Journal of Other Forum Analysis (Volume II, Issue 2)

[benji]

The decision responds to the operational complexity of segmenting software catalogs under punitive content criteria. “That tax will no longer be charged,” states President Claudia Sheinbaum. “It is very difficult to distinguish between a video game that contains violence and one that does not. So, who is going to determine that?"

[Potato]

Martin Scorsese is embracing generative AI, backing and becoming a partner of Black Forest Labs

Martin Scorsese, the living embodiment of cinema as high art and a conscience for modern Hollywood, on Tuesday threw his weight behind an A.I. start-up that specializes in image generation. In a statement and an accompanying video made in his New York City office, Mr. Scorsese discussed how he had used technology from Black Forest Labs, a fast-rising A.I. venture, during preproduction for a new film.

"I'm interested in the intersection of technology and storytelling, and seeing how that can push the bounds of creativity to create deeper and richer experiences for audiences," Mr. Scorsese, 83, said in the statement, which was shared exclusively with The New York Times. "Remember, cinema is a young medium, only around 125 years old, so we have to be open to how it can evolve."

Black Forest Labs said Mr. Scorsese, a 16-time Academy Award nominee who won best director for "The Departed" in 2007, had signed on last year as a partner and an adviser.

Go make the Kool Aid movie you moron

Of course dude thinks the new shiny tech is neat. AI is, like, custom made to appeal to the old guard whose abilities to direct and write a film are becoming increasingly limited as they age.

boomers are addicted to AI slop. i see it all over my facebook feed with my old relatives

Whelp. Just the same fucking pulling up the ladder behind them boomer shit. The money must be good to ruin your legacy like this.

So all the old fucks who can't be arsed to make the effort anymore.

Just fuck off and retire if your heart isn't it.

So it this going to be a thread where the vast majority condemnes him for it, or is it going to be like some of the recent ones around JP creators where "there is nuance to this subject, guys please let my favourite creator be"

for my perspective: fuck anyone using AI in creative mediums, triply so when there is literally no problem having actial humans do the work.

Old people are worthless lmao

You know what. I wish there was some fucking fairness in the world and we would see some """""""executive-level""""""" AIs/Agents to show some of these freaks that if they are so adamant to remove humans from the production chain then why stop at the bottom, why not go all the way up?

There should be no nuance when it comes to AI, let alone AI and the arts

The dude is 83. At what age do you become more susceptible to bullshit? Is this the filmmaker equivalent of calling an elderly person and telling them they need to buy Walmart gift cards and need to hand over their SSN?

I don't know. Everything about AI in the creative space pisses me off. This video basically does away with Storyboarding. I don't understand what this accomplished that a storyboard did not.

Also, the very end where the dude is like "I wish we could have given you these tools sooner!" Motherfucker, that's Martin Scorsese he did just fine without them.

Blah.

It's obvious these particular shitheads are just blinded by their hate for AI and need any reason to hate on legendary people. Doesn't even feel like genuine commentary coming from the heart; just vindicative bitterness.

Like most failed artists, they fail to realise the art is not in the brush stroke or the camera or the lighting or the sculpture, but it's in what the artwork makes us feel. Scorcese doesn't care how the art is made, he cares about connecting people with the feelings that he's trying to make them experience. Whatever makes that process easier, better, faster is fine with him.

[benji]

Like most failed artists, they fail to realise the art is not in the brush stroke or the camera or the lighting or the sculpture, but it's in what the artwork makes us feel. Scorcese doesn't care how the art is made, he cares about connecting people with the feelings that he's trying to make them experience. Whatever makes that process easier, better, faster is fine with him.

Wonder what they've said about the shooting on film vs. digital debate.

[Boredfrom]

The decision responds to the operational complexity of segmenting software catalogs under punitive content criteria. “That tax will no longer be charged,” states President Claudia Sheinbaum. “It is very difficult to distinguish between a video game that contains violence and one that does not. So, who is going to determine that?"

We have a rating system but I’m pretty sure no one plays those games and just translate the ESBR. You should see the icons designs, they are “Graphic Design is my passion” quality.

