Microsoft is trying to acquire Activision Blizzard (UPDATE: CMA says NO!).

[Mr. Gerbik]

Time for a new Killzone?

[Lorfarius]

That series only sold worse as it went on. Sales of the 3rd game were well down on the 2nd's 677'000 and that was roughly a quarter of the first.

[Sarlaccfood]

I think SOCOM is the most likely contender. There seems to be huge nostalgia for it in the US (and maybe a slightly younger generation than us too). Always loads of reply tweets and Reddit posts asking to bring it back. I had to Google it the first time I saw those kind of posts as I had no memory of it at all. 

[Mr. Gerbik]

Bring back Haze!

[Scribblor]

Or don't. I keep forgetting that game exists, and I worked on it.

[Mr. Gerbik]

53 minutes ago, Scribblor said:

Or don't. I keep forgetting that game exists, and I worked on it.

That's what Haze does to you 

[Mr. Gerbik]

Anyone remember MAG? Sony probably does!

[Kevvy Metal]

8 hours ago, Lorfarius said:

That series only sold worse as it went on. Sales of the 3rd game were well down on the 2nd's 677'000 and that was roughly a quarter of the first.

The gaming landscape is so different now that I’d not be surprised if resurrecting an old franchise like Killzone/Resistance/ SOCOM would end up selling well. 

[Mr. Gerbik]

In all seriousness, @Stanley I think you were the one questioning why a COD competitor hasn't appeared if it were even possible to make one. I'd argue that COD is not infallible, in fact a few years ago around Ghost I got the impression that the quality had dipped something awful. And at some point, way back when, COD took over from whatever was the hotness back then. That's what happens, the biggest game seems unassailable until something better/more popular comes along. On top of that we've had games like Fortnite in the last few years which to me seems way more mainstream than COD ever was.

 

 

Regardless of all that though, if there's someone right now in a position to actually come up with its own COD rival, it's Sony imo. Have you seen the quality of their output and the talent their studios obviously have? The reason they've never bothered and moved on from Killzone et al, is because COD existed and it was more cost effective to make exclusivity deals - marketing deals, exclusive content, timed exclusive content, etcetera. Until that goes away they have no reason to come up with their own COD equivalent. Hell, maybe they won't even bother after Microsoft buys Activision as long as COD keeps appearing on PlayStation. But I fully believe they have enough studios capable of making something outstanding, hell they iwn Bungie now for chrissakes. And 10 years is more than enough time. As has been said, SOCOM is still a name that resonates but they could always do something new. I don't think Sony would be in any kind of trouble or in danger of losing their lead no matter what happens with any of the Activision ip after this deal.

 

Having said that, I personally think COD is shite and I'm mostly enjoying the drama and discussion. I want the deal to go through because there are Activision titles I'd love to see on Xbox BC and I can't be arsed paying full price for a Diablo game. 

[Mr. Gerbik]

19 minutes ago, Kevvy Metal said:

/Resistance

THANK YOU. I've been trying to remember the name of this game since yesterday evening. I remembered Haze and MAG before I could remember Resistance

 

 

I agree btw, the old sales numbers of Killzone and Resistance aren't any kind of indicator. Just like SOCOM they're titles that come with free nostalgia and therefore could easily be used if Sony wanted to reboot one of their dormant FPS ip. Current Guerilla making a PS5 exclusive Killzone game would probably result in something spectacular, something of a significant higher quality than PS3/early PS4 era Guerilla would have been able to make. But imagine if they let Bungie have a go? So many possibilities, shootmans fans on PlayStation will be fine.

[Stanley]

Yeah I kind of threw that into the discussion but don’t really care either tbh as it’s not a game I’m interested in, but I realise a lot of people enjoy it and I don’t want to be down on their game. 
 

My biggest worry personally with this acquisition is Halo. Will they care anymore now they have this? 

[Mr. Gerbik]

2 minutes ago, Stanley said:

My biggest worry personally with this acquisition is Halo. Will they care anymore now they have this?

Good point. I'd love for the Halo series to become as good as the Bungie glory days again and you could be right - why put as much effort into Halo when you have COD?

 

On the other hand so far 343 has proved only that they aren't capable of making an outstanding Halo game, just a decent but disappointingly flawed one at best. Does it really matter if they stopped trying as hard?

[Clipper]

I had a real soft spot for Resistance, the guns "felt" good and solid which is one of the major things I look(ed) for in an FPS.

 

The rest mentioned, especially Killzone, were awful.

[Stanley]

Killzone was always tagged as a Halo beater, and it wasn’t even anywhere near, but it actually played a lot more like Gears with its cover type shooting. Obviously it came out before Gears, and it was nowhere near as good as that either. 
 

But anyway, MS are now custodians of at least three of the most famous FPS’ of all time, COD, Doom, and Halo. 
 

So you’d think with all that talent they could make a good Halo now, right? 

[Mr. Gerbik]

16 minutes ago, Clipper said:

The rest mentioned, especially Killzone, were awful.

