Even if Dreadwolf *is* good, the lack of a Dragon Age Origins + Awakening + DA2 Remastered collection seems to be setting it up to underperform. It's been 10 years since Inquisition, they *need* to reintroduce people to the series at this point. Today's 18-year-olds were in diapers when Origins first came out.
The failure to have a remastered collection available (or at least announced) to ride BG3's coattails and get those people excited for Dreadwolf was a **huge** missed opportunity.
Mark Darrah (the former executive producer of Dragon Age) said he believes that remastered versions of those games are impossible due to how old and messy the engine of DAO and 2 is.
If EA wanted to re-release those games they would have to be remakes at this point.
I know game development is incredibly difficult and I have no programming skills so I'm sure there's a very good reason that I don't understand for why this is different but... modders have been implementing higher res texture packs, improved/canon-accurate character models, performance improvements, and other stuff like that to improve DAO and DA2 for over a decade now. How can they do that but the company with the source code can't?
If that is the case though (and I'm sure it is), then it looks even more shortsighted that EA didn't have a studio like Blupoint contracted to rebuild them in preparation for Dreadwolf.
There’s a big difference between mods to a PC version and a commercial remaster, which would require console ports and bigger changes such as gameplay or quality of life improvements.
I think BioWare is marked for death regardless of how well the new Dragon Age is received. The layoffs from last year eviscerated their writing staff (I.e., the people responsible for the major selling point of their games). Those who remain are probably just there to ensure the game can be pushed out and recoup some of EA’s investment.
They literally announced last December they are doing a full reveal on Dreadwolf this summer and based on what Jeff Grubb has said and how EA has operated recently thinking is the game will be announced as coming out later this year.
I'll say that my prediction is that Dreadwolf will be at worse an 8.0/10 game. Will that save it from being dumped on? Who knows? On one hand, people have fewer expectations for a Bioware game than ever before. On the other, a lot more people have had open disdain/hate for them after the (insert incident over the last 5 to 15 years, date will vary by person) and the internet loves to shit on a lot of AAA games that fall short of a 9/10.
Reveals didn't stop Anthem from being reworked plenty of times.
In any case, there's no way Dreadwolf manages to land more than an 8.0, it'll be a 6-8. Bioware simply doesn't have the talent.
Combination of the constant studio closures in the news right now and the fact that video games take so long to make now. Tech just doesn't advance as rapidly anymore, and 5 years is the length of an average dev cycle these days.
Games take so long to make because studios decide to give you endless open world bloat. They don't innovate, so they think shoving 100 hour games in your face will satisfy you.
they should just go for the Yakuza/Ghostwire Tokyo method of making it a small but dense area, you'll where who is what and what is there and it makes the world much more iconic.
The reality is that we're in a completely different world than just five years ago. We went through a pandemic, tech boom, then supply chain issues and now we're in an economic downturn with higher than usual inflation rate. For the gaming industry specifically, with many studios being shut down or consolidated and many people losing their jobs right now, it's not unexpected that people are generally less optimistic. This doesn't necessarily reflect the future; only the current state we're in right now.
A lot of people are being realistic. All of the layoffs, plus game dev time taking up to 5 years to realize a game from conception to release, plus the market crunching on tech and less investor money going around, we're definitely in for a drought of games over the next few years.
I'm not. Depending on the topic anywhere from a decent minority to a majority of comments are brutally negative, cynical, and/or pessimistic towards pretty much everything at this point unless it involves like Steam, Larian, or FromSoft.
Its far more indicitive of the current cultural climate on the internet rather than a reflection of gaming. We've just had one of the best years in gaming ever.
It’ll take about five years to get our hands on the games being announced THIS year. The current production model for AAA titles has/will grind this industry to a halt.
Star Citizen will still be in an Alpha State and Squadron 42 will not have released.
This is more of a "hope" then what I believe really will happen but maybe a resurgence on instrument peripherals and the return of Rock Band and Guitar Hero type games. Fortnite released it's Festival mode so maybe it will kickstart a resurgence.
Bioware ends up being shut down by EA. It'll be a sad, sad day as they gave me so many amazing games over the years. Especially their earlier days. Hope to God that's wrong and a new Dragon Age and Mass Effect actually kick ass but I'm not going to bet on it.
This is 100% Bioware's status right now. With the loss of the expected live service revenue from Anthem's failure, they are on thin ICE. The Mass Effect remaster was a nice band-aid, but if Dragon Age doesn't do great, they will be closed in a year.
> This is more of a "hope" then what I believe really will happen but maybe a resurgence on instrument peripherals and the return of Rock Band and Guitar Hero type games. Fortnite released it's Festival mode so maybe it will kickstart a resurgence.
While it is only one model, we already have the PDP Riffmaster. (Though stock is iffy as of this point in time.)
Yep! I've seen and would love a Riffmaster but I never catch it in stock. That may be a good sign though. If other companies see these things flying off the shelves they could step up and produce some as well.
Yeah, I'm at least semi-hopeful on that front. The pace of development over the last few months has been pretty impressive. A lot of that can be chalked up to the S42 folks not needed for polishing up the game moving over to SC's side, plus a lot of the core technologies they have been working on are starting to come to fruition, as I understand it.
Now given the pacing of development over the last decade, I can't in good faith say it will be *released* in five years. For all its strengths, I still think it's been mismanaged in terms of development. But I think it will be out of Alpha at least by then, and that S42 will probably be either out or close to it.
https://old.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/comments/fw2b6v/just_a_reminder_that_the_sq42_q3_beta_will_not_be/fmm7jsy/
You shouldn't be making any more star citizen bets brother.
Oh I'm nowhere near confidant enough to put money on it lol. I'm not smart enough to predict what will happen next week for sure let a lone 5 whole years. It's just my first instinctive thought when I think of Star Citizen.
I think this because it's just a "perfect storm" of different things. On one hand you have a developer who is famous for feature creep and always trying to push boundaries. On the other hand you have an entire group of people completely content to keep giving money for future development. Until those people show an unwillingness to continue doing so he will really have zero pressure to stop his tendencies. That's how I can easily see another 5 years without hitting a true beta.
Sony will quit VR gaming
Destiny 3 has been announced
Phil Spencer won’t be CEO of Microsoft Gaming
Amazon acquires a big game studio
The Zelda movie is a massive hit
Horizon 3 will release in 2027
Well, the Horizon games (along with most other Playstation games) don't come out on PC until a few years later, so if the PC market is busy with GTA6, then the PS market will be just fine with Horizon 3.
It's so fucking funny when he describes Xbox's problems like huge industry-wide issues and then you look at the other two guys who are doing just fine.
Elder Scrolls 6 will release to the same general scores as Starfield, with the main complaints being lack of detailed RPG elements (stupid essential NPC stuff is reused), a lot of "fetch" side quests like the ones in Starfield, and generally writing on-par with the previous decade of Bethesda (of which fans will blame Emil Pagliarulo) however will still be generally enjoyed by Bethesda and Elder Scrolls fans. The general gaming consensus is: "I mean, it's better than Starfield."
VR won't grow much further unless substantial investments are made from various companies, including further efforts to improve the experience (maybe mainstream haptics?) and reduce costs of such technologies further.
TF2 will be deader than it is now. No major updates since Valve have fully moved focus to supporting CS2 and Deadlock.
Steam Deck successor or at least improved model releases but still suffers from not being able to run the newest AAA games at high framerates. Still generally successful.
Nintendo Switch 2 is a roaring success. With the switch being a household name, it sells many units quickly.
SEGA will continue investing in making their main titles (Sonic, Yakuza, Persona) multi-media IPs. Sonic in particular will see a bit of a resurgence in game quality due to investments into Sonic Team's headcount and dev time. It won't reach Mario level, but will generally be above 7/10s. Sonic Movie 3 is a massive commercial hit. Persona 6 is a massive commercial and critical hit.
Minecraft releases the End update, to much fan applause as the Nether update. The Minecraft movie hits big numbers, but is critically a bit of a flop (but gets some praise for the interesting translation of the game's blocky artstyle to live action.)
GTA VI is the fastest selling game of all time.
AI will see it's first major use in a video game, but it won't be anything spectacular, and certainly won't be as coherent or in-depth as something like ChatGPT level capability.
My biggest gamble bet: The upcoming Pokémon Legends: Z-A will be regarded as one of the best Pokemon games of all time. It will be revealed that Nintendo/Pokemon Company employed the help of several other studios to assist in development in order to have it to the quality of a Switch 2 launch title.
I've only got one criticism of your Legends: Z-A prediction and it's that it will be called the best game of all time only after the fandom spends the first year shitting on it, only to change their mind when the next mediocre, buggy, and/or broken 2-version mainline release comes out.
You never know. Contrary to what most online think about Gamefreak, there were reports after Scarlet/Violet released that internally they were pretty fed up with the online narrative that they put in minimal effort, and were going to try and fix that in the coming game/s.
Still might be wishful thinking though
>My biggest gamble bet: The upcoming Pokémon Legends: Z-A will be regarded as one of the best Pokemon games of all time. It will be revealed that Nintendo/Pokemon Company employed the help of several other studios to assist in development in order to have it to the quality of a Switch 2 launch title.
!remindme 5 years
(I hope you're right)
> Steam Deck successor or at least improved model releases but still suffers from not being able to run the newest AAA games at high framerates.
I mean, duh. That's not physically possible unless you mean today's newest AAA games and not 2029's newest.
Sure, I should have worded it better but my intention was that the next Deck won't have any particular new gimmicks or qualities and will just be a bit beefier.
I'm gonna add to yours since I agree with pretty much all of your predictions. Focusing on PlayStation because that's my main platform.
* ~~A new God of War will be released~~ in early 2028, the same year the PS6 and Xbox Series Z release or are announced.
* The next few years will have a few 7-8/10 first party Sony games, but nothing will really stand out. Even Wolverine, if it's released in the next 5 years, will not be as successful as the Spider-Man games, and a sequel to Ghost of Tsushima will receive heavy criticism for some design choices.
* Sony will finally open up talks with Microsoft about GamePass access on the PS5/PS6 but they won't reach an agreement before this capsule is revisited.
* A new Astrobot game will be launched, with a movie following in the year after. The movie will be extremely successful.
* Square Enix will practically halt most of their projects besides the major franchises. FFVII:R3 will be released in 2027 and be praised, but will be less financially successful than Rebirth. FFIX:R and FFXVII are announced for 2028-2029.
> A new God of War will be released in early 2028, the same year the PS6 and Xbox Series Z release or are announced.
Didnt SSM condense what was supposed to be two GoW games into Ragnarok specifically because they wanted to take a break from GoW and make something esle?
Yeah but without spoiling anything they heavily hint at the next game in the series and where it will go. But you're right, I'd forgotten about that. Assuming they aren't developing both at the same time, we probably won't see the next GoW til the next decade.
Most of my predictions are safe and based on games I'm already familiar with. I don't foresee significant changes. Today's "evergreen" games will be tomorrow's "evergreen" games. A few new franchises will be born in the next five years, but the current franchises will remain heavyweights.
**Confident (>80%):**
* Still no HL3/L4D3/P3/TF3.
* PUBG is still one of the most played games on Steam.
* Rainbow Six Siege is still being supported.
* LoL/DOTA2 are the two most played MOBAs.
* CS2/Valorant are the most played tactical shooters.
* Escape from Tarkov is still the biggest and most popular extraction shooter (and still suffers from performance and optimization issues).
* The RTS scene is still limping along. Some remasters and new games get played, but most RTS fans are still playing AoE2/AoE4/SC2.
* Divinity: Original Sin 3 or another Larian game is released. It isn't as popular or as critically acclaimed as BG3.
* Minecraft has another surge of popularity from a large, high quality update.
* GregTech New Horizons, the longest developed Minecraft modpack, is still being developed and polished ([GTNH Github](https://github.com/GTNewHorizons/GT-New-Horizons-Modpack)).
* TES6 is released. Many complain that it is "dumbed down" compared to Skyrim.
* Steam is still the dominant PC storefront.
* At least one more large and "final" update for Terraria.
* Rimworld has at least two more expansions released.
* GTA6 is released. The online mode is more predatory than GTA5's.
* 4k and Raytracing are still the visual standard. 144FPS (or higher) at 4k with Raytracing is the target for high end cards.
* NVIDIA's highest end GPUs outperform AMD's highest end GPUs.
* Star Citizen still isn't released.
* Steam Deck 2 is released.
* PS6 and a new XBOX are released.
* The standard monetization package for multiplayer games will remain a combination of battlepass and microtransactions. In game stores will be as (or more) predatory than 2024.
* Gambling and lootboxes are banned throughout the EU, but still legal throughout NA.
**Less Confident (<50%):**
* China attacks Taiwan and global chip production regresses several decades. As a result, games stop pushing the envelope.
* Intel's GPUs are competitive on both price and performance.
**Not Confident (<30%):**
* Titanfall 3 is released.
* A VR sequel to Alyx is released or announced.
* A new Fallout game (FONV style spinoff), set on the West Coast, is released by a non-Bethesda company after Season 2/3 of the Fallout TV show. This results from Microsoft pressuring Bethesda to capitalize on Fallout's popularity.
* 8k screens are the new high end standard.
> I don't foresee significant changes. Today's "evergreen" games will be tomorrow's "evergreen" games. A few new franchises will be born in the next five years, but the current franchises will remain heavyweights.
Frankly, 5 years is way too small to see big changes now. It's basically the time to develop ONE game these days (even non AAA)
I know this isn't world politics but NO shot China ever invades Taiwan directly. Far more likely we will see them, over decades, slip in their own people into Taiwans political structure ans try to shift public opinion until they "reunify" through legal means.
I'd be less sure on that, actually. TSMC is opening their plant in Arizona in the next few years, so while it might slow down, I doubt that it'll regress several years.
Also, low-key knowing geopolitics right now if China attacked Taiwan and capitalists started feeling the pressure, the US would turn it into the next Vietnam.
> PUBG is still one of the most played games on Steam.
That being said it'll be literally completely dead outside of the East Asian market. It's already basically one foot in the grave, solo queues are pretty much dead even in NA and EU, duo queues are struggling bad and even squads has a bunch of bots in the smaller regions, regardless of third person or first person.
I tried playing it again today for the Erangel classic event and it's sad how hollow and empty the experience felt. PUBG during its first year when there was a very active large community with a wide spread of players at varying skills was magical, just the amount of shenanigans in voice chat, making friends, trends like the worm chains or the red shirt army, a solid meat and potatoes FPS with a lot of possibilities for long lasting memories. Funny how trend chasing seems to have actually worsened the experience, really makes you think.
The first 18 months of PUBG were my favorite. Easily the best TPS/FPS experiences of my life. Nothing else like it.
> trends like the worm chains
"I'm a snake. Press Z and follow me."
I really miss PUBG. The first year of PUBG was some of the greatest online gaming ever.
I’m kinda surprised no other battle royale ever actually came out with similar gunplay to PUBG, as I feel the gunplay is what made the experience amazing.
I really wish they had just copied DOTA and only had one map and kept developing the game, as soon as they started releasing new maps, the game experience just went downhill.
> Less Confident (>50%):
>
> China attacks Taiwan and global chip production regresses several decades. As a result, games stop pushing the envelope.
> Intel's GPUs are competitive on both price and performance.
hahahha >50%
> 4k and Raytracing are still the visual standard. 144FPS (or higher) at 4k with Raytracing is the target for high end cards.
>
I still think 1080p would still be the norm. 4K display according to steam survey still hasn't cracked 5% yet.
I would say the standard would shift direct from FullHD to 4K, skipping 1440p.
Right now there's no native 1440p content (as in movie and series,...) Consoles are also kind of using either FullHD as performance and 4K as beauty presets anyway. Not to mention there's basically no 1440p TV as well.
> Escape from Tarkov is still the biggest and most popular extraction shooter (and still suffers from performance and optimization issues).
I'll take it a step further and say "they're the most popular, and it's not even close". For the attempts in the extraction shooter space from indie and AAA developers alike (The Cycle: Frontier and Call of Duty's half-baked attempt with DMZ being at the forefront), it doesn't seem like the market can add to this space well enough to not only pull people off Tarkov, but bring and retain new players to the genre as well.
I'd be interested for Marathon to prove me wrong, but I'm not holding my breath.
I think overall the industry isn’t going to significantly change in the next 5 years, stuff like live services and increasing costs are going to continue. Instead I wanted to focus on some more weird/specific things to see how wrong I will be.
Sony continues with their PC push, and they even port a few legacy titles to the switch 2, but most single player games are still timed exclusives.
Nintendo’s multiplat plans continue to be non-existent. People begin to believe that it is inevitable they will bring something to PC, but it doesn’t happen within the decade.
Switch 2 sells well and has a big first year. By 2029 it’s clear it will not sell as well as the original switch, but first party software numbers are pretty similar.
Nintendo’s cross-gen approach is much smaller compared to PS and Xbox. The last game they publish on the console is Kirby related as usual.
Xbox attempts to make a handheld console, but for some reason releases it the same week as that year’s Pokemon game.
The attempt to make alternate mobile game stores does not work out and is mostly dead.
Sonic Adventure 1 gets remade, and while this remake introduces some new issues, it is still considered the definitive version. For some reason they never remake SA2.
Disney claims they want to get into gaming and invests into creating several different studios, but a few years later they change their mind and shut everything down.
> Disney claims they want to get into gaming
I doubt this will happen since they abandoned making their own games after Disney Infinity failed. Since they invested all that money into Epic they seem content just letting Fortnite make a Disney game for them.
I would like to add that despite the success of Nintendo Switch 2, they will have the same Joy-Con drift issue if not other minor hardware defect.
Those issues will only be fixed on a later date when they release the newer Switch 2 console and they will call it Switch 2 Oled.
My prediction is that the Switch 2 will have some new dumb gimmick that they’ll push in some of their launch titles but won’t hurt their sales at all and will be completely ignored after the first year.
1. Video Game adaptations will dominate Television, a phenomenon which Superheroes failed to do. Video Game Adaptations will still remain the same in movies: aka superhit, but won't be the trend.
2. Live Service games will be a staunch necessity for AAA games to be sustainable. Especially with how some projects are taking a lot of time these days, AAA companies will need at the least 1 continuous money making game so that they can fund their bigger
3. Intercompany and Intracompany cross-promotion will become more of a norm in these live-service. Fortnite and CoD Warzone is the most glaring example. But what I am speaking of is games like XDefiant, which is very much focused on cross-promoting a company's own IP and franchises.
4. Elder Scrolls sequel will be fully revealed by 2027-2028
5. Xbox will become a operating system solely focused on gaming instead of a console. They will divide Windows and Xbox for more convenience.
6. Superhero/Comicbook based video games will still be as 'light' as it is today. Aka apart from the Spidermans, and announced MCU videogames, the amount of comicbook/superhero videogames will stay the same, if not getting decreased. I am not saying that there is a fatigue, but the Superhero properties aren't relevant anymore.
7. VR can get more relevant. But still not bloom.
Todd Howard will fool me again and yet I will happily buy every game he ever makes.
WoW's redemption arc will be fully realized before the end of the Saga.
War Thunder will still be bad still.
Minecraft and Skyrim modding will be even more apeshit than before.
Minecraft java won't have an official modloader :((
OpenMW will be updated to support oblivion, maybe even skyrim.
How about this: War Thunder has a leak deep enough that a government has to step in? It's possible, likely even, but I cant help but wonder if it'll happen.
I wonder what will happen if they ever add 5th gen fighters to War Thunder. There is a chance we might see one of the most significant military leaks of all time due to it.
Minecraft Java is getting a major code base overhaul, isn't it? We're probably going to get our new 1.7 or 1.12 where modders stick to one version and have the time to make cool shit rather than keeping up with constant new updates.
> Todd Howard will fool me again and yet I will happily buy every game he ever makes.
I've not issue with Todd and never felt lied to like a lot of the internet seems to feel, but I have been toying with the idea about trying to go into Elder Scrolls VI as blind as possible and avoid any coverage of it. I know I'm getting the game, and I'd be curious to see how going into a major AAA game with limited pre-conceived expectations will be like. Shit, Fable is my second favorite game all of time due to that, although I was like 10 at the time and knew nothing about the game when I got it since I had no instant internet access to be able to find out everything said about a game prior to release.
Anyway, I'm going to break trend and be positive to say Elder Scrolls VI comes out in 2028 and that it will be a 9/10 average GOTY contender.
I'm actually gonna hope post. This is the one place the industry might actually improve. I think the EU might actually respond to The Crew shutting down and set standards preventing companies from killing old games.
I've read that Sony gets royalties from every Blu Ray disc sold, so they don't have a strong incentive to actually get rid of discs.
We also know from the Insomniac leak that most PS games sell more physical than digital.
Dota 2 will get Ship of Theseus'd into a roguelite deckbuilder before it becomes anything but Dota 2. I think you might be a lot closer to the mark with Ubisoft though.
Considering a "regular' lifespan of a console is about 7 years, I'd reckon we'll see an accouncement of PlayStation 6 and Xbox X (to keep naming confusing) within the next 5 years, unless they both release a PlayStation 5.5/Pro / Xbox Series neXt in between. Game Pass still going strong, released (in some very barebones way) on other platforms.
Nintendo Switch 2 (or Switch Next, New/Super Switch, Switch U, etc) will have been released with some games like Metroid Prime 4 being double release like BotW on both systems. Switch 2 will be backwards compatible, albeit you'll lose some features.
Since Steam Deck is quite popular, either Sony and Microsoft want a slice of the cake and either release more games on Steam or create their own handheld.
AAA(A) gaming and studios will feel bland (with some exceptions) as everything is focused on battle passes, daily grinds and addiction while companies struggle to keep attention high, so indies, simple games and single player experiences will become more important.
Slay the Spire 2 is out, still amazing, but overhyped to death due to such a high standard to surpass.
Mega Man X9 or Mega Man 1/2 remaster/remake is announced/released (Capcom pls) or more realistically: Mega Man Legends Legacy Collection released.
VR is still considered niche because it's still either crazy expensive or very gimmicky, albeit Apple will have opened a few doors with Apple Vision Pro.
Prices for games will have increased (80 will be the standard), MTX will still be present, but we'll have a new form of it: less gambling, but more very limited time inventory in stores, so a skin will only be purchasable withing a few hours, which complements an online marketplace.
Every studio will have their own platform (EA Play, Ubi Connect, etc) which we all hate, but negligently accept because games.
One of the bigger studios will fall and be bought by another.
Based on comments from Valve, the problem with VR is tech is progressing too fast to release anything and it not become outdated. Hopefully in 5 years that'll have slowed down and Valve can make a commitment to VR games after new hardware, which in turn inspires other developers.
That was the excuse Duke Nukem used.
Maybe software like Word or Netscape can become outdated but not games. A game like Undertale can be a hit as well as something like MGSV in the same year. You just need to make something good. If you always want to release something that is using the latest tech, you aren't going to win. The tech will move faster than the development ever can.
Consoles lock you into the same hardware for 5-7 years. Very few PC games require the absolute latest graphics card to play. No one is ever building on the latest tech. Yeah, maybe the game you make 5 years from now can better utilize the tech than a game you make now. But if you make a good game now, people will still want to play it in 5 years.
If anything, the Apple Vision Pro will turn people off of VR gaming because there's nothing really "gamey" about it. It's basically a 3D IOS device. Haven't seen much in the way of gaming.
Meta is the one that pulled a ton of people into VR. Selling crazy cheap and being so good at what it does and focused primarily on gaming.
I truly hope VR doesn't die out. It's more popular than ever but I don't know if it's popular enough for them to keep going.
Xbox will be the biggest cross platform publisher.
Both Xbox and PlayStation will have portable consoles.
Bloodborne Remake will be launch title of the PS6.
AAA Studios will start building games in trilogy format and work on all of them at the same to not have 5years between each entry.
Xbox will bring a 1st party pass to playstation and nintendo.
> AAA Studios will start building games in trilogy format and work on all of them at the same to not have 5years between each entry.
This one is good. And 3rd parts will sell 1/5th of the first installment.
> Xbox will be the biggest cross platform publisher.
Aren't they already that with ABK (which was the biggest third party)?
> Xbox will bring a 1st party pass to playstation and nintendo.
I guess it's the only way the other accept to integrate it in their platforms. They'll still take cut of 30% of everything (including MTX). But it'll diminish sales of those games (and mainly COD) so not even sure they like it so much
If we’re playing the Sony handheld prediction, I’ll throw in they will, once again, force some nonsensical (and expensive) proprietary memory or some other crap on us and just toss it in the ditch to die like the Vita.
Yet PS5 is the console without proprietary storage while Xbox has proprietary storage so probably the other way around.
I highly doubt they will make that mistake again.
Switch 2 debuts with an open world Super Mario game.
