Eric Jensen leaving Sony Bend - Twitter

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Themaskedcrag

Cunning Linguist
13 Jul 2022
87
80
hard to get excited for anything Bend does going forward after they (and Sony) ousted Jeff Ross for the FAKE, MANUFACTURED low-review scores from the mainstream games journalists.

we all know why they took Days Gone down.

Days Gone sitting at 70 on metacritic is absolutely laughable, the game is AAA in every regard.

Can't wait to see what woke nonsense the shell of Bend craps out moving forward.
Be ready to eat your hat!
 

Themaskedcrag

Cunning Linguist
13 Jul 2022
87
80
I’m a PS fan and think it is a 8 being generous 🤷‍♂️
Agreed, I played a few months after launch, and it was still janky then, textures not loading/streaming in when they should, fell through the world several times during my playthrough, some weird physics issues, flew miles in the air for no reason, and it takes far too long for it to really get going. Sure it had some good ideas, and clearing out hordes in the late game was really fun, but this game had a lot of problems. I think some fans like to hold it on a pedestal as some sort of Anti-woke martyr.
 

Heisenberg007

Veteran
21 Jun 2022
1,255
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hard to get excited for anything Bend does going forward after they (and Sony) ousted Jeff Ross for the FAKE, MANUFACTURED low-review scores from the mainstream games journalists.
They didn't fire those two guys because of low scores. They fired because of their poor, abusive management. Several developers at Bend Studios complained about "shouting matches", which Gavin also confirmed happened and basically pleaded guilty and mentioned that he should have been / needs to do better.

They basically changed the management to improve the work culture. According to latest reports, the problems are now fixed, and devs are happier than ever at Bend Studios.

Let's see what they can produce now.
 

Muddasar

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22 Jun 2022
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Days Gone is a 95/100 for me, but I also couldn't care less what others rate it at.

A little bummed we aren't getting a sequel.. about the only reason I care about review scores as I do want the games I like to do well enough to get more content and scores can matter.

But outside of that?

Meh.. I don't have a problem with the fact my tastes aren't 100% mainstream.

The biggest issue the game had was the lack of identity.

The game felt like a poor mans TLOU the moment it was revealed. It had Freakers, Reachers and Rippers instead of Clickers, Bloaters, Stalkers and Runners.

Bend Studios should be embarassed that they couldn't atleast differentiate the game from TLOU.

I give more credit to Ready At Dawn and The Order 1886. At least their game felt original and I actually played it entirely.

Honestly I am surprised Sony gave the green light to the development of the game.
 
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thelastword

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The crazy thing about Days Gone is that I see games with bad controls, woeful graphics, bad performance, terrible cameras get 9/10 on IGN and gaming sites. Then I play Days Gone, superb graphics, smooth controls, deep gameplay, basically pushing tech and engagement on screen and sites destroy it in reviews. Same with Driveclub and even The Order 1886......Truth be told, we as gamers are the one's hurting by not getting sequels, when I see lots of Z tier games being hyped for their sequels.

We are the ones suffering not seeing sequels to these games. Hell, I look at games like Extermination from Sony on PS2, if they persisted it could have been as good as Resident Evil or Dead Space. My only issue with 1886 was that the stealth needed work, they needed larger environments and allow more freedom of movement like in UC, apart from that they nailed everything, I especially loved their story arch, the setting and characters, it could have been rich for several games. I would love another Heavenly Sword, great characters too (twing twang)...... not being able to jump sucks for an action game and same in Killzone 1, but we saw what happens when you allow devs to continue. You had Killzone 2. We have killed lots of good potential franchises because of complaints that did not break the game or prevented playability.
 
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Gediminas

Boy...
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21 Jun 2022
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It's a solid 8, but then again the scale fluctuates based on many things outside of the game itself. Shilling for or against (console war) is a factor, politics/cultural wars is a factor etc...

Definitely don't need a sequel. It's a good standalone. For all the speculation about the work they're been doing, it's an enigma still as to what they're working on right now.
Game ended on huge cliffhanger, how it isn't need on sequel? 🤔
 
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27 Jun 2022
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They didn't fire those two guys because of low scores. They fired because of their poor, abusive management. Several developers at Bend Studios complained about "shouting matches", which Gavin also confirmed happened and basically pleaded guilty and mentioned that he should have been / needs to do better.

They basically changed the management to improve the work culture. According to latest reports, the problems are now fixed, and devs are happier than ever at Bend Studios.

Let's see what they can produce now.
From my interactions with Jeff, he is a super down to earth nice guy. He just recently did a podcast I need to listen to about Days Gone. It's so sad because after all of the updates, it become one of my top 10 games.
 
