Games Inbox: Is Xbox Game Pass doomed without the £1 deal?

The legendary day
So there we have it, Microsoft warned that price hikes were coming for Game Pass and now the £1/$1 deal is no more. Just as they’re about to buy Activision Blizzard, I think they have to save money somehow if they want to recoup that $69 billion.

But seriously, this is clearly not a good time for them. Games Pass hasn’t caught on as well as they hoped and now it’s lost one of its main appeals: being stupidly cheap. Although I don’t think that would last long.

I have an Xbox Series S and am using it on a £1 deal, so I’m not a hater, but I really don’t know if I’ll be subscribing to it at full price. Not considering how money is right now. If Microsoft had a long list of exclusive offers that might affect me, but if that could be the case in the future, what’s realistic? Three or four years before they kick into gear?

I don’t know if Game Pass will last that long unless it starts making real money for Xbox. It may be doomed without that £1 deal and yet it also seems doomed with it as it would never pay for itself.
Olympiad

Endless story
I would certainly commend all the positive comments about Resident Evil 4. I’ve been playing it since it came out and it’s fantastic. It’s a long game and yet I don’t want it to end, so I’m all set to pay for some more DLC and, of course, the free The Mercenaries.

I imagine they’re going to make Separate Ways a lot more than they used to, but I’d actually be fine with them expanding the game further with DLC. I don’t think that’s ever really been done with a remake, given your extra scenarios that happened before or after or even during.

Resident Evil 4’s story is so silly that you can just do whatever you want, so I’m all for it. It could become its own franchise!
Gonch

Arcade magic
I love Skies Of Arcadia! This game grabbed me right from the opening scene, with Aika on the prow of a ship, when a gust of wind sweeps a map from her hands, the camera follows it as it makes its way into Vyse’s hands, our young hero, wind blowing through his hair blows as the camera pans out and you realize… the ship is flying! Duh, it is called airing From Arcadia!

Then to the first real mission, where you’re trapped in a maelstrom, an ominous figure that shadows your ship… and then wrecked. Only for Captain Drachma, the salty seal (air?)

Meeting rouges, enemies turned friends, a princess who can save the world, build a base, make discoveries, use the Empire’s newest warship to make their doom. And Belleza, oh Belleza, the bad girl got good… If you can’t see it, I absolutely love this game. Remove the random fights, make it look like an anime, Ni No Kuni is a look to aim for and if anything I’ll be a very happy boy.
big boy bent

GC: The rumor was a remaster, not a remake.

Email your comments to: gamecentral@metro.co.uk

Letting go of shadow
As always GC, you’re the place to go for game reviews and news. I don’t trust any other reviewer out there to the same degree.

On that note, I was hoping you would review Tchia, which me and my kids thoroughly enjoyed over the weekend. I can’t quite believe it’s part of the PS Plus game catalog as I would have easily brought it outright based on what I’ve played so far.

It has a great sense of experimentation, a bit like in the PlayStation 2 era and has some clever, cool moves and abilities that unlock quite early on. The fact that it uses the culture of the island of New Caledonia and embraces everything unique about that part of the world appeals to the game tourist in me.

It has a surprisingly dark undertone, which gives it an extra edge in contrast to the melancholic, peaceful atmosphere that can be seen throughout.

I highly recommend it to everyone, especially gamers who have the subscription to try it at no extra cost.
Baby Machine-5 (PSN ID)

GC: Thank you. Our Tchia review came out today. We’re sorry it’s so late, but there were no pre-launch review copies. That’s probably why most of the other major sites haven’t reviewed it yet either.

Crack dreams
Last weekend’s Hot Topic was particularly interesting. I’ve had a few dreams about games and the details are so detailed that I can even tell what system the game I dream about is “played” on. For example, I will notice the signature textures of the original PlayStation and there will be some screen tearing.

I can empathize with ttfp saylow when he says he can see things from two different perspectives at once. I’ve had dreams where I was playing a game from a third person perspective, while at the same time experiencing the game from a first person perspective. What’s more, from a first-person point of view, it wasn’t necessarily a game, it was “real life.”