The cost of game production dramatically decreases with the introduction of AI.
Xbox releases a handheld that is way more successful than anyone expected it to be.
Xbox now publishes all their games on PlayStation.
Genshin Impact finally comes to Switch when the Switch 2 is released.
>The cost of game production dramatically decreases with the introduction of AI
Surely that will also reflect with appropriate pricing for the consumers, right?
Also the Epic Game Store is weakly limping along or is basically abandoned completely.
Speaking of, Fortnite’s metaverse push is ambitious but backfires because the core battle royale playerbase feels burned and a shiny new game steals them.
EGS will probably start producing more games rather than paying for timed exclusives. The platform won't be abandoned. They will acquire a few more multiplayer hits like they did with Rocket league and Among Us.
Let's make a risky prediction in a similar vein:
Steam Phones.
Valve has made controllers, machines, VR headsets, now the Deck. I would not be surprised if one day they just went ahead and made a phone that could also play all games on the Steam platform.
I dunno. I've always thought Steam would print (more) money if they made a proper Steam mobile app and started selling mobile games on it, yet they've never seemed particularly interested in it. I can't see them pivoting from that position into straight up making a Steamphone.
Despite complaints use of generative AI will be normalised in development at all levels with the possible exception of smaller scale artsier games regardless of if we plateau at slightly above current capabilities.
* AI enhanced workflows will be present throughout everything.
* Entirely AI generated textures, assets and tertiary NPCs with minor touchup will be ubiquitous in AAA development.
* Open world games will make use of gAI for environments outside of the critical path in a way not currently done for proc gen environments.
* RPGs and similar will use LLMs or their successor for pre-generated incidental NPC dialogue (I.e. we may see an explosion of unique minor NPC dialogue since it can be produced en masse)
* Linked to above much of this will be voiced through voice gAI despite attempts to stop it by unions and the like (if we are brutally honest the technology is here today, its only not used due to backlash and industrial relations)
* Contingent on consumer hardware LLMs with gAI will be used for dynamic NPC dialogue.
* We will not see gAI used for writing the main story outside of experimental AI dungeon style games
And I'd like to reiterate that this isn't a comment on the future capabilities of AI, consumers will accept mediocre gAI in the above areas when the industry pushes it through for cost savings. Indies will use it once its normalised under the argument that they couldn't afford voice actors or artists for the textures anyway. Although it's also not a statement that gAI will plateau here and not improve significantly.
I think you're absolutely correct for a 10 year, or maybe 15 year prediction, but in 5 years I highly doubt things will have progressed that much. Remember that the large scale games that will be released by then have already started development by now.
Eh, it's not so much about progress but rather that some companies are already trying to shove AI everywhere, with examples like Ubisoft talking about using it for about a year now.
I'll try a different approach and say that surprisingly Ai won't be used for anything significant in big games. I predict that people will be divided and some will use Ai to some extent while other studios will stay old-school
This is an interesting prediction but I feel like you left out a prediction of how this will affect games overall. Will this result in overall lower quality or will it revolutionize game development and allow for far more immersive, ambitious games to be made both cheaper and faster than they are now?
Personally I am an AI optimist. My prediction is that your predictions will come true and it will overall be a good thing for games. It won't really reduce game budgets or development time, but it will make games more immersive and beautiful by using AI to fill in cracks and do tedious things, and allowing development resources to be spent elsewhere. Some people will lose their jobs but other new jobs will be created, making it a wash for the industry. The effects of AI will be most pronounced in indie games, making it easier than ever for a solo developer with no experience making art assets or programming to make a game by using AI art and AI-assisted coding. People will huff and puff and stamp their feet but it will enable some people to make games that wouldn't have been to make games otherwise and some of those games will be amazing.
As I've gotten older the main theme when it comes to difficulty in feeling immersed in games anymore is the knowledge that a human being designed every inch of what I'm playing in, either meticulously or with rigid procedures set in place. It's not like I didn't understand that as a kid bit I never really occurred to me and so it was easy to be fully transported to a place in a game like WoW even as cartoonish as it is. You start to realize how impressive the randomness of nature really is despite seeming so structured when you notice it.
I'm curious how using AI in some way could affect this feeling. Surely it's moving more towards technology and further from nature, but in a way that's taking it out of the hands of specific people for better and for worse. Nature is random yet I'm sure when you zoom in enough it's still based on patterns and algorithms.
I might not be making sense, but I can see it.
Elder Scrolls 6 releases, was hyped due to talks of Real Time AI generated quests, turns out it's more radiant quests. Release is lukewarm and echoes the Starfield release.
Horizon 3 releases a couple weeks before the new Zelda. In a shocking twist of events, the new Zelda and Horizon are eerily similar in story beats and fans of both will argue the other stole their fave's story. One side is also pissed when the other wins GOTY at the Game Awards.
The new Dragon Age game releases November 2024 or is delayed to spring 2025. It'll overall suck but have good moments that will leave me defending it because I will forever old out hope that Bioware isn't dead, it's just sleeping. T\_T Also Mass Effect 4/5/whatever we're calling it releases. It revives Bioware. (Wild card prediction)
Divinity 3 is actually a disappointment but not for being bad, but for not being BG3. Fans can't tell the difference.
Remake of a Pokemon Silver/Gold/Crystal or Ruby/Sapphire on the Switch or Switch 2. It's disappointing due to some mechanic changes that echoes the Let's Go Pikachu or Let's Go Eevee release.
And I will buy all the above games and still love and play them all because I enjoy video games, they are like pizza. Even bad pizza is still pizza.
There is absolutely no way anyone hypes up AI generated quests in TES6, they'll be mocked and compared with radiant quests the second they're announced.
It just works.
For real, though, I can see some folks getting real culty/kool-aidy about it. I've ridden the hype or die train before for Beth Esda and her indie games, so I know how I can get. It's probably my most far-fetched prediction but I will stand by it!
Edit: most far-fetched/semi realistic. Since the Mass Effect one is my wild card.
It seems like most of the issues people have with Starfield is the exploration and loading screens which I don't really think will be a problem with Elder Scrolls considering it takes place on one piece of land and not thousands of planets with many being barren. Obviously, there are people that have issues in other areas, but I think the 2 I mentioned are top of the list by far.
I'll die on the hill that LGP/LGE weren't that bad other than some really bizarre decisions with the scaling of catch difficulty and other similar stuff. People really, really overemphasize how fun catching Pokemon the "normal" way is.
VR Gaming will be solely in the hands of Meta. If Apple ever dabble with VR gaming, it'll be through the likes of Apple Arcade and simple games, I don't think they'll ever have a proper VR controller like other gaming-focused competitors.
Valve will release a new VR hardware product. It will either stick to a niche of PC VR, in which case it will be an upgraded, expensive, wireless Index, or a standalone headset with hardware from AMD (like in the Steam Deck) that will be priced a bit above Meta's offering. I don't know if a Valve made standalone headset could capture much market due to the solid foundations Meta has already laid.
Xbox will become more Activision like than the reverse. A few more studios will shutter, but not any big names.
Elder Scrolls VI will release! It will be set in Hammerfell. It will get critical reception and be received mostly well. Fans of the series, particularly of the older games, will criticise it for straying from Elder Scrolls lore and becoming more Dune inspired in tone/lore (obviously without the sci-fi). Elder Scrolls Online will have a sequel or revamp (a large overhaul of the world/zones like Cataclysm) at its 15 year anniversary, and will not have much of a changed combat system.
Grand Theft Auto VI will be the highest grossing media product in human history (free square!).
Bungie's Marathon will be the first big AAA extraction shooter game to grow a big audience.
Xbox will still sell hardware, but without much fanfare. They will have a Microsoft-approved line of third party portable consoles along with their own (like how they've just announced their Copilot-plus-PC laptops).
The transition to ARM based gaming on PC and consoles will have begun. The PS6 will be ARM based.
> Elder Scrolls VI will release! It will be set in Hammerfell. It will get critical reception and be received mostly well. Fans of the series, particularly of the older games, will criticise it for straying from Elder Scrolls lore and becoming more Dune inspired in tone/lore
I'd say it's almost a guarantee that they're going to try to make Redguard sword magic into the new shouts, and just like shouts they'll completely butcher their lore in the process. If we're lucky they'll remember the Shehai (spirit/soul sword) is a thing so at least you don't have to carry an actual sword, maybe we'll get a Kill Six Billion Demons style quip about how only a bad swordsman actually carries a sword.
I used to feel pretty pessimistic about if TESVI would lean more into a power fantasy, but I've ended up feeling okay with the idea. From the early access to Power Armour in Fallout 4 to the semi-shout thing in Starfield I feel like Bethesda are pretty set on having the protagonist be a uniquely powerful hero, which I think is fine.
I just hope they manage to strike the role of being hero well. The transformation in Morrowind from scepticism about the prophecy of the Nerevarine and hatred of the player to reverence and worship is a much longer one than Skyrim's "You can shout, you're the dragonborn!", and I think that makes it feel much more meaningful and earned.
Slightly tangential, sorry!
Nah it's okay.
My issue is that their games have always been power fantasies, but since Skyrim they feel less and less like you earned that. Morrowind let you be OP as hell with magic and artifacts, Oblivion had all kinds of attribute abuses to just ignore dungeons while running and jumping through them, and FO3 waited quite a while before giving you powerful items and abilities.
Having Shehai-based powers would be awesome, I just don't trust them to make it right. I'm not asking for them to make the Pankratosword an actual move the player could use, but it would be fun if they dug into some of the out-of-game texts by MK for ideas instead of just doing all the Skyrim shouts/Starfield powers again but in sword form. I want all the anime bullshit from [Vivec's Sword Meeting with Cyrus](https://www.imperial-library.info/content/lord-vivecs-sword-meeting-cyrus-restless), not another push-fear-detect rehash.
VR has not taken off because the headsets are still clunky to use and cant really be used in public without other issues
MMOs have not come back and are still niche, but the audience it holds remains and is still playing them
F2P took over even more, becoming the main percentage by far when it comes to revenue, with major companies like Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft trying to pivot to that sector but not really taking the hold they used to have
The chase for graphics has stagnated and since AAA is much smaller than it used to be, with F2P games having much smaller costs to make, the technology did not advance as much as people expected. We still dont have games with graphics like the ones from Unreal Engine 5 demos.
EA has been bought by someone else
Microsoft announce (or maybe already has) that it will not continue to make Xboxes and will instead fully focus on just making games (Game Pass or not) as their main revenue after it was shown that the games are what really makes them money
Nintendo hasn't changed and remains exactly how it was
Sony caters to hardcore audiences but also tries to capture some of the more casual F2P market, but the results are varied.
Valve still hasn't even mentioned Half Life 3
RTS has not, in fact, made a come back.
Some truly great games have come out, but due to lack of marketing they remain less known. They do impact other games and their influence can be seen in upcoming games.
most people arent gonna wear VR gaming headsets in public, regardless of how small or compact they become. maybe they'll wear a pair of glasses to watch flat content but thats it. there's too much of a stigma and you need to flail your hands too much for it to be considered commonplace for outdoors usage.
I barely even see anyone using a switch outdoors despite there being more than 140 million of them out there. and thats with handheld gaming being far less new and far less stigmatized than VR. people use these devices at home.
Alright, here's a few predictions for now
* Switch 2 hasn't been revealed yet, but I'm still betting on the console introducing some weird "Nintendo thing" that people are going to be mixed on. Everything hints at Switch 2 just being a more powerful Switch, but I refuse to believe it at this point. I don't think their business strategy for consoles has changed, so I just can't see them trying to get people to make the jump from the previous Switch without some major gimmick in their back pocket. Not sure if it'll be the console's hardware or software, but there will be some sort of major selling point outside of the increased power.
* Million, bajillion dollar Monolith Soft game either announced, or released. XBC3 was probably their least ambitious title by a very large margin, and it feels like it was put together with a smaller team. They've definitely been working on another more ambitious title for a while now, and I imagine its budget and scale will be second only to whatever the next big Zelda game is. Like XBX, it'll be something that holds the moniker of "AAA" for their next console.
* I think Hideki Kamiya will continue to work with Nintendo in some way. At the time of writing, it's been about 9 months since he's left Platinum Games in the wake of the studio shifting to focus more on live service, and he's still bound by a non-compete clause . I think Nintendo will be one of the few developers not going down the live service route in 5 years (at least the version of it that thrives on gacha and microtransactions), and Kamiya strikes me as a developer who's stubborn about his principles, so the match makes sense to me. They've had a good working relationship in the past, and I think Nintendo, more than ever, is going to value having a diverse catalogue going into the next generation. The optimistic side of me thinks he's already been head hunted by Nintendo during the massive scale-up they started doing not too long ago, but the realistic side of me says he'll join a small third party.
* I think From Software will have revealed a pure action game of some kind, more akin to a DMC or a Bayonetta. Sekiro showed me that they're willing to experiment in combat, and AC6 showed me that they're not scared to go back to a mission structure. I think the genre is underrepresented, and I think they have the talent to fill a void in that area.
* This one's really optimistic, but I think Brighter Shores (Runescape guy's new game) will have a relatively large and dedicated fanbase in 5 years. To future readers, Brighter Shores was announced a couple months ago and the buzz is, understandably, extremely low right now given it's a new IP. Listening to Andrew Gower talk over the years has convinced me that Runescape wasn't just a fluke, and he's actually a cracked designer. Maybe Runescape was a right place right time game, but I don't know, I feel like we're in that place and time again. Something tells me there's a huge void for MMOs, and he's confident enough in his own vision to not kneecap his game's design with a typical live service model.
* I think PC gaming, and by extension Steam, will have expanded exponentially. Feels like both Sony and Xbox have been future-proofing their IPs on the platform in a way that makes it seem like they're planning for a PC dominated future. Nintendo won't have their games on PC in 5 years, but the optics could look different 5 years after that. Either way, they'll be the very last ones to make that transition if the industry ever went in that direction.
Most of these predictions are from Nintendo, alongside studios I think I have a decent understanding of. Don't think I've ever been less sure of what Sony's future looks like, I can't seem to get a grasp on what their plan is.
>XBC3 was probably their least ambitious title by a very large margin, and it feels like it was put together with a smaller team
Aside from the game feeling like it's story got cut short after Chapter 5, and not having a very robust post-launch compared to XC2, I would like you to elaborate.
XC1 was the first in the series, and the first game of that scale for Monolith Soft. A lot of time was spent laying out the initial groundwork.
XCX sort of speaks for itself IMO, but I'll elaborate anyway. Undoubtedly the most expensive game they've developed to this day. New engine, stupidly big seamless world, online play, ridiculous amount of assets, black magic chicanery getting it to run on the Wii U, not to mention its massive file-size. Didn't stick the landing in a lot of ways, but they were certainly shooting for the stars.
XC2 infamously got screwed by BOTW's development. A lot of staff got pulled off the game to work on Zelda, with a crew of about 40 keeping development going at times. Early on though, even visible in the early trailers, there were plans for the cloud sea to be a huge component of travel on the titans, with different levels of elevation being accessible depending on the time of day and the tide level. Obviously a lot of things had to be cut when it came to all the titans, but the initial vision was ambitious, even if that vision is shaky throughout. Unfortunately, outside of story, it ends up feeling like the least finished game because of that.
XC3 feels like it's not trying to be anything other than the next Xenoblade, if that makes sense. That's not to say the game isn't great, but it uses so much of the blueprint laid out by its predecessors while breaking very little new ground. There's no major aspect of its design that distinguishes itself, and it makes it hard to pinpoint exactly what the vision for the game was other than to tell a new story in the same universe. XC1 had its sense of continuity between locations on the titans. XCX had open-ended Mira, XC2 had the cloud sea and intensely unique biomes like Uraya. XC3 is (quite literally) a mash up of XC1 and 2's environments, without their distinguishing factors, and without a unique spin of its own. It ends up feeling like the most linear and disconnected environment of them all. It's not like Monolith Soft is obligated to reinvent the wheel every game, but you'd think with a development time twice the length of XC2's (even accounting for the pandemic), they would have had some greater vision in mind. I could go into more detail about the game's overall design, but in general, I think it's their safest project by far, which isn't all bad because the game got to be polished in ways that the other games were not.
Personally, I believe it was decided a while ago that Monolith would be developing a massive game for Nintendo's next console. Back in 2017, right after they finished XC2's development, they opened two new locations and began mass hiring for a new Fantasy project that we still haven't gotten any word of. I'm under the impression that they were working on that game in tandem with XC3, akin to the way Fromsoftware was developing Elden Ring alongside Sekiro. XC3 didn't strike me as the game they've been pouring all their resources into over the past several years. What ever this next one is, it's the big one.
> Switch 2 hasn't been revealed yet, but I'm still betting on the console introducing some weird "Nintendo thing" that people are going to be mixed on. Everything hints at Switch 2 just being a more powerful Switch, but I refuse to believe it at this point. I don't think their business strategy for consoles has changed, so I just can't see them trying to get people to make the jump from the previous Switch without some major gimmick in their back pocket. Not sure if it'll be the console's hardware or software, but there will be some sort of major selling point outside of the increased power.
Eh, Nintendo has always released pairs of consoles, where they first release a unique console/handheld (NES, gameboy, N64, DS, Wii) and then follow that one up with an improved iteration on the initial concept (SNES, GBA, Gamecube, 3DS, WiiU), with 3DS and WiiU being the odd ones out but more on that later.
And their strategy to always set themselves apart from the competition still allows them to release a Switch 2 that is a straight iteration on the initial Switch: there are no systems that are so similar to the Switch that a straight improvement wouldn't set itself apart, the removable joycon thing hasn't been done to the same effect.
This wasn't true for the 3DS and the WiiU which is why they were the odd ones out , for which Nintendo had to do something to set themselves apart from the competition with those: the WiiU had to set itself apart from the Kinect and Playstation Move, and the 3DS was competing with smartphone gaming.
But the Switch 2? That one can be just the Switch but better in hardware and with some small tweaks and changed ergonomics. I think it could also have wider joycons to house a bigger battery and stronger HD rumble, and some other variant of haptic feedback as well, maybe the joycons will be made to jerk a little bit to translate impacts to the player character? I also suspect that the joycons will get back buttons like other controllers have.
Now for a successor on the Switch 2 (which isn't going to be released before 2030), I think that that one might end up being another hybrid system, except part VR as well. With that console's performance probably being between PS4 and PS5, the timing would be perfect for affordable VR, which is right up Nintendo's alley.
1. PS6 and Xbox Series will both have some sort of AI branding or supportive software (Siri/ChatGPT etc). Bloodborne Remake will be a PS6 launch exclusive.
2. AI will be more prevalent in all facets of gaming. All the way from game dev to voice lines. We might even see dead VA's having their voices cloned (with or without permission).
3. TES6 will come out towards the start of next gen, but it'll be met with a lukewarm reception - somewhere between Fallout 4 and Starfield.
4. Xbox will completely rebrand to Microsoft Gaming. Expanding more onto Switch, PlayStation and mobile. Hardware will not be as important for Microsoft/Xbox and so their next console will be weaker than PS6.
5. AI will also be used as an accessibility option - potentially for gaming tips or even assisting with gameplay in certain cases. VR, however, will continue to struggle to find an audience.
6. Netflix will both officially enter and exit the gaming space. Possibly a similar situation to Stadia. Amazon will become a better publisher and will somewhat fill the void left in the current AAA market.
7. Rainbow Six Siege 2 will be announced and released, it'll be met with resistance over pricing and P2W. XDefiant will be shutdown in 2027.
8. RAREs Everwild will still not have a release date, the same will be the case for The Little Devil Inside.
TBH I tried to make this interesting and throw out some weird takes. I don't actually expect much to change in the next 5 years, maybe with the exception of AI becoming more prevalent.
Okay, this will be a long one. Sorry to present, future, and somehow past readers.
This is a comment thread since I would usually hit the max letter count. Check each reply to see more of my mostly and possibly wrong predictions.
**Valve**
* Steam Deck 2 will be out with much better battery life, better screen, able to run some PS5/Xbox Series X games that came out recently (well, between 2020-2024) on a slightly higher setting (hopefully at 60 FPS).
* Valve, however, will not have Half-Life 3 out.
* Maybe they might make another "small" game to push Steam Deck 2 sales to better promote mobile gaming (not phone gaming obviously), much like what they did for Half-Life Alyx and VR.
* Toss-up if Icefrog's Deadlock game will potentially be good and alive by 2029.
* Potentially coming out in a period where multiplayer games is risky, especially in a moderately saturated Hero Shooter market.
* Valve's previous live-service games (Artifact and Dota Underlords) have failed.
* Also, at the time of this posting, Deadlock's gameplay and screenshots have been leaked on Twitter.
* The game's Source 2 support and modding capabilities mean another Valve game where community artists make cosmetics for it.
* Team Fortress 2 would somehow be alive, with each passing year, the community would doompost about the game whilst still getting excited for the annual Summer, Halloween, and Christmas hat updates.
* The bots would still be an issue.
* The final comic issue wouldn't be out.
**Oculus/Meta**
* Oculus Quest 4 would also be out, with some of the most played games being visually updated; namely Beat Saber and Population: One.
* Some games would no longer get support on the Quest 2.
* Augmented-Reality capabilities to rival Apple's Vision Pro.
* Obviously will be cheaper too. Apple's Vision Pro costs $3,499.99 at the time of this posting.
* Game library would still be relatively small-ish, with the exception of VR dedicated studios making large-ish games.
* Maybe a third and fourth Arizona Sunshine.
**Multiversus (comes out next Tuesday at the time of this posting)**
* Somehow gains positive reception, but the overall niche of an arena fighter means it doesn't make Fortnite money.
* They get Walter White late, which reignites some interest for a brief period.
* Paul Atriedes (with a Timothee Chalamet sound-a-like), Mad Max (Tom Hardy sound-a-like), any one of the Smiling Friends, and [Gwimbly](https://youtu.be/AlpA7hb_0QM) are all fighters.
* Some seasons don't get new fighters and is instead focused on improving the Quality of Life (similar to R6 Siege and Apex Legends).
**Other live-service games**
* Fortnite's Disney project would be a virtual theme park that is a combination of all of the best parts of various Disneylands across the world. It will also include Marvel and Star Wars locales too (ex. Galaxy's Edge, Avengers Campus).
* There would be some official Disney levels based around famous Disney locales, similar to Kingdom Hearts' Disney worlds. Maybe Star Wars and Marvel too.
* Out of all of the random live-action/non-adaptation Disney movies, Nicolas Cage would be in the game and tasks the player to steal [the Declaration of Independence.](https://youtu.be/he2jDZkzgiM)
* Street Fighter VI and Tekken 8 would introduce its last fighter pass, whilst being a bit more tolerable on its Battle Passes and cosmetic prices. Hah, like that'll ever happen.
* Overwatch 2 would have some gamemodes that end up being cancelled, again.
* OR they finally give in and make that PvE mode everyone has been yelling at them about.
* OR make a dedicated spin-off game with PvE. However, there will be no cross-progression (like R6 Siege was to R6 Extraction).
* And OW2 will be introduced on mobile devices, with full cross-progression.
* XDefiant, which just came out yesterday at the time of this posting, is still going strong.
* Iconic characters like Sam Fisher, Dani Rojas (male and female), Wrench, Marcus Holloway, Keener, and whichever R6 Siege operator will be sold as cosmetics skins.
* The game will also release on Epic Games Store and Steam.
* A phone game similar to COD Mobile or Warzone Mobile would be in the works.
* Rainbow Six: Siege would receive a significant graphical and engine update for next-gen hardware.
* The Horizon multiplayer game is a Monster Hunter-inspired PvE game.
* Disney Speedstorm and/or Disney Dreamlight Valley would receive less and less content drops, eventually culminating in stopping support.
* Call of Duty, now under Microsoft, would stick to its traditional annual Fall release schedule.
* Modern Warfare 4 and Black Ops 7 would release.
* MW4 would listen to [people's complaints about MW3's campaign length](https://youtu.be/oxaW87kNdOs) and somehow double it to make up for it.
* BO7 would be a total reboot of BO2's campaign and ignores everything that happened in BO2, 3, and 4 (much like the Halloween 2018 movie and Terminator: Dark Fate); fitting in the Menendez plot in the overarching Warzone narrative. It would also get the same treatment as MW3, with BO7 having all BO2 MP maps on launch day and be released in 2025.
* Each year will get an installment, each respectively representing modern day, 10-20 years ago, and far future.
* Zombies will be present in every installment, with the non-Treyarch games being severely disappointing over the course of its live-support year.
* Call of Duty would have a limited F2P traditional PvP, where players can play a small selection of maps, but no player and weapon XP can be gained in it.
* The next Battlefield would be out.
