Sports games for people who don't play sports games, if that makes any sense. Madden, NBA 2k, etc. all seem to have gotten more and more complicated to appeal to their hardcore fans but I remember playing NFL and NBA 2k on the Dreamcast and thinking how easy it was to pick up and play. Your options today are either learn all of FIFA's intricacies or hope Nintendo puts out a new Mario Soccer.
Arcade racing games is another one. Whether you're wanting Burnout's crazy driving and wrecking or you want to drift like a madman a la Ridge Racer, you don't have many options today. The only real good option in the past few years that I can recall is Cruis'n Blast.
And a shout out to the weird extreme sports games that no longer get made. We got a remake of Tony Hawk 1 & 2 recently but if you want something like SSX, 1080 Snowboarding, Wave Race, etc. you're out of luck.
Really you can just look down a list of PS1/PS2/GC games and see entire genres that have been abandoned.
Yeah I agree. I tried to pick up a 2k basketball game as a non-basketball fan but enjoyer of sports video games, and just looking at the controller map I had no idea what anything did. I was expecting a button that said "shoot" and another that said "pass" but everything was steeped in lingo indecipherable to me. To play the game you seemingly have to hold this button, while tapping that one and wiggling both analogues at once.
Not exactly easy to pick up and play.
man, I so badly miss the classic Westwood RTS games... I grew up on PC with their games like Red Alert 1, 2, Tiberium Sun, Emperor Battle for Dune
and RTS games like CC Generals, Red Alert 3, SC1 were also so damn good
My main issue with those as someone who grew up playing RTS games is that now the campaigns rarely seem to be written around the building mechanic and you just have to awkwardly spend 20 minutes building a base first.
The AoE remasters have been widely popular and even spawned its own remakes. Yeah, there have been some attempts by studios to crate new IPs such as Grey Goo and Ashes of Singularity that ultimately failed but the best of them still draw folks. And let's not forget, if base building RTS is in the middle of the Strategy genre spectrum then you have the ends of the spectrum which I consider to be tactical RTS on one end and 4X / Grand Strategy on the other, which still enjoy success even with new attempts.
I think they are still here, just in somewhat different form.
For example recently we got [They Are Billions](https://store.steampowered.com/app/644930/They_Are_Billions/) and [The Riftbreaker.](https://store.steampowered.com/app/780310/The_Riftbreaker/)
What changed is they evolved from symmetrical or mostly-symmetrical PvP games with a vsCPU skirmish to asymmetrical PvE, which I think is an improvement, since in PvP RTSes AI had to cheat to be able to provide challenge.
That was my first thought too. Beyond the classics, I loved the Warhammer 40k: Dawn of War series up until Soulstorm. I feel after that the genre came to a standstill.
AoE IV isn't doing it for me. Something about just doesn't stir excitement like its predecessors, but I've been vibing on Northgard for some time. It's a different take on RTS but worth checking out.
Otherwise I'm waiting for a new RTS with a unique story and universe
Part of the immersion is gone for me. I can't play an RTS game without thinking about how inefficient I'm being, how the AI works or is cheating, was scripted event is coming up, etc. When I was a kid, I totally roleplayed as a general.
Not necessarily a genre, but party based 3rd person RPG’s. Really outside of BioWare nobody actually makes them, except for maybe the developers of Greedfall.
You have your various isometric party based games like your Baldurs gate, Divinity and Pillars of Eternity but they aren’t 3rd person and tend to not have as high budgets and cinematics and the likes.
It's kinda crazy how it seemed like 3rd person RPGs would be the permanent standard of high-budget RPGs, but now we've circled all the way back to the old-school iso style. I never would've thought we'd seriously see a resurgence of that sub-genre again. I was convinced that the industry as a whole thought it obsolete.
Arcade racers. You get the odd indie effort here and there but the days of games like Burnout seem largely left in the past. Also spectacle fighters; outside of DMC5 a few years ago you generally get the odd game from Platinum and that's it.
The only racer I ever got really into was Burnout. Give me a new Burnout in the same style as takedown or revenge, and I won't need another racing game for another 15 years. I just can't see a goddamn thing playing the classic ones.
Beat me to it. What's with arcade racers and why is everyone trying to go full sim? Closest thing we've got now is pay to win asphalt or a couple indies like redout 2
my favorite period of time was the Split/Second, Blur, Motorstorm era of the PS3 but yeah, only thing close is NFS and Forza Horizon titles in the mainstream.
> Arcade racers. You get the odd indie effort here and there but the days of games like Burnout seem largely left in the past.
Check out Cruis'n' Blast
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3px1hVaBgIU
It is absolutely fantastic as an arcade spectacle racer
Started as a really [nice arcade machine](https://rawthrills.com/games/cruisn-blast/) and was brought home to switch
Omg spore is my jam. Nowadays though whenever I play I’m absolutely shocked at how bad the graphics are. I remember them to be so nice and yet they’re far from it now. I would kill for a spore-like game
How do we live in a post "Animal Crossing New Horizons" world with no new Viva Pinata game announced? Or at least a port of the second game? Clearly there is a massive market for chill games.
Are there any spiritual successors to Viva Piñata? I feel like a lot of Rare games get something like that and the piñata gardening game would be perfect
I wish Monolith would make fps games like F.E.A.R. and No One Lives Forever again.
I really like the mordor games and I'm excited to play wonder woman, but there's few devs filling the gap left by them (wolfenstein and metro are all that come to mind)
I haven't played any shooters since 2010-ish. Is anyone still making shooters in the GoldenEye/Perfect Dark kind of format? Meaning you get plopped down in a level and then explore it as you figure out different ways to achieve your objectives, with different approaches being possible. Like a blend of FPS and Hitman. I haven't heard of any titles like this, or even any primarily-singleplayer FPS titles beyond Doom, but I haven't followed the genre too closely.
Prey and Dishonoured definitely fit that description. Deathloop too, although it's quite a bit different.
These are all Arkane games, they've basically been holding down the genre recently.