[Boredfrom]

1780557040[/url]']

1780528555[/url]']
Martin Scorsese is embracing generative AI, backing and becoming a partner of Black Forest Labs

Martin Scorsese, the living embodiment of cinema as high art and a conscience for modern Hollywood, on Tuesday threw his weight behind an A.I. start-up that specializes in image generation. In a statement and an accompanying video made in his New York City office, Mr. Scorsese discussed how he had used technology from Black Forest Labs, a fast-rising A.I. venture, during preproduction for a new film.

"I'm interested in the intersection of technology and storytelling, and seeing how that can push the bounds of creativity to create deeper and richer experiences for audiences," Mr. Scorsese, 83, said in the statement, which was shared exclusively with The New York Times. "Remember, cinema is a young medium, only around 125 years old, so we have to be open to how it can evolve."

Black Forest Labs said Mr. Scorsese, a 16-time Academy Award nominee who won best director for "The Departed" in 2007, had signed on last year as a partner and an adviser.

Go make the Kool Aid movie you moron

Of course dude thinks the new shiny tech is neat. AI is, like, custom made to appeal to the old guard whose abilities to direct and write a film are becoming increasingly limited as they age.

boomers are addicted to AI slop. i see it all over my facebook feed with my old relatives

Whelp. Just the same fucking pulling up the ladder behind them boomer shit. The money must be good to ruin your legacy like this.

So all the old fucks who can't be arsed to make the effort anymore.

Just fuck off and retire if your heart isn't it.

So it this going to be a thread where the vast majority condemnes him for it, or is it going to be like some of the recent ones around JP creators where "there is nuance to this subject, guys please let my favourite creator be"

for my perspective: fuck anyone using AI in creative mediums, triply so when there is literally no problem having actial humans do the work.

Old people are worthless lmao

You know what. I wish there was some fucking fairness in the world and we would see some """""""executive-level""""""" AIs/Agents to show some of these freaks that if they are so adamant to remove humans from the production chain then why stop at the bottom, why not go all the way up?

There should be no nuance when it comes to AI, let alone AI and the arts

The dude is 83. At what age do you become more susceptible to bullshit? Is this the filmmaker equivalent of calling an elderly person and telling them they need to buy Walmart gift cards and need to hand over their SSN?

I don't know. Everything about AI in the creative space pisses me off. This video basically does away with Storyboarding. I don't understand what this accomplished that a storyboard did not.

Also, the very end where the dude is like "I wish we could have given you these tools sooner!" Motherfucker, that's Martin Scorsese he did just fine without them.

Blah.

It's obvious these particular shitheads are just blinded by their hate for AI and need any reason to hate on legendary people. Doesn't even feel like genuine commentary coming from the heart; just vindicative bitterness.

Like most failed artists, they fail to realise the art is not in the brush stroke or the camera or the lighting or the sculpture, but it's in what the artwork makes us feel. Scorcese doesn't care how the art is made, he cares about connecting people with the feelings that he's trying to make them experience. Whatever makes that process easier, better, faster is fine with him. 

/kappa  

Imagine caring about video game characters at all. Like, they're soulless husks designed as marionettes for the player and tied to some is humanity's worst storytelling techniques.

[HeavenIsAPlaceOnEarth]

Content creator… do we have a damn dirty streamer posting on thebire?!

I'm secretive and enigmatic.

And gassy.

[Boredfrom]

No shit? I think you are fundamentally misunderstanding the point, we're not talking about some sort of Gay Fascist Utopia, we are talking about fascists wearing the veneer of progressivism to mask fascism, like Israel does by pretending they are pro-LGBT. We are not talking about fascists that genuinely care about gay people.

 


Talking about faking LGBT support:

I caught Hasan's comment live, and it definitely followed news that Scott Wiener was in the lead; however, he may have been referring to something else (the LA mayoral race or Peter Thiel or whatever) when he said it, as he is often all over the place with his commentary, hundreds of tabs, reading chat, etc.

I can earnestly say Hasan is not homophobic and did not mean the comment to be homophobic in any way. "Pink fascism" is an important concept to be aware of, and Hasan was using a variant term.