Of course, this is as hard to explain as you might expect when talking about any dream, but dreams about games can be an entire subset of research to expand our understanding of all sorts of areas, whether that’s sleep, the subconscious , gaming or whatever.
Kehaar

Mobile advantage
RE: The Reader’s Feature on Activision Blizzard. Ignoring the rest of the whataboutism, I have to object to this: “Sony has no mobile developers to speak out and this will immediately leave them unable to compete, and yet I’ve never heard any of the researchers say That.’

Last time I checked, Sony has no mobile presence as far as games go (if I missed it, feel free to correct me), so how exactly would this affect them? Surprised WG didn’t respond to this part.

To clarify, I don’t care if the takeover is approved or denied, I just hate the whole ‘this is what they’ll do’ or ‘x will be shortened’ (for lack of a better phrase, without any idea ).

The fact is, none of us know what’s going to happen, and won’t know unless it’s approved. Trying to come up with, as I said, whataboutism, is rather pointless.
Ribeye fan

GC: That’s not what whataboutism means. To put your main point, Sony doesn’t have much in the way of mobile developers, so they’ll be at a huge disadvantage now if Microsoft eventually takes ownership of Candy Crush maker King.

The Discovery of Zelda
Looking forward to Nintendo showing 10 minutes of Zelda: Tears Of The Kingdom and we still have no idea what it’s all about. That’s not ironic either, I love that Nintendo knows how to keep their games a secret and let people discover them naturally. I think that’s an overlooked reason why Breath Of The Wild worked so well, because people weren’t expecting that!

I probably won’t even watch the Direct to be honest. I don’t need to be told anything to know it will be worth my money, even if it’s not as good as Breath Of The Wild.
Tension

Is your right hand coming off?
Merhaba fellow readers and GC. Resident Evil 4 Deluxe Edition on PC costs £42.99 on CDKeys.com.

Completed that iconic opening over the weekend, it was just exemplary. I love the lavish overhaul of the original’s Grindhouse B-movie-inspired aesthetic, especially the luxurious, foreboding new lighting model and Leon’s dazzling, pheromone-releasing hair.

As a super fan of all things parrying in video games, I always relish the chance to counter a ganado’s attack with the blade, a visceral and cleaver next to the formula in my opinion, ahem.

But is it just me or does the game feel a little easier than the original due to the more generic controls? I only died once because I wanted to see the death animation by a certain surgeon!

It might be a classic case of recency bias, after replaying the original for about the 10th time in November 2021, but I think I still prefer the deliberately restrictive, suspenseful controls of the original a bit.

I’ll tell you something though; I’m afraid to run into the Regenerators and Salazar’s right hand predator again!
Galvanized Gamer

Inbox is also running
I’m really impressed with the shortcut to the village of Resident Evil 4, that’s really clever. I bet someone will find a way to do it with the gun too. It’s shamelessly put out there for speedrunners.
Super

I doubt I’m the only one saying this, but if there’s one God Of War character I’d like to never see again, it’s Týr. I know he was annoying, but yeah.
sandy

Hot topic this week
The topic for this weekend’s Inbox was suggested by reader Tesla, who asks which video game franchise have you played the most entries in?

Many video game franchises have been around for 30 or 40 years at this point, with dozens of sequels and spin-offs, but which entry have you played the most? Is it because you’re a fan of the series and you purposefully sought them all out or was it more of an accident?

What kept you from the entries you haven’t played and how much completist are you about series you like? Do you enjoy keeping the games and do you have merchandise for them?

Email your comments to: gamecentral@metro.co.uk

The fine print
New Inbox updates appear every weekday morning, with special Hot Topic Inboxes on weekends. Reader letters are used on merit and are editable in length and content.

You can also submit your own Reader’s Feature of 500 to 600 words at any time via email or submit our Stuff page, which, if used, will appear in the next available weekend slot.