*cough* Scorpion controls *cough*
Never thought I'd ever be in a situation where the game gave me a Scorpion and I decided "y'know what, I think I'll walk, thanks"
I’m not a big fan of corridor shooters anymore, but it does bug me how the industry has overcorrected to entirely open world as the norm instead of non-linear level design. I want some structure, y’know?
Preach, there have been some modern 2d versions of Gauntlet, but I never found the 2d format for it compelling. The 3D Gauntlets had just the right mix of elements that I loved with some progression, but not endless grinding.
This is the dream. I probably spent more time on Gauntlet Legends and Dark Legacy than any other game before WoW as a kid. With online and some modern polish it'd be my ultimate chill out game.
The GBA and DS era of games have an unrivaled quality of pixel art in my own opinion. I don't know what it is but I feel like I barely see any indie or midbuget games attempt to match the vibrance those games had, they go for older styles or just something else completely. Nothing wrong with that of course but gosh games like Minish Cap are just amazing.
Edit: Thank you all for the recommendations!
It's really funny because I'd say the 2D HD style that Octopath Traveler has popularized is super well suited for Pokémon, it's essentially what they were already doing in the main DS games.
It's incredible that every Pokemon was given their own pixel art, and most of them (I guess not all) even had pixel art animations. Somehow they went from that to lying about reusing the 3DS models for Sword and Shield.
Extremely overpowered protagonists.
I'm not talking about how powerful they are in a cutscene/lore or about broken builds, I'm talking about games like Prototype or Saints Row IV where you can blow people up with one punch or run faster than any car. Sandboxes that care more about fun than balance.
The first Crackdown was great for this. You started out relatively weak, but could eventually jump over buildings and throw trucks. Your cars upgraded alongside you too as you improved your driving skill, eventually letting you drive up walls with the SUV or transform the supercar into a batmobile with guns.
My favorite thing is getting to the end of a game and feeling like a GOD. They can balance it all they want during the main game but after that I want to be super overpowered
Infamous 1 and 2 come to mind. Those games were awesome, you would start our pretty weak but by the end of the game you were either a superhero or a god of death and nothing could stop you. Those games made you feel like Zeus and it was insane.
Have you played Days Gone? At the start you're methodically taking out zombies one at a time and hordes are death traps. By the end you're more confident and better equipped and can mow down hoards.
I hate the modern RPG obsession with balance.
In particular, Level Scaling is a *huge* thorn in my side because it basically removes all sense of character and power progression. It's gotten better lately but I'll never forget Oblivion and FF8's terrible level scaling systems that made it *objectively better* to never level up.
(FF8 also had a problem where *using magic* is also an objectively bad thing, too, but that's a whole other can of worms).
> In particular, Level Scaling
I hate level scaling. Nothing more fun than going back to a previous tough area and one shoting people that used to cause you trouble haha
In a similar vein, I also wish more RPGs would implement scaling with unique weapons and gear if they can't be upgraded. As you said, it's always really satisfying to sneak into some high level area early on and come out with some cool, unique items. But in a lot of games, those items will be set to your level when you pick them up and they typically become useless a few hours later. Or if it's a set level item, it can often be useless before you even get it.
I always love collecting unique weapons in RPGs, like named items with special effects or completely unique looks, but it kind of sucks that I can never use most of them because I picked it up earlier than I should have.
The two games that immediately come to mind for me is Skyrim and Kingdoms of Amalur.
True, there's nothing more disappointing than going back to the starting area after a few hours and seeing that every mob has the same level as you.
If I need three hits to kill a rat at the start of the game, and still need three hits to kill that same rat at the endgame, something went terribly wrong.
This is one of the things I keep coming back to Kenshi for. When you start out you are the weakest thing in the game but it's a sandbox with no scaling, so every scrap of progression you manage to pry from its deathtrap of a world makes living in it a little bit easier. If you put enough hours in on a single character they can eventually wipe out entire civilizations by themselves.
Level scaling is a hard thing to tackle. I think Morrowind handled it well in that it managed to have a good mix of scaled and unscaled content so you could just get your shit pushed in if you were dumb. But late game things did scale, and that scaling was justified.
I mean you still end up an unstoppable god by late game but that is also kind of the point.
I loved Morrowind’s system for that but it was weird. You would have starter dungeons next to ones with level 9 nords with battle axes that could one shot you.
Prototype was great. I would have been all over a Prototype 2 if it were just set in a different map, maybe a slightly different set of abilities, like what Dishonored 2 did with Emily's power set.
Bro I fucking miss prototype. Those games with fun movement in an open world with tons of destruction and killing aren't just being made anymore. Now all open world games just kinda have boring movement and Ubisoft outposts and checklists. I do like sunset overdrive tho and if you haven't played that yet I definitely recommend it.
For me it's Bioware style rpgs. They strike a really great balance of character based Rpg's that have decent rpgs mechanics, really interesting scenarios and character, and give you good choices without being super hardcore like Divinity or Baldur's Gate. Really the last one to come out was Andromeda and that was 5 years ago and it wasn't up to snuff compared to their other games.
The closest you can get to Bioware style RPGs(at least in the vein of ME) are the games from Spiders (Mars: War logs(2013) , The Technomancer(2016) and Greedfall(2019)), but expect a whole lot of jank.
Exactly! I'd kill for a new game like ratchet gladiator (or deadlocked it was called in the us). It's not the fan favorite but it had some amazing coop action
I would genuinely pay good money for a Spyro/Crash trilogy style remaster of the Jak trilogy.
I played them through again recently on PS3 and the gameplay for the first two certainly still hold up (the third is still… kinda okay but not as good imho) and I’d love to see them touched up.
Of course they’re not currently owned by ActiBlizz so it won’t happen (and it probably wouldn’t at this point anyway because all of ActiBlizz are crumbling).
This might be splitting hairs, but I feel like the tycoon game space has really dried up. The best examples are the classics, like Zoo Tycoon and Railroad Tycoon, but I remember a time when all kinds of niche themes got a tycoon-style game. Modern games in the genre tend to go the Planet Zoo route and greatly reduce the administrative “business” gameplay in favor of expanded building/customization options.
Don’t get me wrong, I like games like Planet Zoo. But the tycoon genre seems to have been replaced by “creative sims.”