However, as a gay man, I can't lie and say it didn't sting a little to hear the sentence "they want homofascism, they want gay fascism, they want gay techno fascism", particularly the forceful way he said it.

I think you also need to be careful about how you word things -- and that's why "pink fascism" works. Hearing "gay" or "homo" used as part of an insult, even if it's well intentioned, is kinda triggering.

I bet you that he is.  

Dude is a mega poser, is constantly clear he is a vain asshole that only cares about optics and always get a free pass because “he is hot” and express politics that you guys like. 

People are constantly mad about him because assholes defend everything he does:

Some people are reading into what Hasan said and are immediately sharpening their knives.

See?  

You fuckers have crucified people for less.

[Boredfrom]

Pink Fascism is that the Jewish person that I don’t like won the primary.  

The dude ended agreeing with you about the key issue your audience is obsessed with it.

[Snoopy]

https://www.resetera.com/threads/third-kidney-stone-dying-inside-rn.1538908/

3d kidney stone! 

I'm always amazed at how bad ree's eating habits are, but 3 kidney stones? What a fucking moron

[Boredfrom]

https://www.resetera.com/threads/third-kidney-stone-dying-inside-rn.1538908/

3d kidney stone! 

I'm always amazed at how bad ree's eating habits are, but 3 kidney stones? What a fucking moron

if I keel over, play Terranigma in my memory.

 

So quirky, man.

[HaughtyFrank]

"Guys, it's totally not homophobic to talk about "gay fascism" and "homo fascism" right after he learned that the gay candidate is in the lead."

These people can't be serious. Meanwhile CDPR is declared forever to be transphobic because they made one "did you assume my gender" joke

[Boredfrom]

https://www.resetera.com/threads/you-can-get-a-dual-screen-android-3ds-ds-clamshell-device-from-best-buy-and-target-now-ayn-thor-how-does-this-impact-sony-nintendo-valve-etc.1538953/

Guess who…

Spoiler:  (click to show)(click to hide)

Dr Loud, pls, you need to pay your debts.

————

Let's be real given OP's history this is yet another "look at my shit" thread, there's no way they actually think this thing will in any way be a legit threat to major platform holders.

Countdown until ban…

[benji]

I caught Hasan's comment live, and it definitely followed news that Scott Wiener was in the lead; however, he may have been referring to something else (the LA mayoral race or Peter Thiel or whatever) when he said it, as he is often all over the place with his commentary, hundreds of tabs, reading chat, etc.

What an ideal medium for clearly communicating information and philosophical beliefs to form a weltanschauung.

I have yet to come across someone who has hundreds of tabs open who is reasonably intelligent. I've been trying to theorize what this behavior demonstrates in regards to an intellectual level but it's clearly some kind of scattershot "knowledge hoarding" that people who have poor research and organization skills use as a replacement for actual learning. Or simply using better methods.

There was this once high level trans "expert" who got ran off Bluesky (they may be back I haven't kept up or anything) for being anti-Semitic for getting a little too real with their anti-Zionism and wanting to eliminate Judaism or something. Long digression I know, but they used to tweet a lot about how many tabs they had open and how it was dragging down their computer and how mutual aid could alleviate this. (No, they can't work you fucking fascist.) We're talking like 300+ tabs easily. Basically what I could discern is that they used them as if they were bookmarks. They fancied themselves an academic (despite not, you know, finishing high school or even college when they went later, don't worry they regularly referred back to being considered a "gifted child" as a replacement) and so would load up all these PDFs and webpages of studies and stuff they could never read correctly, then leave the tab open in case they ever needed to own some TERF. But they also had hundreds of tabs of news stories and tweets that they'd just like come across and leave open in case they needed it? Presumably Hasan is doing something similar. COULD BE CONTENT!!!

