Why can’t we get more experiences like Lost Legacy and Miles Morales?

[shadowsdarknes]

These are expansion like-content.

All of these mechanics and assets are not going to be built and fine tuned for a very short experience. They're built to be used for a wider set of uses.

And yeah, these games feel like nice, focused experiences after playing the primary entries.

The success of these games is that Sony should continue to release meaty DLC for their successful SP games. Stand-alone or expansion.

I'd have been disappointed if the only Uncharted game we got on PS4 was LL.

 

[MercuryLS]

RPG combat systems don't lend themselves well to bite-sized campaigns IMO. by the time the combat has been fully tutorialized and your powers are developed, it's almost over already.

for example even though Torna is very well made, after finishing Xenoblade 2 I wanted to make use of the characters I had spent nearly a hundred hours building, not start over from scratch with characters I'll only be using for a short amount of time anyway.

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I agree with this, this format works better for certain types of games.

 

[Terbinator]

Pouring one out for a real one. That music is *chefs kiss*

 

[Kahhhhyle]

I'd add Xenoblade 2's Torna to this as well. Maybe even something like Future Connected or Bowser's Fury as well?

And I totally agree. I don't know why they don't make a small 1.25 game after the main release. I feel a lot of the time they refine the game and make it better then the original in many ways

 

[Jimnymebob]

The last PS3 Ratchet (and I guess the second, too, but that felt like a short experience to bridge the gap) was like this, and it's one of my favourites in the series, 30fps be damned.
I'd love for more games in this style, until of course it gets perceived as being the norm and start charging full price for them.

 

[Li Kao]

Given the supposedly ballooning cost of video games, I wouldn't be surprised to see more of these smaller projects following 'bigger' releases.

 

[Nega Scott]

I am totally here for it. Just recently got my PS5 and finally played Miles Morales and it's a perfect game in my opinion. Still took me 20hr to get the Platin so it's not like they are too short neither.

I remember Lost Legacy being a lot of fun as well, so yeah, give us more of this please.

 

[DRULYBXA]

Insomniac has made games like this for a while and will continue to do so. I agree there should be more from other teams. Hopefully Santa Monica is doing one for Atreus and supporting characters like Thrud.
Other studios prefer the expansion approach like Iki Island and Burning Shores, and I think that's fine too

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A Ratchet and Clank one would be *chefs kiss*

 

[dodmaster]

Not enough of you bought Wolfenstein: The Old Blood. Sorry.

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I inadvertently waited for gamepass, since I wasn't even sure if I'd played it or not. It turns out I haven't, and it's much better than whatever youngblood turned out to be. *edit and oh yeah, more shorter, non £70 games please.

 

[GulfCoastZilla]

Miles was great because it didn't bog you down with non supe stealth missions
It also gave you a tease of what we could expect web swinging animation wise for Spider-Man 2, easily trumping the previous game.
The only downside being Miles is very annoying, and the enemies were repetitive.

 

[Modest_Modsoul]

Unfortunately, I think not every studio could give Miles Morales/The Lost Legacy experience when they're busy with upcoming bigger projects...

I mean, I don't mind a Ragnarök expansion game, but do Santa Monica Studio have the time?

Or they should use that time & budget for something entirely new & bigger?

🤷

Heck, give me Rivet & Kit expansion bridging the gap after Rift Apart to the new game with fresh new stuffs/gameplay/ideas/etc.

But how could they when they have monstrous Niche-Man 2 & Wolverine?

As might as well the next new Ratchet is a direct sequel. 🙄🤷

 

[mcruz79]

I always thought this would be a perfect combination with the subscriptions model like gamepass and even plus…

More amazing AAA games with much Short length (5 to 15 hours) being released and developed in Short time…

Would be perfect for me…
I love have great adventures, finish and go for the next big one…

 

[Magic Mushroom]

How well did they sell?

I know Dishonored: Death Of The Outsider didn't sell well at all.

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Miles sold very well.

 

[Ambient]

I think Microsoft especially would benefit from these size games and the Game Pass model. I feel like they announce games and it takes years upon years to come out. I'd love to play a mini Halo campaign or Gears of War campaign.

 

[Zukkoyaki]

Smaller half-sequels like the ones mentioned in the OP are frequently some of my favorite games. All killer, no filler. Wish they were more common but the market largely views bigger as better so I wouldn't hold my breath for too many going forward. As amazing as Miles Morales is, I honestly think it was only greenlit to have an extra surefire banger for the PS5 launch.

 

[Spehornoob]

If people complain about TOTK and God of War: Ragnarok being "DLC", how do you think they would react if games like these came out on the regular.

 

[Sesha]

I mean it's a case by case thing. In some cases DLC makes more sense for the dev/pub.

But we've seen a few of these over the years. Far Cry Blood Dragon, Primal, New Dawn, XB2 Torna, Wolfenstein: The Old Blood & Youngblood. Several Ass Creeds and Ratchets were basically this. Heck, arguably so was RE3 Remake.