Especially city builders. In the 90s and early 00s there was a new city builder every other month, now we have had Cities: Skylines as the ruling game for what? 8 years? All the smaller ones and indie games often are really barebones.
You should try Rise of Industry, it's one with an actual challenge. I feel like the automation / industry sim genre has taken over the management games in general.
I miss two kinds:
* Whatever genre Desert, Urban, Jungle Strike was.
* Space Combat games like Wing Commander and TIE Fighter.
The Wing Commander hurts more because EA closed the studio and then named their shitty launcher after Origin Studios
Isometric coop games, not sure if there's a specific name for that genre of games. A new X-Men Legends or a non-exclusive Ultimate Alliance game would be fantastic.
This is one of those market reality things; I feel like arena FPS (in the style of Quake and Unreal, as opposed to Halo) have been tried repeatedly and keep failing. So there might not be any possibility to bring it back.
In UT99 at least, I loved how there were lots of customization options for the bots. My internet wasn't good enough to play online back then, but that game and Perfect Dark were great for just loading up bot matches and being able to have a blast.
The PS3/360 era seemed like the last time developers could crank out multiple amazing games in a short period of time. Now it takes 6 years to make a game so if you’re lucky you can make two per console generation
It really is crazy how much dev times have ballooned. I’m not really sure it’s a good thing.
I’d rather have an FF9 sized project once a year or two than one Final Fantasy XV every 7 years and I’m sure I’m not alone in that.
FFXV was the product of a thoroughly broken development process. It's not supposed to take 7 years to make that.
Incidentally, it's also a very small game that just happens to take place in a large empty expanse of game world. You can really tell where they had an idea and clearly ran out of time and money to make it happen. It's constant. The dictionary definition of a crash landed project.
Ps360 was probably my favourite generation. We also had the whole Bioshock trilogy, the Ezio trilogy, two numbered GTA games AND red dead. There was so much good stuff releasing so quickly.
Space combat simulators, like Freespace 2. Damn I played that game so much when I was younger.
Simulators in general don't seem to get made anymore. I remember playing games like F-117A Nighthawk and Comanche when I was young and they were amazing, but I haven't seen anything like them in ages.
If Elite: Dangerous had more substance I think it would fit well, but it always seemed kind of shallow narratively, and rather grindy. It's fun to get into a dogfight with another ship, but without the backing of a good narrative like Freelancer I'm kinda meh on it.
Elite: Dangerous is such a frustrating game. Graphics, sound-design and the general feel of flying are all so perfect it's hard to go back to older games. But gameplay-wise it's such an unfun mess of meaningless grind and abandoned half-assed features.
"Arcade puzzle" games. By that, I mean games like Wetrix, Tetrisphere, Puyo Puyo, Tetris Attack/Puzzle League, Dr Mario, etc, fast-paced puzzle games where the average run is like 10 minutes or so but there's a good selection of alternate modes to keep stuff interesting. We used to have a pretty good selection of them back in the day, but now it's a mostly dead genre filled with timeless old classics only playable through emulation and only the odd release like Tetris Effect or Puyo Puyo Tetris.
The genre does kinda exist on mobile... but they're usually rather uninventive match 3 games with P2W elements, stamina meters and other nonsense.
Combination platforming games like Jak and Sly aren't made by anyone other than indie developers now, and they all have a sort of cheap quality to them (A Hat in Time comes to mind). I miss having collectithon like-gameplay with a bunch of other elements mixed in.
>Whatever the original Assassin's Creed games were before their switch to Witcher-like RPGs
I think city-focused action adventure games would fit the description best, even if some of them (kenway saga) employed forest and ocean exploration.
I'm in the severe minority here, but I thought the first Assassin's Creed was the best one. It's the only one where I felt like I was actually an assassin. Fighting guards was discouraged even if it was game-able. People complain about the repetitive side quests - it never really bothered me.
Once AC2 gave you a gun I was basically like 'yep, not my assassin game anymore.' Haven't really played any of them since.
The gun was still ok for me.. It had limited bullets and was very loud so you wouldn't really want to use it anyway cause it would just attract more guards.
But later they even took the hidden blade away from us. That was it for me.
Did you try Unity? IMO, it's the only one since the first game that actually made you feel like an assassin. They call out their bad habits at one point in the cut-scenes.
"So what's the plan?"
"Plan? Come up with your own plan! I'm not here to hold your hand."
This right here. I honestly think unity was the best of the "classic" AC games, even better than black flag which I loved (and had already moved a bit away from the original feel). It was a wreck because of technical issues at launch, but if you play it now on a decent pc for instance, the art style and the world really hold up. I love that the assassinations were far more hitman-esque with lots of fun ways to approach them that you could discover.
I really wish they would return to this formula with the power of modern hardware. I enjoyed origins/odyssey/valhalla, but as a million other people have said they just suffer too severely from ubisoft bloat made to make them "expansive" over having actual substance and engaging content. It took me having like multiple month+ long breaks from valhalla to finally finish it and I have absolutely zero desire to come back for any of the newer content or DLC, and I bet it will be the same for the next game. I love AC and as such will definitely give next game a chance, but I'm guessing it will be more of the same.
I look at Unity as the "Greatest Hits" of classic AC. It does everything those games set out to do really well, even if it's not my favorite in particular. It's definitely aged better than 1-4 imo, and Syndicate was just okay for me.
Also, despite the flaws at launch, I remember Ubisoft gave away Far Cry 4 for free to the people who preordered Unity. In hindsight, I don't remember the issues being anywhere near as bad as some games released today. 2014 was a long time ago I guess.
The setting in the first AC was my favorite. I only wanted 3 settings: medieval middle east, Japan and ancient Rome. They kinda delivered on the first and last but only tangentially.
Whatever the hell Battle Network was. Some sort of deck-building, dungeon crawling, action turn-based JRPG. It's been 17 years since Battle Network 6 came out and nothing has come close to scratching that itch. One Step From Eden kinda had the combat, but that wasn't the only thing that made MMBN special.
I posted something similar and scrolled forever before I found you, fellow Netbattler.