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I'd say it was not good news for Sony, but he's staying at PS so ... either moving to another studio or up in the corporate ladder.

I did try Days Gone not that long ago and was not that impressed so .... curious to see what they have coming next.
You really have to get into the meat of it and it becomes very immersive and crazy. I do however anticipate what's next as well.
 

Remember_Spinal

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23 Jun 2022
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I’m probably one of the biggest sony cult members on this site, and i honestly thought days gone sucked. Its one of the few Sony games that outside the initial presentation i just found it very challenging to enjoy. I don’t like the way it controls, i hate the bike, all the environments look the same, theres not much variety in open world activities, the story wasn’t compelling….

I think if any type of console wars occurred surrounding this game it has to do with how console warriors tried to paint sony as being hyper focused on reviews or as if they had some personal beef with Ross or Gavin and sabotaged their own game for whatever reason. When the truth was that Bend themselves didn’t like Gavin and just all around wasn’t invested in continuing the game. It had nothing to do with SIE ‘rejecting the sequel’ like it was originally claimed. The studio wanted to move on Gavin left because he was a self admitted asshole and Ross moved on because he was in conflict with the rest of the studio and what they wanted to do in the future.

The truth is the game just wasn’t that great, if you liked it cool but you’re an outlier and a sequel wouldn’t have gotten anyone excited.

I bought and played maybe 15 hours of Days gone on Launch, and tried playing it again around the time the PC launch happened cause everyone told me it felt like a completely different game. It didn’t.
 
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I’m probably one of the biggest sony cult members on this site, and i honestly thought days gone sucked. Its one of the few Sony games that outside the initial presentation i just found it very challenging to enjoy. I don’t like the way it controls, i hate the bike, all the environments look the same, theres not much variety in open world activities, the story wasn’t compelling….

I think if any type of console wars occurred surrounding this game it has to do with how console warriors tried to paint sony as being hyper focused on reviews or as if they had some personal beef with Ross or Gavin and sabotaged their own game for whatever reason. When the truth was that Bend themselves didn’t like Gavin and just all around wasn’t invested in continuing the game. It had nothing to do with SIE ‘rejecting the sequel’ like it was originally claimed. The studio wanted to move on Gavin left because he was a self admitted asshole and Ross moved on because he was in conflict with the rest of the studio and what they wanted to do in the future.

The truth is the game just wasn’t that great, if you liked it cool but you’re an outlier and a sequel wouldn’t have gotten anyone excited.
It really does take until you upgrade things for the game to go full on fun. Setting traps to lure Hordes in was insane at 60fps. I went back and played it and the entire game was upgraded and felt more complete. I initially couldn't stand it as well.
 

adamsapple

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22 Jul 2022
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I’m probably one of the biggest sony cult members on this site, and i honestly thought days gone sucked. Its one of the few Sony games that outside the initial presentation i just found it very challenging to enjoy. I don’t like the way it controls, i hate the bike, all the environments look the same, theres not much variety in open world activities, the story wasn’t compelling….

I think if any type of console wars occurred surrounding this game it has to do with how console warriors tried to paint sony as being hyper focused on reviews or as if they had some personal beef with Ross or Gavin and sabotaged their own game for whatever reason. When the truth was that Bend themselves didn’t like Gavin and just all around wasn’t invested in continuing the game. It had nothing to do with SIE ‘rejecting the sequel’ like it was originally claimed. The studio wanted to move on Gavin left because he was a self admitted asshole and Ross moved on because he was in conflict with the rest of the studio and what they wanted to do in the future.

The truth is the game just wasn’t that great, if you liked it cool but you’re an outlier and a sequel wouldn’t have gotten anyone excited.

I bought and played maybe 15 hours of Days gone on Launch, and tried playing it again around the time the PC launch happened cause everyone told me it felt like a completely different game. It didn’t.

laurence fishburne GIF
 

Heisenberg007

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21 Jun 2022
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From my interactions with Jeff, he is a super down to earth nice guy. He just recently did a podcast I need to listen to about Days Gone. It's so sad because after all of the updates, it become one of my top 10 games.
Yeah, Days Gone wasn't really as bad as people said it was. it was actually quite enjoyable. I think of it as a higher-quality Ubisoft-type game with some new mechanics.

I actually ended up getting the Platinum for Days Gone, although I only have 18 platinums (it's not something I usually go after).
 

Gediminas

Boy...
Founder
21 Jun 2022
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The crazy thing about Days Gone is that I see games with bad controls, woeful graphics, bad performance, terrible cameras get 9/10 on IGN and gaming sites. Then I play Days Gone, superb graphics, smooth controls, deep gameplay, basically pushing tech and engagement on screen and sites destroy it in reviews. Same with Driveclub and even The Order 1886......Truth be told, we as gamers are the one's hurting by not getting sequels, when I see lots of Z tier games being hyped for their sequels.

