June 2025 In Review

June 2025 has come and gone; along with half of July!  Better late than never here is the look back at June.

The Blog

Blogger recorded visits for June: 61,663 (note: below graph includes some July dates and is missing June dates)

In other metrics:

• Posts:
  
• Target:  n/a (been unmotivated lately to blog so every post is a bonus in June)
• Posted: 8
• Difference: +8
•  Search Trends
• Search trends had a major shake up in June with searches for "ARC Raiders" taking over in the place of my longstanding top search topics of New World and Battlefield. Let's look at some of those ARC Raiders search strings:
• "arc raiders news" - everyone wants news about this potential GotY contender launching in October!
• "arc raiders countdown", "arc raiders shadow drop", "arc raiders timer" - a hidden countdown ended in disaster when ARC Raiders didn't surprise launch at the end of it.  We were all disappointed.

What I Played

I got back into New World for a bit in June working on my Season 8 pass.  Everytime I jump back into New World I get a little lump in my throat.  The game plays so well and the combat is so satisfying; it's a shame it's not more popular.

I also jumped into Dune Awakening after some friends started playing it.  I need to post more about my thoughts but for now I am just casually enjoying it with my friends because I know from my testing experience the end game is rubbish. 

Years Ago

1 Year Ago

As June 2025 has me playing survival MMO Dune Awakening it is worth mention that in June of 2024 I was addicted to another survival MMO: Once Human.

Let us not forget as well that June 2024 marked the start of the dark ages for New World Aeternum as the "big announcement" turned into a big fat nothing. Read more in my Dark Days for New World post.

5 Years Ago

June 2020 featured no blog posts.

10 Years Ago

May of 2015 marked my blog's 10 year anniversary!

15 Years Ago

June of 2010 marked my 10 year mark in the military.  Fast forward and I am now retired from the military!

I was also complaining about the "game that shall not be named: Counting the lies: Star Wars: The Old Republic "Hope" Trailer 

The gaming community got our first look at the OnLive service which at the time blew my mind that graphically demanding games were going to be able to be played on an iPad via a game streaming service like OnLive.  OnLive didn't end up lasting but the concept of streaming games still lives on even though its a small niche in the market. 

20 Years Ago

I started blogging in May of 2005 so June of 2005 was month two!  At the time I was hopelessly addicted to World of Wacraft and getting into organized group content.  Of course this means I got screwed out of a loot roll and complained about it.

World of Warcraft also brought us the first PvP battlegrounds: here were the basics as I saw them back then. 

I was also enjoying Battlefield 2 and playing the medic class.  A trend that started a long trend of me playing supporting/healing roles in many games following. 

 

Dune Awakening Is Better With Friends — And I Wasn't Ready for That

I went ahead and bought Dune Awakening. Not because the game is setting Steam on fire or because influencers are fawning over it. Truth is, I play-tested Dune Awakening for a good stretch over the past year, and I walked away feeling… lukewarm. The survival systems felt grindy, solo play was a slog, and the world—while beautiful—felt empty.

Then my friends jumped in.
And with nothing better to do, I reinstalled the game, hopped on my sandbike, and joined them. What I discovered surprised me: Dune Awakening is way better with friends.

Yet another heartlessgamer awakens

The Test Phase vs. The Real Thing

During testing, I mostly played solo. Any player interactions I had were random: impromptu squads tackling a challenge or strangers passing by. It was functional, but forgettable. The core systems—crafting, grinding, building—quickly became repetitive.

This time was different. 

My friends had already left the newbie zone behind and were holed up in a base far from the starting area. I zipped across the dunes to catch up, and what followed felt like an entirely new game.
 

Zipping to my friends base... and I better zip faster

Skip the Grind, Embrace the Game

When I arrived at their base, I was immediately drenched in generosity—literally showered (pun intended) with water, tools, weapons, and armor. Suddenly, I wasn’t scraping by for resources. I wasn’t stuck in the slog of early survival. I was on pace with my group, and for once, I could let them make the rookie mistakes and discoveries I had already been through in the tests.