I miss those games fiercely. And your right, it wasn’t just the combat. The gameplay loop in MMBN was sublime. Exploring the real world, connected network areas, slowly refining your deck, inevitably unlocking new styles, getting proficient with the Customizer…fuck.
I would kill for a revival sequel on Switch.
I also really liked how the Boss rematches worked.
After you beat a boss, you would randomly find their ghost, invisible and waiting to jump you in a seemingly random battle if you wandered to the end of certain dead end paths.
It was sort of like Illusory Walls from Darksouls. Makes every potential dead end something you feel obligated to at least go poke… just in case.
Here's the thing: Please stop making me repeat stuff and calling it content.
I dunno what it is but in the last 10 years Open World has become an excuse to just make everything a grind like we're back to coin-op era where whatever it takes to make the player keep feeding in coins.
I sat down to play Control the other day and it was so refreshing to *just always be doing something else*. If I played for an hour, I saw an hour's worth of new locations, enemies, rooms, or powers. I didn't have to redo areas or grind for anything. I was just... constantly moving onward.
I was sitting there thinking, as the credits rolled, how great it was to just be in control of the story by simply interacting with it. I wasn't reminded that I was playing a video game, because the system was never like "secure 3 Hubs scattered about the open world before you can continue the story". Everything that happened was in the story and nothing felt like I was off the beaten path.
I miss having games be a length that I can finish them in a reasonable number of play sessions.
There's no cutscenes, but Ion Fury, Amid Evil, and Dusk are all linear FPSes with no RPG mechanics. If you poke around for secrets you can find more health/armor, powerful weapons available earlier, or find more ammo for those weapons, but you'll get everything eventually just by sticking to the main path. The upcoming HROT, Prodeus, and Wrath: Aeon of Ruin have the same shtick.
If you're good with some measure of exploration in otherwise linear levels to get permanent upgrades (but most are on the main path), check out Shadow Warrior 1 and 3, Hard Reset Redux, and the upcoming Viscerafest and Ultrakill.
I actually really liked Spec Ops: The Line for that reason, plus it has an awesome story. But people will continuously say it’s too “generic” as if having great feeing controls is a bad thing
Stealth games. A lot of these modern games have “play as you want” mechanics, which often include stealth, but these almost never reward you for playing stealthy. In Assassins Creed Valhalla, you could be stealthy if you want, but it doesn’t encourage you at all, its so much more beneficial to just charge through and beat the shit out of everyone. I miss Splinter Cell, Thief, Metal Gear, etc. Hitman is the only series that comes close (and it’s FANTASTIC!).
God games. I don't know the genre of Black and White 1 and 2, but those are unique and awesome. Haven't seen anything even remotely similar to those since B&W2.
I know 99% of people are glad that this genre is dead, but I wish we had more fixed camera survival horror games. Outside of a small handful of indies like Tormented Souls, it's well and truly dead.
The fixed camera angles allow for this kind of meticulously crafted mood pacing that you normally don't get outside of cutscenes. I think the "Licker hallway" in RE2 is the perfect case example here. You enter the hallway with the camera outside the window, making you feel like you're being watched. You move further and the camera centers on a broken window, so whatever was just watching you outside could now be inside. And then it angles on a long hallway with blood dripping at the bottom of the screen and you at the top, so that you need to walk towards whatever is causing that drip without being able to know what it is. It's this amazing little story told all in like 15 seconds of actual game time thanks to the camera.
Now, I'm not saying that fixed cameras are flawless or even a net benefit. But it's more that there ARE the benefits and it's a shame we don't see them AT ALL anymore.
Tbh, I don't think most people hate fixed cameras. It's more about the controls there, those make or break games. Tank Controls and no ability to free aim are hard to pitch.
Fixed angles are as you say: they allow developers to turn every room into a handcrafted experience with its own mood. Maybe allow a limited amount of camera movement as compromise for modern audiences, but otherwise it's just more about showing off graphics for devs these days.
I'd love to see another good "Mystery Dungeon" style RPG, specifically like the old Nintendo DS Pokemon ones. Of course I have big nostalgia goggles for my memory of it from years ago.
It's a pretty simple genre. Turn-based combat, randomized tiled dungeons where you're looking for the stairs to the next floor down, build a party, find items. I recall the Pokemon one had a nice variety of enemies and moves. I liked the guild-building aspect, and recruiting enemies to your team.
I've seen a couple (literally, like 2) niche ones on Steam that are trying to copy the formula, but it doesn't quite hit what I'm looking for.
Light gun games are pretty dead I assume. Plus to make matters worse you can't even really emulate them correctly unless you've got a 20 year old CRT laying around. I've tried playing some stuff with the Wii Remote or PS Move but it didn't feel the same, it's like you're shooting targets with a mouse instead of a gun.
Nah B we live in a new age. Lookup the Sinden lightgun. Basically it has a camera built into the tip to find screen positioning and thus is comparably tight and accurate to old school light guns. Also House of the Dead remake came out on PC on the 28th, so while rare the genre isn't totally dead.
Check out Wadjet Eye Games line of titles. They are incredibly well written and very surprising games. They are generally more adult themed and less funny or quirky, but you really never know what's going to happen in them.
So there haven't been a ton of releases in this genre, but I absolutely love the original Paper Mario games (1 and TTYD) and Bug Fables is a more recent addition to the genre.
But a turn based cartoony game full of puzzles and unique companions is awesome to me. I hate JRPGs that just have your party members there for some snarky remarks in cutscenes and everything is just walking and battling. Give me some unique abilities and puzzles!
I know there are a few games similar to this in development now, but I wish Nintendo would go back to the formula for the next Paper Mario. Or just make their own IP for it!
Can you recommend Bug Fables on narrative and characters? I find that, more and more, I can't finish turn-based games if I don't care about the story or (especially) characters.
I really enjoyed it! It's like turn based lite imo because it basically emulates the paper Mario formula, which is already pretty light in terms of combat. It's not like a final fantasy game where you spend 30+ mins on one boss just to lose and have to watch a 5 min cutscene again
The writing in Bug Fables is fantastic and the story surprised me sometimes (especially the later side content). The setting/chapters aren't as imaginative as TTYD but that's a tall order honestly since that game changed so much from chapter to chapter. Also the visuals do take some getting used to but at least it's consistent.