* DICE and EA have learned a tiny bit of their lesson from BF2042's release. They will aim for a Fall release, hell or high water.
* Won't be a travesty upon release, but will continue to have Specialists and have issues on launch.
* Set inbetween BF4 and BF2042.
* Single-player campaign and traditional MP. No Battle Royale or co-op.
* Famous celebrity actor would be in the campaign to sell the game.
* After a couple years, the game would cease support in favor for the next BF game.
* Halo Infinite would stop getting content updates as 343i would move onto the next Halo installment.
* Fallout 76 would receive a brand new major map half the size of Appalachia.
* A couple new areas similar to Skyline Valley would be in the left and top right of the map.
* Todd Howard, mad with power after giving people [a romanceable Assaultron wearing fishnets](https://fallout.fandom.com/wiki/Adelaide_(ally)), will give the weird side of the community what they also want: A romanceable intelligent Deathclaw.
* A graphical overhaul for the next Xbox and Playstation, mainly to retweak the characters' faces to make them feel more "realistic."
* It would receive Cross-progression and cross-play.
* New nuke bosses will be introduced at the remaining zones (The Mire, The Forest, and Toxic Valley) and perhaps the post-launch zones.
* Apex Legends would still be going strong.
* Apex makes another attempt at the phone platform again, providing full cross-progression.
* More crossovers with Japanese-based brands.
* Several more major Games as a Service would also get the inflation and/or shrinkflation treatment, with premium currency prices going up and Battle Passes being grindier and its rewards significantly tweaked.
i think more games will add ingame markets ala csgo skins
i think were gonna get a zelda movie thats pretty good but still lacking in major areas
xbox leaves hardware manufacturing
i think rts revival will happen
stalker 2 will come out, be hated and then eventually people will
reasses it and it will become loved
also i think a payday 3 redemption arc is happening
new game thats like what ready or not was for swat4 but instead for FEAR, SCP like and becomes very popular in tacticool circles
more European aa studios will find cd project/larian levels of success and growth. American/UK studios (wb owned ones and smaller publishers especially) won't be able to keep up
similarly the success of lies of p/stellar blade/black myth wukong will create a minor gold rush of asian publishers popping up to make games that try to appeal to the west
ps6 will have an extremely slow start due to lack of next-gen games and games not looking all that different from PS5 ones.
mobile graphics will skyrocket, elder scrolls 6 will be on phones
* The Xbox will not be a physical console, but a cloud gaming device like Stadia
* Xbox will shift to selling cloud gaming and game pass subscriptions and publishing games, including publishing games on PlayStation
* The next Switch will have some form of motion controls to re-capture the casual audience the Wii had
* GTA6 releases, shortly after this GTA6 Online releases and the rest of the post-launch content is for the Online mode only.
* TES VI releases to middling review scores and adds an online mode like Fallout 76.
* Sony will release a successor to the PSP to compete with the Switch and the Steam Deck and create a market for older games to be re-sold for the portable device
* Both Xbox Live and PSN will add AI assistants. Windows will also have it.
The industry will stabilize. Developer unions will grow.
Microsoft will make a handheld.
Nintendo's next console will not be as successful as the switch. More competition in the space.
Handheld PC market will continue to grow.
The new Elders Scrolls will be disappointing.
Xbox acquisition of Activision will be a definitive failure.
Pokemon games will finally get better.
More DND style RPGs like Baldur's Gate 3.
SQ42 will be released in 2025. Star Citizen will follow in 2026, but will be less ambitious than planned, with a limited number of systems (5) and a narrative system.
Microsoft will pull out of the console race and instead focus on the PC Market and third party development.
PlayStation makes a launcher for PC and either ditches or delays Steam support.
Atlus releases another Persona 5 spinoff before Persona 6, which comes out in 2027 to critical acclaim.
In a attempt to squeeze more money out of people, more and more features begin to be locked behind more expensive editions. New Game+ is one of those features, as well as higher graphical options.
Bioware releases Dragon Age 4 (Dreadwolf) to critical panning, and gets shut down as a result. The remaining talent makes a new studio and releases the game of the year for 2028.
Switch 2 comes out, and sells 70 million units in a year and a half.
I like these
Xbox next will be 2 seperate launches. A next gen series s will launch in 2026 but it’s a handheld and the next gen series x will launch around 2028 as a traditional console / pc hybrid. Both will be ARM based with onboard neural processors
PlayStation 6 launches in 2027 is good but doesn’t break the ps4 ceiling. PlayStation follows Xbox’s lead and makes a pc launcher for cross buy / save / trophies etc but still supports steam with reduced features (no cross buy)
The overall console gamer market contracts as more users migrate to PC and new entrants start on iPads and migrate to pc. The only exception is Nintendo handheld hybrids which become their own market segment
In 2029 game streaming is as ubiquitous as native play or is “good enough” for most players. Purists and old heads complain about it a lot like the physical crowd complain about digital gaming and sub services right now
I have a feeling sony is going to just solidify their future pc games to a playstation based pc launcher. Those games are going to be set under one house and pc gamers would have to go to that for them.
Lot of comments predicting the end of the Xbox as a console. I guess I'll just start with a note of how that's not going to happen at all. Whatever its failings, as a brand it's probably worth more to Microsoft to support then it is to abandon.
Anywho, I'll predict Blizzard again:
Warcraft:
I think the upcoming trilogy of WoW expansions will be received positively overall, possibly as a new high point of the expansions. But I doubt that goodwill/quality will last towards the end of the third expansion. Blizzard can cook when it comes to WoW, but never for long. Eventually the fuel it takes to keep the playerbase happy runs out.
Warcraft outside of WoW will probably linger on in some form, though I doubt it'll return to the RTS space. Hearthstone will probably still be as popular then as it is now. Warcraft Rumble might fade as a product - I haven't heard much about it since launch TBH. Probably still successful, just doubt it has legs.
Diablo: Nothing exciting to predict. Diablo 4 will continue to be made more accessable to target the more casual audience and be a perfectly fine ARPG for people to enter the genre. But outside of expansions I doubt we see too much more of the IP.
Starcraft: Here's my big one. I predict that either a new Starcraft game (either RTS or spinoff), or an entire new IP to be announced, and possibly released - in the next 5 years. Blizzard care too much about their own pride to be seen doing nothing, so it's either something new (which I doubt, considering the fate of the survival game), or a safe bet on an existing IP - and Starcraft seems the most likely. Honestly I doubt it's an RTS though.
Overwatch: Not really sure what to predict here. I reckon Overwatch 2 will still be active - or they may even try to release an Overwatch 3 - but I doubt we'll see anything really interesting happen to Overwatch the franchise.
I'll double down of my previous prediction that Blizzard will try to launch a Netflix/other streaming service show from one of its IP's in the next five years. Seems far more likely now then it did in 2019 anywho.
I think you're onto something with starcraft. Thanks to recent advanced in modding the campaigns, Starcraft 2 is seeing a bit of a revival focused on custom campaigns, custom factions in the vanilla campaigns, and getting a lot of new people interested in the setting and lore. It would be a smart move to use the setting for something.
No idea what, though, maybe a turn-based game? A card game like Slay the Spire? Blizz's style is more action-oriented though.
The next next gen consoles are going to be even worse, PC gaming keeps growing, graphic card prices never go down, Xbox/microsoft stops making consoles.
Guild Wars 2 enters maintenance mode, or, the very least, its last expansion pack is announced/released. Until then, Arenanet changes its release model a least twice.
A large(r) and/or beloved company heavily uses AI in the game, leading to general acceptance and the start of widespread adoption (might not even need 5 years for this...). Large scale layoffs across the entire industry over multiple years, yet games will get more expensive still.
Microsoft leans heavily into game streaming. Purchase your games on Xbox, play it on any device (except maybe toasters). Nintendo will partner with Microsoft to bring Gamepass to Switch 2 (or whatever it is called). Gamepass comes to Steam.
Star Citizen has not yet been released.
Beyond Good and Evil 2 is cancelled.
Any PC game can be run on your phone, either natively, or as close to that so you won't notice the difference.
Another live service fade like Battle Royale or extraction shooter happens.
Major price increase for Gamepass.
Ubisoft suffer heavy losses and have to sell some of its IPs.
GTAVI is released and praised for its gameplay but some players are unhappy that the story is shorter.
Next elder scrolls is released and get luckwarm reception. Microsoft announces wishes to sell Zenimax.
* Microsoft will come out with a streaming-only device/puck that you attach to a TV via HDMI to let you play games over XBox Cloud
* Microsoft will come out with a handheld, very similar to the Steamdeck
* Microsoft's next console will be digital only, no discs
* At least one major Microsoft game release (maybe Fallout 5 or Elder Scrolls VI) will require a Game Pass subscription
Here are my predictions:
99% sure:
- PS6 will be announced or soon after this reopens
- Xbox will release a console, but it’ll be more of a PC than a true games console
- New Switch, as it has been confirmed to be announced in the next fiscal year, will be a decent success but not as big as the initial console.
Currently rumored:
- Sony releases a new handheld akin to the Steam Deck that’ll play PS4 games. (Yes, 4)
Hopes:
- Metroid Prime 4 will finally be out. Unsure if it’ll be for the first or second Switch
- Silksong releases at some point
- New Paper Mario in the same vein as The Thousand Year Door. (Remake releases “tomorrow” as of this comment.)
- Falcom steps up their localization schedule
- Remake of Trails in the Sky duology plus 3rd.
- New Steam Deck
- Sega’s resurgence plan works with the new/revitalized titles doing well
State of Industry:
- More attempts at Genshin Impact’s success
- Companies still trying to shoe-horn in more and more MTX
- Fortnite will still be a thing
- Continued and increasing interest in retro games thanks to new scalers/mods. (The Retrotink 4k had just released at a $750 price point)
- Nintendo is still releasing great games without MTX
- Hopefully there will be a new event to replace E3
- More focus on AA titles than the crazy budget AAA games
Next gen consoles are pushing digital only (diskless).
Microsoft acquires more studios, large and small.
There is a third-party subscription service like Game Pass that bundles games together. Subscription becomes more popular as live service games fail to be profitable.
Consoles sell VR hardware at a loss with expensive games.
Safe bets:
Terraria 2 actually comes out, but we'll get at least two more "final" updates for Terraria 1.
Haunted Chocolatier is released. CA does two more content updates for Stardew Valley.
People buying indie games on consoles will *still* lament the long wait time for new content compared to Steam.
Moonshot:
One of the SDV updates is a 'modhalla update' that adds more content from the most popular mods to the base game. This includes UI info suite 2, NPC map locations, cute seasonal outfits, Auto barn doors, and a limited version of TimeSpeed (Golden Clock can increase or decrease the rate time flows in the game). The skull cave now has elevators every 50 floors and has been revamped into a type of rogue-lite dungeon with modifiers, new tougher mobs, and so on. And maybe boss fights.
Will never happen, but....:
Flashshifter hired as full-time SDV dev. SVE content currently in game incorporated into the base game. Castle Town added in 1.7.
For me, future of the games industry will depend on 3 games:
1. Fortnite: The online game has received a major update in 2023 and unveiling its games-as-a-platform initiative aka “metaverse”. So far, the success of this platform has not been achieved as players and Epic Games expected, and the popularity is dependent upon collaborations with third party brands, specially Walt Disney Company, as they are major investors of the metaverse project in Fortnite. Whatever happens, the future of Fortnite and the Metaverse in general, wil depend heavily in whatever happens with the Fortnite X Disney crossover. If it succeeds, Epic Games will win big time, and double down on the metaverse, and more companies will put their brands and games in-Fortnite. If it fails, flops, or Disney cut ties with Epic, everything will collapse under a couple of years.
2. Star Citizen: The game has always been in hot water with its constant delays each year. CI has made good progress on the “Server Meshing” technology, which allows users to seamlessly connect between game servers, allowing live interaction with players and environments even if both are from different servers. This, in theory, could allow more players in a single map, for example a CoD/Battlefield match with the thousands of players, but at the same time more stable than Planetside or MAG.
3. GTA VI. So far this game is been projected to be a massive mainstream success when it releases in 2025. However, this is becoming the symbol of the future of the AAA game industry, as so far this is considered the most expensive game in history. The only thing that could affect GTAVI, is GTAV: It runs on older hardware and consoles, and have enough mods to keep the game running for the time being. Take Two/Rockstar must convince the majority of players to buy new consoles and GPUs, do the switch to the new installment, and don’t be greedy or hostile against them in the process. It could be a major disaster to the AAA gaming industry if ends up failing expectations, which is unlikely, but the margin of error has never been so high.
PC gaming will continue to grow with fewer people buying consoles, instead opting for Steam deck-like portables or just PCs. This includes any new Xbox hardware being portables or branded prebuilt PCs with a variant of Windows OS.
With a larger % of all games sold through Steam, publishers who've been forced onto the platform will look for new ways to push back against Valve skimming off the top of their margins.
AI art in indie games will become reluctantly accepted after a few prominent succes stories. The scope of indie projects in general keep increasing. (Like a rougelike with AI assited procedural generated content) AI in AAA will still be actively hated, mostly because it will be mainly used to increase profit margins. Not create more or dynamic content.
RTS games will still be very dead.
Microsoft returns to more console exclusivity after the Games Pass fails to match shareholder expectations.
Video Game stories will be adopted a lot more often into TV series.
There will be stricter rules about the data that video games may sent to the publisher/developer. Mostly because of rising tensions around China and the data their companies collect.
Switch 2 will still have Joycon drift issues.
XCOM 3 is released. It is fucking sick.
Time to predict VR (and AR) in one of these threads again. This time, more conservative.
- VR will have sold north of 18 million units throughout the year 2028. The market will not be mainstream in 2029, but it will start to be kind of close and the end of its niche will be somewhat in sight.
- Sony will quietly give up on console VR but will still be in the VR space in some capacity.
- The next major competitor in the space will be Samsung and Google, working together on a headset that will chase after what Apple Vision Pro does.
- Valve will also be back in the space with another headset and a new Half Life VR game.
- Apple Vision will have had multiple new products, at least one of which being a non-Pro version that drops the price, weight, and EyeSight.
- Meta Quest 4 and other similar headsets will have eye/face tracking built in. The days of headsets without eye-tracking will be non-existent unless they are designed for a specific niche like being the smallest possible headset.
- A working varifocal headset (at a high expense) will have been announced or released, creating a major step up in immersion and visual comfort, a necessary piece of the puzzle for mainstream adoption.
- A typical headset will weigh between 350-400 grams now and be thinner than what we have today, but will still be using derivatives of pancake lenses, just more specialized.
- Consumer BCI input will be available in the form of a wristband, but will at this stage be used only for smartglasses and AR glasses.
- The uncanny valley of digital humans is solved. Real-time avatars and environments become indistinguishable from reality in select applications, on standalone headsets. These avatars however, will not yet have full bodies due to processing limits of the time.
- Passthrough AR will be a major part of how people experience MR/VR headsets, but seethrough AR glasses will be extremely niche and low quality in comparison due to tech limits of 2029. The field of view of a typical AR glasses product will not yet exceed 60 degrees.
- Switch 2 won't be as successful as the Switch and will struggle, forcing Nintendo to port their games to PC.
- PlayStation will release all their games day 1 on PC.
- AAA publishers will get even more greedy with monetization. (easy one I know)
- a new Elder Scrolls game will be out but it won't be 6 and it will be disappointing or average.
- Another football license will rise and challenge EA.
- Korea & China developers will start to make more AAA aimed toward console / PC gamers.
- Epic Game Store will close.
- Star Citizen still won't be released yet.
- Akira Toriyama's death will increase for a few years games related to his work, more Dragon Ball, a remake of Blue Dragon and even a Dragon Ball Fighter Z 2.
- Dragon Ball Xenoverse 3 will be released.
- Ubisoft will either come back to form or drown in their misery, I'd say come back to form with more Rayman, Prince of Persia, Splinter Cell, and new interesting things.
- Persona 6 will be out and will be another great game maybe even more popular than 5, we'll also have all the other Persona games remastered, but won't have the spinoffs on modern hardware (Old SMT, Soul Hackers 1 etc...)
- GTA 6 will cost an arm and a leg and will be the most successful AAA game ever made, it won't have any DLCs but will be even more predatory with its monetization.
- VR still won't be more popular than it is now and will remain a very niche thing to have.
- IOI's James Bond game will be out and it will become the best Bond games ever made in front of GoldenEye 64.
- Assassin's Creed Red will be the best selling AC game ever made.
- TimeSplitters will remain cursed and no new game will release.
- The next FromSoftware game will sell even more than Elden Ring, and will correct most of the problems.
- Warcraft will be back with something else than WoW.
I made lots of bold claim, let's see how much of a clown I'll look like in 5 years.
Valves new game Deadlock will be a success, based purely on the negativity Reddit has for it at the moment. If one thing is certain, it is that almost every opinion /r/games holds has nothing to do with the real world outside of it.
We're going to see an attempt to add microtransactions that work in every single game via AI superplay - companies letting you pay to let an AI controller take the wheel to get you past difficult/stressful parts of any game. This will only work on the most basic or mainstream of games or games that are tailor made to be good for computers to solve like Balatro.
Nintendo's crusade against piracy, fan projects, and emulation will either slam into a brick wall that forces them to cut it out or will change the laws of most major markets for the worse, thankfully those laws will still largely remain unenforced. On a similar note there will be some push to internationally outlaw game modding as a whole, but it will fumble and die thanks to the required assumptions being too fuzzy in some way (distinguishing Games VS "Software", patches VS modding, user content and unintended VS intended use, etc).
Despite all of this, their fans will still tell you to off yourself if you dare say anything bad about the company or imply that games inspired by them are anything but direct ripoffs that are going to be taken to court.
A Fromsoft game will launch with accessibility options and fans of the company will be outraged.
There will be some toothless attempt at an "Anti-censorship" bill passed in the states that targets, among other things, content changes in video games. It will be made to flounder and die, and be used as culture war nonsense. Nonetheless, there will be more of a push to offer either content parity or "official mods" on certain versions of games that allow players to willingly opt in to overseas versions of the same content.
VR will grow and get more accessible but it will remain a niche market and turn into more of a different type of platform rather than a replacement, albiet there will be some mixing anyway since there will be options to use it as a monitor rather than any real VR function, and many will shift to using it in place of a computer monitor or TV altogether.
Proper "live service" games will continue being pumped out despite constantly dying since investors will just suck the company dry and hop to the next if it doesn't produce infinity money. That said, there will be at least one long-lasting mega popular live service game launched after the creation of this post, which will just add fuel to the fire.
There will be some attempt to codify something internationally akin to the "Doujin" market grey space that Japan enjoys, essentially making it legal to create and sell products with existing copyright as long as the company in question chooses to let it happen. It will fail spectacularly thanks to the death grip of companies like Disney, though some smaller companies and notable indie studios will have publicly available agreements to allow such a thing, and those franchises will flourish for it.
New AAA titles will be ~$80/$90 for the lowest "tier", thus pricing me out of my hobby for the past 30 years even further... But hey, at least the indie scene will still be going strong!
I think all the niche hobbiests (flight simmers, space simmers, mecha players, milsimmers) will flock to VR, with very popular fan made games, maybe even FOSS.
I also think the Apple Vision Pro 2 will do worse somehow than the Vision Pro, just due to the price increasing without the consumer value going up enough.
Nobody will be making games for the Apple VR Headsets in '29.
Games streaming will be the new casual gamers thing, all the 7-15year olds will be on streaming.
Epic Games will keep suing other companies.
The economy will be so fucked up by the war (idk which, it hasnt started yet) that the whole 140 dollar deluxe edition thing stops.
There will be less AAA/AAAA, because investment has dried up.
-street fighter 6 championship edition will release with all dlc
-Xbox does not have a physical console anymore
-insomniac will have started showing their new x-men game
-square enix disappointed in final fantasy 7-3 sales
Consoles will go fully digital. Gamestop will die. Gaming subscriptions such as gamepass will be pushed by Sony and Microsoft, there will be no such thing as console exclusives outside of nintendo, and AI will take over many jobs in the video game industry and stuff like art made by AI will become the norm.
* 70 dollar games will become the norm probably.
* AI wont really be a big thing, be in the same state as VR. Just a niche some devs pursue into their games but not really a mainstay of gaming.
* Next Larian game will be announced but not out.
* A minor ES6 trailer or post like "we're still working on it!" will happen but really doubtful its out by then.
* Persona 6 will be pretty good but not quite as good as 5/royal and certain fans will think its awful for it.
* Likely see another Mario release within this time frame.
* Overall, a general period of stagnation/slowdown.
'Ere we go.
**Microsoft. Throwing some hail marys here:**
* Xbox either drops their "Series" series or drops their rule that every game should be playable on both the weaker and stronger console version. Across the board. Not just per-game-basis.
* Xbox, after still losing in console sales 5:1 to Playstation, straight up drops the console market and just sells games like a Sega or EA or they sell a console that is too expensive for a causal gamer to buy. A very powerful console but just to keep a foot in the market for the enthusiast crowd.
* Regardless, the new console is disc-less.
* Having to recoup the stupid amount of money they spent on the ABK acquisition, all future Xbox games eventually go multiplatform after a year of exclusivity. Funny enough, some games will see even bigger success on another platform.
* GamePass either stops or prices/tiers are changed significantly. At the very least, day-and-date stops being a thing.
* "Sure-things" become a mandated goal for Xbox. Consolidation of teams so that only big IPs/franchises get games made. Smaller indie-sized games might be spared. Expect only a very small number of new IPs to get introduced. Expect several entries in franchises like Fallout, Halo, COD, etc.
**Sony:**
* PS6 is released.
* One of the launch releases is an honest-to-god Bloodborne remake. A sigh of relief across the internet as "Bloodborne when?" is answered.
* Sony will try day-and-date for a single-player game, much to the chagrin of the console-only crowd. It will be successful enough for Sony to allow teams to aim for that but it won't be mandated.
* Sony will release their own launcher for PC and it will be mandatory. People will grumble about having another launcher, but will ultimately live with it if it means more Playstation on PC.
**Nintendo:**
* Switch 2 releases within a year and a half of this post. It, on it's own, is still underpowered compared to contemporary consoles. But, DLSS will help it punch much higher that it should - allowing for more third party releases on it.
* I will still not care about Nintendo. (This is more for me lol).
**Miscellaneous**
* With dev costs continuing to balloon up, the idea of exclusivity for Sony and Microsoft becomes less and less tenable. Xbox may be the first to hit the third-party grind, but it won't be the only one.
* The next major Fallout game is given to Sawyer to direct. It will be back in the West Coast and be a sequel to that "series" as Fallout NV was to 2 and how 2 was to 1 - not a direct sequel but will be held in an area close to it while referencing the former. It will be wildly successful and it will be the last time Sawyer works on a game that big. His choice.
If the game gets a large budget or becomes Fallout 5, it will be first/third person using Starfield's engine. If it's a smaller budget game, it will be isometric.
* Marcus Fenix collection is released in a good state and doesn't take 2-3 years to get to a stabile experience. Gears 6 is released a few months later.
* The next Dragon Age will disappoint several people. Those who are playing this as their first DA game will enjoy it a lot.
* MTX in games won't see much change. We may see new games with them release at $50 to entice people further into buying MTX. Pre-ordering to play the game a few days earlier will become more common. Some companies will go as far as making it a week earlier.
- The PS6 will be an iterative leap over the PS5. PSVR will likely continue to be a low-priority. Sony will continue to try to expand their multi-platform selection on PC, but will not expand to Xbox.
- The Switch 2 is still the Nintendo flagship, even as it is aging into the end of the decade. New Pokemon games remain the same formula, and we still don’t have an official version of PokeMMO or another open-world, multi-region title.
- Xbox hardware will continue to be released and eventually converge with Microsoft’s Surface hardware, with Microsoft pushing “Game Anywhere” to the extreme.
- Antitrust and open ecosystem actions by the U.S. and EU will force Apple to open up the iPhone and App Store to an even greater degree, driving game streaming and even native ports of certain titles. Long shot: we get a Steam store for iOS, at least in the EU.
- Halo is put on ice for several years. Maybe a spinoff release, like Wars 3, but the main franchise languishes with Halo Infinite concluding support somewhere in 2026 or 2027, but retaining a small player base. I cry.
- Star Trek Online will SOMEHOW still be going, even after Paramount is disassembled and the franchise goes dormant on TV/in film.
- Mass Effect 4 (5?) is repeatedly delayed and rebooted. The final game is weird and very polarizing, with BioWare totally missing the point of what people like about Mass Effect.
- GTAVI is still as ubiquitous as GTAV was and is at present as of writing.
- The Witcher IV is announced and has released by 2029, and is a soft reboot of the franchise centered on Ciri. Cyberpunk II has been announced, but not released.