Not a MAG fan? 

[teddymeow]

19 hours ago, Lorfarius said:

That series only sold worse as it went on. Sales of the 3rd game were well down on the 2nd's 677'000 and that was roughly a quarter of the first.

 

Personally, I thought the Killzone games got better with each release. 

 

Of course, the answer is to ask Insomniac to do another Resistance.

[teddymeow]

10 hours ago, Mr. Gerbik said:

 Current Guerilla making a PS5 exclusive Killzone game would probably result in something spectacular

 

 

[Clipper]

22 minutes ago, Mr. Gerbik said:

Not a MAG fan? 

I would be disparaging but I don't remember it which is odd as I remember most of Sony's FPS forays like KIllzone and Resistance and Haze (1st/2nd/3rd party exclusive I can't remember)

 

It is possible I didn't play it but that would be unusual as that was the time I played most FPSs - now I barely play any.

[Stevie]

17 hours ago, Stanley said:

Killzone was always tagged as a Halo beater, and it wasn’t even anywhere near,

 

I’m confident it would beat all non-Bungie Halo games. 

[Stanley]

49 minutes ago, Stevie said:

I’m confident it would beat all non-Bungie Halo games. 

Pfft, they may not be as good as Bungie but they’re not bad games by any stretch. 

[deerokus]

Syphon Filter reboot as an fps please.

[deerokus]

On 24/03/2023 at 17:04, Sarlaccfood said:

I take back what I said about them stretching stuff out actually, looking at the list there’s not much for me there outside the Diablos.

 

 

So go ahead and dump it Bobby!

 

Activision has loads of stuff that could and should be top tier games. An embarrassment of potential riches really. They just don't make any of them.

 

It'd be like Nintendo only ever releasing Mario platform games. Annually.

 

The biggest thing I hope out of this takeover is that MS start to diversify what Activision actually produce even slightly.

 

 

 

[layten]

6 hours ago, deerokus said:

The biggest thing I hope out of this takeover is that MS start to diversify what Activision actually produce even slightly.

Well they let Obsidian make Spider Nightmarefuel Simulator 2000 and 16th century Columbo. While TGW put out Hi Fi Rush which doesn't exactly vibe with their previous stuff. So I'd say the other studios will have a good shot at diversifying their output.

[metallicfrodo]

17 hours ago, deerokus said:

 

 

The biggest thing I hope out of this takeover is that MS start to diversify what Activision actually produce even slightly.

 

 

 

What like putting one of the CoD teams on an exclusive military shooter that definitely isn’t Call of Duty?

[ZOK]

The problem with Killzone is it basically amounted to nothing more than great concept art in search of a game.

[Uncle Mike]

I still think Killzone 2 (that was the one with the controversial opening CGI fake movie Sony pretended was real?) was an actually good game. Not any of the other Killzones, except maybe the top down tactical one, which also had its moments, but KZ2 played an excellent game of slow tactical heavy gunplay.

 

It was very brown, too one-note and kept imagining you knew or cared about the story, so it probably hasn't aged especially well. But it was a solid game for what it was, and I'll repeatedly mount this sort of half-hearted defence for it.

 

I don't really know what its contemporaries were, so wouldn't especially want to get caught comparing it to something we all know was obviously better, but on its own merits it wasn't a bad game. Unlike Killzone 1. And I remember 3 and the PS4 launch one as also being bad. But 2 was decent! And the multiplayer was good. Because it was slower and more tactical, anyone could feel like they could get involved.

[RubberJohnny]

20 hours ago, Stevie said:

I’m confident it would beat all non-Bungie Halo games. 

 

At the very least it would be a complete game and not something they have to spend the next two and a half years finishing.

[bear]

18 hours ago, deerokus said:

Activision has loads of stuff that could and should be top tier games. An embarrassment of potential riches really. They just don't make any of them.

 

It'd be like Nintendo only ever releasing Mario platform games. Annually.

 

The biggest thing I hope out of this takeover is that MS start to diversify what Activision actually produce even slightly.

 

 

 

Irritatingly I do remember reading a story saying that Blizzard were trying to move away from releasing a handful of mega games that take 5+ years to make to a more regular release schedule for "smaller" (although still very big) projects. 

My annoyance is down to not being able to remember if it was Mike Ybarra or Jason Schrier that said it. World of difference between those two. 

 

I wonder how much of Activision is even in a position to start producing other games at this point. Over the last ten years we've seen studio after studio get dragged in to some sort of support role for CoD or Blizzard. 

[Kevvy Metal]

I've recently played both 2 and 3 and 3 is basically 2 but better and more refined. 

It absolutely is a slow paced cover shooter that is weirdly in first person. 

To play it to it's strengths you've got to not play it like Call of Duty, and only ADS when you're lining up a carefully place shot in the distance.

The PS3 games are excellent. I've not actually played the PS4 one for some reason.  

[Uncle Mike]

Is it the PS4 one, or all of them, where also your character is about 4 foot 6? You spend all this time looking up at everyone else.