Discussing the near future of bkbrent.com and my YouTube channels.
To keep you abreast of my plans for future content creation, I try to write at least one of these posts every year. In these Upcoming Projects posts, I talk about future projects I have planned, as well as ideas I have that may or may not materialize and generally how I am intending to go about content creation in the near future.
My Current Mindset
When I ‘dropped’ God Eater 3 at the end of 2020, I was hit with what felt like 2 years worth of accumulated fatigue. I felt tired at the time, but I never actually realized just how exhausted I was until I forced myself to sit down and take a breather. This is how what was supposed to be a quick 2 month break from content creation extended to a 6 month break.
I feel pretty rested right now so that actually isn’t the problem anymore. The real problem is that I am unmotivated.
There are no new games coming out that look interesting enough for me to dedicate myself to making in-depth guides or videos for. There are a lot of games I want to play, sure, but I feel like there is nothing worthy of my full attention. I feel like there is not much to be excited for, and a lot of the stuff coming out nowadays is same-y in the sense that I’ll probably only enjoy it once and then shelf forever.
For content creation, the kinds of games I choose to focus on stems from a kind of stubbornness and maybe even an irrational fixation on niche appeal. This in turn, bleeds over into my content style and renders me unable to cover anything unless I really really want to. But when I want to, I am going in, all the way 200% and no one can stop me. I prefer to work this way because I feel like I deliver my best when I am passionate about what I am doing.
In my 4 Years Later post I talked about 2020 being the worst year I’ve had in terms of views and growth. But I also said that it was the most fulfilling year I’ve had as a content creator because it was the first time in a long time that I actually had fun with what I was doing.
This year will, without a doubt, be even worse than last year in terms of growth. But this time it might be hard to say I had fun doing this because quite simply, there is nothing meaningful to do.
I am bored. I feel like I’m out of touch, playing old games because all of the new games that have came out recently are boring to me. Feel like I’m trapped in the accessibility-focused dark timeline. Where everything new is safe and simple. Where many of my favorite series are now basic bich phone games. Where new games either don’t need guides because they are already hand-holdy, or they are straight up not interesting or complex enough to make watchable videos for.
Unmotivated is the word, and I need a brand new good game to set me free. But if that doesn’t come by the end of 2022, we might have a problem here.
Upcoming Projects
In this section I will talk about upcoming guides I have planned for this website in the near future as well as changes or additions to existing guides. Always keep in mind that some prospects discussed here might not actually materialze in the future. These are just ideas I have as of right now.
But because I feel unmotivated, there are not a lot of ideas in the cards. Send help.
Tsukihime Guide
Most likely the only game in 2021 aside from Idolm@ster Starlit Season, Tales of Arise and Melty Blood Type Lumina that I am genuinely hyped for. I’m not sure if Melty will actually even come out in 2021, and the other 2 were not considered for guides because I just enjoy them casually. But Tsukihime is special.
This is a visual novel and a remake to a downright godlike game that had a huge impact on my life. I love Tsukihime almost as much as I love BlazBlue, and I just want to make a guide for it because ♥.
But with that being said, this is a pure text-based game with the only ‘gameplay’ being the text decisions the player makes. It wouldn’t be my first time covering a game like this though since the story mode of Sakura Wars was a similar construct.
But unlike Sakura Wars, this is a pure visual novel and there might not even be unlockable collectible CG or things that really need a guide outside of a detailed decision tree. Which only really leaves me with the ideas of a story guide, decision tree and a slapdash trophy guide.
The other other problem is that this game is most likely not going to get an English translation this year and doing any kind of in-depth translation work for this chuuni game is above my paygrade. So not only will a story guide not be relevant til an English release drops, putting together anything more than a story guide might be straight up redundant. But we will see.
Outstanding God Eater 3 posts
I re-read my Upcoming Projects 2020 post and I was quite ashamed to see how I had a substantial amount of GE3 guides planned for 2020 that I just never went through with. This can be attributed to the content creation burn out I was experiencing, but even so, I do still feel like there are some things outstanding from that GE3 guide.
The most important ones are a basic explanations guide to things like what the hell a +1 is. Then a sort of ‘leveling’ post which talks about how to get stronger in the game.