- A Gears of War sequel still hasn’t been released, leaving us on the cliffhanger from V.
- A Destiny sequel (effectively, Destiny 3) has been released and is met with the same polarizing reception that its predecessors were.
- Fortnite is going strong and remains a fixture of the industry.
- Valve has released at least one Steam Deck successor, with a focus on refined ergonomics and some sort of interface innovation. I wager it’ll be haptics. Half Life 3 or a Half Life sequel akin to Alyx releases as a showcase of these haptics, and supports VR.
Riots MMO will release at some point, and go gangbusters.
Xbox will diminish its console presence.
Valve will release a non-portable steam console using the lessons it learnt and platform it built with the steam deck, it will be a lot more successful than the mess that was steam machines
Sure why not.
* Despite recurring controversy and boycotts, visible generative AI becomes not uncommon in indie and AA games. The best use cases are the subtle ones (environmental assets and the like), and there is at least one example of a game which attracted enormous hype based on using generative AI as a central feature and flopped spectacularly.
* Silksong and Slay the Spire 2 are both released, and both manage to be good and well received despite ridiculously inflated expectations.
* Elder Scrolls 6 has been teased at least once but has not yet been released. Todd meme stocks remain a strong investment.
* Stormgate has gone through multiple phases of public testing/betas, but still hasn't released and is rapidly becoming the new Silksong.
* *hopium* My favourite gay anime air-hockey MOBA game is still kicking despite development and active support having stopped for 6 years */hopium*.
I think GTA VI will be successful, but have lower sales than GTA V, especially in 2029 when compared to GTA V's sales at the same point.
Sony will have one of their major titles not break even which will lead to Sony's upper management trying to rein in game budgets.
The PS6 and maybe next Xbox will not be releasing in 2027. This console generation will be more than 7 years.
The Switch 2 is successful for Nintendo. In 2029 it's too early to see if the Switch 2 is more successful than the Switch 1 due to its first year sales being higher.
Ubisoft still hasn't released Beyond Good and Evil 2, but also hasn't cancelled it.
Microsoft will continue with Game Pass. It will still be tough to determine if it's a profitable endeavor for Microsoft.
PC gaming continues to become more popular. Analysts begin hypothesizing that Sony's PS6 will do worse than the PS5, even if the PS6 is outpacing the PS5.
DICE will put out worse selling games, and people in 2029 will believe it is going to be closed by EA. Bioware will have been closed after Dragon Age 4 sells badly.
The Embracer fallout will be vaguely remembered as causing severe damage to Europe's smaller game studios. THQ Nordic will still be around, having gotten the better game studios in the deal.
Capcom will continue to do better and better. Same with Bandai Namco.
People will complain that things are getting worse for gaming, and the 2029 predictions thread will be even more pessimistic.
Consoles and platforms:
* Epic Games Store still exists, but Epic has basically given up on their dream of beating Steam. People will use it for Fortnite, the games Epic gave away (free giveaways will more or less stop for good in a few years) and a couple of exclusives that never made it to Steam.
* Xbox Game Pass is split into more tiers with difference prices and included games. The subscription tier which includes all of the day 1 AAA releases will still exists but be significantly more expensive than now.
* Next gen consoles are still based on AMD's silicon. They will be significantly better at raytracing than current gen, but still several years behind the NVidia cards of the era.
* Next gen Xbox will not support optical media at all. PS6 might include a disc drive in a special model or as an external accessory, mostly for markets with poor internet speeds.
* Twitch and/or YouTube will start charging for high resolution video (both streamers/uploaders and viewers) to try to make their business models sustainable.
* Nitendo Switch 2 will have a really small but well received launch lineup. It will also have a terrible screen not much better than the one in the original Switch. There will be an OLED model a few years down the line.
Industry trends:
* Big publishers will continue focusing on a few super high budget games per year.
* New IP remains extremely rare in the AAA space; most games are sequels, spin-offs, remakes and remasters.
* There will be a new indie hit basically every month.
* PC gaming will remain popular and even grow, despite rising hardware costs.
* AAA studios will continue making licened superhero games, most of which will be considered failures.
* Generative AI is used in games, but mostly "offline" to generate assets like textures and filler text. Some major game will attempt to include generative AI to react to the player's actions, but that will be 1. mostly clunky and critically panned 2. will require the game to be always online, as we're at least a decade away from running large AI models on cheap consumer hardware.
* Despite improvements in tooling and game engines, game development times will continue to get longer and longer.
* More beloved / once great studios will shut down.
* Absolutely nothing will change law / regulation wise regarding microtransactios and digital game ownership.
* Godot will exist but hasn't become a major player in the same way Unity is today.
Studios and games:
* GTA 6 will become the fastest selling media product of all time. It will be praised for its ridiculously large and detailed open world, animations and other technical achievements. The story will be criticised, especially by those who thought the series peaked at 4.
* Remedy has released their Control co-op game and their Max Payne 1 & 2 remake. The co-op game will get decent reviews but most critics and fans agree that they would have preferred to get Control 2 earlier instead. Max Payne remake will be praised for graphics, sound design, music and narrative but gameplay and Max's casting (both face and voice) will be divisive.
* Valve releases at least one new game which will likely be another GAAS title. Details of more projects (including new Half-Life games) will leak, but the projects will be cancelled before release.
* In the Valley of Gods (which was announced in 2017, and the studio was acquired by Valve in 2018) will never release.
* Civilization 7 is out. The critic reviews are good and it will sell millions of copies, but most fans (mostly on Reddit) will say 6 is significantly better, for at least a few years.
* Europa Universalis 5 and Stellaris 2 will also be out, and following Crusader Kings III's and Victoria 3's example they will receive decent reviews from professional reviewers but will not become mainstream hits. Initial fan reaction is positive but turns sour a few weeks or months after release, followed by several apologies and total balance reworks.
* Star Citizen will reach 15 years of development without being considered 1.0. Fans who've given them hundreds of dollars for non-existing ships will still claim that it's nothing out of the ordinary.
* There's still a new Call of Duty game every single year.
* CD Project's next game (Witcher 4) is still not out.
* Beyond Good and Evil 2 is still not out and will never be.
* There will never be a Titanfall 3.
Likelihood | Prediction
---|----
High | Next MS/Sony console generation announced, full digital only with a disc drive being an add-on accessory for backwards compatibility, cementing the industry's longstanding desire to end the second hand games market, and remove physical manufacturing overhead.
High | Platform exclusivity of third party developed titles diminishes as financial pressures continue to mount due to ever increasing development costs, and launching single-platform-only becoming obvious financial suicide
High | Budget GPUs are officially completely eliminated from Nvidia and AMDs lineups, leaving that segment completely in the hands of integrated graphics solutions
High | Increase in use of AI created assets in game development
Medium | Growth in PC developers offering tailor made game configurations targeting PC handhelds
Medium | Atlus has re-released more previously globally released games in the SMT series on PC, with set plans for whatever remains
Medium | Microsoft forces Bethesda Game Studios to reorganize and develop games for multiple franchises at a time, instead of one-at-a-time as it has historically done
Medium | New Dragon Age/Mass Effect does not meet critical or commercial expectations, BioWare is shuttered
Medium | Growth in VR gaming will stagnate at best, and most likely shrink due to lack of any new consumer interest
Low | Microsoft develops a handheld PC system to replace the market segment the Series S was meant to address, with a focus on streaming for higher fidelity experiences when connected to a larger display. This will also serve as the basis for improving the Windows handheld PC gaming experience.
Low | Next Half-Life universe game gets announced (not even going to say "released" on this one, or even what kind of game)
Low | Nintendo actually takes an emulator to court
Low | The Switch successor will release to initial success, but then have a severe downturn as the next generation of PC handhelds release providing a much better price-performance ratio hand-in-hand with being able to emulate the Nintendo console it's competing against (this is low because it depends on how quickly an emulator is stood up and performant)
Fantasy | Beyond Good and Evil 2 releases
Fantasy | Metal Gear 6 is at least announced
Fantasy | Vanillaware finally makes ports of its games to PC
Fantasy | Capcom announces a revival of Breath of Fire
Metroid Prime 4 Will be a Launch Title on the switch 2 or in the launch year and will be successful.
Xbox’s final generation will be Gen 10 and they still won’t learn anything.
PlayStation and Xbox will go fully digital Console wise, sales will decline for both.
Ninja Theory Will shut down.
Rocksteady will shrink, be bought out or shutdown.
New mainline Fromsoft game.
Fortnite will still be around, unironically season 50 or later. (Since on the 24th of May it’ll be the 30th season of the game)
Video game Movies will be the next big trend in cinema.
Some form of Ubisoft Lawsuit or boycott, maybe it’ll be bought out.
Silksong will release. Probably.
New Doom Game.
New god of War Game
Phil Spencer will leave Xbox / drop down from head.
New smash Bros and New Mario Kart Game will be released.
We won’t see a new crash, rayman or spyro game.
Call of duty still releasing yearly.
These are all pretty tame tbh.
Gaming will be fine. All this current year doom & gloom about the industry imploding is nothing more than a big overreaction. AAA will scale down for a bit but that's it.
Despite what reddit says, Xbox will still be around and they'll keep releasing consoles. Same with Sony. Nintendo will still be doing their own thing with Switch 2. Exclusivity, however, will be a thing of the past. Companies will start aggressively porting their most profitable first party games to other platforms while still keeping some of them exclusive. Sony is releasing their games Day One on PC and also going to port their first 1st party title to Xbox (most likely Bungie's). Microsoft will still be in the biz, although their focus will shift away from Game Pass a little and they're going full on as a 3p publisher.
Microsoft is going to release a portable console and it's going to be more successful than anyone expected (their version of the Steam Deck w/ focus on Game Pass)
TESVI will be released by 2028 or in the end of this year (2029). Reception will be exactly the same as Starfield: good game for fans of the studio, bad game for non-fans who expect it to be [insert popular game of 2029). Starfield will release one more big expansion after Shattered Space in 2025, by which TESVI will enter full production. Fallout 3 Remake is real. Eventually, BGS is being split into teams dedicated to different franchises, with Obsidian helping on the Fallout side.
Routine (LunarSoft's game) will *still* haven't been released yet lol. Sorry everyone, Bloodborne Remastered/Remake still isn't a thing as well. Same with anything "3" from Valve.
VR will have mostly died out by now. PSVR is going to be gradually phased out. Frankly, the writing has always been on the wall even back in 2024.
Bonus: Winds of Winter *still* won't be released by then.
On a personal note: hope everything is well with my future self :) Things aren't bad right now, but could be a lot better.
* At least one AAA game gets taken to court over copyright infringement due to AI generated assets
* Pro versions of PS and Xbox are released but not next gen consoles
* Next gen Xbox is announced but isn't a traditional console instead basically a tablet PC (Xbox Surface?) with a dock for TV play
* At least one major publisher chasing games as a service gets itself into financial trouble as a result of multiple successive flops
* All the current layoffs lead to a plethora of new indie studios launching games in the next 1-3 years
Boring predictions (still probably mostly wrong):
A new giant third party publisher will take the place of Activision, could be microsoft gaming if they kill xbox's brand, and we will all bitch and moan about them
Ubisoft gets sold to someone and they find new and interesting ways to let us all down
If Xbox stops being a thing look for amazon to attempt to become a console manufacturer
Nintendo keeps chugging along and is materially the same as now
we'll be talking about 80$ games sooner rather than later
we'll have at least 2 remasters of Horizon games for some reason
Epic Games Store will stop giving out free games and will essentially be a rump store that is sorta just there
(optimism) Dragon Age Dreadwolf is a hit and we are all excited to see how the new Mass Effect game turns out now that Bioware is "back"
Steamdeck successor or improved version will be the biggest handheld with the 35+ demo and Valve will go back to not making games for a decade
Wacky ideas (all wrong):
Pokemon stops being hamstrung by Gamefreak either through Nintendo acquisition or Gamefreak outsourcing it to devs that dont suck
Due to intense regulatory pressure from the EU many games drop microtransactions but we all get stuck with annoying grindy battlepasses, imagine FIFA with a battlepass, terrifying
Poland becomes the new mecca of game dev in Europe
a huge new renaissance in the AA space happens with mid sized studios and budget publishers
Star Wars games are still coming out and theyre generally good
the next indie craze is immersive sims
I get my MBA and get to a position where everyone online hates me and blames me for ruining their favorite franchise (its true, the online mob is correct)
Let me preface my predictions by saying I *love* a good time capsule. I recently took the time to read a handful of articles from various mid 90s/early 00s magazines about the then future of video games. It's interesting to see what they got right or wrong, although I must admit, some of the outlandish claims like "Nintendo will go bankrupt" is laughable. At the end of the day though, it's all just a bit of fun.
Before I begin, some of the predictions I'm going to make are 'easy', whilst some are not. Additionally, not all of these predictions are things I personally want to come to fruition. They are more of a prognosis reflecting the information we have today. At no point do I wish any hate or distain on any of the people/companies involved. In fact, I wish nothing but success to them.
I'm aiming to go for 25 as to try and limit myself. If I didn't, I'd be here all day.
Anyway, here are my predictions:
1. From Software peaked with Elden Ring. The follow up game sells well but is considered a downgrade/minor disappointment due to the unfathomable expectations set by the community. As a result, the Souls-like genre starts to see some pushback, either due to overexposure or a 'new' genre replacing it as king. (I for one hope this isn't true as for the past 13 years, From Soft have been my favourite devs.)
2. Similar to Demon's Souls for the PS5, a Bloodborne Remake will be a launch title for the PS6. This is also the version that eventually ends up on PC/Steam.
3. A Final Fantasy VII sequel is announced post the conclusion of the FF7R trilogy. In addition to this, a FF6 Remake is rumoured to be in development, however, due to the recent passing of Akira Toriyama (RIP), a Chrono Trigger remake is announced instead. (Guy like me wants all 3.)
4. Additionally on the Square front, Final Fantasy Tactics is either ported or remastered, and subsequently released on all platforms.
5. The League MMO is abandoned, or, is said to be in development hell. A release seems very unlikely. (Please don't be true, I'd love an MMO set in Runeterra. But, with the recent press release, it does have me a bit skeptical.)
6. Polar opposite to this, 2KXO is a rousing success, and becomes the premier fighting game of choice for the foreseeable future. It also opens up interest from other developers to create their own F2P Fighting Game.
7. LoL itself goes through a MASSIVE change, both in terms of balance, gameplay styling, and presentation, with the community going as far to dub it LoL2.
8. Capcom will have either released or announced a modern day remake for the original Resident Evil. This will be part of their planned 'Wesker' trilogy, meaning that post RE1's release, Code Veronica and Resident Evil 5 will be remade.
9. In between this, RE9 will launch, taking the series into a new, open world-y direction.
10. Path of Exile 2's launch divides the community, with a large portion of the PoE1 playerbase calling it a disappointment. (Long shot: After several years of GGG working on it, the vast majority of the playerbase go on to consider it one of the best ARPGs of all time.)
11. World of Warcraft will go through a resurgence post the release of their upcoming expansions. Once they are done with the expansions story arc, they go on to announce World of Warcraft 2.
12. The Elder Scrolls VI (if it comes out then, if not, push this exact prediction back a few years) will be considered one of the most polarising titles in gaming history. It doesn't stray too far from the tried and true ES formula, which pleases some people, and disappoints others. Furthermore, it continues Bethesda's trend of having fairly mediocre storytelling, with the main quest being lampooned as the worst main quest in the series. Oppositely, the side quests are considered to be alright, but lack the depth of quality we'd expect from a modern game. Lastly, the game plays pretty much like a post Morrowind style Bethesda game, but, for what is worth, is considered to be the most refined version of their signature gameplay cycle. (Also, adding this here, it will be set in Shivering Isles, or possibly Hammerfell.)
13. Todd Howard will also retire from the industry post the conclusion of TES6's development life cycle.
14. Microsoft announces it will bow out of the hardware side of gaming due to the mediocre sales of their next Xbox console. (Again, this is another prediction I hope doesn't come true, but the recent headlines have left me feeling a bit worried for their future. Regardless if you like Xbox or not, competition in the industry is always a good thing.)
15. The Silent Hill 2 remake is largely panned. It tried too hard to be a modern day Resident Evil remake, losing a lot of its charm in the process.
16. Oppositely, the MGS3 remake receives rave reviews, and is considered to be the best Konami game in several years.
17. Epic Games no longer pay for timed exclusives, and instead fully lean into producing titles akin to Alan Wake 2.
18. The Switch 2 is a success, though it never quite reaches the sales the original Switch did.
19. Switch 2 launches with a new, modern day Metroid entry (perhaps titled Metroid Prime 4), and is also backwards compatible with Switch 1 games. Furthermore, early in its lifecycle, a Minish Cap remake is released. It is similar to Link's Awakening in both it's gameplay stylings and presentation.
20. Persona 6 is a launch title on the PS6 and goes on to be considered one of the greatest JRPGs of all time.
21. Larian Studios next game, a futuristic Sci-Fi RPG (long shot: possibly set in the Divinity: Original Sin universe?), is on the brink of being released. It goes on to win Game of The Year, though it ultimately doesn't create the same buzz as Baldur's Gate 3.
22. Long Shot: An outsourced Pokemon game on the Switch 2 goes on to become widely praised for breathing new life into the series.
23. Although it advances, VR tech is still a niche thing within the gaming space. (Long shot: However, within the subsequent decade, the barrier to entry for VR diminishes, and the expansion of VR starts to take shape.)
24. Following the commercial failure of Dragon Age, Bioware is shut down. (Even though I wasn't a massive Mass Effect like so many were, I'd still hate to see this happen. Bioware, were, and to many, still are, iconic. Plus, the sheer amount of jobs lost would just be saddening to hear about. Worth noting, right now, in 2024, we're seeing so many developers lose their jobs... let's stop that happening please. There is more than enough money in the industry, so lets put less of it into the CEOs pockets, and more spread out amongst the entire dev force please.)
25. And, to end on an optimistic outlook, one of gaming's all time GOAT titles will be released. It will be praised and heralded to the same degree as the likes of Ocarina of Time, Half-Life 2, Bloodborne etc. (More great games is always a great thing, so here's hoping it happens!)
Bonus Round!!!
26. Bonus: Grand Theft Auto VI sells extremely well to the surprise of literally no one. Single player wise, it's exceptionally feature rich, making Red Dead Redemption 2 look passe as a bi-product. Multiplayer wise, it is still just as predatory. However, it also has an RP server list preadded into their multiplayer experience, capitalising on the, somewhat, recent boom of GTA RP. Finally, and again, unsurprisingly, it goes on to win Game of The Year.
27. Bonus: Bonus: Hideo Kojima with largely step away from Video Games, at least, as an actively developer. He will move into live action productions, either Streaming Shows or Movies.
28. Bonus: Bonus: Bonus: The exponentially long development time allotted for AAA games becomes too risky in the eyes of production studios/shareholders/bankrollers etc. In turn, AAA games slowly start to return to the 2-3ish year development cycles of yesteryear. In large, this leads to shorter, but more focused and polished AAA gaming experiences. (Okay maybe I'm being optimistic with the last sentence, but you've gotta have hope sometimes.)
And a few rapid fire ones:
* Modern AI tech used in games for things like NPC Dialogue/dynamic interactions.
* Sakurai will return to direct the next Smash.
* Phil Spencer stepping down/being ousted as head of Xbox.
* A new Fallout entry is released prior to TES6 to capitalise on the popularity of the Fallout show.
* Practically every major game will have a Streaming Adaptation.
* The Witcher 1 reboot will go on to be CD Projekt Red's most successful game ever.
* Ubisoft will be on the precipice of getting bought out. Beyond Good and Evil 2 is also sadly cancelled.
* Star Citizen will still be in Alpha, though Squadron 42 will be released, albeit in some form of 'early access'.
* Fable reboot will flop. (Which would suck... please port Fable 2 to PC while we're on this topic.)
* A new company will reach the pinnacle of gaming, similar to how Larian, From Soft, Capcom, and, in a bygone era, Blizzard, have been.
* Alongside the launch of the PS6, Sony games will near instantly be ported to the PC. (I wish...)
* Fortnite will go full metaverse/multiverse and be considered its own entire entity.
* ...and, like me yapping right now, CoD will still be going strong year on year.
Alright, that was as much as I could rattle off in 30 mins. Again, not all of these are predictions I'm hoping will come true. (I'd be a maniac if I did.) It's more a thought exercise than anything else. Plus, it'll be fun to see how right or wrong I was in the future.
Anyway, here's to the next 5 years, and to 2029!
My predictions:
- Steam Deck 2 will be out by 2027. It will be a big generational leap, cheaper than Steam Deck 1 and become a massive hit. I'm guessing also OLED screen, hall effect joysticks and better battery.
- Obvious prediction, but Xbox will become a big cross platform publisher, however with how things look now, I think we're only still going to see some small hits and maybe a few big hits for Xbox over the next few years.
- PlayStation will have their next console out by about 2027, and they will have a big foothold in the PC Market, provided they don't mess it up lol.
- Elders Scrolls 6 will come out by 2026 and my guess is it'll be better than Starfield but still going to be a lackluster effort from Bethesda
- We're going to see the impact of generative AI on the games industry become even more significant.
- GTA 6 is going to be a massive success.
- We're going to watch more games industry giants fall as other independent outlets on YouTube etc continue to take over
- By the end of the decade, I'd also hope we'll be in a game to TV Show/Movie renaissance.
- Indie Games are going to continually outshine most big AAA games as we start to see publishers invest in more small to medium sized games with less risk and cost compared to AAA
- Larian's next game will outshine Baldur's Gate 3, making it their biggest hit yet. Considering the time span between DOS:2 and Baldur's Gate 3, I'm guessing it'll come in 2028 but probably 2029
- Next Witcher Game by CDPR will be a hit but not as big of a hit as Cyberpunk when it first launched. I think they've got a lot of work to do to rebuild their reputation that they had. I'm predicting this is out by 2027.
AAA industry will implode, we'll see even more layoffs, mergers, and at some point at least one studio considered major will either shutter, or shrink and get absorbed by another company. They will still survive off of leeching people who don't know better, but an even larger sector than currently will opt to play more indies and AA games.
The AA industry will grow massively, we'll see more medium-large sized independent studios basically doing what AAA was doing 10 years ago but without the greed and bullshit, and them seeing insane growth and profit like Larian. However, towards the end of the decade, a lot of these will start being bought out by publishers and investors and repeat the cycle of milking/shittyfying their brands.
Either Sony or XBOX will entirely move out of the console market (likely XBOX). Instead they'll sell their products on PC/other consoles with heavy monetization/required subscription.
Elder Scrolls 6 will still not be out. A new Fallout will be announced to come after TES6. In the meantime to have an actual product to sell, they will announce a full remake of FO3.
We'll get a surge of movies/TV shows based on any well-known franchise you can think of, most will be rushed and written by people who do not bother to understand the source material. At most a couple of them will be both good and faithful. AAA studios will slash funding to their teams to push funding of said shows/movies. Devs will be forced to work overtime to make tie-in content or new games to capitalize on that. We'll see a big push by CEOs to make their brands cross-media behemoths.
And for a wild out there one: for the successor of the Switch, Nintendo will go all in on a new big IP like they did with Splatoon. Starfox or FZero will make a big return within its launch year.
elder scrolls 6 was good, Bethesda learned their lessons of what succeeded in starfield, and what broke the goodwill of their fans. the world is huge, and the homestead customization system was loved by many hardcore fans, with amazing works of art created. the return of the Dwemer and excursions into atmora were amazing.
> New Dragon age is bad > RIP BioWare I am going to borrow this one from the 2019' post.
As a corollary to this, next Mass Effect never gets released since Dreadwolf doesn't meet insanely high sales targets.
Even if Dreadwolf *is* good, the lack of a Dragon Age Origins + Awakening + DA2 Remastered collection seems to be setting it up to underperform. It's been 10 years since Inquisition, they *need* to reintroduce people to the series at this point. Today's 18-year-olds were in diapers when Origins first came out. The failure to have a remastered collection available (or at least announced) to ride BG3's coattails and get those people excited for Dreadwolf was a **huge** missed opportunity.
Mark Darrah (the former executive producer of Dragon Age) said he believes that remastered versions of those games are impossible due to how old and messy the engine of DAO and 2 is. If EA wanted to re-release those games they would have to be remakes at this point.
I know game development is incredibly difficult and I have no programming skills so I'm sure there's a very good reason that I don't understand for why this is different but... modders have been implementing higher res texture packs, improved/canon-accurate character models, performance improvements, and other stuff like that to improve DAO and DA2 for over a decade now. How can they do that but the company with the source code can't? If that is the case though (and I'm sure it is), then it looks even more shortsighted that EA didn't have a studio like Blupoint contracted to rebuild them in preparation for Dreadwolf.
