BURIED

"I see you're enjoying digging. Unfortunately, my employer doesn't share the enthusiasm. How about I give you one more chance. WHERE ARE YOUR PARTNERS?"

"We know where your brother lives. Do you want to him to join you?"

"Need I rephrase the question? WHERE IS THE DATA CENTER?"

also cyberpunk is weirdly just utterly relaxing to me? like when I play the game before bed and i walk around the streets I can actually feel my eyelids get heavy and everything. i used to play bg3 before bed too but that game did not wind me down at all and i’d end up having weird dreams about turn-based combat. since i started playing cp2077, exactly a week now, there hasn’t been a night where i haven’t taken more than 10 minutes to fall asleep. so sincerely, thank you cyberpunk 2077

if there’s one thing about me it’s that i WILL be spending hours on the character customisation section of a video game and spending all my money on clothes and accessories

Archer Quartz

Dead island 2 is fun and a great cathartic stress reliever but it is also incredibly linear and the gameplay doesn’t offer as much “play styles” as I was hoping it would (for someone who bought the game on a whim)

I'm sorry, but absolutely yes, Cyberpunk is giving me GTA vibes and I can't ignore it

I really, really hate the "Female V is canon" vs "Male V is canon" debate that been popping here and here in the tags those past weeks

Cyberpunk 2077 is a Role Playing Game, there is no "canon" protagonist, that's the whole point. We all have a different playstyles, different stories and headcanons, our custom V is The Canon V of Our Own playthroughs!

After Phantom Liberty dropped, I've seen a lot of players, on Tumblr or Twitter, voicing their concerne and disappointment in how much more Female V focused the official promo, videos and even in-game credits became

I was one of them too, expressing my feelings multiple times, sometimes awkwardly, frustrated that Male V players were once again brushed to the side, because that's how it feels like, right?

Well, it might feels like it, but this isn't the case AT ALL, far from it. This is only what I would call a "Fandom Phenomenon" and I want to talk more about it a bit

I had a great conversation with a friend of mine who works in the game industry and it opened my eyes on the matter, and I've since been really interested in seeing RPGs statistics!

Because it's really, really important to make the difference between the Casual Player Base (majority of players) and the Fans / Fandom Base (minority of players)

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I always been lurking in fandoms here on Tumblr, since Mass Effect, Dragon Age, and now with Cyberpunk 2077 and Baldur's Gate 3

First I want to drop some stats- might be completly wrong, but I'm only sharing my point of view here, in an attempt to explain why some people are frustrated with Female V being the focus (and why we shouldn't be!)

I think it's not wrong to say that fandoms are mostly occupied by women and fem-identifying individuals; fandoms are a safe place for players and fans to share their passions. Women are STILL HEAVILY harassed and hated in the gaming industry as a whole, it doesn't take a lot of digging to catch a vile comment on Twitter or on Twitch for example, you cannot go far without seeing someone either attacking or sexualizing them

This is a huge problem in the industry still, every games that release with a female protagonist get trashed- just look at the bullshit surrounding GTA 6 just because players will be able to play as a woman as an option

Fandoms are also safe for non-gender conforming people, non-binaries, trans people and queer men, but I think fem individuals and women are a clear majority, at least on Tumblr (only talking about genders identity here and not about being queer or not, not talking about sexualities or attraction) (not an official stat at all and only my point of view and experience from being on Tumblr since ~2012)

Now let's talk about Cyberpunk 2077- because this is my main fandom since 2020, and what prompted me to write this post in the first place

CDPR didn't share any stats recently, but it's REALLY SAFE to assume the MAJORITY of players are playing a straight Male V romancing Panam, followed by a lesbian Female V romancing Judy, but the player pools for both options are still majoritarly cis hetero men (and they are still the focus for AAA studios to sell their games, this is sadly just how it is)

However on the fandom side, Fem V was always the focus; virtual photography, mods, ships, OCs... She was always more popular than Male V, getting more interactions and notes and why trends like "Male V monday" were created and why there is still a lack of male V focused mods (non-binaries and trans fem folks and characters are also sadly under-represented in all type of content and art)

So, being yourself as a non-fem player, playing as a Masc V, seeing CDPR officially make the switch from Male V to Female V, when the space you've been in for the past 3 years has been overwhelmingly Female V focused on all front, was a bit of a punch in the guts; like I said earlier, I was reaaally frustrated with this too!

