Big blockbuster videogames are back – but not everything has gone entirely to plan so far…
It’s been a pretty barren 18 months for major videogaming releases (Deathloop has been keeping many people going), but over the coming months it feels like a tap has been turned on somewhere. We’re, er, utterly confident that that’s how gaming development work.
Last Friday then saw two huge new release. Sony has Horizon: Forbidden West, the long-awaited sequel to action adventure Horizon: Zero Dawn. I’m very early in the game at the moment and can confirm it looks very pretty and that thus far, I’m not much cop at it. Still, sales have been high, and Sony has a long-awaited first party hit for its PlayStation 5 console (the game is also available on PlayStation 4).
Horizon Forbidden West
On the same day came the kind of game that keeps people off the streets for months if they get into it: action role-playing game Elden Ring from FromSoftware. This arrives on assorted Xbox and PlayStation consoles, as well as on PC. Surprisingly though, the latter version is the one that’s come in for criticism. Given the processing grunt of many modern gaming PCs, the performance of Elden Ring has been troubling on the platform.
It got to a point where the bugs and problems forced FromSoftware to issue an apology statement, explaining “we will be constantly working to improve the game so that it can be played comfortably on various PC environments and platforms”, adding that “for the PC version, updating your graphics card drivers to the latest version may significantly improve performance”.
Not that this has got in the way of sales: the game has given FromSoftware record sales for one of its games, and it’s eclipsed Horizon at the top of GfK Charttrack’s UK sales chart for last week.
Next up in the world of blockbuster gaming? The PlayStation-exclusive Gran Turismo 7 hits next week, and a month later the long-delayed LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga is expected to put a few dents in wallets too. Let’s hope they all work okay…