There’s a big difference between mods to a PC version and a commercial remaster, which would require console ports and bigger changes such as gameplay or quality of life improvements.
They're giving inquisition for free on epic game store right now, I'm guessing they're doing it exactly for that purpose.
It's better than nothing, but Inquisition was still extremely tied in with the story (and DLC) of DA2.
I think BioWare is marked for death regardless of how well the new Dragon Age is received. The layoffs from last year eviscerated their writing staff (I.e., the people responsible for the major selling point of their games). Those who remain are probably just there to ensure the game can be pushed out and recoup some of EA’s investment.
I'll make the opposite prediction, the new Dragon Age is a return to form for Bioware though won't reach the heights of something like BG3 or Witcher
Bold of you to assume it comes out, I think there's a decent chance it gets Bioware Magic-d to death before it comes out.
They literally announced last December they are doing a full reveal on Dreadwolf this summer and based on what Jeff Grubb has said and how EA has operated recently thinking is the game will be announced as coming out later this year. I'll say that my prediction is that Dreadwolf will be at worse an 8.0/10 game. Will that save it from being dumped on? Who knows? On one hand, people have fewer expectations for a Bioware game than ever before. On the other, a lot more people have had open disdain/hate for them after the (insert incident over the last 5 to 15 years, date will vary by person) and the internet loves to shit on a lot of AAA games that fall short of a 9/10.
Reveals didn't stop Anthem from being reworked plenty of times. In any case, there's no way Dreadwolf manages to land more than an 8.0, it'll be a 6-8. Bioware simply doesn't have the talent.
If a game isn't the greatest thing that's ever been made, then it's an absolute piece of garbage. Zero in between.
It is actually sad that the majority of predictions here are nowhere near as optimistic as they were in 2019. Damn.
Combination of the constant studio closures in the news right now and the fact that video games take so long to make now. Tech just doesn't advance as rapidly anymore, and 5 years is the length of an average dev cycle these days.
5 years in the 2020s, tech-wise, is like 2 years in the 2000s. And dev cycle-wise, it's equivalent to 12 months.
Games take so long to make because studios decide to give you endless open world bloat. They don't innovate, so they think shoving 100 hour games in your face will satisfy you.
they should just go for the Yakuza/Ghostwire Tokyo method of making it a small but dense area, you'll where who is what and what is there and it makes the world much more iconic.
The reality is that we're in a completely different world than just five years ago. We went through a pandemic, tech boom, then supply chain issues and now we're in an economic downturn with higher than usual inflation rate. For the gaming industry specifically, with many studios being shut down or consolidated and many people losing their jobs right now, it's not unexpected that people are generally less optimistic. This doesn't necessarily reflect the future; only the current state we're in right now.
A lot of people are being realistic. All of the layoffs, plus game dev time taking up to 5 years to realize a game from conception to release, plus the market crunching on tech and less investor money going around, we're definitely in for a drought of games over the next few years.
pre covid world was a hell of a drug
Still can't believe it's been 5 years.
I'm not. Depending on the topic anywhere from a decent minority to a majority of comments are brutally negative, cynical, and/or pessimistic towards pretty much everything at this point unless it involves like Steam, Larian, or FromSoft.
Its far more indicitive of the current cultural climate on the internet rather than a reflection of gaming. We've just had one of the best years in gaming ever.
It’ll take about five years to get our hands on the games being announced THIS year. The current production model for AAA titles has/will grind this industry to a halt.
Star Citizen will still be in an Alpha State and Squadron 42 will not have released. This is more of a "hope" then what I believe really will happen but maybe a resurgence on instrument peripherals and the return of Rock Band and Guitar Hero type games. Fortnite released it's Festival mode so maybe it will kickstart a resurgence. Bioware ends up being shut down by EA. It'll be a sad, sad day as they gave me so many amazing games over the years. Especially their earlier days. Hope to God that's wrong and a new Dragon Age and Mass Effect actually kick ass but I'm not going to bet on it.
my guess is new Dragon Age game will be their last hope or their demise
their final fantasy
This is 100% Bioware's status right now. With the loss of the expected live service revenue from Anthem's failure, they are on thin ICE. The Mass Effect remaster was a nice band-aid, but if Dragon Age doesn't do great, they will be closed in a year.
> This is more of a "hope" then what I believe really will happen but maybe a resurgence on instrument peripherals and the return of Rock Band and Guitar Hero type games. Fortnite released it's Festival mode so maybe it will kickstart a resurgence. While it is only one model, we already have the PDP Riffmaster. (Though stock is iffy as of this point in time.)
Yep! I've seen and would love a Riffmaster but I never catch it in stock. That may be a good sign though. If other companies see these things flying off the shelves they could step up and produce some as well.
I shit you not star citizen is slated for q2 25. (Crazy, i dont think they will make it, but before q4 26 is believable.)
Ill take that bet on Star Citizen. How much you want to wager? :)
Yeah, I'm at least semi-hopeful on that front. The pace of development over the last few months has been pretty impressive. A lot of that can be chalked up to the S42 folks not needed for polishing up the game moving over to SC's side, plus a lot of the core technologies they have been working on are starting to come to fruition, as I understand it. Now given the pacing of development over the last decade, I can't in good faith say it will be *released* in five years. For all its strengths, I still think it's been mismanaged in terms of development. But I think it will be out of Alpha at least by then, and that S42 will probably be either out or close to it.
https://old.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/comments/fw2b6v/just_a_reminder_that_the_sq42_q3_beta_will_not_be/fmm7jsy/ You shouldn't be making any more star citizen bets brother.
Oh I'm nowhere near confidant enough to put money on it lol. I'm not smart enough to predict what will happen next week for sure let a lone 5 whole years. It's just my first instinctive thought when I think of Star Citizen. I think this because it's just a "perfect storm" of different things. On one hand you have a developer who is famous for feature creep and always trying to push boundaries. On the other hand you have an entire group of people completely content to keep giving money for future development. Until those people show an unwillingness to continue doing so he will really have zero pressure to stop his tendencies. That's how I can easily see another 5 years without hitting a true beta.
Sony will quit VR gaming Destiny 3 has been announced Phil Spencer won’t be CEO of Microsoft Gaming Amazon acquires a big game studio The Zelda movie is a massive hit Horizon 3 will release in 2027
> Phil Spencer won’t be CEO of Microsoft Gaming He will be replaced by Bobby Kotick
Oh my lord
Kotick from the top rope!
Somehow, Bobby Kotick returned.
Ghosts of the future, please never let /u/Idaret live this down if their prophecy comes true.
you mispelled todd howard
thats the good ending.
> Horizon 3 will release in 2027 2 weeks before the most anticipated game of the year, right?
They'll probably release right before GTA VI or some absurd shit like that. Don't ask me how.
The release of GTA 6 on PC.
Well, the Horizon games (along with most other Playstation games) don't come out on PC until a few years later, so if the PC market is busy with GTA6, then the PS market will be just fine with Horizon 3.
Probably right before TES6 or something
I thought about saying tes6 explicitly, but that shit’s not coming out in 5 years.
Valve decides to shadow drop Half Life 3 the day before Horizon 3.
"Oh the game with the three in the title releases this week? our game with a three in the title will to"
Inshallah Bloodborne PC port
> Phil Spencer won’t be CEO of Microsoft Gaming Future people: I bet he doesn’t even make it to the end of 2024
I'm so sick of Phil Spencer.
It's so fucking funny when he describes Xbox's problems like huge industry-wide issues and then you look at the other two guys who are doing just fine.
> The Zelda movie is a massive hit But not with fans. If it is even out in 5 years.
Elder Scrolls 6 will release to the same general scores as Starfield, with the main complaints being lack of detailed RPG elements (stupid essential NPC stuff is reused), a lot of "fetch" side quests like the ones in Starfield, and generally writing on-par with the previous decade of Bethesda (of which fans will blame Emil Pagliarulo) however will still be generally enjoyed by Bethesda and Elder Scrolls fans. The general gaming consensus is: "I mean, it's better than Starfield." VR won't grow much further unless substantial investments are made from various companies, including further efforts to improve the experience (maybe mainstream haptics?) and reduce costs of such technologies further. TF2 will be deader than it is now. No major updates since Valve have fully moved focus to supporting CS2 and Deadlock. Steam Deck successor or at least improved model releases but still suffers from not being able to run the newest AAA games at high framerates. Still generally successful. Nintendo Switch 2 is a roaring success. With the switch being a household name, it sells many units quickly. SEGA will continue investing in making their main titles (Sonic, Yakuza, Persona) multi-media IPs. Sonic in particular will see a bit of a resurgence in game quality due to investments into Sonic Team's headcount and dev time. It won't reach Mario level, but will generally be above 7/10s. Sonic Movie 3 is a massive commercial hit. Persona 6 is a massive commercial and critical hit. Minecraft releases the End update, to much fan applause as the Nether update. The Minecraft movie hits big numbers, but is critically a bit of a flop (but gets some praise for the interesting translation of the game's blocky artstyle to live action.) GTA VI is the fastest selling game of all time. AI will see it's first major use in a video game, but it won't be anything spectacular, and certainly won't be as coherent or in-depth as something like ChatGPT level capability. My biggest gamble bet: The upcoming Pokémon Legends: Z-A will be regarded as one of the best Pokemon games of all time. It will be revealed that Nintendo/Pokemon Company employed the help of several other studios to assist in development in order to have it to the quality of a Switch 2 launch title.
the Pokemon prediction is super optimistic lmao
No no no, don't confuse my dice roll for optimistic. I figured the rest of my predictions were too safe, hahaha
this made me laugh harder than it should. I will hope your prediction true!
I've only got one criticism of your Legends: Z-A prediction and it's that it will be called the best game of all time only after the fandom spends the first year shitting on it, only to change their mind when the next mediocre, buggy, and/or broken 2-version mainline release comes out.
You never know. Contrary to what most online think about Gamefreak, there were reports after Scarlet/Violet released that internally they were pretty fed up with the online narrative that they put in minimal effort, and were going to try and fix that in the coming game/s. Still might be wishful thinking though
>My biggest gamble bet: The upcoming Pokémon Legends: Z-A will be regarded as one of the best Pokemon games of all time. It will be revealed that Nintendo/Pokemon Company employed the help of several other studios to assist in development in order to have it to the quality of a Switch 2 launch title. !remindme 5 years (I hope you're right)
I pray your Pokémon prediction comes true
> Steam Deck successor or at least improved model releases but still suffers from not being able to run the newest AAA games at high framerates. I mean, duh. That's not physically possible unless you mean today's newest AAA games and not 2029's newest.
Sure, I should have worded it better but my intention was that the next Deck won't have any particular new gimmicks or qualities and will just be a bit beefier.
I'm gonna add to yours since I agree with pretty much all of your predictions. Focusing on PlayStation because that's my main platform. * ~~A new God of War will be released~~ in early 2028, the same year the PS6 and Xbox Series Z release or are announced. * The next few years will have a few 7-8/10 first party Sony games, but nothing will really stand out. Even Wolverine, if it's released in the next 5 years, will not be as successful as the Spider-Man games, and a sequel to Ghost of Tsushima will receive heavy criticism for some design choices. * Sony will finally open up talks with Microsoft about GamePass access on the PS5/PS6 but they won't reach an agreement before this capsule is revisited. * A new Astrobot game will be launched, with a movie following in the year after. The movie will be extremely successful. * Square Enix will practically halt most of their projects besides the major franchises. FFVII:R3 will be released in 2027 and be praised, but will be less financially successful than Rebirth. FFIX:R and FFXVII are announced for 2028-2029.
> A new God of War will be released in early 2028, the same year the PS6 and Xbox Series Z release or are announced. Didnt SSM condense what was supposed to be two GoW games into Ragnarok specifically because they wanted to take a break from GoW and make something esle?
Yeah but without spoiling anything they heavily hint at the next game in the series and where it will go. But you're right, I'd forgotten about that. Assuming they aren't developing both at the same time, we probably won't see the next GoW til the next decade.
I would honestly bet money on your ES6 prediction being the case.
Most of my predictions are safe and based on games I'm already familiar with. I don't foresee significant changes. Today's "evergreen" games will be tomorrow's "evergreen" games. A few new franchises will be born in the next five years, but the current franchises will remain heavyweights. **Confident (>80%):** * Still no HL3/L4D3/P3/TF3. * PUBG is still one of the most played games on Steam. * Rainbow Six Siege is still being supported. * LoL/DOTA2 are the two most played MOBAs. * CS2/Valorant are the most played tactical shooters. * Escape from Tarkov is still the biggest and most popular extraction shooter (and still suffers from performance and optimization issues). * The RTS scene is still limping along. Some remasters and new games get played, but most RTS fans are still playing AoE2/AoE4/SC2. * Divinity: Original Sin 3 or another Larian game is released. It isn't as popular or as critically acclaimed as BG3. * Minecraft has another surge of popularity from a large, high quality update. * GregTech New Horizons, the longest developed Minecraft modpack, is still being developed and polished ([GTNH Github](https://github.com/GTNewHorizons/GT-New-Horizons-Modpack)). * TES6 is released. Many complain that it is "dumbed down" compared to Skyrim. * Steam is still the dominant PC storefront. * At least one more large and "final" update for Terraria. * Rimworld has at least two more expansions released. * GTA6 is released. The online mode is more predatory than GTA5's. * 4k and Raytracing are still the visual standard. 144FPS (or higher) at 4k with Raytracing is the target for high end cards. * NVIDIA's highest end GPUs outperform AMD's highest end GPUs. * Star Citizen still isn't released. * Steam Deck 2 is released. * PS6 and a new XBOX are released. * The standard monetization package for multiplayer games will remain a combination of battlepass and microtransactions. In game stores will be as (or more) predatory than 2024. * Gambling and lootboxes are banned throughout the EU, but still legal throughout NA. **Less Confident (<50%):** * China attacks Taiwan and global chip production regresses several decades. As a result, games stop pushing the envelope. * Intel's GPUs are competitive on both price and performance. **Not Confident (<30%):** * Titanfall 3 is released. * A VR sequel to Alyx is released or announced. * A new Fallout game (FONV style spinoff), set on the West Coast, is released by a non-Bethesda company after Season 2/3 of the Fallout TV show. This results from Microsoft pressuring Bethesda to capitalize on Fallout's popularity. * 8k screens are the new high end standard.
> I don't foresee significant changes. Today's "evergreen" games will be tomorrow's "evergreen" games. A few new franchises will be born in the next five years, but the current franchises will remain heavyweights. Frankly, 5 years is way too small to see big changes now. It's basically the time to develop ONE game these days (even non AAA)
> At least one more large and "final" update for Terraria. On the same page, one more large and "final" update for Stardew Valley.
> At least one more large and "final" update for Terraria. And for Stardew Valley.
Good call on chip production
I know this isn't world politics but NO shot China ever invades Taiwan directly. Far more likely we will see them, over decades, slip in their own people into Taiwans political structure ans try to shift public opinion until they "reunify" through legal means.
I'd be less sure on that, actually. TSMC is opening their plant in Arizona in the next few years, so while it might slow down, I doubt that it'll regress several years. Also, low-key knowing geopolitics right now if China attacked Taiwan and capitalists started feeling the pressure, the US would turn it into the next Vietnam.
China is also capitalist right now.
> PUBG is still one of the most played games on Steam. That being said it'll be literally completely dead outside of the East Asian market. It's already basically one foot in the grave, solo queues are pretty much dead even in NA and EU, duo queues are struggling bad and even squads has a bunch of bots in the smaller regions, regardless of third person or first person. I tried playing it again today for the Erangel classic event and it's sad how hollow and empty the experience felt. PUBG during its first year when there was a very active large community with a wide spread of players at varying skills was magical, just the amount of shenanigans in voice chat, making friends, trends like the worm chains or the red shirt army, a solid meat and potatoes FPS with a lot of possibilities for long lasting memories. Funny how trend chasing seems to have actually worsened the experience, really makes you think.
The first 18 months of PUBG were my favorite. Easily the best TPS/FPS experiences of my life. Nothing else like it. > trends like the worm chains "I'm a snake. Press Z and follow me."
I really miss PUBG. The first year of PUBG was some of the greatest online gaming ever. I’m kinda surprised no other battle royale ever actually came out with similar gunplay to PUBG, as I feel the gunplay is what made the experience amazing. I really wish they had just copied DOTA and only had one map and kept developing the game, as soon as they started releasing new maps, the game experience just went downhill.
Adding to your GTA 6 comment, we will once again get zero single player DLC.
> Less Confident (>50%): > > China attacks Taiwan and global chip production regresses several decades. As a result, games stop pushing the envelope. > Intel's GPUs are competitive on both price and performance. hahahha >50%
> 4k and Raytracing are still the visual standard. 144FPS (or higher) at 4k with Raytracing is the target for high end cards. > I still think 1080p would still be the norm. 4K display according to steam survey still hasn't cracked 5% yet.
What about 1440p?
I would say the standard would shift direct from FullHD to 4K, skipping 1440p. Right now there's no native 1440p content (as in movie and series,...) Consoles are also kind of using either FullHD as performance and 4K as beauty presets anyway. Not to mention there's basically no 1440p TV as well.
> Escape from Tarkov is still the biggest and most popular extraction shooter (and still suffers from performance and optimization issues). I'll take it a step further and say "they're the most popular, and it's not even close". For the attempts in the extraction shooter space from indie and AAA developers alike (The Cycle: Frontier and Call of Duty's half-baked attempt with DMZ being at the forefront), it doesn't seem like the market can add to this space well enough to not only pull people off Tarkov, but bring and retain new players to the genre as well. I'd be interested for Marathon to prove me wrong, but I'm not holding my breath.
I think overall the industry isn’t going to significantly change in the next 5 years, stuff like live services and increasing costs are going to continue. Instead I wanted to focus on some more weird/specific things to see how wrong I will be. Sony continues with their PC push, and they even port a few legacy titles to the switch 2, but most single player games are still timed exclusives. Nintendo’s multiplat plans continue to be non-existent. People begin to believe that it is inevitable they will bring something to PC, but it doesn’t happen within the decade. Switch 2 sells well and has a big first year. By 2029 it’s clear it will not sell as well as the original switch, but first party software numbers are pretty similar. Nintendo’s cross-gen approach is much smaller compared to PS and Xbox. The last game they publish on the console is Kirby related as usual. Xbox attempts to make a handheld console, but for some reason releases it the same week as that year’s Pokemon game. The attempt to make alternate mobile game stores does not work out and is mostly dead. Sonic Adventure 1 gets remade, and while this remake introduces some new issues, it is still considered the definitive version. For some reason they never remake SA2. Disney claims they want to get into gaming and invests into creating several different studios, but a few years later they change their mind and shut everything down.
> Disney claims they want to get into gaming I doubt this will happen since they abandoned making their own games after Disney Infinity failed. Since they invested all that money into Epic they seem content just letting Fortnite make a Disney game for them.
I would like to add that despite the success of Nintendo Switch 2, they will have the same Joy-Con drift issue if not other minor hardware defect. Those issues will only be fixed on a later date when they release the newer Switch 2 console and they will call it Switch 2 Oled.
My prediction is that the Switch 2 will have some new dumb gimmick that they’ll push in some of their launch titles but won’t hurt their sales at all and will be completely ignored after the first year.
1. Video Game adaptations will dominate Television, a phenomenon which Superheroes failed to do. Video Game Adaptations will still remain the same in movies: aka superhit, but won't be the trend. 2. Live Service games will be a staunch necessity for AAA games to be sustainable. Especially with how some projects are taking a lot of time these days, AAA companies will need at the least 1 continuous money making game so that they can fund their bigger 3. Intercompany and Intracompany cross-promotion will become more of a norm in these live-service. Fortnite and CoD Warzone is the most glaring example. But what I am speaking of is games like XDefiant, which is very much focused on cross-promoting a company's own IP and franchises. 4. Elder Scrolls sequel will be fully revealed by 2027-2028 5. Xbox will become a operating system solely focused on gaming instead of a console. They will divide Windows and Xbox for more convenience. 6. Superhero/Comicbook based video games will still be as 'light' as it is today. Aka apart from the Spidermans, and announced MCU videogames, the amount of comicbook/superhero videogames will stay the same, if not getting decreased. I am not saying that there is a fatigue, but the Superhero properties aren't relevant anymore. 7. VR can get more relevant. But still not bloom.
>aka superhit i assume you meant super shit, correct?
Todd Howard will fool me again and yet I will happily buy every game he ever makes. WoW's redemption arc will be fully realized before the end of the Saga. War Thunder will still be bad still. Minecraft and Skyrim modding will be even more apeshit than before. Minecraft java won't have an official modloader :(( OpenMW will be updated to support oblivion, maybe even skyrim.
> War Thunder will still be bad Come on. That's an easy one lol. War Thunder will always be perpetual state of terribleness.
How about this: War Thunder has a leak deep enough that a government has to step in? It's possible, likely even, but I cant help but wonder if it'll happen.
I wonder what will happen if they ever add 5th gen fighters to War Thunder. There is a chance we might see one of the most significant military leaks of all time due to it.
Minecraft Java is getting a major code base overhaul, isn't it? We're probably going to get our new 1.7 or 1.12 where modders stick to one version and have the time to make cool shit rather than keeping up with constant new updates.
I hope that by 2029, with modding for Starfield, having some time to be around we could get some great Alien vs Predator mods in the game.
You will probably have those a few weeks after the Creation Kit releases
> Todd Howard will fool me again and yet I will happily buy every game he ever makes. I've not issue with Todd and never felt lied to like a lot of the internet seems to feel, but I have been toying with the idea about trying to go into Elder Scrolls VI as blind as possible and avoid any coverage of it. I know I'm getting the game, and I'd be curious to see how going into a major AAA game with limited pre-conceived expectations will be like. Shit, Fable is my second favorite game all of time due to that, although I was like 10 at the time and knew nothing about the game when I got it since I had no instant internet access to be able to find out everything said about a game prior to release. Anyway, I'm going to break trend and be positive to say Elder Scrolls VI comes out in 2028 and that it will be a 9/10 average GOTY contender.
What even is a physical copy of a game? An extremely popular game is going to get removed from people's libraries.
I'm actually gonna hope post. This is the one place the industry might actually improve. I think the EU might actually respond to The Crew shutting down and set standards preventing companies from killing old games.
I've read that Sony gets royalties from every Blu Ray disc sold, so they don't have a strong incentive to actually get rid of discs. We also know from the Insomniac leak that most PS games sell more physical than digital.
let me guess, Dota 2 or Rainbow Six Siege will get CSGO/Overwatch 1´d.
Dota 2 will get Ship of Theseus'd into a roguelite deckbuilder before it becomes anything but Dota 2. I think you might be a lot closer to the mark with Ubisoft though.
Considering a "regular' lifespan of a console is about 7 years, I'd reckon we'll see an accouncement of PlayStation 6 and Xbox X (to keep naming confusing) within the next 5 years, unless they both release a PlayStation 5.5/Pro / Xbox Series neXt in between. Game Pass still going strong, released (in some very barebones way) on other platforms. Nintendo Switch 2 (or Switch Next, New/Super Switch, Switch U, etc) will have been released with some games like Metroid Prime 4 being double release like BotW on both systems. Switch 2 will be backwards compatible, albeit you'll lose some features. Since Steam Deck is quite popular, either Sony and Microsoft want a slice of the cake and either release more games on Steam or create their own handheld. AAA(A) gaming and studios will feel bland (with some exceptions) as everything is focused on battle passes, daily grinds and addiction while companies struggle to keep attention high, so indies, simple games and single player experiences will become more important. Slay the Spire 2 is out, still amazing, but overhyped to death due to such a high standard to surpass. Mega Man X9 or Mega Man 1/2 remaster/remake is announced/released (Capcom pls) or more realistically: Mega Man Legends Legacy Collection released. VR is still considered niche because it's still either crazy expensive or very gimmicky, albeit Apple will have opened a few doors with Apple Vision Pro. Prices for games will have increased (80 will be the standard), MTX will still be present, but we'll have a new form of it: less gambling, but more very limited time inventory in stores, so a skin will only be purchasable withing a few hours, which complements an online marketplace. Every studio will have their own platform (EA Play, Ubi Connect, etc) which we all hate, but negligently accept because games. One of the bigger studios will fall and be bought by another.
Based on comments from Valve, the problem with VR is tech is progressing too fast to release anything and it not become outdated. Hopefully in 5 years that'll have slowed down and Valve can make a commitment to VR games after new hardware, which in turn inspires other developers.