Anyway, I find this kind of thing very amusing to observe. It's like when people talk about doing deep dives and it's obvious they didn't even read the entire Wikipedia page. (Or never finished reading the original works of Zionism after making a big deal about how they were reading them.) Or how these people talk about someone's ability to type things into google and look at what comes up. Blueball acting like I spend hours upon hours to do something that took maybe 20 minutes as I looked at something I was looking at anyway. Or the entire genre of YouTube videos that are either someone reading a basic description of the plot of a game/film with a title like "EXPLAINED/HOW THIS CHANGED EVERYTHING" or FIFTY DEEP LORE EASTER EGGS IN THE LATEST TRAILER. Endless ignorant and gullible people's idea of what smart people are like or something. Grok is Jarvis. Hasan and FD Signifier are intellectuals. Rote lectures from randoms who love pop culture is the peak educational source. All of it having the greatest crime of being boring and often truly a waste of time because it's spending a lifetime to learn little to nothing generally because of an assumption that you already know and can instantly grasp everything.

read 👏 the 👏 theory 👏

[benji]

https://www.resetera.com/threads/you-can-get-a-dual-screen-android-3ds-ds-clamshell-device-from-best-buy-and-target-now-ayn-thor-how-does-this-impact-sony-nintendo-valve-etc.1538953/

You can get one from $300-500 tho,

your link in the op is $629.99 feel like I need to ask if you own a home or pay rent monthly or have indispensable income

You posted this an hour and a half ago. where can I get this for 300$? share the link with us

There absolutely should be era rules to disclose if you have an financial incentive for making a topic.

even for resellers those prices are OBSCENE

its the stupid expensive model with an 80 buck price premium

He needs that premium for his data analysis.

[DavidCroquet]

"Guys, it's totally not homophobic to talk about "gay fascism" and "homo fascism" right after he learned that the gay candidate is in the lead."

These people can't be serious. Meanwhile CDPR is declared forever to be transphobic because they made one "did you assume my gender" joke

Putting the gays and jews into camps, but wokely.

[jooseloose]

They're crashing out about this in the Burka thread

[Potato]

It's all gone wrong and that shit ain't selling fuck all, certified dragon age. 

Part of Veilguard's problem was that David Gaider had quit Bioware a few years after Inquisition, and he helped create a lot of the Dragon Age setting, lore and wrote some of the best characters and moments from the first 3 games. Mike Laidlaw was the lead designer on DA1 and director of 3, and he also left Bioware after the first version of DA4 fell through and they rebooted development. They just lost most of the more important minds behind the previous games, and it was newer devs, probably less willing to push back against bad ideas from management, plus younger writers that just didn't understand what made Dragon Age so good. The tone of Veilguard was just totally fucked like they didn't even understand the IP. 

Cory Barlog is still at SSM and the creative director over all their projects now. The current game director of this new thing started at SSM going back to 2003. The point is, these people understand the IP and worked on the good games.  

The writing might end up being bad in this new God of War but I'm not worried about the game being total shit or not understanding the tone and lore the way Veilguard did. Will it sell poorly? Idk, I'd be willing to bet it at least reviews pretty well. 

It seems like about 2 years ago DND instagram or tik tok or whatever decided fey universe stuff was cool,

2018 and Ragnarok both already had that kind of thing with fantastical, colorful environments, and it sounds like this new game started pre-production right after 2018 launched. I don't think they're chasing trends there, but who knows.

The game design itself doesn't really have me worried or at least I expect it to be the same as the previous games. I did cringe a little though when the two lead writers introduced themselves and said that God of war 2018 was the first God of war they played. The fans are all talking about how Faye might encounter the Greek gods Kratos killed and here I wonder how much the writers will even care for the Greek stuff.

Between Nolan's The Odd-yssey and this God of War game, 2026 is really shaping up to be the year of Greek genocide.

[kaleidoscopium]

I listened to the fuller clip, he's not being nuanced here. He's not being deep. He's doing what he always does and speaking in the crass provocative language that he thinks will appeal to and hook his audience. An audience that won't think critically about anything he says or hold him to any type of standard (because lord knows there'd be no defense force if anybody else said this).

