Destruction All Stars should have just been Twisted Metal

[Remember_Spinal]

The game played well, looked good, ran well, and was just overall very polished, especially for an early gen game. The main issue is that the aesthetic was kind of obnoxious and it just wasn’t that fun. Just crashing into people wasn’t fun.

But i could picture that same game engine being applied to twisted metal and it feeling really good to play if you had guns and missles and springs on your cars. Change the tone and aesthetic to be a little bit more grimey, open the levels, add a good single play campaign/arcade mode, and voila.

It maybe wouldn’t have been a smash hit but i could see a high 70’s to mid 80’s type of game. Which is honestly more than you can ask for with the IP at this point.

 

[Bryank75]

The game just had nothing going on.... a few cars, crashing into eachother and much of the time people missed eachother and had to drive around to find another person to smash into.

There was nothing unique about it, the aesthetic was just 'whats trending now' and the characters, arenas etc..... nothing memorable, nothing to play for....

Why would you play something where there is no real goal?

There needs to be a lot of customization, weapons, chassis, car brands, liveries. Create your own character. Monthly rewards and things to work towards.

For example, each month could have a chassis unlocked from a particular brand. One month could be BMW, another could be Honda or Ford etc.
Smaller chassis can accelerate faster but fit less or smaller weapons and so on.

Dynamic levels.... some with snow that slows you down and ice that makes control and momentum important. Certain weapons can make holes in the ice and cause cars to drop into water beneath. Sand dune levels, inspired by Paris to Dakar. Forested levels where you can knock trees down, use bushes and thick areas as cover, mud can slow you down or make you slide, petrol stations can explode or be used as some type of power-up possibly.

Different tires...slick and winter etc for different benefits.

Decorations, hood ornaments

Big events where you can unlock an iconic car like the Batmobile or Ghostbusters car or the DeLorean etc.

I'm just throwing ideas out there. But there needs to be way way more personality and depth than what Destruction Allstars had, no offense to the team that made it.

 

[Nhomnhom]

Sure would've been a much better use of the IP than that trashy series and could've inspired the devs to do something better. That game felt like someone developing what some committee of business guys decided was the safest bet to make a GaaS sucess.

 

[Systemshock2023]

I kid you not, other than demons souls remake, Destruction. All stars was the one that caught my attention at the PS5 reveal. Should have been a twisted metal battle royale. It's a no brainer...

Cars
Shooting each other
Battle royale
Upgrades and customization (MTX potential)
Add some boots to the ground gameplay (hijacking cars, shooting drivers) and you are golden.

 

[Remember_Spinal]

The game just had nothing going on.... a few cars, crashing into eachother and much of the time people missed eachother and had to drive around to find another person to smash into.

There was nothing unique about it, the aesthetic was just 'whats trending now' and the characters, arenas etc..... nothing memorable, nothing to play for....

Why would you play something where there is no real goal?

There needs to be a lot of customization, weapons, chassis, car brands, liveries. Create your own character. Monthly rewards and things to work towards.

For example, each month could have a chassis unlocked from a particular brand. One month could be BMW, another could be Honda or Ford etc.
Smaller chassis can accelerate faster but fit less or smaller weapons and so on.

Dynamic levels.... some with snow that slows you down and ice that makes control and momentum important. Certain weapons can make holes in the ice and cause cars to drop into water beneath. Sand dune levels, inspired by Paris to Dakar. Forested levels where you can knock trees down, use bushes and thick areas as cover, mud can slow you down or make you slide, petrol stations can explode or be used as some type of power-up possibly.

Different tires...slick and winter etc for different benefits.

Decorations, hood ornaments

Big events where you can unlock an iconic car like the Batmobile or Ghostbusters car or the DeLorean etc.

I'm just throwing ideas out there. But there needs to be way way more personality and depth than what Destruction Allstars had, no offense to the team that made it.

Yeah, i mean the thread isn’t really in defense of Destruction All Stars or how to fix it, the basic premise just doesn’t really work. It’s more of a thread to say Lucid probably could have done a pretty good Twisted Metal with this budget

 

[Remember_Spinal]

I kid you not, other than demons souls remake, Destruction. All stars was the one that caught my attention at the PS5 reveal. Should have been a twisted metal battle royale. It's a no brainer...

Cars
Shooting each other
Battle royale
Upgrades and customization (MTX potential)
Add some boots to the ground gameplay (hijacking cars, shooting drivers) and you are golden.