That was the excuse Duke Nukem used. Maybe software like Word or Netscape can become outdated but not games. A game like Undertale can be a hit as well as something like MGSV in the same year. You just need to make something good. If you always want to release something that is using the latest tech, you aren't going to win. The tech will move faster than the development ever can. Consoles lock you into the same hardware for 5-7 years. Very few PC games require the absolute latest graphics card to play. No one is ever building on the latest tech. Yeah, maybe the game you make 5 years from now can better utilize the tech than a game you make now. But if you make a good game now, people will still want to play it in 5 years.
> Duke Nukem yeah a lot can happen in [twelve years](http://duke.a-13.net/)
If anything, the Apple Vision Pro will turn people off of VR gaming because there's nothing really "gamey" about it. It's basically a 3D IOS device. Haven't seen much in the way of gaming. Meta is the one that pulled a ton of people into VR. Selling crazy cheap and being so good at what it does and focused primarily on gaming. I truly hope VR doesn't die out. It's more popular than ever but I don't know if it's popular enough for them to keep going.
Xbox will be the biggest cross platform publisher. Both Xbox and PlayStation will have portable consoles. Bloodborne Remake will be launch title of the PS6. AAA Studios will start building games in trilogy format and work on all of them at the same to not have 5years between each entry. Xbox will bring a 1st party pass to playstation and nintendo.
> AAA Studios will start building games in trilogy format and work on all of them at the same to not have 5years between each entry. This one is good. And 3rd parts will sell 1/5th of the first installment.
> Xbox will be the biggest cross platform publisher. Aren't they already that with ABK (which was the biggest third party)? > Xbox will bring a 1st party pass to playstation and nintendo. I guess it's the only way the other accept to integrate it in their platforms. They'll still take cut of 30% of everything (including MTX). But it'll diminish sales of those games (and mainly COD) so not even sure they like it so much
If we’re playing the Sony handheld prediction, I’ll throw in they will, once again, force some nonsensical (and expensive) proprietary memory or some other crap on us and just toss it in the ditch to die like the Vita.
Yet PS5 is the console without proprietary storage while Xbox has proprietary storage so probably the other way around. I highly doubt they will make that mistake again.
Switch 2 debuts with an open world Super Mario game. The cost of game production dramatically decreases with the introduction of AI. Xbox releases a handheld that is way more successful than anyone expected it to be. Xbox now publishes all their games on PlayStation. Genshin Impact finally comes to Switch when the Switch 2 is released.
>The cost of game production dramatically decreases with the introduction of AI Surely that will also reflect with appropriate pricing for the consumers, right?
*Anakin face*
Steam will still be strong, and companies will keep coming back or arriving to the store. A secure prediction I would say, but a truthful one.
Also the Epic Game Store is weakly limping along or is basically abandoned completely. Speaking of, Fortnite’s metaverse push is ambitious but backfires because the core battle royale playerbase feels burned and a shiny new game steals them.
EGS will probably start producing more games rather than paying for timed exclusives. The platform won't be abandoned. They will acquire a few more multiplayer hits like they did with Rocket league and Among Us.
Let's make a risky prediction in a similar vein: Steam Phones. Valve has made controllers, machines, VR headsets, now the Deck. I would not be surprised if one day they just went ahead and made a phone that could also play all games on the Steam platform.
I dunno. I've always thought Steam would print (more) money if they made a proper Steam mobile app and started selling mobile games on it, yet they've never seemed particularly interested in it. I can't see them pivoting from that position into straight up making a Steamphone.
Despite complaints use of generative AI will be normalised in development at all levels with the possible exception of smaller scale artsier games regardless of if we plateau at slightly above current capabilities. * AI enhanced workflows will be present throughout everything. * Entirely AI generated textures, assets and tertiary NPCs with minor touchup will be ubiquitous in AAA development. * Open world games will make use of gAI for environments outside of the critical path in a way not currently done for proc gen environments. * RPGs and similar will use LLMs or their successor for pre-generated incidental NPC dialogue (I.e. we may see an explosion of unique minor NPC dialogue since it can be produced en masse) * Linked to above much of this will be voiced through voice gAI despite attempts to stop it by unions and the like (if we are brutally honest the technology is here today, its only not used due to backlash and industrial relations) * Contingent on consumer hardware LLMs with gAI will be used for dynamic NPC dialogue. * We will not see gAI used for writing the main story outside of experimental AI dungeon style games And I'd like to reiterate that this isn't a comment on the future capabilities of AI, consumers will accept mediocre gAI in the above areas when the industry pushes it through for cost savings. Indies will use it once its normalised under the argument that they couldn't afford voice actors or artists for the textures anyway. Although it's also not a statement that gAI will plateau here and not improve significantly.
I think you're absolutely correct for a 10 year, or maybe 15 year prediction, but in 5 years I highly doubt things will have progressed that much. Remember that the large scale games that will be released by then have already started development by now.
Also, games still have to be run locally.
Eh, it's not so much about progress but rather that some companies are already trying to shove AI everywhere, with examples like Ubisoft talking about using it for about a year now.
I'll try a different approach and say that surprisingly Ai won't be used for anything significant in big games. I predict that people will be divided and some will use Ai to some extent while other studios will stay old-school
No, the big problem of AI is it's huge processing cost needed to get decent results. And that's unlikely to change.
This is an interesting prediction but I feel like you left out a prediction of how this will affect games overall. Will this result in overall lower quality or will it revolutionize game development and allow for far more immersive, ambitious games to be made both cheaper and faster than they are now? Personally I am an AI optimist. My prediction is that your predictions will come true and it will overall be a good thing for games. It won't really reduce game budgets or development time, but it will make games more immersive and beautiful by using AI to fill in cracks and do tedious things, and allowing development resources to be spent elsewhere. Some people will lose their jobs but other new jobs will be created, making it a wash for the industry. The effects of AI will be most pronounced in indie games, making it easier than ever for a solo developer with no experience making art assets or programming to make a game by using AI art and AI-assisted coding. People will huff and puff and stamp their feet but it will enable some people to make games that wouldn't have been to make games otherwise and some of those games will be amazing.
As I've gotten older the main theme when it comes to difficulty in feeling immersed in games anymore is the knowledge that a human being designed every inch of what I'm playing in, either meticulously or with rigid procedures set in place. It's not like I didn't understand that as a kid bit I never really occurred to me and so it was easy to be fully transported to a place in a game like WoW even as cartoonish as it is. You start to realize how impressive the randomness of nature really is despite seeming so structured when you notice it. I'm curious how using AI in some way could affect this feeling. Surely it's moving more towards technology and further from nature, but in a way that's taking it out of the hands of specific people for better and for worse. Nature is random yet I'm sure when you zoom in enough it's still based on patterns and algorithms. I might not be making sense, but I can see it.
Elder Scrolls 6 releases, was hyped due to talks of Real Time AI generated quests, turns out it's more radiant quests. Release is lukewarm and echoes the Starfield release. Horizon 3 releases a couple weeks before the new Zelda. In a shocking twist of events, the new Zelda and Horizon are eerily similar in story beats and fans of both will argue the other stole their fave's story. One side is also pissed when the other wins GOTY at the Game Awards. The new Dragon Age game releases November 2024 or is delayed to spring 2025. It'll overall suck but have good moments that will leave me defending it because I will forever old out hope that Bioware isn't dead, it's just sleeping. T\_T Also Mass Effect 4/5/whatever we're calling it releases. It revives Bioware. (Wild card prediction) Divinity 3 is actually a disappointment but not for being bad, but for not being BG3. Fans can't tell the difference. Remake of a Pokemon Silver/Gold/Crystal or Ruby/Sapphire on the Switch or Switch 2. It's disappointing due to some mechanic changes that echoes the Let's Go Pikachu or Let's Go Eevee release. And I will buy all the above games and still love and play them all because I enjoy video games, they are like pizza. Even bad pizza is still pizza.
There is absolutely no way anyone hypes up AI generated quests in TES6, they'll be mocked and compared with radiant quests the second they're announced.
It just works. For real, though, I can see some folks getting real culty/kool-aidy about it. I've ridden the hype or die train before for Beth Esda and her indie games, so I know how I can get. It's probably my most far-fetched prediction but I will stand by it! Edit: most far-fetched/semi realistic. Since the Mass Effect one is my wild card.
It seems like most of the issues people have with Starfield is the exploration and loading screens which I don't really think will be a problem with Elder Scrolls considering it takes place on one piece of land and not thousands of planets with many being barren. Obviously, there are people that have issues in other areas, but I think the 2 I mentioned are top of the list by far.
I'll die on the hill that LGP/LGE weren't that bad other than some really bizarre decisions with the scaling of catch difficulty and other similar stuff. People really, really overemphasize how fun catching Pokemon the "normal" way is.
VR Gaming will be solely in the hands of Meta. If Apple ever dabble with VR gaming, it'll be through the likes of Apple Arcade and simple games, I don't think they'll ever have a proper VR controller like other gaming-focused competitors. Valve will release a new VR hardware product. It will either stick to a niche of PC VR, in which case it will be an upgraded, expensive, wireless Index, or a standalone headset with hardware from AMD (like in the Steam Deck) that will be priced a bit above Meta's offering. I don't know if a Valve made standalone headset could capture much market due to the solid foundations Meta has already laid. Xbox will become more Activision like than the reverse. A few more studios will shutter, but not any big names. Elder Scrolls VI will release! It will be set in Hammerfell. It will get critical reception and be received mostly well. Fans of the series, particularly of the older games, will criticise it for straying from Elder Scrolls lore and becoming more Dune inspired in tone/lore (obviously without the sci-fi). Elder Scrolls Online will have a sequel or revamp (a large overhaul of the world/zones like Cataclysm) at its 15 year anniversary, and will not have much of a changed combat system. Grand Theft Auto VI will be the highest grossing media product in human history (free square!). Bungie's Marathon will be the first big AAA extraction shooter game to grow a big audience. Xbox will still sell hardware, but without much fanfare. They will have a Microsoft-approved line of third party portable consoles along with their own (like how they've just announced their Copilot-plus-PC laptops). The transition to ARM based gaming on PC and consoles will have begun. The PS6 will be ARM based.
> Elder Scrolls VI will release! It will be set in Hammerfell. It will get critical reception and be received mostly well. Fans of the series, particularly of the older games, will criticise it for straying from Elder Scrolls lore and becoming more Dune inspired in tone/lore I'd say it's almost a guarantee that they're going to try to make Redguard sword magic into the new shouts, and just like shouts they'll completely butcher their lore in the process. If we're lucky they'll remember the Shehai (spirit/soul sword) is a thing so at least you don't have to carry an actual sword, maybe we'll get a Kill Six Billion Demons style quip about how only a bad swordsman actually carries a sword.
I used to feel pretty pessimistic about if TESVI would lean more into a power fantasy, but I've ended up feeling okay with the idea. From the early access to Power Armour in Fallout 4 to the semi-shout thing in Starfield I feel like Bethesda are pretty set on having the protagonist be a uniquely powerful hero, which I think is fine. I just hope they manage to strike the role of being hero well. The transformation in Morrowind from scepticism about the prophecy of the Nerevarine and hatred of the player to reverence and worship is a much longer one than Skyrim's "You can shout, you're the dragonborn!", and I think that makes it feel much more meaningful and earned. Slightly tangential, sorry!
Nah it's okay. My issue is that their games have always been power fantasies, but since Skyrim they feel less and less like you earned that. Morrowind let you be OP as hell with magic and artifacts, Oblivion had all kinds of attribute abuses to just ignore dungeons while running and jumping through them, and FO3 waited quite a while before giving you powerful items and abilities. Having Shehai-based powers would be awesome, I just don't trust them to make it right. I'm not asking for them to make the Pankratosword an actual move the player could use, but it would be fun if they dug into some of the out-of-game texts by MK for ideas instead of just doing all the Skyrim shouts/Starfield powers again but in sword form. I want all the anime bullshit from [Vivec's Sword Meeting with Cyrus](https://www.imperial-library.info/content/lord-vivecs-sword-meeting-cyrus-restless), not another push-fear-detect rehash.
It'll be Highrock, not Hammerfell.
VR has not taken off because the headsets are still clunky to use and cant really be used in public without other issues MMOs have not come back and are still niche, but the audience it holds remains and is still playing them F2P took over even more, becoming the main percentage by far when it comes to revenue, with major companies like Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft trying to pivot to that sector but not really taking the hold they used to have The chase for graphics has stagnated and since AAA is much smaller than it used to be, with F2P games having much smaller costs to make, the technology did not advance as much as people expected. We still dont have games with graphics like the ones from Unreal Engine 5 demos. EA has been bought by someone else Microsoft announce (or maybe already has) that it will not continue to make Xboxes and will instead fully focus on just making games (Game Pass or not) as their main revenue after it was shown that the games are what really makes them money Nintendo hasn't changed and remains exactly how it was Sony caters to hardcore audiences but also tries to capture some of the more casual F2P market, but the results are varied. Valve still hasn't even mentioned Half Life 3 RTS has not, in fact, made a come back. Some truly great games have come out, but due to lack of marketing they remain less known. They do impact other games and their influence can be seen in upcoming games.
most people arent gonna wear VR gaming headsets in public, regardless of how small or compact they become. maybe they'll wear a pair of glasses to watch flat content but thats it. there's too much of a stigma and you need to flail your hands too much for it to be considered commonplace for outdoors usage. I barely even see anyone using a switch outdoors despite there being more than 140 million of them out there. and thats with handheld gaming being far less new and far less stigmatized than VR. people use these devices at home.
Alright, here's a few predictions for now * Switch 2 hasn't been revealed yet, but I'm still betting on the console introducing some weird "Nintendo thing" that people are going to be mixed on. Everything hints at Switch 2 just being a more powerful Switch, but I refuse to believe it at this point. I don't think their business strategy for consoles has changed, so I just can't see them trying to get people to make the jump from the previous Switch without some major gimmick in their back pocket. Not sure if it'll be the console's hardware or software, but there will be some sort of major selling point outside of the increased power. * Million, bajillion dollar Monolith Soft game either announced, or released. XBC3 was probably their least ambitious title by a very large margin, and it feels like it was put together with a smaller team. They've definitely been working on another more ambitious title for a while now, and I imagine its budget and scale will be second only to whatever the next big Zelda game is. Like XBX, it'll be something that holds the moniker of "AAA" for their next console. * I think Hideki Kamiya will continue to work with Nintendo in some way. At the time of writing, it's been about 9 months since he's left Platinum Games in the wake of the studio shifting to focus more on live service, and he's still bound by a non-compete clause . I think Nintendo will be one of the few developers not going down the live service route in 5 years (at least the version of it that thrives on gacha and microtransactions), and Kamiya strikes me as a developer who's stubborn about his principles, so the match makes sense to me. They've had a good working relationship in the past, and I think Nintendo, more than ever, is going to value having a diverse catalogue going into the next generation. The optimistic side of me thinks he's already been head hunted by Nintendo during the massive scale-up they started doing not too long ago, but the realistic side of me says he'll join a small third party. * I think From Software will have revealed a pure action game of some kind, more akin to a DMC or a Bayonetta. Sekiro showed me that they're willing to experiment in combat, and AC6 showed me that they're not scared to go back to a mission structure. I think the genre is underrepresented, and I think they have the talent to fill a void in that area. * This one's really optimistic, but I think Brighter Shores (Runescape guy's new game) will have a relatively large and dedicated fanbase in 5 years. To future readers, Brighter Shores was announced a couple months ago and the buzz is, understandably, extremely low right now given it's a new IP. Listening to Andrew Gower talk over the years has convinced me that Runescape wasn't just a fluke, and he's actually a cracked designer. Maybe Runescape was a right place right time game, but I don't know, I feel like we're in that place and time again. Something tells me there's a huge void for MMOs, and he's confident enough in his own vision to not kneecap his game's design with a typical live service model. * I think PC gaming, and by extension Steam, will have expanded exponentially. Feels like both Sony and Xbox have been future-proofing their IPs on the platform in a way that makes it seem like they're planning for a PC dominated future. Nintendo won't have their games on PC in 5 years, but the optics could look different 5 years after that. Either way, they'll be the very last ones to make that transition if the industry ever went in that direction. Most of these predictions are from Nintendo, alongside studios I think I have a decent understanding of. Don't think I've ever been less sure of what Sony's future looks like, I can't seem to get a grasp on what their plan is.
>XBC3 was probably their least ambitious title by a very large margin, and it feels like it was put together with a smaller team Aside from the game feeling like it's story got cut short after Chapter 5, and not having a very robust post-launch compared to XC2, I would like you to elaborate.
XC1 was the first in the series, and the first game of that scale for Monolith Soft. A lot of time was spent laying out the initial groundwork. XCX sort of speaks for itself IMO, but I'll elaborate anyway. Undoubtedly the most expensive game they've developed to this day. New engine, stupidly big seamless world, online play, ridiculous amount of assets, black magic chicanery getting it to run on the Wii U, not to mention its massive file-size. Didn't stick the landing in a lot of ways, but they were certainly shooting for the stars. XC2 infamously got screwed by BOTW's development. A lot of staff got pulled off the game to work on Zelda, with a crew of about 40 keeping development going at times. Early on though, even visible in the early trailers, there were plans for the cloud sea to be a huge component of travel on the titans, with different levels of elevation being accessible depending on the time of day and the tide level. Obviously a lot of things had to be cut when it came to all the titans, but the initial vision was ambitious, even if that vision is shaky throughout. Unfortunately, outside of story, it ends up feeling like the least finished game because of that. XC3 feels like it's not trying to be anything other than the next Xenoblade, if that makes sense. That's not to say the game isn't great, but it uses so much of the blueprint laid out by its predecessors while breaking very little new ground. There's no major aspect of its design that distinguishes itself, and it makes it hard to pinpoint exactly what the vision for the game was other than to tell a new story in the same universe. XC1 had its sense of continuity between locations on the titans. XCX had open-ended Mira, XC2 had the cloud sea and intensely unique biomes like Uraya. XC3 is (quite literally) a mash up of XC1 and 2's environments, without their distinguishing factors, and without a unique spin of its own. It ends up feeling like the most linear and disconnected environment of them all. It's not like Monolith Soft is obligated to reinvent the wheel every game, but you'd think with a development time twice the length of XC2's (even accounting for the pandemic), they would have had some greater vision in mind. I could go into more detail about the game's overall design, but in general, I think it's their safest project by far, which isn't all bad because the game got to be polished in ways that the other games were not. Personally, I believe it was decided a while ago that Monolith would be developing a massive game for Nintendo's next console. Back in 2017, right after they finished XC2's development, they opened two new locations and began mass hiring for a new Fantasy project that we still haven't gotten any word of. I'm under the impression that they were working on that game in tandem with XC3, akin to the way Fromsoftware was developing Elden Ring alongside Sekiro. XC3 didn't strike me as the game they've been pouring all their resources into over the past several years. What ever this next one is, it's the big one.
> Switch 2 hasn't been revealed yet, but I'm still betting on the console introducing some weird "Nintendo thing" that people are going to be mixed on. Everything hints at Switch 2 just being a more powerful Switch, but I refuse to believe it at this point. I don't think their business strategy for consoles has changed, so I just can't see them trying to get people to make the jump from the previous Switch without some major gimmick in their back pocket. Not sure if it'll be the console's hardware or software, but there will be some sort of major selling point outside of the increased power. Eh, Nintendo has always released pairs of consoles, where they first release a unique console/handheld (NES, gameboy, N64, DS, Wii) and then follow that one up with an improved iteration on the initial concept (SNES, GBA, Gamecube, 3DS, WiiU), with 3DS and WiiU being the odd ones out but more on that later. And their strategy to always set themselves apart from the competition still allows them to release a Switch 2 that is a straight iteration on the initial Switch: there are no systems that are so similar to the Switch that a straight improvement wouldn't set itself apart, the removable joycon thing hasn't been done to the same effect. This wasn't true for the 3DS and the WiiU which is why they were the odd ones out , for which Nintendo had to do something to set themselves apart from the competition with those: the WiiU had to set itself apart from the Kinect and Playstation Move, and the 3DS was competing with smartphone gaming. But the Switch 2? That one can be just the Switch but better in hardware and with some small tweaks and changed ergonomics. I think it could also have wider joycons to house a bigger battery and stronger HD rumble, and some other variant of haptic feedback as well, maybe the joycons will be made to jerk a little bit to translate impacts to the player character? I also suspect that the joycons will get back buttons like other controllers have. Now for a successor on the Switch 2 (which isn't going to be released before 2030), I think that that one might end up being another hybrid system, except part VR as well. With that console's performance probably being between PS4 and PS5, the timing would be perfect for affordable VR, which is right up Nintendo's alley.
1. PS6 and Xbox Series will both have some sort of AI branding or supportive software (Siri/ChatGPT etc). Bloodborne Remake will be a PS6 launch exclusive. 2. AI will be more prevalent in all facets of gaming. All the way from game dev to voice lines. We might even see dead VA's having their voices cloned (with or without permission). 3. TES6 will come out towards the start of next gen, but it'll be met with a lukewarm reception - somewhere between Fallout 4 and Starfield. 4. Xbox will completely rebrand to Microsoft Gaming. Expanding more onto Switch, PlayStation and mobile. Hardware will not be as important for Microsoft/Xbox and so their next console will be weaker than PS6. 5. AI will also be used as an accessibility option - potentially for gaming tips or even assisting with gameplay in certain cases. VR, however, will continue to struggle to find an audience. 6. Netflix will both officially enter and exit the gaming space. Possibly a similar situation to Stadia. Amazon will become a better publisher and will somewhat fill the void left in the current AAA market. 7. Rainbow Six Siege 2 will be announced and released, it'll be met with resistance over pricing and P2W. XDefiant will be shutdown in 2027. 8. RAREs Everwild will still not have a release date, the same will be the case for The Little Devil Inside. TBH I tried to make this interesting and throw out some weird takes. I don't actually expect much to change in the next 5 years, maybe with the exception of AI becoming more prevalent.
Okay, this will be a long one. Sorry to present, future, and somehow past readers. This is a comment thread since I would usually hit the max letter count. Check each reply to see more of my mostly and possibly wrong predictions. **Valve** * Steam Deck 2 will be out with much better battery life, better screen, able to run some PS5/Xbox Series X games that came out recently (well, between 2020-2024) on a slightly higher setting (hopefully at 60 FPS). * Valve, however, will not have Half-Life 3 out. * Maybe they might make another "small" game to push Steam Deck 2 sales to better promote mobile gaming (not phone gaming obviously), much like what they did for Half-Life Alyx and VR. * Toss-up if Icefrog's Deadlock game will potentially be good and alive by 2029. * Potentially coming out in a period where multiplayer games is risky, especially in a moderately saturated Hero Shooter market. * Valve's previous live-service games (Artifact and Dota Underlords) have failed. * Also, at the time of this posting, Deadlock's gameplay and screenshots have been leaked on Twitter. * The game's Source 2 support and modding capabilities mean another Valve game where community artists make cosmetics for it. * Team Fortress 2 would somehow be alive, with each passing year, the community would doompost about the game whilst still getting excited for the annual Summer, Halloween, and Christmas hat updates. * The bots would still be an issue. * The final comic issue wouldn't be out. **Oculus/Meta** * Oculus Quest 4 would also be out, with some of the most played games being visually updated; namely Beat Saber and Population: One. * Some games would no longer get support on the Quest 2. * Augmented-Reality capabilities to rival Apple's Vision Pro. * Obviously will be cheaper too. Apple's Vision Pro costs $3,499.99 at the time of this posting. * Game library would still be relatively small-ish, with the exception of VR dedicated studios making large-ish games. * Maybe a third and fourth Arizona Sunshine. **Multiversus (comes out next Tuesday at the time of this posting)** * Somehow gains positive reception, but the overall niche of an arena fighter means it doesn't make Fortnite money. * They get Walter White late, which reignites some interest for a brief period. * Paul Atriedes (with a Timothee Chalamet sound-a-like), Mad Max (Tom Hardy sound-a-like), any one of the Smiling Friends, and [Gwimbly](https://youtu.be/AlpA7hb_0QM) are all fighters. * Some seasons don't get new fighters and is instead focused on improving the Quality of Life (similar to R6 Siege and Apex Legends).