We are the ones suffering not seeing sequels to these games. Hell, I look at games like Extermination from Sony on PS2, if they persisted it could have been as good as Resident Evil or Dead Space. My only issue with 1886 was that the stealth needed work, they needed larger environments and allow more freedom of movement like in UC, apart from that they nailed everything, I especially loved their story arch, the setting and characters, it could have been rich for several games. I would love another Heavenly Sword, great characters too (twing twang)...... not being able to jump sucks for an action game and same in Killzone 1, but we saw what happens when you allow devs to continue. You had Killzone 2. We have killed lots of good potential franchises because of complaints that did not break the game or prevented playability.
I wasn't bound by the price, so I highly enjoyed The Order. There is so much lore and possibilities to make it a big franchise. I felt like it had strong identity as Bloodborne. Really pity it never got a proper sequel.
 

nominedomine

Banned
8 Jul 2022
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The biggest issue the game had was the lack of identity.

The game felt like a poor mans TLOU the moment it was revealed. It had Freakers, Reachers and Rippers instead of Clickers, Bloaters, Stalkers and Runners.

Bend Studios should be embarassed that they couldn't atleast differentiate the game from TLOU.

I give more credit to Ready At Dawn and The Order 1886. At least their game felt original and I actually played it entirely.

Honestly I am surprised Sony gave the green light to the development of the game.
Game should've been set in TLoU universe, it never made sense that Sony would have two different IPs.

It's sort of the same mistake they made with Driveclub by not making it a GT spin-off.
 
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Remember_Spinal

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23 Jun 2022
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Dayz Gone was the one 1st party game I couldn’t play much. The combat felt like turd and just wasn’t on the same level as the other studios in my opinion.

If they don’t produce a great game this gen, I think they will get the Evolution treatment and I won’t mind tbh. Or they become a support team lol

A lot of these studios are on the clock. Bend probably gets the most leeway because they’ve been part of sony for a while and were doing psp games.

But pixelopus and london studio are gonna have to produce something of substance soon. I feel pretty confident about pixelopus working with sony animation on their next game, concrete genie wasn’t bad either.

The thing is sony needs more studios not less so i dont see them really closing any. They’re gonna soon find out 3-4 games a year isn’t gonna be enough soon
 
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ksdixon

Dixon Cider Ltd.
22 Jun 2022
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I’m probably one of the biggest sony cult members on this site, and i honestly thought days gone sucked. Its one of the few Sony games that outside the initial presentation i just found it very challenging to enjoy. I don’t like the way it controls, i hate the bike, all the environments look the same, theres not much variety in open world activities, the story wasn’t compelling….

I think if any type of console wars occurred surrounding this game it has to do with how console warriors tried to paint sony as being hyper focused on reviews or as if they had some personal beef with Ross or Gavin and sabotaged their own game for whatever reason. When the truth was that Bend themselves didn’t like Gavin and just all around wasn’t invested in continuing the game. It had nothing to do with SIE ‘rejecting the sequel’ like it was originally claimed. The studio wanted to move on Gavin left because he was a self admitted asshole and Ross moved on because he was in conflict with the rest of the studio and what they wanted to do in the future.

The truth is the game just wasn’t that great, if you liked it cool but you’re an outlier and a sequel wouldn’t have gotten anyone excited.

I bought and played maybe 15 hours of Days gone on Launch, and tried playing it again around the time the PC launch happened cause everyone told me it felt like a completely different game. It didn’t.
I feel you could take the idea of hordes and transplant that coding into TLOU's enemy and movement AI as story setpieces in the games. Maybe spruce up a bike with parts scavenged in the game etc, we've had cars, horses and boats already.

I do like TLOUs little dpad UI for in-game weapon switching. Absolutely detest slow down time weapon wheels in a pseudo pause screen.
 

Shmunter

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22 Jul 2022
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The biggest issue the game had was the lack of identity.

The game felt like a poor mans TLOU the moment it was revealed. It had Freakers, Reachers and Rippers instead of Clickers, Bloaters, Stalkers and Runners.

Bend Studios should be embarassed that they couldn't atleast differentiate the game from TLOU.

I give more credit to Ready At Dawn and The Order 1886. At least their game felt original and I actually played it entirely.

Honestly I am surprised Sony gave the green light to the development of the game.
Completely disagree with your comparison. The only similarity as far as the games go is a zombie theme and 3rd person perspective. None of the hostile were similar between the games, nor did any of it play the same.
 
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