But it’s really late in the game’s life and it’s questionable whether these guides would even be worth the effort at this point in time. If only there was some kind of follow up game to GE3.
Outstanding Sakura Wars posts
Similar to GE3, there are just one or two posts that are outstanding. A game overview post and a guide about Koi-Koi Wars. The latter is the hanafuda mini-game. There’s actually quite a detailed breakdown of how to be proficient at the mini-game in the Sakura Wars Strategy Guide, but I never implemented it because of exhaustion and i wrote that whole damn guide in like 3 weeks w.
It’s actually quite a complicated minigame that really needs a guide if you are unfamiliar with hanafuda. But just like GE3, is there any point to doing this, this late into the game’s life? Sakura Wars already had a terrible western release in the first place so this just straight up doesn’t seem like a good use of my time.
The only reason to go through with these outstanding guides would be for completionist sake.
Website Improvements
In terms of functionality and visual feel, I feel like my website is alright as it is right now. I’ve done a lot for it over the past few years and I am pretty much happy with how it is now.
There are some small but important improvements I plan on making, like adding a ‘Last Updated at‘ to the top of each guide so that readers can know how old or how recent the information is. Maybe also adding a log of updates could be good, because it’s kinda hard to tell what posts I’ve made changes to.
I also think the mobile version of the site could also use some touch ups and there are some existing and aging posts that could use reviewing, but I have no idea when I’ll get around to actually implementing these improvements. So that’s pretty much all I can really say about website improvements right now.
As always, you are welcome to tell me if something is ugly or if something needs improvement on this website
YouTube Channels & Twitch
Unmotivated blah blah blah. Yeah. But since I feel like I’m gonna lose my edge if I sit around being bored, I do have some loose plans for content for my YouTube Channels.
Main YouTube Channel
I’m gonna be doing Devil May Cry 5 videos on my main channel. I have been playing this game on and off for 2 years now and I’ve always wanted to get decent at it. With that as the focus I’ll be making some DMC5 videos on a relaxed schedule for a while until something new and worthy of my time comes out.
Scarlet Nexus? Lol sorry, but I’d rather play games that are actually fun :V
Fighting Game YouTube Channel
I started my fighting game channel a while ago and then got distracted with GE3 almost immediately after. I have not forgotten about it and I really want to focus on it. Unfortunately though, it’s a shame that I dislike Guilty Gear Strive because that could have been the perfect opportunity to breathe some life into this channel.
But there’s that new Melty Blood coming and I do have that special compartment in my heart called ‘hope’ open for it to be a good game. That aside, I want to build a strong portfolio of decent fighting game content on this channel so I’ll try to get to work on this channel this year.
Twitch & Live Streaming
I have also started a Twitch channel, and for the time being I will be using it to stream my practice sessions from whichever games I am playing. You can check it out here (if this link doesn’t work, try this one). There’s not really much else to say about it right now since Twitch streaming doesn’t work too well from my PC and I am locked to built-in console streaming for the time being.
As for YouTube streaming, some say that if you stare at my video library hard enough, spin around 3 times, face North-North-East and say my name backwards, a secret GE3 stream may just appear.
All jokes aside, I want to do streaming more frequently. Not just secret GE3 or DMC5 streams, but I might wanna do some ‘Just Chatting’ streams and talk mad shit. But you gotta be ready and be swift because the streams will only be public while they’re happening. Slapping dat YT bell looking pretty nice now, huh.
2022 And Beyond
Honestly? All I really wanna say in this section is where the hell is God Eater 4? And the other thing that I want to say is where the hell is Granblue Fantasy Relink? How come 2021 is so damn dry for games worth making content for? How much longer will I need to wet my pillow every night with tears, complaining about being bored and unmotivated before something good comes out?
I say this frequently, but it’s not really a bad thing that many games coming out nowadays aren’t for me or are beginner friendly, accessibility focused or put emphasis on things I don’t find interesting. But it would be nice if a game came out and it was for me. All I really want is something deep, fun and worth playing to and give my life meaning again.
I said it earlier, but if we still this dry at the end of 2022, I’m seriously gonna have to reconsider whether I should keep this website running. Doesn’t make sense to open my wallet for hosting fees if I’ve got nothing to make guides for.
But for now, Thank you for reading.