Unfortunately, that’s not sufficient to keep that bullshit out of big-budget single-player games. Publishers can force it upon developers - and will. Once a few games get away with it, the cult of executives will figure they’re losing money if they don’t fuck you as hard as possible.

And Multiplayer games like Helldivers 2

If I go to the steam page for a singleplayer game and see a bunch of paid DLC content, I usually skip it. Look at Stellaris, for example

Making inoffensive microtransactions is such a tightrope walk. Just putting an up-front price is so much simpler on their end.

I enjoy single player, story driven campaigns like the new GOW, BG3, and spider-man, just to name a few. Would I like KC:D2 and CO:E33?

I appreciate the sentiment but the (very shitty) reality is single player games don’t come any where near the profitability of these multiplayer games in the current climate. Like no where even remotely close in terms of effort to profit. You can straight up clone call of duty every year, or add a few maps to fortnite, or add a new operator to siege, and monetize every tiny fraction of the game thru micro transactions and people will keep on playing and keep on paying.

Single player games operate pretty much the opposite. You buy it once. Play thru it. Beat it. And generally never touch it again unless maybe some dlc comes out and you might add a few more hours to it and then never think about it again.

I say this as a giant fan of single narrative games, it’s just a much smarter business move to pump out shitty online multiplayer games.

Fortnite was released in 2017, last year it netted almost $6 billion.

Call of duty has been dog water for like a decade. Its been the best selling game every single year since 2009 unless Rockstar releases a game (and Hogwarts legacy randomly dominating one year).

World of Warcraft came out in 2004. Last year they announced they had over 7 million active subscribers… Over two decades later.

Apex legends came out in 2019, last year it made over $3 billion.

The list goes on and on and on. You just can’t compete with weirdos obsessed with showing off a wizard hat on their character in an online game or busting open a loot box to get a new weapon skin or something.

KCD is unique, personally I love it. In some ways it’s kind of the dark souls of first person RPG. The systems are at times a bit clunky, combat is hard, complex, and both you and your character need a lot of training to be profficient.

But that’s the fun of the game. Henry is a useless lump at the start, and you mold him in to what you want.

Personally, I love hardcore challenging single player games, and few in recent years match KCD.

I dont have a system to play KCD2 yet, but from everything I’ve seen, the developer doubled down and kept the majority of the systems in place, just adding scale and polish.

I’m sure the first one is on discount these days, and highly recommend it.

Absolutely!

Games as a service is a scam.

Shoutout to FromSoft still having Bloodborne servers ready for me on my very first runthrough 10yrs after launch

I’ve been playing truth E33. It’s definitely slower than the Action games you list, being a JRPG-like game. It’s your side vs the enemy. Think old Final Fantasy. A closer comparison would be the Mario RPG series. While it is a lot of your turn->their turn->your turn etc, there are timings during both your turn and the enemy turns for button presses to do more damage (or in some cases, any damage), or to negate or even counter enemy attacks. It’s so much more of an engaging experience vs just pressing a button and watching your character do a massive combo. For me, getting really good at the parry timing is so satisfying. Most enemy attacks have multiple hits during their attacks, and if you parry every single one, you launch a counterattack. There is a dodge, but while it has a large window than the parry, all it really does is negate damage. That’s another thing: because you can learn enemy timings, your can take on bosses that are well above your punching weight. I find that part very fun. The characters are well written, in my opinion. For what a dreary story the game writes, there are moments of levity and extra background you have the option of engaging with for each character. The game is a serious contender for game of the year, it at the very least several awards. And for only $50usd, it blows many other AAA(A) games out of the water. Give it a chance and I think you’ll find it well worth your time.

Spider-Man 1, 2, Miles Morales & Dragonage: Veilguard also deserve to be mentioned. I’ll buy a game on launch at full price if it’s not loaded down with bullshit or shoving the rest of the game behind a paywall. Otherwise I’ll just be a patient gamer and get it in a few years cheaper and patched up.

This describes just about all Paradox games made in the past 15 years, sadly. They release with a barebones concept, then slowly drip-feed content for 5-30 bucks a pop, each one usually sitting at “Mostly Negative” because it doesn’t fundamentally add or change anything most of the time, and the times it does- meh. Crusader Kings 2 was my bread and butter for a long time. Played Crusader Kings 3, and it felt like almost every helpful mechanic that existed in CK2 was stripped, and then added on again over the course of years. It was so infuriating, that I just don’t buy their titles anymore.

Depends on how old the game is and how big the DLC is IMO. Rimworld, for instance, has quite a few DLCs now, but they are all well worth it if you like the base game. OTOH if a game just has cosmetic DLC or the DLC is coming out super near release that’s a red flag.

Rimworld’s DLCs are kinda assumed purchases for the modding scene, too. I feel like this drives a lot of their sales TBH.

At the very least, you can still pirate it and play cracked multiplayer with friends.

I made the mistake of buying the game year ago, and bought a bunch of DLC at 50% or greater sales, and now the sunken cost fallacy has taken hold on me, and I still want to buy more . . . . (at least I’m broke so I can’t right now hehehaha)

Minecraft is the most popular best selling game of all time, and the single-player mode is still being updated. Granted, many people play on multiplayer servers, but still.

Vampire Survivors is an exception.

Games as a service can be okay, in some situations. Ones we very rarely see due to (primarily) publisher greed.

If you’re paying for the game itself, at any point, GaaS is stupid and extremely exploitative.

If they choose to go that route however, the game needs to be free to play with separate monetization. They need to mebe things that are completely optional and don’t affect gameplay.

KCD2 is exactly like KCD1 with a few more years of development refining and in some cases expanding the rpg systems, a new map, and a continuation of the story. It feels the same, just a little nicer. In other words, it’s a perfect sequel.

The only fault I have with it is that Henry starts the game bad to mediocre at most things instead of useless, and that beginning stage is my favorite to go through and out of. But being a sequel I can excuse it pretty easily.