It was… relaxing.
Dare I say, fun.

Movement Is King

If there’s one thing Dune Awakening nails, it’s freedom of movement. You can climb nearly any surface. Suspensor belts let you float. Grappling hooks (from the Trooper tree) open up vertical play. There are speed boosts, dashes, leaps—you name it.

If a direction exists, you can probably travel that way.

These traversal tools are normally locked behind hours of progression, but because I had friends, I skipped straight to the good stuff. 

Watching your friend almost get eaten by Shai-Hulud (he just made it to safety)

 

The Ornithopter Express

Then came the ornithopter.

My group had already unlocked one (while I was still several hours away from myself), and they graciously let me borrow it. I even got to share how to carry a passenger by having them hop on top. Of course, that also meant I had the honor of teaching them the hard way what happens when your pilot sucks.

Dune made the smart choice to not gate being able to use vehicles behind your own progression. If it exists in the world you can most likely use it even if you can't craft it yourself.

The game changes entirely once you have access to an ornithopter

Why It Works Now

With three of us working together, life on Arrakis is smooth sailing. There's always water at the base. Always a vehicle available. Always enough solari (the in-game gold) to get by. The punishing grind that wore me down before? Gone. Replaced by collaboration, shared goals, and just enough chaos to keep it fun.

The Final Word

Dune Awakening hasn’t suddenly become a perfect game. I still have my complaints. But I’m having actual fun, and that matters more than any patch note or feature list. It’s proof that even a game I once shelved can come roaring back to life—all it took was the right people beside me.

Lesson learned: survival is better with friends. Especially on Arrakis.

TL;DR:

If you're playing Dune Awakening solo and bouncing off it, try it with a crew. It just might change everything.

Note: this post was edited with the help of AI (ChatGPT). The thoughts and specifically in this post, the snarkiness, are my own.  The grammatical correctness is the AI. 

New World 0.5... Chrono Odyssey Beta Test Thoughts

 So I played a few hours of New World 0.5... err, I mean the Chrono Odyssey beta test. Here are some thoughts.

The tutorial starts out with a giant dragon flying in the near distance

 

A fast travel point... hmmm.. looks familiar

 First, for anyone who doubts the New World comparisons—especially coming from a player like myself who has spent thousands of hours in New World—I suggest taking a look at some of these discussions and videos:

• Reddit: I copy your homework

• Reddit: New World copy pasta

• Twitch: A literal exact copy of the fort and war camp from New World

 The evidence is stark. There are areas in Chrono Odyssey that are exact copies of New World. And since New World is not built on a proprietary engine—nor on something common like Unreal Engine—it’s very, very unlikely that Chrono Odyssey just happened to use the same store-bought assets. Not only are the visuals strikingly similar, but the rest of the game—even the UI—is eerily familiar. I’m fine with games copying systems and features, but this feels like a whole new level of copying.

Is that a sandworm!?

 

New World comparisons aside: how was the actual game?

 Chrono Odyssey was... OK.

 Performance was the biggest issue during the test. Like many testers, I suffered from poor frame rates and desync. Walking in crowded areas felt more like skipping along. The developers have stated that this was an older build and that performance should improve in future tests, so we’ll see.

 Graphically, the world is a bit wild. There are massive backdrops with all sorts of over-the-top visuals. The tutorial includes an amazing scene featuring a massive dragon flying overhead. The starting zone has a mix of giant, ominous beings floating in the sky.

Some of the bizarre backgrounds of the starting area

 Combat is mediocre. It uses action combat that lets players equip two weapons, each with up to four skills, plus a basic left-click attack and a special right-click move (e.g., blocking with a shield). There’s also a target lock-on feature—which is controversial in action combat games. Personally, I’m fine with it, but I ended up playing without it most of the time. It made me feel like I was losing control of my character, especially when the camera whipped around too much.

