j.

Really odd that you gave graphics to ghost of yotei as that's literally the one thing that stunned me how much worse it looks than AC. It's not even close, the second I started it I could see it, the visuals are such a step-down from AC it's the main thing that's held me back from getting more than 25min in.

Yeah waiting for another game like MGS5, wish there was another one on the horizon like that. So many fond memories there. Also I'd add Ghost Recon: Wildlands to this list. That game had some really fun stealth, with the drone & with sniping installations, creeping in etc.

The most recent wasn't that bad in that dept either but really Wildlands was the high point.

Selling online as a standalone is dumb. The amount of effort that's been put into the core game & I can think of a couple young genz types who will never experience the real glory of a Rockstar game if it's not even part of the package. They'll just buy it for online & have no idea what they're missing. Heck, if I were the devs I'd only have online unlock after they play thru the tutorial/intro to get the full immersion going. Then they can do what they want.

As if it's strange for a franchise to prioritize profits over critical appeal.

Let's not pearl clutch that Michael Bay is back, those films had alot of fans (until they didn't near the end,) & the first shows he can do pretty well. In fact let's remember 2006. If we were to imagine a Live-Action Transformers movie at that time we woulda pictured something purely for children, resembling some power ranger looking weird thing. We probably couldn't even have wrapped our head around the concept of it looking & feeling "real." I still remember that first teaser trailer. That blew me & friends away, just cuz it was showing us something depicted in a way (even for that brief instant in that teaser) that was hard to imagine before, & the movie suddenly went from a punchline to a bit of a "wow" all from that teaser. The movie lived up to it, delivering some spielbergian magic in there with the boy-and-his-first-car motif that allowed casual entry into the universe & I think if Bay doesn't get carried away like he did on The Last Knight (which was admittedly beautiful visually but was also maybe the most incoherent & messy action movie of the last 25yrs,) then this might actually be good. Unless u base ur standard for quality on critic consensus even for movies where that shouldn't be the defining factor. Critics generally dislike Bay being Bay even when it DOES work, so box office isn't that bad of an indicator for general audience enjoyment with this franchise. But Yes Transformers One was good.

Just becuz they don't need lots of trailers for their sales becuz the game markets itself doesn't mean it's an excuse just to forego it.... Ur fans have waited, give them some crumbs for God's sake. Trailers also help make the release feel more like an event.