And you know what? Fine. Whatever. If Hasan wants this to be his brand, let it be. I'm not in his camp. But nobody should be surprised why this dude is unlikable. It's quite clear to me.

https://www.resetera.com/threads/us-politics-2026-ot1-mega-midterm-mania.1452433/page-126#post-155844430

[jooseloose]

https://www.resetera.com/threads/god-of-war-laufey-is-the-generational-tech-forward-leap-from-santa-monica-ive-been-waiting-for.1538692/

I have to admit to feeling an immense sense of relief seeing the reveal for God of War Laufey.



For years, I've quietly championed the idea of Santa Monica Studio breaking away from their established formula and launching a completely fresh IP. My reasoning was simple: I wanted to see the studio forced outside of its comfort zone, pushed to architect entirely new combat systems and character models from scratch. While the mechanical depth of the modern God of War titles has always been stellar, the visual and thematic baggage of Kratos has always held the franchise back for me. The character design is a rigid product of the early 2000s, and finding out over the years that David Jaffe's visual inspiration for Kratos was heavily drawn from Edward Norton's neo-Nazi character in American History X kinda soured the design for me. Combine that with Jaffe's increasingly unhinged, creepy online persona, and I was more than ready for SMS to leave that era behind, spread their wings, and build a new legacy.



What we're seeing with this new direction achieves exactly what I hoped a new IP would, even while maintaining a tether to the broader universe. From a technical standpoint, the character model for Faye represents a massive paradigm shift. Early in generation 9, I found myself constantly criticizing developers for failing to fully embrace strand-based hair grooms. This trailer finally delivers on that front. The main character features what is easily the most sophisticated real-time hair rendering in the medium right now. It is a masterclass not just in physics, collision, and procedural movement, but in light interaction. The way individual strands behave under complex lighting conditions, utilizing advanced subsurface scattering and anisotropic shading, is genuinely astounding. Her facial fidelity and micro-expressions speak volumes about the sheer density of the deformation rigs they are using. Even if Kratos makes a mandatory cameo, Faye looks and moves like a generational leap beyond him, because she structurally is.



The mechanical overhaul looks equally transformative. The combat engine appears to be built on an entirely distinct framework, offering a completely fresh gameplay loop that breaks away from the leviathan axe and blades paradigm. It fulfills my desire for structural innovation while managing to stay anchored in the lore.



Unfortunately, looking at the wider reception, the state of online discourse surrounding these reveals has become incredibly exhausting. It goes far beyond the standard toxic content creators we are all familiar with. It is well-documented that foreign troll farms actively target hobbyist spaces, injecting bad-faith arguments into discussions about sports, cinema, and gaming to weaponize culture wars and sew division. While healthy critique is part of gaming and sure, not everyone has to love what's happening here, the sheer volume of coordinated, bad-faith accounts operating across social media makes organic, nuanced discussion nearly impossible. Ugh.



As an incredibly picky gamer who prioritizes technical execution, it is profoundly obvious to me that God of War Laufey is a landmark achievement for the studio. Santa Monica has finally delivered a project that feels completely decoupled from cross-gen constraints and early 2000s design ethos. They have channeled their engineering talent into a true, uncompromising current-gen showcase, and I am incredibly excited to see how it plays when it drops.

The love for companies

"This thread has generated a lot of reports and will remain locked."

The fuck is going on in that thread?

[Taco Bell Tower]

https://www.resetera.com/threads/you-can-get-a-dual-screen-android-3ds-ds-clamshell-device-from-best-buy-and-target-now-ayn-thor-how-does-this-impact-sony-nintendo-valve-etc.1538953/

Guess who…

Spoiler:  (click to show)(click to hide)

Dr Loud, pls, you need to pay your debts.

————

Let's be real given OP's history this is yet another "look at my shit" thread, there's no way they actually think this thing will in any way be a legit threat to major platform holders.

Countdown until ban…

I own a Switch 2 and an expansive library but by far, I use my Thor the most.

[Potato]

https://www.thegamer.com/god-of-war-laufey-forspoken-problem-phranque-cube-cuff/

Which one of y'all wrote this 

sometimes I think about this kind of thing in the context of Morte the talking skull from Planescape Torment, like should I have despised him because he's a quippy talking inanimate object, is he just Forspoken's Cuff

and the answer is

no because writers were actually good back then and also he wasn't terribly invasive or whedonesque, get fucked

More likely you were just retarded and had low standards back then...

