The Friday letters page is surprised GTA 6 no longer has the most watched trailer record, as one reader laments the death of Red Storm Entertainment.

Games Inbox is a collection of our readers’ letters, comments, and opinions. To join in with the discussions yourself email gamecentral@metro.co.uk

Crimson letter day
Can’t say I’m surprised at the negative Crimson Desert reviews. Although I guess I should call them ‘mixed’ which seems to be what we’re supposed to say when all the trustworthy sites mark it down and the ones you’ve never heard of give it 9/10.

The graphics do look good, and I can’t pretend I wasn’t swayed by them when I was watching the trailers, but I’m very suspicious of any game that’s claiming to be the next big thing, and it’s made by a developer with very little experience in the genre.

When you know they’ve only ever made an MMO before the whole game seems like exactly what you’d expect from that. Its Metacritic score is lower than some people seem to have expected, so I think it’s clear it’s not a great game, but from what I’ve read the score isn’t low enough.

I also have a really bad feeling about the console versions. The fact that there’s not a single review of the PlayStation 5 version is giving me Cyberpunk 2077 vibes and that’s not going to be a pretty sight.
Hammeriron

Not awful
Can anyone explain to me why anyone thought Crimson Desert was going to be amazing? I’m going to assume it was nonsense whipped up by streamers and YouTube, since as I write this it’s doing really well on Twitch, but why? Surely they haven’t run out of things to talk about or were they just doing advertising for the company?

It may seem harmless but they’re talking people into paying £50+ for a game that doesn’t sound like it’s any good. And we haven’t even seen what it looks like when it runs on consoles, so I can’t wait for that obvious disaster to be revealed.

Of course, the second stage will be people who were tricked into buying it pretending to everyone else that it’s actually really good or ‘not that bad’. I don’t know about you I demand a bit more than that for my entertainment.
Lee Perrin

Losing the crown
Interesting that GTA 6 had its trailer record broken by what I would’ve thought was a relatively ordinary new Marvel movie. I’m sure it will do well, but it won’t do as much as the last Spider-Man film (because it was a crossover) and I doubt it’s going to be a cultural moment like Avengers: End Game or something like The Force Awakens. GTA 6 is absolutely on par with those sort of things though, so I’m surprise it’s not still number one.

I guess population growth alone will mean the number always goes up but with cinema attendances down… it’s just not something I would’ve betted on. I’m not going to say something daft like GTA 6 isn’t going to do well but this is the first sign we’ve had that it does have its limits. But to be fair that surprisingly sensible Take-Two boss does seem to realise that.
Dustin

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Beyond monsters
Been playing Pokemon Pokopia since launch. My, that game is a compulsive one, right?

Anyway, got me thinking, when is a pocket monster not a pocket monster and it’s just an animal? When a bird can fly and dart about quickly, isn’t it just a bird? No room for you in my pocket, pigeon! And if a squirrel doesn’t have a flaming tail or the ability to bend spoons with its mind then isn’t that just a fluffy rodent?! Kicked from the team ya furry rat!

Is there a discernible difference, or was Ash just going around enslaving wildlife for 25 years?
big boy bent
Currently playing: Pokopia and Thank Goodness You’re Here!, was chuckling away as I mowed the park with the daisies because I knew what was coming… I love you… I love you… I love you…. ha ha ha! Looking forward to more.

GC: Pokémon are fully sapient, unlike ordinary animals. No more so than in Pokopia, where they communicate with each other like a human would and perform complex tasks.

BSAA Dispatch
I hope Leon and Ada have hooked up, I think that would be neat. I think other than Barry Burton none of the other characters are confirmed to have a partner of any kind? I love Resident Evil and I would very much support a game that was not a survival horror. Something that was more comedic, sure, but also something that was more dramatic, with time for everyone to sit around and chat.

I don’t even know if half of these people have even met each other. Does Leon know Jill? Does Claire know anyone that isn’t Chris? Why has Sheva never come back and do they keep in touch?

I’m imagining some kind of visual novel/point ‘n’ click thing. Maybe something like Dispatch, where action is happening but it’s all about how the people are behind the scenes, I think that’d be a great idea.
Lobbie

La fin
Very sad to hear about the death of Red Storm Entertainment. I used to love the early Rainbow Six games, back when they were primarily tactical games, with action only as a minor aspect. Those days are obviously long gone but then so too is the whole franchise. Splinter Cell and Ghost Recon are both dead, and so is all the experimental stuff like EndWar and H.A.W.X.

Rainbow Six itself is essentially dead, with Siege being all that’s left of it, and it has nothing in common with the old games. The only other thing is The Division, which I would’ve sworn is also dead but apparently has a third game on the way, but either way it’s just another live service game.
As an adult, I have to admit I do look on the games in a different light.

They’re very right wing (as Tom Clancy was himself, even if he wasn’t a nut about it) and the whole gun fetish thing is kind of distasteful in the current age. As was said, it’s completely different to what Ubisoft used to be about and in that sense I’m not as sad to see the end of it all.

Let’s face it, if they were to bring these franchises back it’d be in name only, like Ghost Recon Wildlands, so what’s the point? I wouldn’t have shut down Red Storm but I would’ve had them making something that was a bit more political nuanced and not so much trying to appeal only to Americans.

I don’t have much faith that Ubisoft can make it through the next few years but if they do I hope they can get back some of what made them interesting in the early 2000s. Military games are fine, but they have to make them more than just shooting galleries. They need a more European perspective, not an American one.
Claborn

Petition for a petition
Can confirm that boost mode on the Switch 2 is really good. It’s the only thing that’s got me off Pokémon Pokopia (for a while) and while it is a shame that not all games are affected equally, I do think it’s a good start.

I would definitely sign the petition for a Switch 2 edition of Astral Chain, but I realise that’s never going to happen. I would love to hear of a sequel though, because I thought the original did better than expected. PlatinumGames seemed like they were in trouble for a while there but Ninja Gaiden 4 reviewed well, so hopefully they’ve still got the juice.
Luminous

Cheap graphics
I found the DLSS 5-ified images revealed the other day a bit off putting to be honest.

While clearly a lot better in the amount of detail over the original images I do think they all were overly bright and had that artificial, unnatural feel you see with a lot of AI.

While not AI, the first thing that sprang to my mind was the awful, garish, pimped up remaster of Halo: Combat Evolved. I’ve played the game several times since and always use the original graphics, just at a higher resolution, as I think they look much better and atmospheric than the technically better, more detailed, retina burning newer graphics.

I’m sure DLSS 5 and its implementation will improve though and look more natural. It’ll probably be useful for a lot of smaller devs to punch above their weight in the graphics department.

I quite like that Take-Two guy but GTA 5 is generally considered the highest grossing entertainment product ever, with something like $10 billion in revenue. He’s got a bit more resources at his disposal than nearly everyone else.
Simundo

GC: That doesn’t seem like a good reason to put up with AI slop. Many lower budget and indie titles are visually impressive already, the idea of losing that in favour of a generic AI look is an awful thought.

Inbox also-rans
Why would Sony change the name of PlayStation Network? PSN is a perfectly good acronym and unlike most Xbox names it means what is. I’ll put it another way: I’m jealous of how many millions of dollars some marketing consultant charged to change it to PlayStation Online, or whatever it’ll be.
Cinder9

I am also very keen to know what Persona 6 is like. I’d be going through the roof now, annoyed at the lack of news, but I remember it was exactly like this waiting for Persona 5. That was worth it so hopefully this will be too.
Tater

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