And I'd say it's "normal"? or at least "ok" to feel this way, it makes sense considering how little attention Male V in general get in the fans community

BUT. BUT... It's REALLY important here to realize how we sound and how we look like when we voice our frustrations on the matter; we sound and look just like all the misogynistic people over on Twitter who screams about "woke games" everytime there is a female protagonist in their "non political games". We have to remember that fandoms are suuuch a small part of the game industry

Baldur's Gate 3 recently shared their stats and this interesting tweet got into my dash

▶ tweet

Astarion is nowhere to be seen in the official most romanced companions statistic, but I'm sure a lot of people will agree that he's probably the most popular one in the fandom side!

Another stat here from Mass Effect and really interesting info coming from David Gaider about how the hardcore fanbase aka fandom's choices were WILDLY different from the casual / main player pool

▶ tweet

Getting my head out of the fandom bubbles and seeing the bigger picture, how much under-represented women still are in official medias (not talking about fan content) and how insanly misoginistic the game industry still is, both on the player and devs sides, helped me handle my own frustration on the matter, accept and even celebrate Female V being the focus for the Phantom Liberty campaign

With all that said tho, we all should be able to vent about the lack of Male, Masc and Non-Binary content in the fandom side, while still being aware of the industry state, it CAN co-exist! It doesn't make anyone a bad or misogynist person!

We are all humans and can be awkward and make mistakes, especially when voicing frustration or talking while in a negative mood. Let's educate one another in good-faithed manners when we slip instead of jumping to conclusion and throw accusations

Not gonna lie I kind of lost my train of thoughts and not sure how to finish this post, but I hope this can enlight some people on why CDPR made this choice!

Repeating this as a finale note; this doesn't mean that Female V is the "main" V or "canon" V . It's simply her time to shine, and it's well deserved! The industry needs it

Looking for more mutuals!

Looking for more lgbtq+ friendly people to follow/engage with! I'm Neil, a freelance artist who posts fanart time to time + reblogs content I like! Which is mostly videogames, really lol What I am into: - Games: RPGs, Action Adventure, Horror, Shooters - Current Fandoms: Baldur's Gate 3 and Dragon Age - the Witcher - Cyberpunk 2077 - Red Dead Redemption/GTA franchise - Overwatch - Art in any form/Content Creating etc etc

If you like any of these things, reply to this post with anything and I'll follow you back! :> Reblogs are appreciated! P.S. Samples of my art below~

I'm playing Cyberpunk 2077 and imo it might be one of my new favourite games of all time only 25hrs in, and I think one of the biggest reasons is the character writing, they feel so authentic and real in ways that games like GTA or even The Witcher 3 don't come to for me, those are great games in their own right but all of the characters feel like pre-scripted actors, where the Cyberpunk characters (Jackie, Misty, Evelyn, Judy, Panam, even minor characters like Mama Welles and Mitch) feel like real people reacting in real ways to their environment

It makes the world so much more immersive and lived in and really just made me want to ride around NC on Jackie's Arch and vibe. It also makes all of them feel so mortal. Every mission I do with the characters I like I'm worried they'll die mid-mission and that'll just be that, they're gone forever, where in games like GTA i wouldn't be worried because letting an ally die restarts you from a checkpoint.

I think the dynamic graveyard is what really pushed me over the edge, seeing the graves of people you watched die + the Edgerunners really hit hard for me personally

I appreciate video games that have a photo mode, more now that I've hopped back into GTA 5. You can hide the HUD and map and just screencap that, but the game has a full video editing suite.

So to use it like a photo mode to have to use the in-game video recorder to take a clip, then open rockstar editor and create a project. Add in the clip you want and you can then edit it. The camera setting has a lot of features you get from most photo modes but it's hidden that deep you wouldn't know it's there. Also it doesn't tell you how to hide the HUD in the editor. It's R3.