Spoiler:  (click to show)(click to hide)

Were? Lol, still are.

[Ethan]

Zeo has been a semi-professional reply guy for years and the best he can still come up with is "You're ugly, you smell and no one likes you". C'mon, son...



Is he overburdened by the job? Is it getting to him? Guy replying is serious business and I feel like his heart is not in it anymore.

[Uncle]

https://www.resetera.com/threads/you-can-get-a-dual-screen-android-3ds-ds-clamshell-device-from-best-buy-and-target-now-ayn-thor-how-does-this-impact-sony-nintendo-valve-etc.1538953/

Guess who…

Spoiler:  (click to show)(click to hide)

Dr Loud, pls, you need to pay your debts.

————

Let's be real given OP's history this is yet another "look at my shit" thread, there's no way they actually think this thing will in any way be a legit threat to major platform holders.

Countdown until ban…

I own a Switch 2 and an expansive library but by far, I use my Thor the most.

does the switch 2 have an expansive library...?

[jooseloose]

Echoes lore https://www.resetera.com/threads/why-women-criticise-sexualised-character-designs-ot3-make-her-look-more-corpulent-more-stuffed-where-the-eyes-cant-escape.275780/post-155844349

Decided to watch the trailer for that God of War Laufey (I haven't played Ragnarok and never finished the 4th one so wasn't going to but with so much discussion I decided to see what's up).

I do get some of the criticism, some of the dialogue does feel a bit quippy (though I'd also argue dark comedy is a large part of the franchise since the start, for better or for worse given how gross that could be, GOW3 especially) and now watching it, I do get the complaints where the dialogue is just explaining what's happening on screen. It wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be and it's certainly not MCU levels.

As someone who studied to be a screenwriter their is the importance of negative space when it comes to dialogue, that many times it is better to let the music, actions and expressions on the actors do the work of the dialogue a single look can often say more then lines of dialogue can't. I'm also not the biggest fan of Bathos and don't like when fantasy and Sci-Fi writers feel the needs to stop to go "He this is silly right!?" when it comes to a fantastical idea or concept, it often feels insecure and doesn't trust the audience to believe in it when reading and watching the work. It can work, like with The Princess Pride which is built on the trope and works with the themes of the story, but often I wish works would be more sincere and really go all in with their silliness, embrace it rather then be embarrassed by it.

Of course sincere doesn't mean not silly, the 60s Batman is sincere but fully embraces its camp and silliness, same with She-Ra or Star Trek TOS and I love all three for the most part.

Though I will say I don't like people conflating legit criticism with the chuds, especially criticism coming from women, it can feel like weaponizing the chuds as a way to shut down any form of discussion or critique that isn't just hype and I really don't like that. Don't let chuds control the narrative, it's what they want.

Can you imagine

[Let's Cyber]

I listened to the fuller clip, he's not being nuanced here. He's not being deep. He's doing what he always does and speaking in the crass provocative language that he thinks will appeal to and hook his audience. An audience that won't think critically about anything he says or hold him to any type of standard (because lord knows there'd be no defense force if anybody else said this).

And you know what? Fine. Whatever. If Hasan wants this to be his brand, let it be. I'm not in his camp. But nobody should be surprised why this dude is unlikable. It's quite clear to me.

https://www.resetera.com/threads/us-politics-2026-ot1-mega-midterm-mania.1452433/page-126#post-155844430

Hasan had some more than mildly homophobic commentary on Buttigieg back in 2020 too. 
 
For some reason, anything problematic Hasan has said more than 2+ years ago gets memory-holed by his fans or ignored as "he was still growing" or "he's already apologized for that, let's move on". We're already at the point where anyone mentioning his poor dog's shock collar is a Zionist genocider. 

[HaughtyFrank]

Oh no, they've come fort the Platypus

[Rendle]

https://www.resetera.com/threads/third-kidney-stone-dying-inside-rn.1538908/

3d kidney stone! 