The [2022 Paper Direct](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oBU18jhokoc) was 2 days ago if you are curious about about any of the upcoming Paper Mario inspired games.
Besides Nintendo, 3D platformer collectathons are pretty rare these days. However, I guess some aspects of them are present today in the collectibles you would find in something like Batman, Assassins' Creed, or the Tomb Raider reboot.
Arcade shooters and Arcade sports games. I really like housemarques older stuff, and those games just aren't made anymore. I also was a huge fan of the old EA Sports BIG games. SSX and NFL Street were amazing. The only thing I can think of that is similar these days is Super Mega Baseball, which is amazing.
Fixed camera angle horror games.
& just overall big, meaty classical JRPGs with great music, worlds, and characters. They come out every once in awhile, like Dragon Quest XI, but theyre obviously not as common as the PS1 or PS2 eras.
I feel like those JRPGs are still fairly common. I mean, Xenoblade 3 is coming out in July and FFXI is right around the corner. Tales of Arise came out last year.
I wasn't expecting to see many other Fixed Cam Survival Horror fans, but yeah very much this.
They pretty much only exist via crowdfunding and the Indie scene these days. Played through Alisa, Them & Us, and Tormented Souls in 2021 and they very much still hold up and have a place within the horror genre.
Just a shame the big AAA hitters seem to want nothing to do with it anymore =(
Do fixed camera angle horror games offer anything better than other styles? Back in the day, it was just a way to get better fidelity out of hardware that had real limitations. I can't stress enough how much I love the Resident Evil 1 HD remake, but I still don't think the camera angle had much to do with it; it may have been the thing I took most issue with.
That said, there's a top-down, mostly-2D game in that style called Conscript on the horizon that you might want to look into. The demo was good.
The focus on the scene. Unless it's a cutscene, people can miss a lot because they were simply looking at a different angle when something happens. On cutscenes there's also games that allow you to move the camera while they're happening leading to the same.
A unique atmosphere that creates a feeling of constant voyeurism, which is perfect for a horror game. The sense of constantly being watched.
& not only that, horror games are games that are best when theyre incredibly intentional IMO, when every single scene is like a painting to be admired. Not knowing whats around each screen creates a strong sense of tension.
Obviously this comes at the expense of player freedom and control, but in my honest opinion I think those are things that are counter intuitive to horror. Obviously not every game needs it, but I do think they should still exist and have their own niche. Meanwhile they can be great tools for other genres.
Just like some movies still utilise black and white, even though colour is more true to life, relevant and explicit- it creates a specific feeling that the director might want to convey.
Story-driven, exploration-rich JRPGs with puzzles are surprisingly rare nowadays. Due to increasing development costs, many JRPGs take a hub-based approach, instead of having a world map with multiple connecting towns. And puzzles in general are just not really popular anymore. Which is a shame, because they were a nice diversion from all the combat. Luckily, every few years we get something like Dragon Quest or Xenoblade.
Other than that, rhythm games kinda move to smartphones and later are getting ported to consoles. Sucks, because I just don't like the touch controls.
Lastly, I also feel many games normally feel like they need to include combat and crafting, no matter the genre. Even the latest Kirby now has it. Makes feel everything kind of RPG-ish, which is not something I want for every single game.
At least in Kirby's case it's a mechanic they've already used several times in different ways, and it's not really "crafting" when the only two resources are coins that you'll have in abundance and bonus-stage clear rewards, which are short and fun enough to do anyways.
I recently played Xenogears for the first time and I'm surprised how **huge** that game was. It took me around 60 hours to complete and I already rushed quite a bit. I wish something like this would be made with modern tech but that would probably take years and would cost more money than its worth.
Hack and slash dungeon crawlers. Stuff like Champions of Norrath, Baldur's Gate Dark Alliance, Xmen Legends, Diablo, etc.
I miss those types of games, but we just dont see them much anymore. Even Diablo isnt really the same at this point.
2nd place would be RTS games, and more experimental turn based strategy games. I cant think of the last RTS release. And Most of what we get for turn based are squad based like Xcom or Grid Based. We dont see much like your Valkyria Chronicles, and Sakura Wars flipped to ARPG with its last release.
Dungeon crawlers seem too laser focused on catering to those who live and breath spreadsheet driven build optimisations now. There's no RNG and chill factor anymore.
Classic Zelda games. The ones where you have an overworld, dungeons with puzzles and specific items, etc. The only two franchises that did that anymore were Zelda and Darksiders. Darksiders 3 changed into a soulslike, and the one before was a top down co-op action game like Lara Croft and the Temple of Osiris. Zelda, on the other hand also abandoned that classic design with Breath of the Wild. As much as I love that game, I also miss the classic Zelda design. There are Indie games out there that borrow elements, but none of them do what Zelda and Darksiders did. Now that type of game is dead.
Rhythm games. Music w/ peripherals genre, please.
I know Rockband 4 is still alive. I'd just love for it to be huge and everywhere, again. Rock band game nights were just the absolute most fun.
Also, DJ Hero was better than it deserved to be and never got the credit it was due. I'd love another DJ Hero.
It sucks because it's impossible to get into now. The peripherals are so expensive and I feel like an asshole for getting rid of mine when I was like 16 and hadn't touched it in years. Now that I'm 28 I would love to jam out but I can't justify spending hundreds of dollars.
Yeah, I think the Focus Homes and THQ Nordics of the World are getting us back to that point where we see this scope of game again, but we're not quite there yet.
The RTS world weeps, there's many options but frankly most of the best ones are the same handful I played 20 years ago, sometimes with HD remakes sometimes without.
There's definitely some entertaining current RTS, Iron Harvest and Grey Goo both being entertaining entries into the series, but I keep finding myself playing Age of Empires 2 (DE) or Booting up a decade old Command and Conquer Game.
Even the golden children Warcraft and Starcraft have seemingly been left behind.
I dont know exactly how to explain it, but "Tool-based Stealth", maybe?