Where as with Cyberpunk 2077 you just tap in the two thumb sticks. Simples!

I actually liked Cyberpunk 2077. I spent my last 3 months of 2022 playing through the entire thing, and I enjoyed the sidequests a lot and saw where The Witcher 3's magic went.

And even then. Even then. Holy shit did it bite off more than it could chew. There's an entire district (Pacifica) that's completely unfinished, as in there's almost no quests there, a whole game mechanic (Fixer quests) is missing, there's barely any people around in the most infamously lawless and violent section of Night City. It's just standing there. Unfinished.

CDPR execs seriously tried to make their own GTA competitor with, as was revealed by news sites, 1/3rd of the staff required to make a GTA game. A number of devs who were the main creative forces behind The Witcher 3's incredible success left from how unfeasible the project was.

It was never going to end well.

Okay okay. Controversial statement of the day: I just began playing Cyberpunk 2077 and. The controversy around it? Absolute horseshit

I hesitated to buy it because of said controversy and I ended up only buying it because it was on sale and a few of my friends (of various marginalized groups) said it was overblown controversy, but seriously. Its not even overblown it's almost completely fabricated.

The seizure thing? They not only added a warning at the start but replaced the animation based on a seizure trigger test. The transphobia and racism? Really exists but is comically overblown as a way of showing the way Capitalism will use such topics as a way to control. And the 'not real cyberpunk'? Let me allow an in-game writing to speak for itself:

This is a game which fully approaches the cyberpunk ethos with a genuine love for the genre, taking it to exactly the same extremes other media have. The racial factionization is a common element in LOTS of Cyberpunk media, because the Powers That Be under late stage capitalism deliberately play it up as a way of keeping the working class divided instead of united. And the fetishization of trans bodies works similarly to serve capitalist interests by selling it as a lifestyle choice. You really mean to tell me you think wholesome portrayals of trans bodies would be the norm under hyper-late capitalism? On top of that, neither the racism nor the transphobia ever reaches levels beyond what GTA does regularly. And nobody is making them out to be pure evil, they just shrug it off as GTA's style.

Anyways my point is, Cyberpunk 2077 appears to be...actually kinda good? Every element I find questionable at first becomes explained as the result of capitalism with a little time. And yes, it is OVERTLY anti-capitalist; you literally become brain-buddies with an anarcho-terrorist who attacked a corporation for being "Corporate Colonialists", posting a manifesto to that effect. I understand the misgivings when it came out, but I am fully deeming the anger over it as the peak moment when purity culture just outright talked out its ass. Its a good game and if you are down for challenging media I think you'll like it too.

It's so weird to me that games like Baldurs gate 3 and cyberpunk 2077 can have full on pornographic sex scenes so integrated into the game that there's genital customization. Like, it seems like it wasn't that long ago that gta San andreas had to go through a full recall cause it has sexual content on the disk that was only accessible with mods, and things like fable were pushing the envelop with a fade to black and a few generic moan sounds

About me!

My name is Elias!

Early 30's

Single, I don't know how to mingle and at this point I'm too afraid to ask.

demisexual

I support LGBTQIA+ on this blog. It is a safe space

My inbox and messages are always open. In fact, I would love to hear from you!

I struggle with mental health issues, mainly depression and anxiety

Located on the East Coast of the US, Mid-Atlantic region

I don't really drink or smoke but I am 420 friendly as well.

I travel for a living, so I get to see many cool and interesting places! But it can be a very lonely and isolated life

I have a very dark sense of humor.

My interests!

I play PC and Xbox. Currently into Cyberpunk 2077. But love games like The Witcher, Baldur's Gate 3, RDR, GTA Skyrim, Fallout, Mass Effect, Assassins Creed, Farcry, Diablo, and Borderlands.

I'm a HUGE fan of Star Wars, The Witcher, and LOTR.

My top 10 shows are (not in any particular order) The X-Files, What We Do in the Shadows, Doctor Who, Disenchantment, Forensic Files, Taskmaster, 8 Out of 10 Cats does Countodown, IASIP, MST3K, and Parks and Rec.

