Chronology of the Games: 2019 edition

[Baines]

It was apparently accidentally leaked that Borderlands 3 will be an Epic Store exclusive.

In response to the backlash, Randy Pitchford has thrown 2K/Take Two under the blame bus, saying: “2K/Take Two has exclusive publishing rights for Borderlands 3 and makes all decisions regarding price-points, territories, distribution and platform partnerships. Please direct all inquiries regarding any of those topics to 2K. We are just the talent.”

Pitchford went on to praise Epic and store/platform exclusives, before reiterating that any complaints about Borderlands 3 being an Epic exclusive should be directed to 2K/Take Two rather than him or Gearbox.

Randy did say that he felt an acceptable timed exclusive was six months, but that may or may not reflect the reality of Borderlands 3…

[Kiril]

Randy Pitchford says a lot of things but he did mention cross platform play being a thing and Epic has that down with Fortnite and Dauntless is moving to the Epic store for the same reason so maybe there is a good under lying reason to go with Epic other than a whole lot of cash for a studio that has had more misses than hits lately.

[alms]

cross platform play being a thing and Epic has that down with Fortnite

It’s not like games on Steam haven’t had cross platform support since, well, long before Fortnite was even a blip on the radar, though.

[Baines]

It’s not like games on Steam haven’t had cross platform support since, well, long before Fortnite was even a blip on the radar, though.

Heck, Portal 2 had crossplatform play between the PC and PS3.

I figure it is a safe bet that Borderlands 3 will not have cross-platform play. Even after Sony said it was “looking into” cross-platform play, various devs have spoken out that Sony is still acting as a stumbling block to such efforts. But even if Sony was legitimately open to the idea, I’ve a feeling that Gearbox wouldn’t come through on it. Pitchford bringing up crossplatform play felt more like a deflection, saying that he (and Epic) were for consumers and didn’t deserve hate mail.

[alms]

I wonder how relevant cross-platform support would even be in the context of an FPS, even though Borderlands should still be strictly a co-op, rather than competitive, experience.

[Baines]

I wonder how relevant cross-platform support would even be in the context of an FPS, even though Borderlands should still be strictly a co-op, rather than competitive, experience.

Though publishers often use the difference between PC and console as the excuse for not implementing cross-platform play in competitive shooters, that isn’t even the real divide.

The divide is the controller choice, which has only eroded over the years. Over the years, various consoles have had the option to support keyboard and mouse. Meanwhile, the number of people on PC that use gamepads (even for an FPS) has increased.

And that’s without even getting into the middle-ground controller options that have appeared over the years. Some swore by the Wii’s IR wand aiming, though I only swore at it. Some swear that Splatoon’s combination of stick and tilt aiming was better than mouse control would have been. Some swore the Steam controller’s touch control emulation of a mouse gave you “mouse-like” aiming while keeping the rest of a gamepad’s feel and functionality.

[alms]

Photographs, a new, short-form puzzle game from the same person (people?) behind 10,000,000 and You Must Build a Boat, is out today.

If you own the above games, you’re also getting a 33% off coupon, which stacks with the launch discount, and brings it down to almost half price.

The Walker posted a review today, too:

Wot I Think: Photographs

[Bobtree]

Forager has launched on Steam.

Driftland: The Magic Revival has left early access.

[MiniMatt]

Oxygen Not Included, was due to be end of May, now delayed to July.

[Blackice]

Makers of the wonderful Absolute Drift announce Art of Rally, due sometime later this year.