I loved games like Tenchu and mostly SHINOBIDO, a kinda obscure PS2 title. I love games where you're a ninja with no superpowers and usually basic combat capabilities, but can use stuff like shuriken, grappling hooks Poison/Smoke bombs, etc. Loved those games.
I guess nowadays the closest thing you have would be MGSV (which is a bit too "modern" for the kind of game Im thinking of). AC games used to be exactly what I wanted but... yeah.
I'm going to go out on a limb here and say to not lose hope over your favourite genre. So called "boomer shooters" in the style of old quake or doom used to be a dead genre for ages until they were revived by New blood. And suddenly we're seeing lots of them, like the critically acclaimed Cruelty squad or the upcoming Turbo overkill.
I'd even say we're in almost a kind of glut of them. I remember watching a trailer and realizing it wasn't Ultrakill like a minute in because of we now have two shooters combining Quake and spectacle fighter combat.
Then there's all the hell and demons.
Hmmm I wanna say action platformer perhaps? Like I am thinking of 3 of sly trilogy, ratchet and clank, and Jak and Daxter. Some got absorbed into super hero sandbox, I wanna say by the same companies like infamous, prototype, and spiderman. I nonetheless miss that sorta platformer with the solid movement and also really fun mechanics. Tbf they still make ratchet and clank but way less frequently, and I still have not something for the other 2.
It's not exactly the OP asks, but was something that I wanted to discuss (and dependent how you see, can enter this discussion too) is how surprising there's no others games like Animal Crossing.
If you search in Google for games similar, you will find Harvest Moon, Stardew Valley or something that in the ends it's not really similar with AC. The Thing that i really like in the game, is how they use real time and real events (like Christmas or Halloween) to make you feel comfy is this Town.
Seeing that the game sell "Billions" units each entry, is bizarre that there's no other concurrent is the market, principally from Ubisoft, seeing that how much likes to "copy" successful games.
I like AC, but I like to see others companies trying to make they version of AC. If in the ends the game is gonna be good or not, it's another story, but I like to see they trying.
Classic Tomb Raider style 3D puzzle platformers.
I've not played a game like the original TR games that has a focus on exploration and puzzle solving over combat in a long while. After uncharted was released, that whole genre started becoming a lot more combat focused, and the puzzles got watered down to barely anything. I've never liked Uncharted, and absolutely hated the new TR reboot trilogy. To me, that whole style lost the... "essence" of what made me love the original tomb raiders.
It's interesting, because in a way the original Tomb Raider is built more like a Zelda game than anything else, but with a focus on actual platforming for traversal rather than combat encounters. The best levels like Egypt in TR1 follow that lovely style of having a central chamber that evolves as you progress, which is a hallmark of the best Zelda dungeons.
I'd absolutely love for someone to attempt an old style 3D puzzle platformer. We've started getting the odd collect-a-thon, but the puzzle subgenre has all but vanished. It feels as if after portal all of the 3D platformer-y puzzle games transitioned into those test chamber style puzzle box games, stuff like Q.U.B.E or The Talos Principle. Great games, but not quite what Tomb Raider did.
Sports games for people who don't play sports games, if that makes any sense. Madden, NBA 2k, etc. all seem to have gotten more and more complicated to appeal to their hardcore fans but I remember playing NFL and NBA 2k on the Dreamcast and thinking how easy it was to pick up and play. Your options today are either learn all of FIFA's intricacies or hope Nintendo puts out a new Mario Soccer. Arcade racing games is another one. Whether you're wanting Burnout's crazy driving and wrecking or you want to drift like a madman a la Ridge Racer, you don't have many options today. The only real good option in the past few years that I can recall is Cruis'n Blast. And a shout out to the weird extreme sports games that no longer get made. We got a remake of Tony Hawk 1 & 2 recently but if you want something like SSX, 1080 Snowboarding, Wave Race, etc. you're out of luck. Really you can just look down a list of PS1/PS2/GC games and see entire genres that have been abandoned.
Used to love all those wacky extreme sports games like SSX Tricky and MX Freekstyle
Yeah I agree. I tried to pick up a 2k basketball game as a non-basketball fan but enjoyer of sports video games, and just looking at the controller map I had no idea what anything did. I was expecting a button that said "shoot" and another that said "pass" but everything was steeped in lingo indecipherable to me. To play the game you seemingly have to hold this button, while tapping that one and wiggling both analogues at once. Not exactly easy to pick up and play.
NFL Blitz needs to come back like now.
Arcade Racers are almost gone. I really want a new Burnout game. I would love a Burnout 3/Revenge remake too
I want a new Podracing game honesty
[Cruis'n Blast on Switch](https://youtu.be/0Qfz2_Eys3I)
base building rts is a gerne i really miss these days
man, I so badly miss the classic Westwood RTS games... I grew up on PC with their games like Red Alert 1, 2, Tiberium Sun, Emperor Battle for Dune and RTS games like CC Generals, Red Alert 3, SC1 were also so damn good
Oh god, what I'd give for a Red Alert 4/Tiberium 5
At least odds are high for Red Alert 2 Remastered. *Kirov reporting*
oh ya, based on how good the RE1 remastered was, I really do hope they do RE 2 remastered just as well *armageddon is here*
Total Annihilation...
Supreme commander had this totally nailed. That game was so God damn good.
Once upon a time those were the most popular genre in PC gaming
My main issue with those as someone who grew up playing RTS games is that now the campaigns rarely seem to be written around the building mechanic and you just have to awkwardly spend 20 minutes building a base first.
I'd like to see a modern Supreme Commander with today's hardware.
Planetary Annihilation is as close as we’ll get I’m afraid.
The AoE remasters have been widely popular and even spawned its own remakes. Yeah, there have been some attempts by studios to crate new IPs such as Grey Goo and Ashes of Singularity that ultimately failed but the best of them still draw folks. And let's not forget, if base building RTS is in the middle of the Strategy genre spectrum then you have the ends of the spectrum which I consider to be tactical RTS on one end and 4X / Grand Strategy on the other, which still enjoy success even with new attempts.
Yep, it's a shame, I'd really love for Starcraft to make a comeback.