My top 10 movies include (again, not in any particular order) The Thing, Dead Alive, Jurassic Park, the Big Lebowski, Coralie, The Fifth Element, Mad Max series, Evil Dead series, Hook, the Vvitch.

I listen to all kinds of music. Some bands include Unleash the Archers, Defacing God, Battle Beast, Volbeat, Mazzy Star, Gloryhammer, Iron Maiden, Lacuna Coil, Johnny Cash, some Miley Cyrus, and The Misfits.

I frequently listen to the Last Podcast on the Left, My Favorite Murder, and Redhanded

l'm always looking for recommendations! Music, TV, movies, video games, podcasts, you name it!

I ride motorcycle, a 2004 Suzuki Intruder Volusia 800. Always wear a helmet and eye protection!

l'm an artist. I like to paint with acrylics and draw with pens. You can find my art here --> @tenebroseart if you want to share art with me, feel free to message me!

I am a learning blacksmith. l've made a few knives, but I'm still learning and trying to better myself and make different items.

l love to learn about history, mythology, wildlife and plants, astronomy, and science.

Okay. So we got 4 life sim games in the works and I’m going to give my opinion on each one so far. Starting with the one I’m looking forward to the most. This is a LONG ASS Post. Get a snack if you’re interested in reading lol.

1. Paralives

Paralives is the game I’m the most excited about. Since they started sharing their work on the game, it’s looked great. From the character models to how the world looks. The improvements they’ve made have only made the game look even better. You can tell they are taking their time and staying in their own lane. Compared to some of the other competitors, the Paralives team doesn’t seem to have the mission of taking down the sims. They just want to make a good game, and I appreciate that. The ironic part is, even though they’re not trying, they’re the closest to a Sims killer in my opinion. I love the look of the characters. I love how they interact with the environment in such detail. They’ve truly taken animation to another level. Watching the footage of a proposal both gone right and gone wrong, and how that animation just looks more real compared to anything we’ve seen in the sims, was awesome for me. I guess we have to be fair and say that the sims has always come from a silly angle. But it’s just nice to have some realism in a life sim. Like I’m sure our paras won’t die from laughter or embarrassment. I get some players may like that, but I’m kinda too grown for that lol. So I want a life sim that takes things a bit more seriously and it seems like Paralives is following that. Like I don’t know if they’ll have this, but I’m the type to want my sim to possibly die from a mysterious illness, not laughter. They also take interactions to the next level. They released footage of selecting 4 paras to go use the bathroom and they did something I’ve been begging for. My biggest issue with the sims is that it feels like you have too much control or not enough. Say you wanted to recreate that moment in the sims, not only do you have to direct each sim one by one, but as soon as one person is on the toilet, the sim will wave and shrug and then walk away. Since there is already a sim blocking them from their immediate action, they’ll just drop the action entirely and then end up peeing on themselves somewhere. In Paralives, they all crowd around the bathroom door, socializing, and taking turns to use the toilet. Like real people! That’s what’s been missing and I’m so excited to see how much more fun it’s gonna be to actually play a life sim that adds this level of realism and detail.

