Castle Magus

So, apparently, Rise of the Tomb Raider and Shadow of the Tomb Raider on PC were patched to remove Denuvo (even though the Steam pages for both still currently have the Denuvo label right there)... only for the Denuvo to be replaced with "Epic Online Services," whatever the fuck that is, which apparently requires you to create an account with Epic (even if you bought it through Steam) if you want to play them now. In other words, Square Enix simply traded one flavor of rancid diarrhea for another.

Both Rise and Shadow pretty much would have been almost no-brainer purchases for me, honestly, had Square Enix just not opted to infest them with all this worse-than-useless third party DRM horseshit.

Worse than that, though, they apparently tried/are trying to shoehorn that same Epic Online Services dumbfuckery into the original (remake) Tomb Raider game as well, after the fact. I.e. the only one of the games that I actually own on Steam myself, due to having not bought the two sequels because of the Denuvo malware.

Seriously, Square Enix can eat a truckload of shit at this point, for all I care about them anymore. And Denuvo and Epic can eat truckloads of shit simply for existing, to boot.

(Not going to bother providing links for any of that, but it's easy enough to Google.)

"Following the departure of Hideo Kojima from Konami, the publisher has taken over the Metal Gear reins and announced Metal Gear Survive. A multiplayer shooter that seems to have very little to do with what Metal Gear is about."

...

...

Wait, hold on, you mean that Konami is still trying to make video games? I thought they gave all that up to get into mobile bullshit and pachinko horseshit. ¬_¬

So... multiplayer-only Metal Gear, huh? Yep, that sounds about as terrible of an idea as multiplayer-only Legacy of Kain and online-only Shenmue.

Rest in piss, Konami. Stick a fork in them. They're done.

pic.twitter.com/Lm04m6BNB1

— HIDEO_KOJIMA (@HIDEO_KOJIMA_EN) December 16, 2015

Looks like my guess that Kojima was most likely just burning vacation time before abandoning the sinking shit that is Konami was indeed pretty much the case, more or less.

Requiescat in pace, Konami. At this point, you won't be missed at all, at least not by me. It's a damn shame to lose Castlevania and Silent Hill and all, but... yeah, Konami is pretty much done now. Oh, I mean, yeah, sure, they'll probably still make money with all that mobile phone shit and the pachinko crap they're doing now, because apparently the Japanese eat that kind of shit right up, but as far as I personally am concerned, Konami has just been a corpse for a while now. Sad.

Silent Hill has practically been dead ever since Team Silent was disbanded. I like a couple of the later SH games kind of sort of okay, I guess. Homecoming and Downpour were not entirely shit (unlike Origins, which was entirely shit, at least to me, and is the only SH game I've played that I never bothered to actually finish), and Shattered Memories was actually pretty decent, I thought, but other than that, Silent Hill was pretty much over for me after SH3. The Room isn't quite as bad as people make it out to be, either (and, again, the same can be said for Homecoming and Downpour, too), but none of those really had the feel of Silent Hill to me. And as for Castlevania, though I liked the first Lords of Shadow well enough (but haven't touched the sequels yet), it similarly didn't feel like a CV game at all to me, and as such, Castlevania has been essentially dead since Koji Igarashi left the company. Hopefully Hideo Kojima can now get back to making original cool shit again, too, similar to IGA and Bloodstained, now that he (Kojima) is finally out from under the yoke of Konami in general and Metal Gear in particular. (For what it's worth, I haven't touched a Metal Gear game myself since MGS4, over five years ago, just to note.)

(EDIT)



Hrm. :/ Not quite sure what to make of that. I still have little interest in buying a PS4 at this point, but... well, we'll see what the nebulous future may hold, I guess.

(/EDIT)

"Konami is reportedly ceasing its AAA development efforts on all games except Pro Evolution Soccer.

"Following on from this morning’s report that Fox Engine director Julien Merceron has left Konami, a new report from the same French website says the publisher is not investing in AAA console games any more.

"The sole exception is the Pro Evolution Soccer series. That means no Metal Gear or Silent Hill to come, despite Konami’s earlier statements suggesting the former will continue."

No more Castlevania, either. No more Contra. No more of any of the games that once made Konami one of the top companies in the industry (and I don't consider Pro Evolution Whatever The Fuck to be one of those games). It's all about fucking mobile horseshit and goddamn pachinko machines now. Oh well... (EDIT) The thing is, though, it's not necessarily that Konami no longer wants to continue making console games, it's that they simply can't continue to make console games, because all of their half-way decent or better devs are leaving or have already left, due to them becoming incredibly shitty lately. But then, the reason that they're becoming incredibly shitty and the better devs are leaving is because, yes indeed, they no longer want to make big console games anymore. So... yeeeeeahh... like I said in the first place, it's because of mobile horseshit and pachinko, which they incorrectly believe to be the future of gaming. ¬_¬ In any case, Konami is now reaping what they have sown. (/EDIT)

Requiescat in pace, Konami. You are dead to me now.

It's always sad to see a once awesome game developer/publisher fall and fail so hard like this.

( Stupid Youtube embeds behind cut )

You are taking two of your best series and turning them into goddamn pachinko machines. Seriously, Konami. What in the fuck.

Once again:

Requiescat in pace, Konami. You are dead to me now.

It's always sad to see a once awesome game developer/publisher fall and fail so hard like this.

To follow up on the previous posts, since I somehow missed this news back when it first happened:

Sega has also shifted their focus to mobile shovelware, it seems.

Requiescat in pace, Sega. You are dead to me now (and have been for a long while).

It's always sad to see a once awesomehalfway decent game developer/publisher fall and fail so hard like this.

"Konami Confirms That Mobile Will Be Its Primary Focus Moving Forward"
"Konami CEO: 'Mobile is where the future of gaming lies'"
"Metal Gear Publisher Konami: Mobile Is Now Our Main Platform"
"Konami's 'Mobile Games Are The Future' Statement Reads Like A Parody"

Requiescat in pace, Konami. You are dead to me now.

It's always sad to see a once awesome game developer/publisher fall and fail so hard like this.

See also: Square Enix. (EDIT) And Sega. (/EDIT)