Back in 2018, the E3 conference opened up strong with tales of Destiny 2, Black Ops 4, and other heavy-hitting titles that turned heads. Since the 8th generation was still going strong, there was no new hardware introduced, so pretty much everyone focused on their strongest IPs, eventually drawing a crowd of almost 70,000 people.

In all that pomp and celebration, Square Enix announced a couple of strong titles of its own: Final Fantasy XIV, Nier: Automata, and others, finally announcing a completely fresh IP called “The Quiet Man”. At the time, nobody knew exactly what the title is going to be about, or how exciting it will be, but the core gameplay was what drew the most attention - you’ll be playing as Dane, who is completely deaf, and needs to rely on paying attention and visual cues to survive to the end. 

The Gameplay

The entire gameplay consists of full-motion videos, making it more of an interactive movie than a full-on action PC game. When the player needs to perform an action, such as blocking, punching, or moving along with the story, a wordless visual cue will appear on the screen, providing instructions or context that will help the player make a particular decision. 

A core aspect of the game is the fact that there’s almost no sound other than a few muffled bites here and there, which means you’ll have to rely on documents, lip-reading, and just pure context to devise what is going on, and where the story will take you next. 

Ultimately, the game plays like an interactive movie or a visual novel rather than a traditional PC game, meaning it’s not for those seeking non-stop action or complete, RPG-style control over their character’s actions and progress. You are a participant in a story, put in the shoes of a deaf person, with all the nuances and difficulties that come with deafness, making the game a real eye-opener and a truly unique experience. 

The Critical Reception

“The Quiet Man” was not well-received by critics, for several reasons. Primarily, they focused on the gameplay itself, finding the camera angles unnecessarily elaborate, making the combat too difficult at times, and the cutscenes too intrusive, making the actual gameplay sequences clunky and hard to get into. 

Most reviewers, however, found the concept itself very interesting and were intrigued by the potential of the game. They felt like more could be done in terms of making the story easier to understand and follow, and more time could’ve been dedicated to exploring the way the deaf protagonist interacts with and understands the world around him. 

The Real Contribution

All of its flaws aside (every game has them, to be fair), “The Quiet Man” opened up a whole new realm of possibilities when it comes to bringing the gaming world to people with hearing impairment. It showed us that accessibility is not just about taking existing games and making them playable for people with physical disabilities as they are for those who don’t have them, but it’s also about creating content and opening up niches for everyone to explore and enjoy. 

More importantly, it’s about how games can raise awareness on issues without being preachy or pausing content to deliver their message - the content itself can be about raising awareness. We all remember how the amazing twist of “Spec Ops: The Line” brought many a gamer closer to understanding PTSD and its effects on combatants - the same thing can be done for pretty much any other open issue, and “The Quiet Man” showed us the way. That’s why we think it’s a good game!

Now, For Some Tips and Tricks!

Have you guys been playing your COD: Warzone? We know we have! Our Gulag survivors here at AirDrop Gaming have been hard at it, and we think we’ve finally nailed 5 tips and tricks you guys can use to save yourself a trip to the labor camp.

Here’s what we’ve come up with:

If the distance to the ground is high enough, you can open your parachute pretty much anywhere - jumping from a mid-sized building or out of a chopper, but the most important thing here is that you can actually use this to gain an early advantage right when you start dropping into the map. If you open your parachute and close it again, you’ll draw your weapon and you can then fire away at players closest to you. Once you’ve riddled them with bullets, just open your parachute again and land safely at your chosen position. 

If you get to $4,500, get yourself a self-revive ASAP, but if you don’t think you can, there’s still lots of other stuff you can get. Remember, if you die you’ll lose it all, so why save it? Splash the cash! 

Don’t just run around or randomly crouch and prone while you’re waiting for the match to start! Every kill you make with any of the random weapons you get will increase your weapon level, and this carries over to the multiplayer. Get crackin’! 

Everybody and their grandma remembers the good old days of Diablo II when everything was about chasing that perfect gold item that will wreak havoc on your enemies. Now you can do it all over again! The items in Warzone are color-coded so that white is common, green uncommon, blue is rare, purple is epic, and orange is LEGENDARY. Plus, the rarer an item, the more attachments and perks can be used with it. 

If you’re playing with a squad, use that to your maximum advantage. Devise strategies on how you should move and find or face threats, keep constant communication going, and, for the love of God, PING! Did you see something suspicious in that bush over there? Ping it! What’s that speck of dust in the sky? Ping it! Wait, was that a weapon cache? Yep, that’s getting a ping. It saved our hides more than once!


Ultimately, you are the top authority on the way you play Warzone. We’re just here to help! Find out more about AirDrop’s signature HipShotDot and how it can help you get better at the thing you love the most!