 The biggest issue I had with combat was the lack of weight. It felt like I was floating just above the ground, sliding around—especially with target lock enabled. My character felt like they were getting whiplash from all the turning. Weapon abilities just felt like “bigger numbers” you cycled through before swapping weapons and doing it all over again. Overall, combat felt generic.

A familiar weapon skill tree screen

 That said, I still preferred this action combat over traditional tab-target systems. There’s potential here—if the devs can carve out something unique.

 There were a few things I did like. The game gives you a mount early on, which is nice. PvE content poses a challenge early, requiring players to either gear up or get better to progress. There are also chrono abilities that seemed interesting—and were the biggest departure from its New World-inspired design—but I didn’t get far enough to comment deeply on them.

 Overall, my impression was very much “this is New World 0.5,” meaning it’s a worse version of New World. It was another game that just made me wish I were back playing New World. As I’ve said before, New World has spoiled me on MMORPG combat. I’ll argue with anyone: New World has the best combat on the market.

 The test topped out at a bit over 65,000 concurrent players, which is higher than similar points in New World's testing timeline. I can see Chrono Odyssey attracting a good audience—especially if they steer clear of shady pay-to-win systems (which the devs claim they will). If this test proved anything—both from the hype leading up to it and the actual player count—it’s that there’s still a strong demand for new MMORPGs.

Note: this post was edited with the help of AI (ChatGPT). The thoughts are my own.  The grammatical correctness is the AI.  

 

A Testing We Shall Go

 The Chrono Odyssey open beta is this weekend and I've been invited to give it a try.

 

Embark Disappoints

 

 I was wrong. ARC Raiders was not shadow-dropped at Summer Game Fest last week, as many of us had hoped. That was probably for the best, considering I lost internet for most of the weekend. What we did get was a new trailer and a release date: October 30th. After that deflating announcement—like my internet—the hype dropped for ARC Raiders.

 Am I less interested in playing ARC Raiders? No. I'm still looking forward to the game. I'll just have to wait a little longer. The game will likely be better for it, with extra time to add content and smooth out technical issues. It was unrealistic to expect a shadow drop. Shame on me.

 But I can’t stand here and say I’m not irritated about how things went down—especially considering this is the second year in a row I’ve had my excitement for a game crushed by a lackluster Summer Game Fest announcement. Last year, it was New World and their “big announcement,” and in a shockingly similar series of events, ARC Raiders followed suit this year.  Maybe it's Summer Game Fest?

 Last year, I was able to shift my perspective and stay interested in what New World's announcement meant for the game. I expect to do the same with ARC Raiders the game. Just like then, I'm sitting here every day checking news feeds, waiting for the next bit of info about the game.

 While I’m still excited for the game, I have to admit I’ve lost a bit of respect for Embark Studios. I really thought they were a different kind of developer—one that could actually surprise gamers. They built and fueled the hype after Tech Test 2: the hidden game files with the secret countdown timer, the bleeped troll video, the Summer Game Fest teaser featuring Scrappy the rooster. All of it now feels unwarranted, considering all they delivered was a ho-hum trailer and a release date. Basically, we had a secret countdown timer... to another countdown timer. That’s a fat L on Embark’s part.

 With that said, Embark did issue an apology (see image below post)—and it seemed genuine. My main concern, though, is that they had to see this coming. They had to know the level of hype and the tactics they used didn’t justify what they were actually delivering. If they didn’t... oof. That wouldn’t reflect well on their marketing and community teams. If they did... oof.

 I’ll hold onto my own dumb hope that Embark wanted to shadow-drop the game and just came up short. In my odd little gamer mind, that’s the only explanation that makes sense for revving the hype engine up as much as they did.

 So, Embark takes a few steps back on my developer list. ARC Raiders stays at the top of my “want to play” list. Now I just need to figure out what to play until October 30th.

Note: this post was edited with the help of AI (ChatGPT). The thoughts are my own.  The grammatical correctness is the AI. 

 

Embark Apology screenshot 

 

0th.