vanquesse

quarterly reports of MAU for blizz went from 45mil at OW2 launch to 27mil to 26mil and the last one has 10mil diablo 4 players. It may not be dead but it’s hemorrhaging players like there’s no tomorrow.

Launch quarter for OW2 also had a wow expansion launch but it sounds like it was mostly bought by the smaller, core fanbase who have kept playing. Either way, adding 10mil MAU in Q2 and not being able to get the number above Q1 via a new game does not speak well of their retention.

It seems to be more or less on life support now. Recycled battlepasses, not a lot of fresh content, slow rollout of promised features. Still, you can have a lot of fun with that game if you’ve never played it before.

Two Worlds 2 had a very interesting idea for a magic system where you find cards and slot them to create and modify spells. It’s pretty jank but maybe worth a look. The game also had one of the most interesting multiplayer setups for open world rpgs I’ve ever seen.

If you have the steam version of Skyrim it’s very simple to get running.
https://store.steampowered.com/developer/SureAI/#browse has both versions (depending on if you have the launch version or special/anniversary edition). Also found here is Nehrim, their total conversion mod for Oblivion

Halls of Torment is probably my favorite “clone”. Feels like “Vampire Survivors, but Diablo”.
Soulstone Survivors is also pretty good.

Twitter hired a well liked (in that industry) ad exec. I think she started in early June. I’m guessing her credibility and connections are at least partially responsible for the increase.

“Path of Achra” for a pretty traditional roguelike that focuses on short runs and setting up “broken builds”. Highly rated and pretty cheap.

“Halls of Torment” It’s vampire survivors x diablo. My favorite of the genre beside the “original”. Not sure how hidden it is though.

“Stone Story RPG” Not really sure how to describe this one. ASCII art sorta-idle game?

“Siralim Ultimate” mystery dungeon type monster rearing rpg with some wild synergies and buildcrafting. Tonnes of ways to “break the game”

They could do a 3 franchise mashup and name it “Bravely Quad Strategy”

I remember seeing that stated around the time of steam machines, steam link and steam controller.

The game has been very popular with the people who knew about it while it was in testing. Combine that with the last battlefield game not doing great (and even some trouble brewing with Squad) it seemed like a hit waiting to happen .

The Playstation version has couch co-op but requires a ps plus subscription to play.
The pc version will run on a steam deck but since it’s a battle.net game it takes a bit of work to get it running.

I doubt inventory will be too much of an issue on console/controller. I’ve not tried myself but the interface seems decent and I’ve not seen anyone complain about it being annoying.