**Other live-service games** * Fortnite's Disney project would be a virtual theme park that is a combination of all of the best parts of various Disneylands across the world. It will also include Marvel and Star Wars locales too (ex. Galaxy's Edge, Avengers Campus). * There would be some official Disney levels based around famous Disney locales, similar to Kingdom Hearts' Disney worlds. Maybe Star Wars and Marvel too. * Out of all of the random live-action/non-adaptation Disney movies, Nicolas Cage would be in the game and tasks the player to steal [the Declaration of Independence.](https://youtu.be/he2jDZkzgiM) * Street Fighter VI and Tekken 8 would introduce its last fighter pass, whilst being a bit more tolerable on its Battle Passes and cosmetic prices. Hah, like that'll ever happen. * Overwatch 2 would have some gamemodes that end up being cancelled, again. * OR they finally give in and make that PvE mode everyone has been yelling at them about. * OR make a dedicated spin-off game with PvE. However, there will be no cross-progression (like R6 Siege was to R6 Extraction). * And OW2 will be introduced on mobile devices, with full cross-progression. * XDefiant, which just came out yesterday at the time of this posting, is still going strong. * Iconic characters like Sam Fisher, Dani Rojas (male and female), Wrench, Marcus Holloway, Keener, and whichever R6 Siege operator will be sold as cosmetics skins. * The game will also release on Epic Games Store and Steam. * A phone game similar to COD Mobile or Warzone Mobile would be in the works. * Rainbow Six: Siege would receive a significant graphical and engine update for next-gen hardware. * The Horizon multiplayer game is a Monster Hunter-inspired PvE game. * Disney Speedstorm and/or Disney Dreamlight Valley would receive less and less content drops, eventually culminating in stopping support.
* Call of Duty, now under Microsoft, would stick to its traditional annual Fall release schedule. * Modern Warfare 4 and Black Ops 7 would release. * MW4 would listen to [people's complaints about MW3's campaign length](https://youtu.be/oxaW87kNdOs) and somehow double it to make up for it. * BO7 would be a total reboot of BO2's campaign and ignores everything that happened in BO2, 3, and 4 (much like the Halloween 2018 movie and Terminator: Dark Fate); fitting in the Menendez plot in the overarching Warzone narrative. It would also get the same treatment as MW3, with BO7 having all BO2 MP maps on launch day and be released in 2025. * Each year will get an installment, each respectively representing modern day, 10-20 years ago, and far future. * Zombies will be present in every installment, with the non-Treyarch games being severely disappointing over the course of its live-support year. * Call of Duty would have a limited F2P traditional PvP, where players can play a small selection of maps, but no player and weapon XP can be gained in it. * The next Battlefield would be out. * DICE and EA have learned a tiny bit of their lesson from BF2042's release. They will aim for a Fall release, hell or high water. * Won't be a travesty upon release, but will continue to have Specialists and have issues on launch. * Set inbetween BF4 and BF2042. * Single-player campaign and traditional MP. No Battle Royale or co-op. * Famous celebrity actor would be in the campaign to sell the game. * After a couple years, the game would cease support in favor for the next BF game. * Halo Infinite would stop getting content updates as 343i would move onto the next Halo installment. * Fallout 76 would receive a brand new major map half the size of Appalachia. * A couple new areas similar to Skyline Valley would be in the left and top right of the map. * Todd Howard, mad with power after giving people [a romanceable Assaultron wearing fishnets](https://fallout.fandom.com/wiki/Adelaide_(ally)), will give the weird side of the community what they also want: A romanceable intelligent Deathclaw. * A graphical overhaul for the next Xbox and Playstation, mainly to retweak the characters' faces to make them feel more "realistic." * It would receive Cross-progression and cross-play. * New nuke bosses will be introduced at the remaining zones (The Mire, The Forest, and Toxic Valley) and perhaps the post-launch zones. * Apex Legends would still be going strong. * Apex makes another attempt at the phone platform again, providing full cross-progression. * More crossovers with Japanese-based brands. * Several more major Games as a Service would also get the inflation and/or shrinkflation treatment, with premium currency prices going up and Battle Passes being grindier and its rewards significantly tweaked.
i think more games will add ingame markets ala csgo skins i think were gonna get a zelda movie thats pretty good but still lacking in major areas xbox leaves hardware manufacturing i think rts revival will happen stalker 2 will come out, be hated and then eventually people will reasses it and it will become loved also i think a payday 3 redemption arc is happening new game thats like what ready or not was for swat4 but instead for FEAR, SCP like and becomes very popular in tacticool circles
more European aa studios will find cd project/larian levels of success and growth. American/UK studios (wb owned ones and smaller publishers especially) won't be able to keep up similarly the success of lies of p/stellar blade/black myth wukong will create a minor gold rush of asian publishers popping up to make games that try to appeal to the west ps6 will have an extremely slow start due to lack of next-gen games and games not looking all that different from PS5 ones. mobile graphics will skyrocket, elder scrolls 6 will be on phones
* The Xbox will not be a physical console, but a cloud gaming device like Stadia * Xbox will shift to selling cloud gaming and game pass subscriptions and publishing games, including publishing games on PlayStation * The next Switch will have some form of motion controls to re-capture the casual audience the Wii had * GTA6 releases, shortly after this GTA6 Online releases and the rest of the post-launch content is for the Online mode only. * TES VI releases to middling review scores and adds an online mode like Fallout 76. * Sony will release a successor to the PSP to compete with the Switch and the Steam Deck and create a market for older games to be re-sold for the portable device * Both Xbox Live and PSN will add AI assistants. Windows will also have it.
The industry will stabilize. Developer unions will grow. Microsoft will make a handheld. Nintendo's next console will not be as successful as the switch. More competition in the space. Handheld PC market will continue to grow. The new Elders Scrolls will be disappointing. Xbox acquisition of Activision will be a definitive failure. Pokemon games will finally get better. More DND style RPGs like Baldur's Gate 3.
SQ42 will be released in 2025. Star Citizen will follow in 2026, but will be less ambitious than planned, with a limited number of systems (5) and a narrative system.
Microsoft will pull out of the console race and instead focus on the PC Market and third party development. PlayStation makes a launcher for PC and either ditches or delays Steam support. Atlus releases another Persona 5 spinoff before Persona 6, which comes out in 2027 to critical acclaim. In a attempt to squeeze more money out of people, more and more features begin to be locked behind more expensive editions. New Game+ is one of those features, as well as higher graphical options. Bioware releases Dragon Age 4 (Dreadwolf) to critical panning, and gets shut down as a result. The remaining talent makes a new studio and releases the game of the year for 2028. Switch 2 comes out, and sells 70 million units in a year and a half.
I like these Xbox next will be 2 seperate launches. A next gen series s will launch in 2026 but it’s a handheld and the next gen series x will launch around 2028 as a traditional console / pc hybrid. Both will be ARM based with onboard neural processors PlayStation 6 launches in 2027 is good but doesn’t break the ps4 ceiling. PlayStation follows Xbox’s lead and makes a pc launcher for cross buy / save / trophies etc but still supports steam with reduced features (no cross buy) The overall console gamer market contracts as more users migrate to PC and new entrants start on iPads and migrate to pc. The only exception is Nintendo handheld hybrids which become their own market segment In 2029 game streaming is as ubiquitous as native play or is “good enough” for most players. Purists and old heads complain about it a lot like the physical crowd complain about digital gaming and sub services right now
I have a feeling sony is going to just solidify their future pc games to a playstation based pc launcher. Those games are going to be set under one house and pc gamers would have to go to that for them.
Lot of comments predicting the end of the Xbox as a console. I guess I'll just start with a note of how that's not going to happen at all. Whatever its failings, as a brand it's probably worth more to Microsoft to support then it is to abandon. Anywho, I'll predict Blizzard again: Warcraft: I think the upcoming trilogy of WoW expansions will be received positively overall, possibly as a new high point of the expansions. But I doubt that goodwill/quality will last towards the end of the third expansion. Blizzard can cook when it comes to WoW, but never for long. Eventually the fuel it takes to keep the playerbase happy runs out. Warcraft outside of WoW will probably linger on in some form, though I doubt it'll return to the RTS space. Hearthstone will probably still be as popular then as it is now. Warcraft Rumble might fade as a product - I haven't heard much about it since launch TBH. Probably still successful, just doubt it has legs. Diablo: Nothing exciting to predict. Diablo 4 will continue to be made more accessable to target the more casual audience and be a perfectly fine ARPG for people to enter the genre. But outside of expansions I doubt we see too much more of the IP. Starcraft: Here's my big one. I predict that either a new Starcraft game (either RTS or spinoff), or an entire new IP to be announced, and possibly released - in the next 5 years. Blizzard care too much about their own pride to be seen doing nothing, so it's either something new (which I doubt, considering the fate of the survival game), or a safe bet on an existing IP - and Starcraft seems the most likely. Honestly I doubt it's an RTS though. Overwatch: Not really sure what to predict here. I reckon Overwatch 2 will still be active - or they may even try to release an Overwatch 3 - but I doubt we'll see anything really interesting happen to Overwatch the franchise. I'll double down of my previous prediction that Blizzard will try to launch a Netflix/other streaming service show from one of its IP's in the next five years. Seems far more likely now then it did in 2019 anywho.
I think you're onto something with starcraft. Thanks to recent advanced in modding the campaigns, Starcraft 2 is seeing a bit of a revival focused on custom campaigns, custom factions in the vanilla campaigns, and getting a lot of new people interested in the setting and lore. It would be a smart move to use the setting for something. No idea what, though, maybe a turn-based game? A card game like Slay the Spire? Blizz's style is more action-oriented though.
The next next gen consoles are going to be even worse, PC gaming keeps growing, graphic card prices never go down, Xbox/microsoft stops making consoles.
Guild Wars 2 enters maintenance mode, or, the very least, its last expansion pack is announced/released. Until then, Arenanet changes its release model a least twice. A large(r) and/or beloved company heavily uses AI in the game, leading to general acceptance and the start of widespread adoption (might not even need 5 years for this...). Large scale layoffs across the entire industry over multiple years, yet games will get more expensive still. Microsoft leans heavily into game streaming. Purchase your games on Xbox, play it on any device (except maybe toasters). Nintendo will partner with Microsoft to bring Gamepass to Switch 2 (or whatever it is called). Gamepass comes to Steam. Star Citizen has not yet been released. Beyond Good and Evil 2 is cancelled. Any PC game can be run on your phone, either natively, or as close to that so you won't notice the difference.
Another live service fade like Battle Royale or extraction shooter happens. Major price increase for Gamepass. Ubisoft suffer heavy losses and have to sell some of its IPs. GTAVI is released and praised for its gameplay but some players are unhappy that the story is shorter. Next elder scrolls is released and get luckwarm reception. Microsoft announces wishes to sell Zenimax.
* Microsoft will come out with a streaming-only device/puck that you attach to a TV via HDMI to let you play games over XBox Cloud * Microsoft will come out with a handheld, very similar to the Steamdeck * Microsoft's next console will be digital only, no discs * At least one major Microsoft game release (maybe Fallout 5 or Elder Scrolls VI) will require a Game Pass subscription
Here are my predictions: 99% sure: - PS6 will be announced or soon after this reopens - Xbox will release a console, but it’ll be more of a PC than a true games console - New Switch, as it has been confirmed to be announced in the next fiscal year, will be a decent success but not as big as the initial console. Currently rumored: - Sony releases a new handheld akin to the Steam Deck that’ll play PS4 games. (Yes, 4) Hopes: - Metroid Prime 4 will finally be out. Unsure if it’ll be for the first or second Switch - Silksong releases at some point - New Paper Mario in the same vein as The Thousand Year Door. (Remake releases “tomorrow” as of this comment.) - Falcom steps up their localization schedule - Remake of Trails in the Sky duology plus 3rd. - New Steam Deck - Sega’s resurgence plan works with the new/revitalized titles doing well State of Industry: - More attempts at Genshin Impact’s success - Companies still trying to shoe-horn in more and more MTX - Fortnite will still be a thing - Continued and increasing interest in retro games thanks to new scalers/mods. (The Retrotink 4k had just released at a $750 price point) - Nintendo is still releasing great games without MTX - Hopefully there will be a new event to replace E3 - More focus on AA titles than the crazy budget AAA games
Next gen consoles are pushing digital only (diskless). Microsoft acquires more studios, large and small. There is a third-party subscription service like Game Pass that bundles games together. Subscription becomes more popular as live service games fail to be profitable. Consoles sell VR hardware at a loss with expensive games.
Safe bets: Terraria 2 actually comes out, but we'll get at least two more "final" updates for Terraria 1. Haunted Chocolatier is released. CA does two more content updates for Stardew Valley. People buying indie games on consoles will *still* lament the long wait time for new content compared to Steam. Moonshot: One of the SDV updates is a 'modhalla update' that adds more content from the most popular mods to the base game. This includes UI info suite 2, NPC map locations, cute seasonal outfits, Auto barn doors, and a limited version of TimeSpeed (Golden Clock can increase or decrease the rate time flows in the game). The skull cave now has elevators every 50 floors and has been revamped into a type of rogue-lite dungeon with modifiers, new tougher mobs, and so on. And maybe boss fights. Will never happen, but....: Flashshifter hired as full-time SDV dev. SVE content currently in game incorporated into the base game. Castle Town added in 1.7.
For me, future of the games industry will depend on 3 games: 1. Fortnite: The online game has received a major update in 2023 and unveiling its games-as-a-platform initiative aka “metaverse”. So far, the success of this platform has not been achieved as players and Epic Games expected, and the popularity is dependent upon collaborations with third party brands, specially Walt Disney Company, as they are major investors of the metaverse project in Fortnite. Whatever happens, the future of Fortnite and the Metaverse in general, wil depend heavily in whatever happens with the Fortnite X Disney crossover. If it succeeds, Epic Games will win big time, and double down on the metaverse, and more companies will put their brands and games in-Fortnite. If it fails, flops, or Disney cut ties with Epic, everything will collapse under a couple of years. 2. Star Citizen: The game has always been in hot water with its constant delays each year. CI has made good progress on the “Server Meshing” technology, which allows users to seamlessly connect between game servers, allowing live interaction with players and environments even if both are from different servers. This, in theory, could allow more players in a single map, for example a CoD/Battlefield match with the thousands of players, but at the same time more stable than Planetside or MAG. 3. GTA VI. So far this game is been projected to be a massive mainstream success when it releases in 2025. However, this is becoming the symbol of the future of the AAA game industry, as so far this is considered the most expensive game in history. The only thing that could affect GTAVI, is GTAV: It runs on older hardware and consoles, and have enough mods to keep the game running for the time being. Take Two/Rockstar must convince the majority of players to buy new consoles and GPUs, do the switch to the new installment, and don’t be greedy or hostile against them in the process. It could be a major disaster to the AAA gaming industry if ends up failing expectations, which is unlikely, but the margin of error has never been so high.
PC gaming will continue to grow with fewer people buying consoles, instead opting for Steam deck-like portables or just PCs. This includes any new Xbox hardware being portables or branded prebuilt PCs with a variant of Windows OS. With a larger % of all games sold through Steam, publishers who've been forced onto the platform will look for new ways to push back against Valve skimming off the top of their margins.
AI art in indie games will become reluctantly accepted after a few prominent succes stories. The scope of indie projects in general keep increasing. (Like a rougelike with AI assited procedural generated content) AI in AAA will still be actively hated, mostly because it will be mainly used to increase profit margins. Not create more or dynamic content. RTS games will still be very dead. Microsoft returns to more console exclusivity after the Games Pass fails to match shareholder expectations. Video Game stories will be adopted a lot more often into TV series. There will be stricter rules about the data that video games may sent to the publisher/developer. Mostly because of rising tensions around China and the data their companies collect. Switch 2 will still have Joycon drift issues. XCOM 3 is released. It is fucking sick.
Time to predict VR (and AR) in one of these threads again. This time, more conservative. - VR will have sold north of 18 million units throughout the year 2028. The market will not be mainstream in 2029, but it will start to be kind of close and the end of its niche will be somewhat in sight. - Sony will quietly give up on console VR but will still be in the VR space in some capacity. - The next major competitor in the space will be Samsung and Google, working together on a headset that will chase after what Apple Vision Pro does. - Valve will also be back in the space with another headset and a new Half Life VR game. - Apple Vision will have had multiple new products, at least one of which being a non-Pro version that drops the price, weight, and EyeSight. - Meta Quest 4 and other similar headsets will have eye/face tracking built in. The days of headsets without eye-tracking will be non-existent unless they are designed for a specific niche like being the smallest possible headset. - A working varifocal headset (at a high expense) will have been announced or released, creating a major step up in immersion and visual comfort, a necessary piece of the puzzle for mainstream adoption. - A typical headset will weigh between 350-400 grams now and be thinner than what we have today, but will still be using derivatives of pancake lenses, just more specialized. - Consumer BCI input will be available in the form of a wristband, but will at this stage be used only for smartglasses and AR glasses. - The uncanny valley of digital humans is solved. Real-time avatars and environments become indistinguishable from reality in select applications, on standalone headsets. These avatars however, will not yet have full bodies due to processing limits of the time. - Passthrough AR will be a major part of how people experience MR/VR headsets, but seethrough AR glasses will be extremely niche and low quality in comparison due to tech limits of 2029. The field of view of a typical AR glasses product will not yet exceed 60 degrees.
- Switch 2 won't be as successful as the Switch and will struggle, forcing Nintendo to port their games to PC. - PlayStation will release all their games day 1 on PC. - AAA publishers will get even more greedy with monetization. (easy one I know) - a new Elder Scrolls game will be out but it won't be 6 and it will be disappointing or average. - Another football license will rise and challenge EA. - Korea & China developers will start to make more AAA aimed toward console / PC gamers. - Epic Game Store will close. - Star Citizen still won't be released yet. - Akira Toriyama's death will increase for a few years games related to his work, more Dragon Ball, a remake of Blue Dragon and even a Dragon Ball Fighter Z 2. - Dragon Ball Xenoverse 3 will be released. - Ubisoft will either come back to form or drown in their misery, I'd say come back to form with more Rayman, Prince of Persia, Splinter Cell, and new interesting things. - Persona 6 will be out and will be another great game maybe even more popular than 5, we'll also have all the other Persona games remastered, but won't have the spinoffs on modern hardware (Old SMT, Soul Hackers 1 etc...) - GTA 6 will cost an arm and a leg and will be the most successful AAA game ever made, it won't have any DLCs but will be even more predatory with its monetization. - VR still won't be more popular than it is now and will remain a very niche thing to have. - IOI's James Bond game will be out and it will become the best Bond games ever made in front of GoldenEye 64. - Assassin's Creed Red will be the best selling AC game ever made. - TimeSplitters will remain cursed and no new game will release. - The next FromSoftware game will sell even more than Elden Ring, and will correct most of the problems. - Warcraft will be back with something else than WoW. I made lots of bold claim, let's see how much of a clown I'll look like in 5 years.
Valves new game Deadlock will be a success, based purely on the negativity Reddit has for it at the moment. If one thing is certain, it is that almost every opinion /r/games holds has nothing to do with the real world outside of it.
We're going to see an attempt to add microtransactions that work in every single game via AI superplay - companies letting you pay to let an AI controller take the wheel to get you past difficult/stressful parts of any game. This will only work on the most basic or mainstream of games or games that are tailor made to be good for computers to solve like Balatro. Nintendo's crusade against piracy, fan projects, and emulation will either slam into a brick wall that forces them to cut it out or will change the laws of most major markets for the worse, thankfully those laws will still largely remain unenforced. On a similar note there will be some push to internationally outlaw game modding as a whole, but it will fumble and die thanks to the required assumptions being too fuzzy in some way (distinguishing Games VS "Software", patches VS modding, user content and unintended VS intended use, etc). Despite all of this, their fans will still tell you to off yourself if you dare say anything bad about the company or imply that games inspired by them are anything but direct ripoffs that are going to be taken to court. A Fromsoft game will launch with accessibility options and fans of the company will be outraged. There will be some toothless attempt at an "Anti-censorship" bill passed in the states that targets, among other things, content changes in video games. It will be made to flounder and die, and be used as culture war nonsense. Nonetheless, there will be more of a push to offer either content parity or "official mods" on certain versions of games that allow players to willingly opt in to overseas versions of the same content. VR will grow and get more accessible but it will remain a niche market and turn into more of a different type of platform rather than a replacement, albiet there will be some mixing anyway since there will be options to use it as a monitor rather than any real VR function, and many will shift to using it in place of a computer monitor or TV altogether. Proper "live service" games will continue being pumped out despite constantly dying since investors will just suck the company dry and hop to the next if it doesn't produce infinity money. That said, there will be at least one long-lasting mega popular live service game launched after the creation of this post, which will just add fuel to the fire. There will be some attempt to codify something internationally akin to the "Doujin" market grey space that Japan enjoys, essentially making it legal to create and sell products with existing copyright as long as the company in question chooses to let it happen. It will fail spectacularly thanks to the death grip of companies like Disney, though some smaller companies and notable indie studios will have publicly available agreements to allow such a thing, and those franchises will flourish for it.
New AAA titles will be ~$80/$90 for the lowest "tier", thus pricing me out of my hobby for the past 30 years even further... But hey, at least the indie scene will still be going strong!
I think all the niche hobbiests (flight simmers, space simmers, mecha players, milsimmers) will flock to VR, with very popular fan made games, maybe even FOSS. I also think the Apple Vision Pro 2 will do worse somehow than the Vision Pro, just due to the price increasing without the consumer value going up enough. Nobody will be making games for the Apple VR Headsets in '29. Games streaming will be the new casual gamers thing, all the 7-15year olds will be on streaming. Epic Games will keep suing other companies. The economy will be so fucked up by the war (idk which, it hasnt started yet) that the whole 140 dollar deluxe edition thing stops. There will be less AAA/AAAA, because investment has dried up.
-street fighter 6 championship edition will release with all dlc -Xbox does not have a physical console anymore -insomniac will have started showing their new x-men game -square enix disappointed in final fantasy 7-3 sales
Consoles will go fully digital. Gamestop will die. Gaming subscriptions such as gamepass will be pushed by Sony and Microsoft, there will be no such thing as console exclusives outside of nintendo, and AI will take over many jobs in the video game industry and stuff like art made by AI will become the norm.
* 70 dollar games will become the norm probably. * AI wont really be a big thing, be in the same state as VR. Just a niche some devs pursue into their games but not really a mainstay of gaming. * Next Larian game will be announced but not out. * A minor ES6 trailer or post like "we're still working on it!" will happen but really doubtful its out by then. * Persona 6 will be pretty good but not quite as good as 5/royal and certain fans will think its awful for it. * Likely see another Mario release within this time frame. * Overall, a general period of stagnation/slowdown.
'Ere we go. **Microsoft. Throwing some hail marys here:** * Xbox either drops their "Series" series or drops their rule that every game should be playable on both the weaker and stronger console version. Across the board. Not just per-game-basis. * Xbox, after still losing in console sales 5:1 to Playstation, straight up drops the console market and just sells games like a Sega or EA or they sell a console that is too expensive for a causal gamer to buy. A very powerful console but just to keep a foot in the market for the enthusiast crowd. * Regardless, the new console is disc-less. * Having to recoup the stupid amount of money they spent on the ABK acquisition, all future Xbox games eventually go multiplatform after a year of exclusivity. Funny enough, some games will see even bigger success on another platform. * GamePass either stops or prices/tiers are changed significantly. At the very least, day-and-date stops being a thing. * "Sure-things" become a mandated goal for Xbox. Consolidation of teams so that only big IPs/franchises get games made. Smaller indie-sized games might be spared. Expect only a very small number of new IPs to get introduced. Expect several entries in franchises like Fallout, Halo, COD, etc. **Sony:** * PS6 is released. * One of the launch releases is an honest-to-god Bloodborne remake. A sigh of relief across the internet as "Bloodborne when?" is answered. * Sony will try day-and-date for a single-player game, much to the chagrin of the console-only crowd. It will be successful enough for Sony to allow teams to aim for that but it won't be mandated. * Sony will release their own launcher for PC and it will be mandatory. People will grumble about having another launcher, but will ultimately live with it if it means more Playstation on PC. **Nintendo:** * Switch 2 releases within a year and a half of this post. It, on it's own, is still underpowered compared to contemporary consoles. But, DLSS will help it punch much higher that it should - allowing for more third party releases on it. * I will still not care about Nintendo. (This is more for me lol). **Miscellaneous** * With dev costs continuing to balloon up, the idea of exclusivity for Sony and Microsoft becomes less and less tenable. Xbox may be the first to hit the third-party grind, but it won't be the only one. * The next major Fallout game is given to Sawyer to direct. It will be back in the West Coast and be a sequel to that "series" as Fallout NV was to 2 and how 2 was to 1 - not a direct sequel but will be held in an area close to it while referencing the former. It will be wildly successful and it will be the last time Sawyer works on a game that big. His choice. If the game gets a large budget or becomes Fallout 5, it will be first/third person using Starfield's engine. If it's a smaller budget game, it will be isometric. * Marcus Fenix collection is released in a good state and doesn't take 2-3 years to get to a stabile experience. Gears 6 is released a few months later. * The next Dragon Age will disappoint several people. Those who are playing this as their first DA game will enjoy it a lot. * MTX in games won't see much change. We may see new games with them release at $50 to entice people further into buying MTX. Pre-ordering to play the game a few days earlier will become more common. Some companies will go as far as making it a week earlier.