2. InZoi

InZoi is an interesting case. In all honesty, I’m excited about it, but it’s giving a little too good to be true. I mean it looks out of this world amazing. The interactions and animations are even better and more detailed than Paralives. I was worried about being able to make Zois look the way I want but they have one of the best character creators I think I’ve ever seen. And you want to talk about realism?! The graphics are insane and more along the lines of most modern day RPGs like GTA or Cyberpunk 2077. Not too surprising since the dev for InZoi did say they’re using unreal engine. Which is why I wonder if this will be available on consoles. It genuinely looks more like a console game than Paralives or Life By You. And I think that is why the dev made a point to say something like driving in the game is not like driving in GTA. But with the way it looks, I would want to play it on my ps5 and my big 65 inch tv. It just looks like a world to get lost in at ground level, where you’re more part of the action and not so much playing from above like a god in control. I think the fact that they even have difficulty settings for the game backs up my point. We’ve never experienced “easy” or “hard” modes in life sim games, so that’s definitely a big deviation. It also feels like the game will be a lot less about building and a lot more about living. The world doesn’t seem like it can be edited very much, aside from maybe where your Zois live. Some people may not like that. But if you play specifically for live mode then you won’t care too much. It also seems to be geared more toward city living than living in the suburbs. I’m seeing a lot of apartments versus homes. So I’m not sure how many options we’ll have there. On the flip side of that, it’s really cool to be able to control the weather, whatever trees or billboards are in the city, what animals spawn, even changing the crime rate and possibility of fires?! That’s pretty cool and realistic. They did something really unique with the ability to sleep walk. I love that. I love seeing a kid sleepily walking into their parents room to get in their parent’s bed. Too cute. Hilarious that you could donate all your money in your sleep too. I’m just loving how these devs are differentiating themselves from the Sims. However, there is also the question of how live mode actually works. It seems like the dev wants to have some kind of story or maybe quest system. Some type of actual goal or scripted experiences, which is another big deviation from most life sims. He mentioned working for a specific company, but we’ve also seen Zoi’s working at coffee shops, so it’ll be interesting to see what options are available for what our Zoi’s do for a living. Clearly there is family play, but we’ve only seen kids, not babies or toddlers. Or even elders when I think about it. But they’re still working on the game so I’m sure we’ll learn more eventually. But, like I said it all feels too good to be true. If they do come out with the character creator demo then I’ll have a bit more faith. I get that people have had early access to it and played it but even they are saying the game looks completely different now from what they had their hands on. So, I’m still a little hesitant. That’s all. Hoping for the best with this one though, and a console version lol.

3. Life By You

Honestly the one I’m least excited about. And yet they’re the closest ones to release. The game just looks bad frankly. I understand that people like to say that gameplay is what matters. But to me, in a life sim, if it doesn’t look good, if my characters don’t look good, I’m disinterested. Aesthetics are important. That’s the ONE thing that I love about the Sims 4. How the sims look and how the environment looks has always been my fave out of all the sims games. And while InZoi looks like this huge and immersive, console type open world, and Paralives is giving a more stylistic version of Sims 4, Life By You is giving a small miniaturized set. I don’t know about you, but gameplay looks…tiny? Like the proportions of everything just seems really off. It reminds me of a mobile game. You can zoom in fairly close but I feel like if the “human” stands in front of their fridge, it’ll be the same height as them. Granted that’s not actually the case but it just feels like all the assets are one size. Cars look small, bikes look small. Someone was skateboarding in the clip and I could barely see the skateboard. The world just looks and feels small. But speaking of gameplay, the world feels so empty. And this is what worries me the most. For both Paralives and InZoi, we see clips of people roaming around the world. Interacting with each other. Sitting at cafes and what have you. But Life By You? We’ve seen so much footage of walking to the beach or through a neighborhood and there’s literally no one else around. No one jogging. No one working in their gardens. We’ve gone to the gym, no one else in the gym. We’ve gone to the grocery store, no one there either. Don’t really see any other cars on the road when you’re traveling. No people swimming or sun bathing at the beach. I mean great, there’s no loading screens, great there’s no rabbit holes, but the world is literally empty. Nor does it seem like there’s very much to actually do. After all we keep seeing them showcase the same activities over and over. People go to the beach but don’t change into swimsuits or get in the water. Walk by parks but there’s no one there. We haven’t seen kids. Like there’s a lot that just seems to be missing.

And then there’s the technical. Apart from it just not looking good aesthetically, the animations need major work. And I’m really over things disappearing into thin air, or characters untying a bow without actually touching it. We need details! That’s what makes a game feel realistic. The create a character looks atrocious and the “humans” themselves just don’t look attractive. The UI looks extremely cluttered and hard to understand at times. All this and this game is supposed to be coming out next month 👀👀👀. Yes in early access, but it doesn’t even look cooked enough to justify early access to me. And the fact that they seem to be targeting certain sims reviewers to promote the game to their audiences,ugh I don’t know. I just have a bad feeling about Life By You. They’ve been trying to create all this hype around something that genuinely doesn’t look that impressive. And if it weren’t for InZoi and Paralives, maybe I would be more excited. But now that ive seen the possibilities, Life By You just isn’t cutting it. Ironic part for me is this game feels the most like the sims. Not too surprising since it’s headed by one of the creators of the original sims games. Mostly sims 2 I believe. And that’s kind of the problem. I think he thinks he’s doing something different. But it feels very familiar. It feels like his focus was for you to make the game that you want. What he calls “modding” is really just in depth customization. Which yes, that is missing from the sims, but that’s not enough for people to choose Life By You over these other games. Cool they speak English and we can create our own dialogue branches. Cool, that traits are so customizable and I can create a “human” (I wish they would have came up with something clever to call them) with the exact personality I want. Cool that humans actually have to pay money for clothing and accessories. These all feel like details that are missing from the sims and Life By You is coming to fill that void. But what about everything else? I just get the feeling that this is going to be one of those tragic type launches. But I hope the game is good enough for them to turn things around.