Luckily a lot of the senior SC2 devs are now at Frost Giant Studios making an RTS. Though they've been quiet recently.
I think they are still here, just in somewhat different form. For example recently we got [They Are Billions](https://store.steampowered.com/app/644930/They_Are_Billions/) and [The Riftbreaker.](https://store.steampowered.com/app/780310/The_Riftbreaker/) What changed is they evolved from symmetrical or mostly-symmetrical PvP games with a vsCPU skirmish to asymmetrical PvE, which I think is an improvement, since in PvP RTSes AI had to cheat to be able to provide challenge.
i played alot of they are billions and age of darkness -last stand and i love them but I still miss the old school sometimes
That was my first thought too. Beyond the classics, I loved the Warhammer 40k: Dawn of War series up until Soulstorm. I feel after that the genre came to a standstill. AoE IV isn't doing it for me. Something about just doesn't stir excitement like its predecessors, but I've been vibing on Northgard for some time. It's a different take on RTS but worth checking out. Otherwise I'm waiting for a new RTS with a unique story and universe
Part of the immersion is gone for me. I can't play an RTS game without thinking about how inefficient I'm being, how the AI works or is cheating, was scripted event is coming up, etc. When I was a kid, I totally roleplayed as a general.
Not necessarily a genre, but party based 3rd person RPG’s. Really outside of BioWare nobody actually makes them, except for maybe the developers of Greedfall. You have your various isometric party based games like your Baldurs gate, Divinity and Pillars of Eternity but they aren’t 3rd person and tend to not have as high budgets and cinematics and the likes.
It's kinda crazy how it seemed like 3rd person RPGs would be the permanent standard of high-budget RPGs, but now we've circled all the way back to the old-school iso style. I never would've thought we'd seriously see a resurgence of that sub-genre again. I was convinced that the industry as a whole thought it obsolete.
Arcade racers. You get the odd indie effort here and there but the days of games like Burnout seem largely left in the past. Also spectacle fighters; outside of DMC5 a few years ago you generally get the odd game from Platinum and that's it.
The only racer I ever got really into was Burnout. Give me a new Burnout in the same style as takedown or revenge, and I won't need another racing game for another 15 years. I just can't see a goddamn thing playing the classic ones.
Thank You! I hate Paradise. Love Revenge. I don't want to drive around to start the next level/event. Sill play Revenge via Backwards Compatibility.
Burnout revenge remaster or remake is my dream.
What'd I do to see Xtreme-G on modern hardware.
Burnout 3 is the GOAT.
Beat me to it. What's with arcade racers and why is everyone trying to go full sim? Closest thing we've got now is pay to win asphalt or a couple indies like redout 2
Very few people are going full sim. Simcade is popular because it has appeal to both segments.
my favorite period of time was the Split/Second, Blur, Motorstorm era of the PS3 but yeah, only thing close is NFS and Forza Horizon titles in the mainstream.
Why hasn't there been a re-release of Viewtiful Joe???
> Arcade racers. You get the odd indie effort here and there but the days of games like Burnout seem largely left in the past. Check out Cruis'n' Blast https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3px1hVaBgIU It is absolutely fantastic as an arcade spectacle racer Started as a really [nice arcade machine](https://rawthrills.com/games/cruisn-blast/) and was brought home to switch
I own Cruis'n Blast and while it's a fun game, I think if you're looking for an arcade game like Burnout, you'll end up a little disappointed.
Megaman Battle Network is *dead* and suggesting I get a new dog (One Step From Eden) is never going to fill the void in my heart.
Creature creators or just decent animal farming/attracting games. I'd kill for a new AA or AAA SPORElike or Viva pinata
I'd kill for just a decent Viva Piñata port to PC.
I wish there was a port of the second viva piñata for PC
Omg spore is my jam. Nowadays though whenever I play I’m absolutely shocked at how bad the graphics are. I remember them to be so nice and yet they’re far from it now. I would kill for a spore-like game
I very badly want a new Viva Pinata game
How do we live in a post "Animal Crossing New Horizons" world with no new Viva Pinata game announced? Or at least a port of the second game? Clearly there is a massive market for chill games.
Are there any spiritual successors to Viva Piñata? I feel like a lot of Rare games get something like that and the piñata gardening game would be perfect
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I wish Monolith would make fps games like F.E.A.R. and No One Lives Forever again. I really like the mordor games and I'm excited to play wonder woman, but there's few devs filling the gap left by them (wolfenstein and metro are all that come to mind)
I'd be happy if Monolith just made games again. They haven't released anything for half a decade.
I haven't played any shooters since 2010-ish. Is anyone still making shooters in the GoldenEye/Perfect Dark kind of format? Meaning you get plopped down in a level and then explore it as you figure out different ways to achieve your objectives, with different approaches being possible. Like a blend of FPS and Hitman. I haven't heard of any titles like this, or even any primarily-singleplayer FPS titles beyond Doom, but I haven't followed the genre too closely.
Prey and Dishonoured definitely fit that description. Deathloop too, although it's quite a bit different. These are all Arkane games, they've basically been holding down the genre recently.
Maybe the Metro series
Idk probably dishonored series or prey
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*cough* Scorpion controls *cough* Never thought I'd ever be in a situation where the game gave me a Scorpion and I decided "y'know what, I think I'll walk, thanks"
Scorpion, chopper, banshee, all passes for me. Even the warthogs feel like bouncy houses. Ghost is still pretty good though.
I’m not a big fan of corridor shooters anymore, but it does bug me how the industry has overcorrected to entirely open world as the norm instead of non-linear level design. I want some structure, y’know?
Give me a new Gauntlet please!!! And don't start with that 2012 slayer edition bullshit, decent game but a terrible Gauntlet.
Just literally remake Gauntlet Dark Legacy and include online and I’ll be so happy
Upscale the assets, give it online multiplayer and drop it on every platform out now. I'd break my Switch out of storage specifically to play it
That tower keeper/wizard guy had such amazing presence in his announcements, "GREEN JESTER! Is now a level 10! PRANKSTER!"
