A Plague Tale: Requiem

Everything I wrote about A Plague Tale: Innocence applies to its 2022 sequel, Requiem, as well. I don't know myself how one would exactly expand the adventure-stealth gameplay but you'd expect that at least the story would have some progression. But even that in Requiem is pretty much the same thing all over again.

NEON STRUCT

The other indie immersive sim included in Steam's 0451 sale I later bought was NEON STRUCT (as it's stylized), in the cover art also subtitled Die Augen Der Welt ('the eyes of the world'). It's only a 90 MB download, which is kind of impressive but the small size also means you won't be getting much in terms of assets.

A Plague Tale: Innocence

It was again time to knock few games off my wishlist by playing through them on the game pass. The first one was A Plague Tale: Innocence, a third person stealth adventure game from Asobo Studio. They're a French developer whose name I don't remember seeing before but they have been in the business for some time now. Currently they're working on Microsoft Flight Simulator which should increase their renown.

Dishonored: Death of the Outsider

Dishonored: Death of the Outsider is a continuation to the story arc of the first game's DLC, The Knife of Dunwall and The Brigmore Witches, and a conclusion to "the Kaldwin era" and the series overall. Maybe in hopes of selling more copies, it was released as a standalone title instead of DLC to the second game. Death of the Outsider is smaller in scope (and price) than a full-size Dishonored title but doesn't lack on the detail and great gameplay I've come to expect from Arkane Studios.

Thanks to Crealgood for gifting me this game!

ECHO

Danish game developer ULTRA ULTRA closed their doors about a month ago. The sole game they put out before that didn't sell well enough to keep them afloat. After having played it, I am not surprised. Echo (stylized in caps as ECHO) has some impressive visual detail but is ultimately a painfully repetitive and unrewarding gaming experience.

Styx: Shards of Darkness

I suppose it isn't that surprising that Styx: Shards of Darkness is so much like Styx: Master of Shadows. Why try to fix something that isn't broken. Still, I wasn't expecting it to follow the same formula to this degree and to retain so many of the old features -- some of which I'm not that fond of. There are few improvements and some whole new things too, though.

Dishonored 2

The first Dishonored ran on the tried and true Unreal Engine 3 and did so well. Thus the technical issues of Dishonored 2 surprised many. Probably to avoid paying Epic Games (or anyone else) royalties again, Arkane Studios had taken the Bethesda in-house engine id Tech 5 and largely rewritten it into Void Engine for the second game. Unfortunately the end results weren't exactly desirable.

Shadwen

A stealth game that is also essentially one huge escort quest feels like a concept set to fail. It is certainly something I would never buy at full price (not that I do so generally anyway) but I did put it on my wishlist to wait for a better deal. I reckon the game has not sold too well because pretty soon after its release it was almost constantly discounted in some store. During Steam's winter sale, the discount got to 75% and I finally bought Shadwen.

Styx: Master of Shadows

I had been aware of Styx: Master of Shadows for quite some time before purchasing it. For some reason I had been put off by the protagonist's looks; I did not want to play an ugly goblin. But people do recommend it as a good stealth game. It is also a prequel to one of Cyanide Studio's previous titles, Of Orcs And Men, which seems to feature the very same creature as this one although the game is of different genre.

DARK

If anything, Dark (or DARK as it is stylized) sure has the most generic name of all time that also makes googling anything related to it incredibly hard as the results are from every game ever to have the word dark in their title. I bought Dark with Blood Knights as they were both on sale at the time (probably thanks to same publisher). By chance Dark also happens to have vampires, as well as the unfortunate merit of having received not-so-great reviews.

Solarix

It would seem that Solarix is the 20th Unreal Engine 3 game I have played. And for once -- maybe even for the first time -- I got to play an Unreal Engine game that was not ported to PC from a console version. Unfortunately it was made by a small Turkish-based developer called Pulsetense Games. The lack of resources shows and I would have refunded it within minutes if I had not bought the Steam key from Humble. (I think getting a refund from a third party provider is bit more complicated than from Valve.)

Alpha Protocol

Alpha Protocol is the first non-sequel game by Obsidian Entertainment I have played thus far. It is interesting in that regard because it came out while Obsidian was still continuing to make sequels to existing franchises. I wonder if was the developer or the publisher, Sega, who was behind the idea to create the game.

Velvet Assassin

For having mixed user reviews, Velvet Assassin is definitely from the dodgier end of the games I have bought after coming upon them in my Steam discovery queue. But since the game was nearly free on sale, I decided to buy it regardless of its reception and having been made by a little-known German developer, called Replay Studios.

Thief (2014)

I remember seeing a bunch of different controversies before the fourth Thief game even saw its release. The first one was small (and bit silly) in how the title was stylized as THI4F, which to me reads as thiaf. They of course ditched that later on to call it simply Thief.

Dishonored

Dishonored woke up the completionist in me and I played through the main game thrice and the story DLCs twice in a row to get all the Steam achievements. However, getting every single one proved to be difficult in the end as many of the Dunwall City Trials DLC's achievements are actually truly challenging. Eventually I decided I would rather move to the next game on my backlog instead of wasting time in retrying Back Alley Brawl ad infinitum.

Deus Ex: Human Revolution - Director's Cut

The EU release of Deus Ex: Human Revolution - Director's Cut on Steam wasn't the smoothest possible. First, the game's actual release happened 10 hours after Steam's countdown had reached zero. And second, the price reduction for those already owning the game and The Missing Link DLC wasn't as large as promised. That turned out to be a mistake and was fixed fairly quick. Some bought the game right away regardless -- 1€ is hardly a deal changer.

Thief: Deadly Shadows

For quite some time, I have had trouble starting a new game, or rather getting anywhere in it. I get this weird feeling I can't continue, because I don't know enough of what will happen next, and thus can't prepare for it properly. And I'd rather play a game I'm familiar with. But somehow, I managed to finish Thief: Deadly Shadows.