The Thursday letters page wonders if Naughty Dog has a secret fourth game, as one reader is upset at the current state of Football Manager. Games Inbox is a collection of our readers’ letters, comments, and opinions. To join in with the discussions yourself email gamecentral@metro.co.uk
Late bloomers
That Naughty Dog announcement was unusual, I will admit. Two new The Last Of Us games, with no guarantee that either is Part 3? And Intergalactic on top of that? Someone seems to be making up for lost time. Not that I imagine anyone is going to complain. What makes the situation stranger though is that there’s a rumour going around that they’ve got a fourth game that’s a new Uncharted. Even though they said they were done with the series and three games already seems like too much. Unless they’re going to say Uncharted is set in the same universe as The Last Of Us and that’s one of the two games, but I’m going to bet that’s not what it is. I guess only time will tell but what gets me suspicious about Sony games right now is which ones are being lined up to be a PlayStation 6 launch game? Intergalactic doesn’t have a release date yet, so it could be that. But then again if Uncharted is a secret maybe it’s that instead?
Double launch
As usual, the ex-Sony bosses seem to be a lot wiser than the current ones. Of course the PlayStation 6 shouldn’t come out next year, but I think the success of the Xbox 360 burned Sony and they’re never going to give Xbox the chance to get the drop on them again. They must’ve been over the moon when the Xbox One was unveiled and it was a rip. So I think if Project Helix gets delayed or is definitely a flop then Sony will put the PlayStation 6 on the backburner. Nothing points towards Project Helix being delayed at the moment though and if it comes out in the usual November time, that’s not really time for the PlayStation 6 to switch plans and not potentially miss Christmas. So maybe they definitely will go with 2027, I guess there’s no way to know. But the chances of it being based on common sense or actual fan demand seems low.
Spend to save
After being a fan for decades it’s sad to see what Football Manager has been reduced to. Why are they going on about the graphics in the new one? When that’s the last thing anyone cares about. This whole idea of switching to a new engine was so dumb. You can’t do something like that when you’ve got a yearly sequel to make, no wonder it all went pear shaped. They should have put another team on that and swapped things over when it was completely stable. I realise that would cost a bit more money but how much money have they lost through this whole disaster? Now there’s a danger Football Manager will never get back to what it was.
Not funny
I’d say it is a bit disappointing that GTA 6 will not have a parody of Disney World or any of those theme parks (or even the space centre, weirdly). Liberty City even has an equivalent of the State of Liberty, so it’s going to be weird when there’s not as much from Florida in the new game. I’ve been to Disney World and I couldn’t tell you the name of any buildings in Miami or anything like that. We just went on holiday for Disney. I imagine that’s got to be the same for a large proportion of people visiting the place. GTA 4 and 5 are pretty scathing in their parody of the US and for better or worse they’ve been proven right, given the world we live in now. So to take your foot off the pedal when it comes to parody, just because you don’t want to get sued or be on the wrong end of a presidential tantrum is pretty weak stuff if you ask me. I’d much rather have some hard-hitting satire than worry about how realistic the rain is.
Gathering storm
Now that the corporations are opening up a bit about next gen, I hope it reignites the console wars. Both companies working hard on bringing us gamers stuff we enjoy whilst fighting about which console is more powerful. Think about it. The best years were when it was Sega vs. Nintendo, then PlayStation vs. the rest. Then Xbox brought its almost infinite cheque book and forced the rest to actually try. All while Nintendo just sat back and watched, loving it all. Hoovering up all the dough with the Wii, losing fans through the Wii U, and winning them back again with the Switch. Probably. {Citation needed}
War games
So we’re into October now and pretty soon GTA 6 is going to be less than a month away. The amount of hype as we get close is going to be off the scale and I can’t wait to see mainstream media fumble their way through trying to explain it to non-gamers and/or blaming it for turning our kids into monsters. But there are some interesting games on your list, that are coming out in October, and I will be waiting with interest to see how Star Wars: Galactic Racer, Castlevania: Belmont’s Curse, and Phantom Blade 0 review. I think the first and last have a good chance of being good, not so sure about Castlevania, although the developer does seem to be a good choice. I hate to appear un-cool but I’m also curious to see how Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 is treated. Thanks to the last few games being bad I haven’t actually played a new one in a while, so I’m open to playing a new one if it’s good. Although, to be honest, I would prefer if it was something other than Modern Warfare or Black Ops. I would imagine the next one will be different, because by that point they will have had time to take into account the reaction to Black Ops 7, I think. I guess I’m part of the problem and the kind of a casual fan that Activision is targeting now. But what can I tell you? I like playing soldiers in a video game. Some game’s got to cater for that and I can’t bare those super hard, super realistic ones like Battlefield and War Dogs.
Endless football
The disc-to-digital licence feature came onto my Xbox Series X last night. My machine is in a bit of an awkward place within my set-up, so I can now switch seamlessly between any of the seven footy games I have on my hard drive without having to swap discs. Brilliant idea! Love it!
Force triptych
I’ll love it if Star Wars Jedi 3 gets announced soon. To me, it seems a lot longer between now and Survivor, than it was between the first and second ones. I know it wasn’t really, but I don’t know, I guess a lot has changed in that time. Back in 2023 the video games industry still seemed to make some kind of sense. Sony had already started their live service nonsense, but this was before Concord and everything else flopped. Xbox was still a proper format that seemed to have a real plan for the future and people were still optimistic about the Switch 2 and the inevitable new 3D Mario. Well, okay, maybe things had already started to go downhill but it’s all only got worse since then. What a terrible generation this has been. How can we have so many great games and yet everything feels like it’s being burned down to the ground? Anyway, there’s been one great Star Wars game already this year, with another hopefully coming up, so having Jedi 3 announced would be a great way to cap things off. I love how the secret to making a good Star Wars game is… make a good Star Wars game. Who would’ve thought it would be so simple? Although that doesn’t explain how so many non-Spider-Man Marvel games keep flopping. Maybe Star Wars fans just generally like video games more.
Inbox also-rans
So am I remember it right and there was no multi-game Nintendo Direct until the summer this year? They skipped spring completely, right? I really hope they go back to January/February again.
GC: June was the first general Nintendo Direct, yes. But it’s anyone’s guess as to whether that’s the new pattern or if this year was a one-off. A lot of rumours about an Injustice 3 game but still no announcement, I wonder if that makes it a shoe-in for The Game Awards?