4. Sims 5/Project Rene

Honestly, I’m not even interested.

What? Sorry. Lmao.

I FUCKING LOVR THIS PORSHE

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Hello hi , so I was reminiscencing about 2020. My whole life (most of my life) I only played call of duty. There was story RPGs here and there but I'd always go back to call of duty. And during 2018-2019 I was really starting to hate the State of COD. I played COD since I was little. Playing against bots b/c I couldn't get xbox online. I played the hell out of ghosts, bo4, Cold War, bo2 a bit, in total I'd probably have 4k hours racking up all together definitely more. And it's not like I didn't like story games or RPGs I think a lot of them outgrew replayability for me. The walking dead, life is strange, Bully. Most of these series I watched others play I never had money like that. But when I started working I played the hell out of these games and then I went back to multiplayers. Fortnite, was something I heavily played and Bo4. (These games I played heavily in high school 2016)

Then as time went on I stopped having ppl to play with and a lot of these games franchises I had loved , I started to despise. I never thought a company would hate their communities as much as they do now. I was strictly console player so I never had a chance to "broaden my horizons" with games and/or everyone was playing the same shit. So when I started to hate these games I took a chance on a game called "Cyberpunk 2077" I had saw clips of the game way back when, and I didn't really know shit about it except it was an open world rpg and u can hack shit.

So yeah I just wanted a change in scenery with my games I'd play. So yeah Cyberpunk released and it was broken. I was unfortunately experiencing it on ps4 anddd yeah the game barely functioned. The areas barely loaded in, yeah it was pretty bad. But I still wanted to see what the game had to offer. So as they made updates I was thrown into this new world that had me interested every step of the way. I don't usually say this but I'd genuinely want to play cyberpunk for the first time again.

Fast forward to 2020 I didn't realize other titles had released during 2020 cause all I was doing was playing cyberpunk. I had got a pc before or after it released but yeah. I was enjoying a shit ton of cyberpunk and learning Valorant. But for the most part cyberpunk was ALL I played for 4years. And idk I just can't believe CP2077 had such a hold on me. I think that's how games should be, I think CP2077 has written the best story I've seen in a very long time. And the different playstyles ppl can have was endless. During those 2 years of playing CP2077 there was countless updates and me STILL discovering new dialogues and choices thru out the game. Side quests and all.

I never thought I'd be a Virtual Photographer but CP2077 even sparked that for me and it's just made me so happy. I hope other games can take a page from CDPR's book to make these fresh and interesting. That may be easier said than done and "subjective" but I think cp2077 will be a top tier ip that everyone is going to love like gta and something like Skyrim. I hope I live long enough for the sequel and the world doesn't drop marshal law before I get to experience it 😎

I've felt this way for a long time but a lot of RPGs don't feel necessarily "fun" most stuff just feels like chores in the game. They slap a $70 price tag on these games just for the game to be broken, cliche story writing, and just bland and done before. A lot of RPGs follow a formula and I just hope these triple A companies break out of their comfort zones and actually create something new or engaging. Ppl deserve new stuff. I'm tired of seeing "10/10s" on games just cause it's "expected" to be good (but when I play it it's mid ashell)

This is my opinion please do not harass me over something like a damn video game this is just my thoughts. And I know this is wild but ppl have different opinions, and I'm not a god damn hive mind ass