You're in luck then, they just released an exploration event! Seriously though, my hopes towards exploration are about as high as those towards medical gameplay. I hope I'm wrong though.
Tony is retired - you can find him with the title of "Game Director Emeritus" on CIG's About Page.
As for the economy sim... officially it's still coming, with the last excuse we got (or at least the one I can remember) for it not being ready being server meshing. With this year' focus on quality of life and polishing Squadron I'd say it's the usual "2 more years".
This definitely sucks but at least it seems like they had a good enough schedule to finish the season before airing. So... not a completely bad news?
Yeah, that tracks - it's a business organisation first and foremost. And yeah, we definitely do.
I'm back on the villainess train, this time with two titles I found completely at random - both being decent finds too.
- Kill the Villainess
I initially thought it will be a less interesting version of Villains Are Destined to Die, it turned out to be probably the most sombre (without being edgy) villainess themed series I've wrote about here so far.
The premise is nothing original: woman is pulled into the body of a villainess from a book and has to die to go back to real world. Guess what? She tried. Multiple times. Before the story even began.
There's no easy way out and she has to play the part of a bad guy according to the original novel, whether she likes it or not.
It's a pretty solid choice if you're in a mood for a less quirky story in this genre.
- Behold the True Villainess
A complete whiplash of emotions when paired with the first one as this is a pure comedy.
This one is also an isekai story but here the soft and timid noble girl gets taken over by someone who doesn't let herself get pushed around by anyone. She bails from a temple she was sent to, stirs trouble, gets people addicted to modernised (well, properly spiced) cuisine and spreads real world slang among the nobles (often misrepresenting what it actually means).
It's silly, it's light-hearted and it's full of pretty good jokes (visual or otherwise).
It's a group representing the biggest publishers in the industry, used as a front to pretend they're able to self-regulate when it comes to consumer laws vs business wants. So no, not a governing body but more of a cartel or lobbying group, I guess? One with A LOT of money on the line and enough lobbying power to push against things like the Stop Killing Games campaign the moment they feel threatened.
I might be reading too much into this but I think they're going for an anthology feel with the show and if there's ever Cyberpunk Edgerunners 3 it would once again focus on yet another group of characters. That's just how I interpreted Sztybor's words though.
I think that to some extent this comes down to a simple fact that for many people, like yourself, Edgerunners was their first into the world of anime - depending on one's media literacy and experience this might sway their opinion one way or another. Besides, that's not just a problem with Edgerunners, you could say the same about folks for whom Cyberpunk 2077 was their first experience with cyberpunk as a genre.
While not perfect, it's a solid show overall and if it serves as a gateway deeper into the rabbit hole then I'd say it's worth the praise.
Here are the board members of this organisation in case someone is curious about their relevancy/neutrality on the matter:
- Hester Woodliffe – Chair (Warner Bros. Games)
- Canon Pence (Epic Games)
- Kerry Hopkins (Electronic Arts)
- Ian Mattingly (Activision)
- Klemens Kundratitz (Embracer)
- Qumar Jamil (Microsoft)
- Clemens Mayer-Wegelin (Nintendo of Europe)
- Cinnamon Rogers (Sony Interactive Entertainment)
- Matt Spencer (Take 2)
- Alain Corre (Ubisoft)
- Alberto Gonzalez-Lorca (Bandai Namco Entertainment)
- Karine Parker (Square Enix)
- Mark Maslowicz (Level Infinite)
- Felix Falk (game)
- Nicolas Vignolles (SELL)
- David Verbruggen (VGFB)
- Nick Poole (UKIE)
You know, the people who "ensured that the voice of a responsible games ecosystem is heard and understood" (direct quote from their website).
Writer was pretty clear about David's fate in the article and mentioned wanting to tell more stories with "many interesting characters". Besides, season 2 is described as a standalone story so more than likely.
I watched some of the transmission and all I can say is my respect to Zelensky grew tenfold with that exchange alone.
Having to interact with these two clowns and still keeping his cool (as much as he was able to) requires A LOT of patience and will. It was horrifyingly stupid in a train wreck kind of way.
I've been waiting for something like this ever since medical gameplay was introduced. I assume the issue for now has to do with unfinished work on the planetary on-foot navigation for NPCs but who knows. For now I just huff hopium considering navigation tasks are semi-regularly mentioned in monthly reports so... one day.