj.zone
                    link
                    fedilink
                    arrow-up
                    1
                    ·
                    22 days ago

                    PS Plus is closer to Xbox Live than Xbox Gamepass. Xbox Live had 40-50 million subs at the time in 2020.

                    Presently Xbox Live has 120 million users vs 33 million PS Plus Essentials subscribers. Gamepass has 34 million subs vs 14 million higher-tier PS Plus subs. Even if we drop Nintendo into the mix, Gamepass has an equal number of subs to Nintendo Online members. Seems like they’re doing just fine.

        • Don_alForno@feddit.org
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          1
          ·
          21 days ago

          They said that about steam and look at us now.

          It’s people flocking to it until it’s the only place to release games that is gonna force you.

          • skull887@lemmings.world
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            1
            ·
            21 days ago

            People use something out of value and/or convenience. It taking over is just the effect of that. It’s capitalism not some underlying motive from the corporation. Of course a business wants their product to succeed.