Hello again (Patreon)

I’m back to save you from boredom, one video at a time. First things first, you’re probably wondering why my absence has resulted in a relatively short video about Downwell so let’s address that. TL;DR at the bottom.

I’m aware that very few people wanted me to do a video on Devil May Cry 1. Personally I’m very happy with it (I think it might be my favourite of my own videos) and I would hope that even if the game itself didn’t interest you it’s still a worthwhile watch. That said, I can only imagine it sucks if you’ve waited ages for a new video and it turns out to be something that doesn’t tickle your fancy. The support you’ve given me enabled me to complete a passion project with the level of quality I was striving for so the way I see it, it’s only fair to try to give something back. That’s why I want to address the number one complaint I see about the channel: not uploading often enough.

Over the past couple of months I’ve been crunching my way through a large number of smaller games, looking for good video potential and writing scripts on the ones I find interesting. At this point I have a few scripts I’m pretty confident will come together to form finished videos. There’s a few more that are looking promising too. I don’t want to give any exact figures in case some of them fall through but there should be at least a couple more videos coming shortly. The plan is to finish one every 1-2 weeks until my material runs out. How long that’ll take, I don’t know. In my head I’m thinking of it like a “season” of the channel, I just don’t know how many episodes it’ll contain.

The games I’ve been writing about cover a pretty wide selection of genres and the scripts themselves vary too, there’s reviews, comparisons and a recommendation at the moment. I’m hopeful that there’s something for everyone and I think it'll be refreshing to do some more frequent uploads for a while. 

For the sake of clarity it’s probably just as important to mention what I’m not working on too. The following videos are not in production, at least not yet:

    MGSV

I feel like enough time has passed now for me to give this one a fair review but it’s not something that interests me at the moment. Kind of a selfish reason not to do it but if I’m not feeling it then the video will be sub par and I don’t want that. I do intend to finish the MGS series by doing this one some day but it’s not on my list right now.

    Bloodborne

I can’t say I’m thrilled about the prospect of doing another commentary on this series right now but I’m not ruling it out for future either. I’m glad so many people seem eager for this even after 9 hours of DeS/DaS commentary but I feel I’ve covered enough Souls related stuff for now.

    Dark Souls 3

I haven’t played this one yet, I’m waiting for the GOTY edition before I jump into it. Once I play it I might feel compelled to do a video but at the moment that doesn’t seem likely to me. I’ve talked about the Souls games so much already.

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With those plans out of the way it’s on to another topic: my silence on Twitter over the past while. There’s two reasons for this. Firstly I’ve been spending all my time catching up on some games I missed and writing scripts about them. I’ve probably finished more games since the DMC video than I did in the entire preceding year.

The main reason however is because I had no idea when Persona 5 spoilers were going to leak and I didn’t want to be there to see it happen.

This is a very tough situation for me because I don’t want to risk alienating you guys by locking myself down but on the other hand I just really love playing games blind. I think - provided you know you’re going to buy the game regardless - then going into it blind is the best way to experience it most of the time. When it comes to an established series I enjoy, I’ll almost certainly buy the next instalment anyway because even if it’s bad I’d need to see for myself. After watching one trailer I won’t be looking at any more info for Dark Souls 3, Persona 5, The Last Guardian or Breath of the Wild until I have a chance to play them. Normally this would be easy to manage but when you have 10k Twitter followers it’s not so simple. I’ll often get questions about games based on trailers or other pre-release info and have no idea what to say because I haven’t looked at any of it. It seems innocuous but even asking a certain question can spoil details about a game, it gives me an idea of what to expect at the very least.

In the past I’ve been able to play most major releases in a reasonable timeframe so that I didn’t have to abandon my online presence entirely but that’s not an option with Persona 5. Yes I’m doing the classy thing here and shifting blame to Atlus for their incredibly delayed localisation. An innumerable number of people in the west are going to have a worse experience with the game because of it and that’s without even considering the dual audio debacle.

This whole thing became a no-win scenario for me, either I:

• Ignore everyone for six months with no explanation which makes me seem like a dick.

• Keep myself open to communication and inevitably learn minor/major details as people share info and ask me questions.

• Explain why I want to go quiet and in so doing paint a target on myself for anyone with malicious intent.

I’m opting for the third approach which I understand might be a disappointment to some of you but if this reviewer job comes with the caveat that I have to let myself get spoiled on one of the few games I’m anticipating then I’m not sure I can live with that. Funny thing is I don’t even know if the game will be worth it in the end but I’m looking forward to finding out.

I’ll continue to tweet out my videos and probably some other stuff from time to time but I’m not looking at replies on there or anywhere else. I suppose this also means there’s no Halloween stream this year either, although I’m trying to think of other things we could do instead.

That about wraps it up for now. Thanks for the support you’ve all shown me, I look forward to reading it again in a few months. In the meantime here’s hoping the new videos live up to your expectations.

TL;DR

• More videos coming soon for the next while, hopefully every 1-2 weeks.

• Taking a break from social media to avoid spoilers for a few games, mainly Persona 5.