I think they should make it like SF6. Have a “world tour” story mode/arcade mode that is more for single players where you can customize your own car with its own special abilities and guns, etc. and a multiplayer mode that is more just like battle royal where you use story characters like Outlaw, grasshopper, Sweet tooth, Minion, etc.

 

[Gods&Monsters]

It was one of the first game I played on PS5 and it looked so impressive but then I started playing and I had no clue what I was doing. I tried all the modes and none of them were fun? They had all the ingredients but they made some weird car game when Twisted Metal was right there with an upcoming TV show. Baffling.

The game just had nothing going on.... a few cars, crashing into eachother and much of the time people missed eachother and had to drive around to find another person to smash into.

That was my experience with it. I was always hitting the wall instead. Going in circles. Like I couldn't believe that was the real game?

 

[Nym]

Why would you play something where there is no real goal?

Just like fighters, the goal is to have fun playing them with other people not unlocking trinkets.

I would love a well made car combat multiplayer game featuring a large cast of recognizable characters. But you do make some good points, modern game design requires a few more carrots for people to have fun playing games.

 

[ksdixon]

Destruction All-Stars' issue was the Off Fortnite visuals and woke as fuck character designs. I think everyone looked at it as a proof of concept/dummy run for a Twisted Metal revival.

Assuming DA had the gameplay/art style/gameplay goals changed if it was first introduced as a TM reboot, then yeah, I think that would have been smarter.

 

[FatKaz]

100%

Absolutely hated having to chase down people to crash into them.

 

[thicc_girls_are_teh_best]

Twinkle Riot was the one blessing from this otherwise dead game. Agreed tho, it should have been a new Twisted Metal or even Destruction Derby. Leverage your legacy IP more often, Sony!

 

[Kokoloko]

Agreed. Add to the list of weird choices by PS

 

[Yurinka]

I agree, but the Twisted Metal aesthetics was also awful, they should update it to make it look AAAish and well, to have some good taste regarding aesthetics.

Maybe something like realistic AAA visuals mixing the aesthetics of Mad Max Fury Road x TLOU x Twisted Metal x Motorstorm.

Also, they should forget about Fortnite and including ugly and unappealing characters just because of woke "diversity".

Some ideas:

• Add a single player offline campaign
• Add many unlockable cosmetic (no pay 2 win, no gameplay affecting) items to customize your character and car
• Add more items like projectiles (think Wipeout) and like homing missiles and mines to pump the car battle side and more traditional modes like races, time attack, battle royale
• Include player specific secondary goals to include extra rewards for players who suck but like to play that can be achieved across multiple battles/races (stuff like kill 10 cars, drift 200 meters, block 5 attacks, complete 3 matches in the same day, etc)
• All post launch items can be unlocked in the battle pass of the month they got released or in a store using real money or in-game money earned by playing
• 5 bucks battle pass, easy to complete without grinding too much and if you complete it you get in-game money to complete the next battle pass (like SF6)
• Sell it at 20 bucks, forget charging $70/80€ for everything

 

[Remember_Spinal]

I agree, but the Twisted Metal aesthetics was also awful, they should update it to make it look AAAish and well, to have some good taste regarding aesthetics.

Maybe something like realistic AAA visuals mixing the aesthetics of Mad Max Fury Road x TLOU x Twisted Metal x Motorstorm.

Also, they should forget about Fortnite and including ugly and unappealing characters just because of woke "diversity".

Some ideas:

• Add a single player offline campaign
• Add many unlockable cosmetic (no pay 2 win, no gameplay affecting) items to customize your character and car
• Add more items like projectiles (think Wipeout) and like homing missiles and mines to pump the car battle side and more traditional modes like races, time attack, battle royale
• Include player specific secondary goals to include extra rewards for players who suck but like to play that can be achieved across multiple battles/races (stuff like kill 10 cars, drift 200 meters, block 5 attacks, complete 3 matches in the same day, etc)
• All post launch items can be unlocked in the battle pass of the month they got released or in a store using real money or in-game money earned by playing
• 5 bucks battle pass, easy to complete without grinding too much and if you complete it you get in-game money to complete the next battle pass (like SF6)
• Sell it at 20 bucks, forget charging $70/80€ for everything

Fidelity wise Destruction All Stars was fine, they cars and destruction and effects looked good. It was just had that overall corny F2P colorful look to it.

I wouldn’t be mad if the physics and the way the cars crashed looked just like this.