Games Inbox: The GTA 6 trailer is now over a year old-GameCentral-Entertainment – Metro

It’s already been over a year since the first trailer (Rockstar)

The Friday letters page is desperate for publishers to stop making live service games, as a reader wonders what to do about Mortal Kombat 1’s failure.

To join in with the discussions yourself email gamecentral@metro.co.uk

Unwelcome anniversary
Just wanted to say that as of Wednesday the GTA 6 trailer is exactly a year old. I’m writing this on Thursday afternoon and there’s no sign of another one, so I’m going to guess the chances of it arriving this week are now pretty slim, despite the rumours.

Just add it to the long list of things in the games industry where we have no idea what’s going on. I don’t remember it ever being like this before. Everything is either spoiled by rumours or comes out of nowhere, there’s no middle ground. There’s no sense of communication between fans and game makers, and that seems weird given the interconnected online world we live in now.

We’re all just begging for scraps of information and anyone can make up whatever they want and claim to be a trusted source. It all seems so vague and unreliable, which doesn’t seem like a good place to be for publishers, and yet they’re doing nothing to prevent it.

Anyway, here’s hoping there’s a surprise annoucement today and then we can settle down for at least another six month wait for more news.
Ignus

Please stop
At this point I don’t even know how to begin to explain what’s going on with publishers and live service games. Why are you making these games?! How long are you going to keep this up, with all these flop games that everyone else can see from a mile off aren’t going to do anything?

The reader from yesterday is right too, half the problem is that they’re all clones. XDefiant is Call Of Duty, Concord is Overwatch, and Foamstars is Splatoon. Make something original and maybe you’d have half a chance at least. Unless we forget Fortnite is actually a fairly unusual online shooter, with the third person perspective and building options.

What was the last new live service game that was a big hit? Helldivers 2 kind of, maybe, even though it’s a shadow of where it was? Beyond that you’re looking at Apex Legends, which came out in 2019! What I feel bad for is the poor developers made to make these games and then sacked when they flop, you can tell none of these are a labour of love.
DaleL

Reboot reboot
Interesting news about Mortal Kombat 1. On the one hand I had no idea the franchise was that big in America and on the other I can’t see any reason why the new one would do so much worse than the others. My friend is quite a fan of the games, and I play it round his sometimes, and to my innocent eyes Mortal Kombat 1 looks and works just the same as all of them.

Unless that was the problem, but I can’t really see why fans would get fed up the formula all at once, after all these years. I guess they must just not like the reboot story. It seems unimportant to me but when you train your fans to care about these things you’ve got to expect some kickback when you start messing with the lore.

I think we all know what’s coming next: a reboot to reboot the reboot. Easy enough when you’ve got time powers and everything but it’s crazy to me that they didn’t get more upset about the gameplay not changing.
Roger2

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Extra engagement
Amongst all the Switch 2 and Zelda and Mario Kart speculation I’m very curious to know what the future direction of Fire Emblem is going to be. Engage wasn’t nearly as big a hit as Three Houses, so I’m very curious to see what direction Nintendo is going to go in for the next one.

Both the previous games looked very low budget, with pretty basic graphics, so I was hoping the next one could have a bit of an upgrade in that regard. Engage’s failure could mean they give up but I’m hopeful that instead they’ll stop doing things by halves and go all out.

Fire Emblem has had its ups and downs over the years, but I don’t think Nintendo will want to give up on it just when it hit the big leagues, or at least the above average leagues.
Claymond

Celebrity endorsement
RE: Vampire games. There’s a new vampire game (well, just released on Switch) starring one of the seminal Dracula actors, the elaborately titled Carpathian Night Starring Bela Lugosi. Looks like a decent Castlevania game, I want to play it.

Any chance of a review please GC?
Beastiebat (PSN ID)
Currently playing: Vampire Survivors (fittingly)

GC: Wow, that is as blatant a clone as we’ve seen in a long time. We can’t say we’re very optimistic.

Kart Paradise
A story mode for Mario Kart 9 would be a great idea. I’d like to see a Burnout Paradise style Mushroom Kingdom, where you drive around the land between tracks.

They could have a little role-playing like stat system for your Mii driver, like the Game Boy Color Golf and Tennis games. There could be secrets aplenty, with new costumes and karts dotted around to find and earn, for both your Mii and the regular Nintendo line-up.

Naturally, there’d be the standard cups available too, where you just race on the tracks. But I’d like to see an interconnected world, like when you could see other stages on the horizon in Super Mario Sunshine.

It is going to be difficult for Nintendo to follow-up Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, but an open world element and some form of progression would help bring something new to the table.
Euclidian Boxes

Nothing to say
We’re only a week away from The Game Awards now but I’m kind of surprised there’s not been any leaks yet. I know there’s a lot of people hoping for Resident Evil 9 and/or Tomb Raider but as far as I know there’s no real leaks or evidence about this?

Considering how much leaks out about everything else I would never have imagined that The Game Awards would’ve been the most watertight about news. I hope it’s all in aid of some good surprises, we could do with some after this year.
Lempton

GC: We’ll do a preview/predictions article a bit closer to the day but so far there’s almost nothing in terms of believable rumours.

Local content
I’ve been enjoying all the PlayStation 30th anniversary nostalgia lately but the thing that I keep coming back to is how different the games line-up was for the original console back then, with Europe, the US, and Japan all getting very different games. That would never happen now and that strikes me as a great shame.

Not only does it mean that you may be selling games in different countries that those people have no interest in but, more importantly, it means there’s no locally made content being produced, that can be a big success in other places too.

Obviously that’s not a problem for American but the Japanese market is much worse off now compared to where it used to be and Europe just basically doesn’t exist – it just gets what America gets, if it’s lucky, and is told to make do with that.

This problem is, I believe, one of the main reasons Xbox has failed to take off here, except in the UK where tastes are very similar to the US. But the thing that upsets me is that we no longer get games like WipEout. Not a sequel and not something different that is still made in Europe and suits European tastes more.

If I was Phil Spencer, I would have bought a bunch of European developers (and Japanese and elsewhere) and got them to make, basically, non-American content. But he did the opposite and shut down the only Japanese developer they had. Sony are no better now either, shutting down both Japanese and UK studios.

That means that all new games are being made only to appeal to America, and yet Sony and Microsoft don’t seem to realise that this means they don’t appeal as much to other places.
Sharkey

Inbox also-rans
Winning lotto numbers are 03, 04, 09, 19, 21, and 27. Just remember, sharing is caring.
David

I did make me laugh how there are now board games of Mass Effect and Halo but no actual new video games. Maybe the next ones will be adaptations of the board games rather than the other way round?
Focus

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The small print
New Inbox updates appear every weekday morning, with special Hot Topic Inboxes at the weekend. Readers’ letters are used on merit and may be edited for length and content.

You can also submit your own 500 to 600-word Reader’s Feature at any time via email or our Submit Stuff page, which if used will be shown in the next available weekend slot.

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