I'm always amazed at how bad ree's eating habits are, but 3 kidney stones? What a fucking moron

If you've had 1, the likelihood you'll have another within 10 years is 50%. I stopped drinking sugary drinks and still had a second one 3 years later. I was already looking into donating a kidney before I had my first stone, which apparently isn't a dealbreaker, but probably means i'd have to be in phenomenal physical health otherwise for me to be a viable donor, which i'm not. Donating a kidney reduces your life expectancy by like 3-5 years, but kidney donors tend to live longer on average than non-donors, because they're so selective.

[NekoFever]

I love how Jeff keeps telling chuds that no one likes them.

Mate, your tweets get no engagement and when you get banned from Era people openly talk about how much better the discourse is without you.

[Jansen]

https://www.resetera.com/threads/god-of-war-laufey-is-the-generational-tech-forward-leap-from-santa-monica-ive-been-waiting-for.1538692/

I have to admit to feeling an immense sense of relief seeing the reveal for God of War Laufey.



For years, I've quietly championed the idea of Santa Monica Studio breaking away from their established formula and launching a completely fresh IP. My reasoning was simple: I wanted to see the studio forced outside of its comfort zone, pushed to architect entirely new combat systems and character models from scratch. While the mechanical depth of the modern God of War titles has always been stellar, the visual and thematic baggage of Kratos has always held the franchise back for me. The character design is a rigid product of the early 2000s, and finding out over the years that David Jaffe's visual inspiration for Kratos was heavily drawn from Edward Norton's neo-Nazi character in American History X kinda soured the design for me. Combine that with Jaffe's increasingly unhinged, creepy online persona, and I was more than ready for SMS to leave that era behind, spread their wings, and build a new legacy.



What we're seeing with this new direction achieves exactly what I hoped a new IP would, even while maintaining a tether to the broader universe. From a technical standpoint, the character model for Faye represents a massive paradigm shift. Early in generation 9, I found myself constantly criticizing developers for failing to fully embrace strand-based hair grooms. This trailer finally delivers on that front. The main character features what is easily the most sophisticated real-time hair rendering in the medium right now. It is a masterclass not just in physics, collision, and procedural movement, but in light interaction. The way individual strands behave under complex lighting conditions, utilizing advanced subsurface scattering and anisotropic shading, is genuinely astounding. Her facial fidelity and micro-expressions speak volumes about the sheer density of the deformation rigs they are using. Even if Kratos makes a mandatory cameo, Faye looks and moves like a generational leap beyond him, because she structurally is.



The mechanical overhaul looks equally transformative. The combat engine appears to be built on an entirely distinct framework, offering a completely fresh gameplay loop that breaks away from the leviathan axe and blades paradigm. It fulfills my desire for structural innovation while managing to stay anchored in the lore.



Unfortunately, looking at the wider reception, the state of online discourse surrounding these reveals has become incredibly exhausting. It goes far beyond the standard toxic content creators we are all familiar with. It is well-documented that foreign troll farms actively target hobbyist spaces, injecting bad-faith arguments into discussions about sports, cinema, and gaming to weaponize culture wars and sew division. While healthy critique is part of gaming and sure, not everyone has to love what's happening here, the sheer volume of coordinated, bad-faith accounts operating across social media makes organic, nuanced discussion nearly impossible. Ugh.



As an incredibly picky gamer who prioritizes technical execution, it is profoundly obvious to me that God of War Laufey is a landmark achievement for the studio. Santa Monica has finally delivered a project that feels completely decoupled from cross-gen constraints and early 2000s design ethos. They have channeled their engineering talent into a true, uncompromising current-gen showcase, and I am incredibly excited to see how it plays when it drops.

The love for companies

"This thread has generated a lot of reports and will remain locked."

The fuck is going on in that thread?

Accusations of using AI to write posts. Just your normal era things

[BIONIC]

I love how Jeff keeps telling chuds that no one likes them.

Mate, your tweets get no engagement and when you get banned from Era people openly talk about how much better the discourse is without you.

Next you’re gonna tell me Jeff is a smelly incel who never leaves the house and women actively avoid