 

[Derbel McDillet]

If people complain about TOTK and God of War: Ragnarok being "DLC",

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Giving way too much credence to a few forum posts.

 

[ThisThingIsUseful]

We fixed that within a few weeks of launch (and it didn't endanger your system at all!)



Those numbers are both wildly incorrect.

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Speaking of bite sized games:

Who do I have to talk to to get a R&C collection with the PS2/PS3 games released on PS5?! I've been hoping so much for it; I love the series and if PS5 were BC with PS2/PS3, it wouldn't be a big deal. I'm glad it's easy to play the PS4 game, but I really hope a mega collection is in the works. It'd probably be my favorite one next to Sega Mega Collection.

 

[boltz]

We need more smaller scale games in general.

 

[Mr Evil 37]

Not enough of you bought Wolfenstein: The Old Blood. Sorry.

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Or Dishonored: Death of the Outsider.

 

[Vico]

I think Microsoft especially would benefit from these size games and the Game Pass model. I feel like they announce games and it takes years upon years to come out. I'd love to play a mini Halo campaign or Gears of War campaign.

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To be fair Gears: Hivebusters on GP Ultimate was exactly that. It's a shame they barely advertised this. It's a fantastic (though super short) campaign.

Sure it's not standalone, but it could and should be.

 

[WhtR88t]

I personally would love more stuff like this. Lost Legacy is actually my favorite Uncharted. I know it's not exactly the same, but with Frozen Wilds was great DLC for Horizon and I'm really looking forward to Burning Shores.

I think it's much harder to sell people on them though vs new, from the ground up, games unfortunately.

 

[Ambient]

To be fair Gears: Hivebusters on GP Ultimate was exactly that. It's a shame they barely advertised this. It's a fantastic (though super short) campaign.

Sure it's not standalone, but it could and should be.

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I'll check it out. It's single player?

 

[Kill3r7]

It's more of a question of how long do they take to make vs sales. You have also arguably identified the two most successful examples.

 

[Vico]

I'll check it out. It's single player?

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Single player or up to three players (online or split screen I think).
You need to have Gears 5 installed though (at least the base install, not the full package 100+ GB with multiplayer install)

It's still a DLC to Halo 5, but there is no reason it couldn't be sold separately. It's entirely disconnected to 5's story.

Btw it's not included in base GP though, only Ultimate.

 

[Funkelpop]

They probably don't sell as well which is why we don't see more of them. The most likely is to see stuff like Kena, which is indie but close to AAA in production values.

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I'm not sure about TLL but Miles Morales definitely sold well. It was on top of the charts for months and months.

 

[ozumas]

I really like those releases because it takes so much time and efforts building the core experience, assets and art direction that not reusing those assets to a smaller release is a shame.


And Inmsoniac managed to develop MM and Ratchet RA at the same time and MM was like 2 years of development or so and that alllowed PS5 to have a Spidermant at released time and Spiderman 2 is still dated to this year so it is not like it stops devs that much


Of course you wouldn't get games with totally new assets and systems but we don't have to have every game be from scratch

 

[shaneo632]

I agree. I feel like most AAA games are way too long even on the critical path. Give me 6-12 hours of mainline content with a price that reflects that length and I'm usually happy.

 

[medinaria]

honestly, from a business perspective the thing you have to consider is that these are pretty substantial pieces of dlc/expansions/etc. if you commit heavily to dlc and your game underperforms/lacks staying power, you run the risk of eating a loss on all this content. (final fantasy 15 comes to mind here - they outright cancelled half of their dlc because nobody was buying it. and the game didn't sell poorly! people just stopped paying attention to the game!) while your more standard outfit/battle arena/etc content doesn't cost you much to make, fully-voiced content in new areas with a new story certainly does. you get some of the investment for free (engine, combat system, etc), but not nearly all of it.

what lost legacy/miles morales share in common is that they're both attached to extremely safe bets. sony already knew these games were going to sell, so there's no risk in betting on dlc. they can take that bet in a way that most companies can't, and the other out is to have a game that you know overperforms relative to budget so you have the space to do this. (xenoblade dlc!) if your game doesn't fall into either of those categories, you're at serious risk of doubling down on losses if you start investing in the dlc before the game comes out. and if you don't invest in the dlc before the game comes out, by the time you finish it your game's already lost its mindshare most of the time.

 

[Bengraven]

Outside of one weirdly out of place character, I'm not so secretly a fan of Far Cry: New Dawn so I'm down.

 

[mikhailt]

I loved the DLC content for Control and still want more.

I still don't really understand why we need an overhaul to the game assets for sequels over having more expansions. These are the reasons games cost so much more and take forever to come out.


I rather have Half Life 3 reusing the same assets as Half Life 2 for 60$ than a whole new game with RTX and everything else.

 

[Ravelle]

Agreed but not for 70-80 euros though.

I never do the money = time spent thing but it was way too expensive for what felt like a bigger DLC for miles.

 

[Wise]

Burning shores should have been that