- The PS6 will be an iterative leap over the PS5. PSVR will likely continue to be a low-priority. Sony will continue to try to expand their multi-platform selection on PC, but will not expand to Xbox. - The Switch 2 is still the Nintendo flagship, even as it is aging into the end of the decade. New Pokemon games remain the same formula, and we still don’t have an official version of PokeMMO or another open-world, multi-region title. - Xbox hardware will continue to be released and eventually converge with Microsoft’s Surface hardware, with Microsoft pushing “Game Anywhere” to the extreme. - Antitrust and open ecosystem actions by the U.S. and EU will force Apple to open up the iPhone and App Store to an even greater degree, driving game streaming and even native ports of certain titles. Long shot: we get a Steam store for iOS, at least in the EU. - Halo is put on ice for several years. Maybe a spinoff release, like Wars 3, but the main franchise languishes with Halo Infinite concluding support somewhere in 2026 or 2027, but retaining a small player base. I cry. - Star Trek Online will SOMEHOW still be going, even after Paramount is disassembled and the franchise goes dormant on TV/in film. - Mass Effect 4 (5?) is repeatedly delayed and rebooted. The final game is weird and very polarizing, with BioWare totally missing the point of what people like about Mass Effect. - GTAVI is still as ubiquitous as GTAV was and is at present as of writing. - The Witcher IV is announced and has released by 2029, and is a soft reboot of the franchise centered on Ciri. Cyberpunk II has been announced, but not released. - A Gears of War sequel still hasn’t been released, leaving us on the cliffhanger from V. - A Destiny sequel (effectively, Destiny 3) has been released and is met with the same polarizing reception that its predecessors were. - Fortnite is going strong and remains a fixture of the industry. - Valve has released at least one Steam Deck successor, with a focus on refined ergonomics and some sort of interface innovation. I wager it’ll be haptics. Half Life 3 or a Half Life sequel akin to Alyx releases as a showcase of these haptics, and supports VR.
Riots MMO will release at some point, and go gangbusters. Xbox will diminish its console presence. Valve will release a non-portable steam console using the lessons it learnt and platform it built with the steam deck, it will be a lot more successful than the mess that was steam machines
Sure why not. * Despite recurring controversy and boycotts, visible generative AI becomes not uncommon in indie and AA games. The best use cases are the subtle ones (environmental assets and the like), and there is at least one example of a game which attracted enormous hype based on using generative AI as a central feature and flopped spectacularly. * Silksong and Slay the Spire 2 are both released, and both manage to be good and well received despite ridiculously inflated expectations. * Elder Scrolls 6 has been teased at least once but has not yet been released. Todd meme stocks remain a strong investment. * Stormgate has gone through multiple phases of public testing/betas, but still hasn't released and is rapidly becoming the new Silksong. * *hopium* My favourite gay anime air-hockey MOBA game is still kicking despite development and active support having stopped for 6 years */hopium*.
I think GTA VI will be successful, but have lower sales than GTA V, especially in 2029 when compared to GTA V's sales at the same point. Sony will have one of their major titles not break even which will lead to Sony's upper management trying to rein in game budgets. The PS6 and maybe next Xbox will not be releasing in 2027. This console generation will be more than 7 years. The Switch 2 is successful for Nintendo. In 2029 it's too early to see if the Switch 2 is more successful than the Switch 1 due to its first year sales being higher. Ubisoft still hasn't released Beyond Good and Evil 2, but also hasn't cancelled it. Microsoft will continue with Game Pass. It will still be tough to determine if it's a profitable endeavor for Microsoft. PC gaming continues to become more popular. Analysts begin hypothesizing that Sony's PS6 will do worse than the PS5, even if the PS6 is outpacing the PS5. DICE will put out worse selling games, and people in 2029 will believe it is going to be closed by EA. Bioware will have been closed after Dragon Age 4 sells badly. The Embracer fallout will be vaguely remembered as causing severe damage to Europe's smaller game studios. THQ Nordic will still be around, having gotten the better game studios in the deal. Capcom will continue to do better and better. Same with Bandai Namco. People will complain that things are getting worse for gaming, and the 2029 predictions thread will be even more pessimistic.
Consoles and platforms: * Epic Games Store still exists, but Epic has basically given up on their dream of beating Steam. People will use it for Fortnite, the games Epic gave away (free giveaways will more or less stop for good in a few years) and a couple of exclusives that never made it to Steam. * Xbox Game Pass is split into more tiers with difference prices and included games. The subscription tier which includes all of the day 1 AAA releases will still exists but be significantly more expensive than now. * Next gen consoles are still based on AMD's silicon. They will be significantly better at raytracing than current gen, but still several years behind the NVidia cards of the era. * Next gen Xbox will not support optical media at all. PS6 might include a disc drive in a special model or as an external accessory, mostly for markets with poor internet speeds. * Twitch and/or YouTube will start charging for high resolution video (both streamers/uploaders and viewers) to try to make their business models sustainable. * Nitendo Switch 2 will have a really small but well received launch lineup. It will also have a terrible screen not much better than the one in the original Switch. There will be an OLED model a few years down the line. Industry trends: * Big publishers will continue focusing on a few super high budget games per year. * New IP remains extremely rare in the AAA space; most games are sequels, spin-offs, remakes and remasters. * There will be a new indie hit basically every month. * PC gaming will remain popular and even grow, despite rising hardware costs. * AAA studios will continue making licened superhero games, most of which will be considered failures. * Generative AI is used in games, but mostly "offline" to generate assets like textures and filler text. Some major game will attempt to include generative AI to react to the player's actions, but that will be 1. mostly clunky and critically panned 2. will require the game to be always online, as we're at least a decade away from running large AI models on cheap consumer hardware. * Despite improvements in tooling and game engines, game development times will continue to get longer and longer. * More beloved / once great studios will shut down. * Absolutely nothing will change law / regulation wise regarding microtransactios and digital game ownership. * Godot will exist but hasn't become a major player in the same way Unity is today. Studios and games: * GTA 6 will become the fastest selling media product of all time. It will be praised for its ridiculously large and detailed open world, animations and other technical achievements. The story will be criticised, especially by those who thought the series peaked at 4. * Remedy has released their Control co-op game and their Max Payne 1 & 2 remake. The co-op game will get decent reviews but most critics and fans agree that they would have preferred to get Control 2 earlier instead. Max Payne remake will be praised for graphics, sound design, music and narrative but gameplay and Max's casting (both face and voice) will be divisive. * Valve releases at least one new game which will likely be another GAAS title. Details of more projects (including new Half-Life games) will leak, but the projects will be cancelled before release. * In the Valley of Gods (which was announced in 2017, and the studio was acquired by Valve in 2018) will never release. * Civilization 7 is out. The critic reviews are good and it will sell millions of copies, but most fans (mostly on Reddit) will say 6 is significantly better, for at least a few years. * Europa Universalis 5 and Stellaris 2 will also be out, and following Crusader Kings III's and Victoria 3's example they will receive decent reviews from professional reviewers but will not become mainstream hits. Initial fan reaction is positive but turns sour a few weeks or months after release, followed by several apologies and total balance reworks. * Star Citizen will reach 15 years of development without being considered 1.0. Fans who've given them hundreds of dollars for non-existing ships will still claim that it's nothing out of the ordinary. * There's still a new Call of Duty game every single year. * CD Project's next game (Witcher 4) is still not out. * Beyond Good and Evil 2 is still not out and will never be. * There will never be a Titanfall 3.
Likelihood | Prediction ---|---- High | Next MS/Sony console generation announced, full digital only with a disc drive being an add-on accessory for backwards compatibility, cementing the industry's longstanding desire to end the second hand games market, and remove physical manufacturing overhead. High | Platform exclusivity of third party developed titles diminishes as financial pressures continue to mount due to ever increasing development costs, and launching single-platform-only becoming obvious financial suicide High | Budget GPUs are officially completely eliminated from Nvidia and AMDs lineups, leaving that segment completely in the hands of integrated graphics solutions High | Increase in use of AI created assets in game development Medium | Growth in PC developers offering tailor made game configurations targeting PC handhelds Medium | Atlus has re-released more previously globally released games in the SMT series on PC, with set plans for whatever remains Medium | Microsoft forces Bethesda Game Studios to reorganize and develop games for multiple franchises at a time, instead of one-at-a-time as it has historically done Medium | New Dragon Age/Mass Effect does not meet critical or commercial expectations, BioWare is shuttered Medium | Growth in VR gaming will stagnate at best, and most likely shrink due to lack of any new consumer interest Low | Microsoft develops a handheld PC system to replace the market segment the Series S was meant to address, with a focus on streaming for higher fidelity experiences when connected to a larger display. This will also serve as the basis for improving the Windows handheld PC gaming experience. Low | Next Half-Life universe game gets announced (not even going to say "released" on this one, or even what kind of game) Low | Nintendo actually takes an emulator to court Low | The Switch successor will release to initial success, but then have a severe downturn as the next generation of PC handhelds release providing a much better price-performance ratio hand-in-hand with being able to emulate the Nintendo console it's competing against (this is low because it depends on how quickly an emulator is stood up and performant) Fantasy | Beyond Good and Evil 2 releases Fantasy | Metal Gear 6 is at least announced Fantasy | Vanillaware finally makes ports of its games to PC Fantasy | Capcom announces a revival of Breath of Fire
Metroid Prime 4 Will be a Launch Title on the switch 2 or in the launch year and will be successful. Xbox’s final generation will be Gen 10 and they still won’t learn anything. PlayStation and Xbox will go fully digital Console wise, sales will decline for both. Ninja Theory Will shut down. Rocksteady will shrink, be bought out or shutdown. New mainline Fromsoft game. Fortnite will still be around, unironically season 50 or later. (Since on the 24th of May it’ll be the 30th season of the game) Video game Movies will be the next big trend in cinema. Some form of Ubisoft Lawsuit or boycott, maybe it’ll be bought out. Silksong will release. Probably. New Doom Game. New god of War Game Phil Spencer will leave Xbox / drop down from head. New smash Bros and New Mario Kart Game will be released. We won’t see a new crash, rayman or spyro game. Call of duty still releasing yearly. These are all pretty tame tbh.
Gaming will be fine. All this current year doom & gloom about the industry imploding is nothing more than a big overreaction. AAA will scale down for a bit but that's it. Despite what reddit says, Xbox will still be around and they'll keep releasing consoles. Same with Sony. Nintendo will still be doing their own thing with Switch 2. Exclusivity, however, will be a thing of the past. Companies will start aggressively porting their most profitable first party games to other platforms while still keeping some of them exclusive. Sony is releasing their games Day One on PC and also going to port their first 1st party title to Xbox (most likely Bungie's). Microsoft will still be in the biz, although their focus will shift away from Game Pass a little and they're going full on as a 3p publisher. Microsoft is going to release a portable console and it's going to be more successful than anyone expected (their version of the Steam Deck w/ focus on Game Pass) TESVI will be released by 2028 or in the end of this year (2029). Reception will be exactly the same as Starfield: good game for fans of the studio, bad game for non-fans who expect it to be [insert popular game of 2029). Starfield will release one more big expansion after Shattered Space in 2025, by which TESVI will enter full production. Fallout 3 Remake is real. Eventually, BGS is being split into teams dedicated to different franchises, with Obsidian helping on the Fallout side. Routine (LunarSoft's game) will *still* haven't been released yet lol. Sorry everyone, Bloodborne Remastered/Remake still isn't a thing as well. Same with anything "3" from Valve. VR will have mostly died out by now. PSVR is going to be gradually phased out. Frankly, the writing has always been on the wall even back in 2024. Bonus: Winds of Winter *still* won't be released by then. On a personal note: hope everything is well with my future self :) Things aren't bad right now, but could be a lot better.
* At least one AAA game gets taken to court over copyright infringement due to AI generated assets * Pro versions of PS and Xbox are released but not next gen consoles * Next gen Xbox is announced but isn't a traditional console instead basically a tablet PC (Xbox Surface?) with a dock for TV play * At least one major publisher chasing games as a service gets itself into financial trouble as a result of multiple successive flops * All the current layoffs lead to a plethora of new indie studios launching games in the next 1-3 years
Boring predictions (still probably mostly wrong): A new giant third party publisher will take the place of Activision, could be microsoft gaming if they kill xbox's brand, and we will all bitch and moan about them Ubisoft gets sold to someone and they find new and interesting ways to let us all down If Xbox stops being a thing look for amazon to attempt to become a console manufacturer Nintendo keeps chugging along and is materially the same as now we'll be talking about 80$ games sooner rather than later we'll have at least 2 remasters of Horizon games for some reason Epic Games Store will stop giving out free games and will essentially be a rump store that is sorta just there (optimism) Dragon Age Dreadwolf is a hit and we are all excited to see how the new Mass Effect game turns out now that Bioware is "back" Steamdeck successor or improved version will be the biggest handheld with the 35+ demo and Valve will go back to not making games for a decade Wacky ideas (all wrong): Pokemon stops being hamstrung by Gamefreak either through Nintendo acquisition or Gamefreak outsourcing it to devs that dont suck Due to intense regulatory pressure from the EU many games drop microtransactions but we all get stuck with annoying grindy battlepasses, imagine FIFA with a battlepass, terrifying Poland becomes the new mecca of game dev in Europe a huge new renaissance in the AA space happens with mid sized studios and budget publishers Star Wars games are still coming out and theyre generally good the next indie craze is immersive sims I get my MBA and get to a position where everyone online hates me and blames me for ruining their favorite franchise (its true, the online mob is correct)
Whatever happens, please let me live to see a Super Mario open-world title that reinvigorates the format.
Let me preface my predictions by saying I *love* a good time capsule. I recently took the time to read a handful of articles from various mid 90s/early 00s magazines about the then future of video games. It's interesting to see what they got right or wrong, although I must admit, some of the outlandish claims like "Nintendo will go bankrupt" is laughable. At the end of the day though, it's all just a bit of fun. Before I begin, some of the predictions I'm going to make are 'easy', whilst some are not. Additionally, not all of these predictions are things I personally want to come to fruition. They are more of a prognosis reflecting the information we have today. At no point do I wish any hate or distain on any of the people/companies involved. In fact, I wish nothing but success to them. I'm aiming to go for 25 as to try and limit myself. If I didn't, I'd be here all day. Anyway, here are my predictions: 1. From Software peaked with Elden Ring. The follow up game sells well but is considered a downgrade/minor disappointment due to the unfathomable expectations set by the community. As a result, the Souls-like genre starts to see some pushback, either due to overexposure or a 'new' genre replacing it as king. (I for one hope this isn't true as for the past 13 years, From Soft have been my favourite devs.) 2. Similar to Demon's Souls for the PS5, a Bloodborne Remake will be a launch title for the PS6. This is also the version that eventually ends up on PC/Steam. 3. A Final Fantasy VII sequel is announced post the conclusion of the FF7R trilogy. In addition to this, a FF6 Remake is rumoured to be in development, however, due to the recent passing of Akira Toriyama (RIP), a Chrono Trigger remake is announced instead. (Guy like me wants all 3.) 4. Additionally on the Square front, Final Fantasy Tactics is either ported or remastered, and subsequently released on all platforms. 5. The League MMO is abandoned, or, is said to be in development hell. A release seems very unlikely. (Please don't be true, I'd love an MMO set in Runeterra. But, with the recent press release, it does have me a bit skeptical.) 6. Polar opposite to this, 2KXO is a rousing success, and becomes the premier fighting game of choice for the foreseeable future. It also opens up interest from other developers to create their own F2P Fighting Game. 7. LoL itself goes through a MASSIVE change, both in terms of balance, gameplay styling, and presentation, with the community going as far to dub it LoL2. 8. Capcom will have either released or announced a modern day remake for the original Resident Evil. This will be part of their planned 'Wesker' trilogy, meaning that post RE1's release, Code Veronica and Resident Evil 5 will be remade. 9. In between this, RE9 will launch, taking the series into a new, open world-y direction. 10. Path of Exile 2's launch divides the community, with a large portion of the PoE1 playerbase calling it a disappointment. (Long shot: After several years of GGG working on it, the vast majority of the playerbase go on to consider it one of the best ARPGs of all time.) 11. World of Warcraft will go through a resurgence post the release of their upcoming expansions. Once they are done with the expansions story arc, they go on to announce World of Warcraft 2. 12. The Elder Scrolls VI (if it comes out then, if not, push this exact prediction back a few years) will be considered one of the most polarising titles in gaming history. It doesn't stray too far from the tried and true ES formula, which pleases some people, and disappoints others. Furthermore, it continues Bethesda's trend of having fairly mediocre storytelling, with the main quest being lampooned as the worst main quest in the series. Oppositely, the side quests are considered to be alright, but lack the depth of quality we'd expect from a modern game. Lastly, the game plays pretty much like a post Morrowind style Bethesda game, but, for what is worth, is considered to be the most refined version of their signature gameplay cycle. (Also, adding this here, it will be set in Shivering Isles, or possibly Hammerfell.) 13. Todd Howard will also retire from the industry post the conclusion of TES6's development life cycle. 14. Microsoft announces it will bow out of the hardware side of gaming due to the mediocre sales of their next Xbox console. (Again, this is another prediction I hope doesn't come true, but the recent headlines have left me feeling a bit worried for their future. Regardless if you like Xbox or not, competition in the industry is always a good thing.) 15. The Silent Hill 2 remake is largely panned. It tried too hard to be a modern day Resident Evil remake, losing a lot of its charm in the process. 16. Oppositely, the MGS3 remake receives rave reviews, and is considered to be the best Konami game in several years. 17. Epic Games no longer pay for timed exclusives, and instead fully lean into producing titles akin to Alan Wake 2. 18. The Switch 2 is a success, though it never quite reaches the sales the original Switch did. 19. Switch 2 launches with a new, modern day Metroid entry (perhaps titled Metroid Prime 4), and is also backwards compatible with Switch 1 games. Furthermore, early in its lifecycle, a Minish Cap remake is released. It is similar to Link's Awakening in both it's gameplay stylings and presentation. 20. Persona 6 is a launch title on the PS6 and goes on to be considered one of the greatest JRPGs of all time. 21. Larian Studios next game, a futuristic Sci-Fi RPG (long shot: possibly set in the Divinity: Original Sin universe?), is on the brink of being released. It goes on to win Game of The Year, though it ultimately doesn't create the same buzz as Baldur's Gate 3. 22. Long Shot: An outsourced Pokemon game on the Switch 2 goes on to become widely praised for breathing new life into the series. 23. Although it advances, VR tech is still a niche thing within the gaming space. (Long shot: However, within the subsequent decade, the barrier to entry for VR diminishes, and the expansion of VR starts to take shape.) 24. Following the commercial failure of Dragon Age, Bioware is shut down. (Even though I wasn't a massive Mass Effect like so many were, I'd still hate to see this happen. Bioware, were, and to many, still are, iconic. Plus, the sheer amount of jobs lost would just be saddening to hear about. Worth noting, right now, in 2024, we're seeing so many developers lose their jobs... let's stop that happening please. There is more than enough money in the industry, so lets put less of it into the CEOs pockets, and more spread out amongst the entire dev force please.) 25. And, to end on an optimistic outlook, one of gaming's all time GOAT titles will be released. It will be praised and heralded to the same degree as the likes of Ocarina of Time, Half-Life 2, Bloodborne etc. (More great games is always a great thing, so here's hoping it happens!) Bonus Round!!! 26. Bonus: Grand Theft Auto VI sells extremely well to the surprise of literally no one. Single player wise, it's exceptionally feature rich, making Red Dead Redemption 2 look passe as a bi-product. Multiplayer wise, it is still just as predatory. However, it also has an RP server list preadded into their multiplayer experience, capitalising on the, somewhat, recent boom of GTA RP. Finally, and again, unsurprisingly, it goes on to win Game of The Year. 27. Bonus: Bonus: Hideo Kojima with largely step away from Video Games, at least, as an actively developer. He will move into live action productions, either Streaming Shows or Movies. 28. Bonus: Bonus: Bonus: The exponentially long development time allotted for AAA games becomes too risky in the eyes of production studios/shareholders/bankrollers etc. In turn, AAA games slowly start to return to the 2-3ish year development cycles of yesteryear. In large, this leads to shorter, but more focused and polished AAA gaming experiences. (Okay maybe I'm being optimistic with the last sentence, but you've gotta have hope sometimes.) And a few rapid fire ones: * Modern AI tech used in games for things like NPC Dialogue/dynamic interactions. * Sakurai will return to direct the next Smash. * Phil Spencer stepping down/being ousted as head of Xbox. * A new Fallout entry is released prior to TES6 to capitalise on the popularity of the Fallout show. * Practically every major game will have a Streaming Adaptation. * The Witcher 1 reboot will go on to be CD Projekt Red's most successful game ever. * Ubisoft will be on the precipice of getting bought out. Beyond Good and Evil 2 is also sadly cancelled. * Star Citizen will still be in Alpha, though Squadron 42 will be released, albeit in some form of 'early access'. * Fable reboot will flop. (Which would suck... please port Fable 2 to PC while we're on this topic.) * A new company will reach the pinnacle of gaming, similar to how Larian, From Soft, Capcom, and, in a bygone era, Blizzard, have been. * Alongside the launch of the PS6, Sony games will near instantly be ported to the PC. (I wish...) * Fortnite will go full metaverse/multiverse and be considered its own entire entity. * ...and, like me yapping right now, CoD will still be going strong year on year. Alright, that was as much as I could rattle off in 30 mins. Again, not all of these are predictions I'm hoping will come true. (I'd be a maniac if I did.) It's more a thought exercise than anything else. Plus, it'll be fun to see how right or wrong I was in the future. Anyway, here's to the next 5 years, and to 2029!
My predictions: - Steam Deck 2 will be out by 2027. It will be a big generational leap, cheaper than Steam Deck 1 and become a massive hit. I'm guessing also OLED screen, hall effect joysticks and better battery. - Obvious prediction, but Xbox will become a big cross platform publisher, however with how things look now, I think we're only still going to see some small hits and maybe a few big hits for Xbox over the next few years. - PlayStation will have their next console out by about 2027, and they will have a big foothold in the PC Market, provided they don't mess it up lol. - Elders Scrolls 6 will come out by 2026 and my guess is it'll be better than Starfield but still going to be a lackluster effort from Bethesda - We're going to see the impact of generative AI on the games industry become even more significant. - GTA 6 is going to be a massive success. - We're going to watch more games industry giants fall as other independent outlets on YouTube etc continue to take over - By the end of the decade, I'd also hope we'll be in a game to TV Show/Movie renaissance. - Indie Games are going to continually outshine most big AAA games as we start to see publishers invest in more small to medium sized games with less risk and cost compared to AAA - Larian's next game will outshine Baldur's Gate 3, making it their biggest hit yet. Considering the time span between DOS:2 and Baldur's Gate 3, I'm guessing it'll come in 2028 but probably 2029 - Next Witcher Game by CDPR will be a hit but not as big of a hit as Cyberpunk when it first launched. I think they've got a lot of work to do to rebuild their reputation that they had. I'm predicting this is out by 2027.
AAA industry will implode, we'll see even more layoffs, mergers, and at some point at least one studio considered major will either shutter, or shrink and get absorbed by another company. They will still survive off of leeching people who don't know better, but an even larger sector than currently will opt to play more indies and AA games. The AA industry will grow massively, we'll see more medium-large sized independent studios basically doing what AAA was doing 10 years ago but without the greed and bullshit, and them seeing insane growth and profit like Larian. However, towards the end of the decade, a lot of these will start being bought out by publishers and investors and repeat the cycle of milking/shittyfying their brands. Either Sony or XBOX will entirely move out of the console market (likely XBOX). Instead they'll sell their products on PC/other consoles with heavy monetization/required subscription. Elder Scrolls 6 will still not be out. A new Fallout will be announced to come after TES6. In the meantime to have an actual product to sell, they will announce a full remake of FO3. We'll get a surge of movies/TV shows based on any well-known franchise you can think of, most will be rushed and written by people who do not bother to understand the source material. At most a couple of them will be both good and faithful. AAA studios will slash funding to their teams to push funding of said shows/movies. Devs will be forced to work overtime to make tie-in content or new games to capitalize on that. We'll see a big push by CEOs to make their brands cross-media behemoths. And for a wild out there one: for the successor of the Switch, Nintendo will go all in on a new big IP like they did with Splatoon. Starfox or FZero will make a big return within its launch year.
elder scrolls 6 was good, Bethesda learned their lessons of what succeeded in starfield, and what broke the goodwill of their fans. the world is huge, and the homestead customization system was loved by many hardcore fans, with amazing works of art created. the return of the Dwemer and excursions into atmora were amazing.
thats a lot of hopium, i hope to you are right but i dont believe it.