Game Developers you (still) have faith in

So the gaming industry landscape has kinda changed. Companies have fallen off, or turned evil, and others have risen up. Square Enix themselves of course being one of the more divisive companies nowadays that has disappointed a lot of people.

What game development studios/companies do you currently have the most faith in to be making good quality games? The kind you follow and get excited for all their new releases, or closest to it anyways. Feel free to expand on studios you've *lost* faith in or studios you would gladly believe in but they just keep doing stuff you don't appreciate (i.e. does Atlus just focus too much on milking their flagship series?).

I have tremendous faith in Larian.

Atlus. Do they milk their flagship series too much? Sure, but I ignore that noise, and I'm fine with it as long as they continue to deliver quality Persona titles. I don't have complete faith in any developer, but they're doing alright for now.

Honestly? Nobody. But that’s alright, actually.

For me, definitely Nihon Falcom first and foremost. They've been on top of their game and I trust that their action and turn-based RPGs alike will be great in the years to come. I also have faith in Toby Fox that DELTARUNE will be a beautiful whole once it's done, but that's probably many years off.

Notably, I'm not really trusting of Atlus, Squenix or ZUN in the same way. Atlus' priorities aren't in the right place, and while Persona 5 was a super fun game, it was still centered more around being appealing than being the best it can be which isn't very confidence-inspiring. Squenix hasn't made a game I loved since FF XII. And ZUN just has his ups and downs a lot and Touhou 16 was pretty forgettable. Blizzard has also lost me, they had their good years and now they're over. Key as well hasn't made a great game since Little Busters (Rewrite was great but they were more the publisher of that than the developer).

I'm kinda torn on 07th Expansion. I'm sure Ciconia no Naku Koro ni will be great, but Ryukishi's works tend to be only explicitly good when they're long epics. If he comes out with shorts I'm not gonna be looking to play them by any means. Long stories though? Hell yes.

No one really, though if I had to name someone, Atlus is still a fairly strong company even if they do make questionable decisions. Capcom also seems to be in one of their grace periods currently, but we'll see how long that lasts. I also feel FROM Software continues to make pretty solid efforts. They don't make games that appeal to everyone, but if you like what they do, they do it pretty well.

I feel Squenix is trying though, so I'm not really going to fault them too hard, but I also know they have never been the company I fell in love with and will likely never be again. While Konami is still a trout company, they have recently extended a very small olive branch in the form of the Castlevania collections. Doesn't mean I've forgiven them for nuking their console game business.

To the extent that I'm actively and excitedly looking forward to all of their releases, just Falcom.

That's okay though, and it's not like I've "lost faith" in other developers. There are plenty of games I look forward to from developers like S-E, Atlus, CDPR and so on, just not to the same degree.

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Originally Posted by Wolf Kanno

While Konami is still a trout company, they have recently extended a very small olive branch in the form of the Castlevania collections. Doesn't mean I've forgiven them for nuking their console game business.

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Konami has so many great, beloved IPs, I can't forgive them for letting them rot for their pachinko business. If they're not going to use them properly (pachinko is not using them properly), sell the rights to someone who will. I'm sure there's plenty of good developers who could do justice to their creations.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Lord Golbez

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Wolf Kanno

While Konami is still a trout company, they have recently extended a very small olive branch in the form of the Castlevania collections. Doesn't mean I've forgiven them for nuking their console game business.

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Konami has so many great, beloved IPs, I can't forgive them for letting them rot for their pachinko business. If they're not going to use them properly (pachinko is not using them properly), sell the rights to someone who will. I'm sure there's plenty of good developers who could do justice to their creations.

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After what happened with Castlevania and Silent Hill during the PS3 years, I can't really agree another developer could do justice to some of their IPs, especially since most developers have their own style and thus working on a foreign IP would largely make it feel like them instead of the IP fans know. I'm actually fine with Konami just killing their IPs. Some things just come to an end.

I'm still not over Suikoden never coming to a satisfying conclusion. The rest I'd be fine withh ending.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Lord Golbez

I'm still not over Suikoden never coming to a satisfying conclusion. The rest I'd be fine withh ending.

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I know your pain, but it's just never going to happen. Murayama doesn't seem remotely interested in finishing it and lord knows where Junko Kawano is now. I just can't imagine it ever getting finished outside of one of the two saying what they would have done in an interview.

I'm with Wolf on Capcom and FROM.
Capcom's okay right now. I'm still mad about Legends 3. But Devil May Cry 5 and Monster Hunter: World are fantastic. And the Iceborne expansion looks great. That Tigrex roar. And that Ace Attorney Trilogy.

And Square has my hope up with Shadowbringers. They brought in Yoko Taro to write the raid. And the 7 Remake might be making some headway. Still have my doubts on Nomura.

ARCSys is borderline. They make a great fighting game. But half the cast of Cross Tag Battle was paid DLC. And they weren't even extras. They were in the game proper.

Does M2 count?

Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio.

Yakuza as a broad franchise is looking stronger than ever at the moment, and in fact SEGA as a whole are being, I would say, pretty solid. With the occasional baffling screw up. But most of those tend to be Sonic so that's to be expected.

Despite my being critical of FFXIII and XV, I still enjoy Square’s games decently enough. The only thing that I wish with Square is that we’d get some more experimental IPs like the ps1 era and earlier. World of Final Fantasy felt like a nice step back in that direction. The World Ends With You was another great one. Either way, I still have faith in the company in at least making games I’ll at least enjoy.

Atlus is another I have faith in generally.

Nintendo almost always churns out quality stuff.

That’s probably it at the moment.