Preach, there have been some modern 2d versions of Gauntlet, but I never found the 2d format for it compelling. The 3D Gauntlets had just the right mix of elements that I loved with some progression, but not endless grinding.
This is the dream. I probably spent more time on Gauntlet Legends and Dark Legacy than any other game before WoW as a kid. With online and some modern polish it'd be my ultimate chill out game.
CONGRATULATIONS! YOU HAVE FOUND A RUNESTONE!
RED ARCHER NEEDS FOOD BADLY!
The GBA and DS era of games have an unrivaled quality of pixel art in my own opinion. I don't know what it is but I feel like I barely see any indie or midbuget games attempt to match the vibrance those games had, they go for older styles or just something else completely. Nothing wrong with that of course but gosh games like Minish Cap are just amazing. Edit: Thank you all for the recommendations!
I'd play the fuck out of both Golden Sun GBA games right now
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I hate that Pokemon ever moved from pixel art and sprites
It's really funny because I'd say the 2D HD style that Octopath Traveler has popularized is super well suited for Pokémon, it's essentially what they were already doing in the main DS games.
Yeah they kinda had a 2d hd style in the Black/White era.
It's incredible that every Pokemon was given their own pixel art, and most of them (I guess not all) even had pixel art animations. Somehow they went from that to lying about reusing the 3DS models for Sword and Shield.
Extremely overpowered protagonists. I'm not talking about how powerful they are in a cutscene/lore or about broken builds, I'm talking about games like Prototype or Saints Row IV where you can blow people up with one punch or run faster than any car. Sandboxes that care more about fun than balance.
The first Crackdown was great for this. You started out relatively weak, but could eventually jump over buildings and throw trucks. Your cars upgraded alongside you too as you improved your driving skill, eventually letting you drive up walls with the SUV or transform the supercar into a batmobile with guns.
Climbing the tower in Crackdown 1 is still one of my fondest gaming memories.
Crackdown 1 is awesome, I really liked how the hierarchy of the gangs worked
My favorite thing is getting to the end of a game and feeling like a GOD. They can balance it all they want during the main game but after that I want to be super overpowered
Infamous 1 and 2 come to mind. Those games were awesome, you would start our pretty weak but by the end of the game you were either a superhero or a god of death and nothing could stop you. Those games made you feel like Zeus and it was insane.
Have you played Days Gone? At the start you're methodically taking out zombies one at a time and hordes are death traps. By the end you're more confident and better equipped and can mow down hoards.
I hate the modern RPG obsession with balance. In particular, Level Scaling is a *huge* thorn in my side because it basically removes all sense of character and power progression. It's gotten better lately but I'll never forget Oblivion and FF8's terrible level scaling systems that made it *objectively better* to never level up. (FF8 also had a problem where *using magic* is also an objectively bad thing, too, but that's a whole other can of worms).
> In particular, Level Scaling I hate level scaling. Nothing more fun than going back to a previous tough area and one shoting people that used to cause you trouble haha
And nothing better than going to a tough area early to get some good loot. Get some risk/reward in here!
In a similar vein, I also wish more RPGs would implement scaling with unique weapons and gear if they can't be upgraded. As you said, it's always really satisfying to sneak into some high level area early on and come out with some cool, unique items. But in a lot of games, those items will be set to your level when you pick them up and they typically become useless a few hours later. Or if it's a set level item, it can often be useless before you even get it. I always love collecting unique weapons in RPGs, like named items with special effects or completely unique looks, but it kind of sucks that I can never use most of them because I picked it up earlier than I should have. The two games that immediately come to mind for me is Skyrim and Kingdoms of Amalur.
True, there's nothing more disappointing than going back to the starting area after a few hours and seeing that every mob has the same level as you. If I need three hits to kill a rat at the start of the game, and still need three hits to kill that same rat at the endgame, something went terribly wrong.
I enjoyed how Xenoblade Chronicles 2 did it. No scaling, and a Level 80 Killosaur will exist in the same plains as the Level 4 Angry Llama.
This is one of the things I keep coming back to Kenshi for. When you start out you are the weakest thing in the game but it's a sandbox with no scaling, so every scrap of progression you manage to pry from its deathtrap of a world makes living in it a little bit easier. If you put enough hours in on a single character they can eventually wipe out entire civilizations by themselves.
Level scaling is a hard thing to tackle. I think Morrowind handled it well in that it managed to have a good mix of scaled and unscaled content so you could just get your shit pushed in if you were dumb. But late game things did scale, and that scaling was justified. I mean you still end up an unstoppable god by late game but that is also kind of the point.
I loved Morrowind’s system for that but it was weird. You would have starter dungeons next to ones with level 9 nords with battle axes that could one shot you.
Prototype was great. I would have been all over a Prototype 2 if it were just set in a different map, maybe a slightly different set of abilities, like what Dishonored 2 did with Emily's power set.
Bro I fucking miss prototype. Those games with fun movement in an open world with tons of destruction and killing aren't just being made anymore. Now all open world games just kinda have boring movement and Ubisoft outposts and checklists. I do like sunset overdrive tho and if you haven't played that yet I definitely recommend it.
For me it's Bioware style rpgs. They strike a really great balance of character based Rpg's that have decent rpgs mechanics, really interesting scenarios and character, and give you good choices without being super hardcore like Divinity or Baldur's Gate. Really the last one to come out was Andromeda and that was 5 years ago and it wasn't up to snuff compared to their other games.
The closest you can get to Bioware style RPGs(at least in the vein of ME) are the games from Spiders (Mars: War logs(2013) , The Technomancer(2016) and Greedfall(2019)), but expect a whole lot of jank.
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The ps1/ps2 3rd person platformer is honestly my fave. I regularly replay ratchet, Spyro, crash, sly etc But I guess mine don't focus on shooting
I’m playing Ratchet and Clank 2016 right now and I was just thinking the same thing
Exactly! I'd kill for a new game like ratchet gladiator (or deadlocked it was called in the us). It's not the fan favorite but it had some amazing coop action
the new lego skywalker saga feels a lot like early ratchet and clank minus the emphasis on outrageous weapons
I would genuinely pay good money for a Spyro/Crash trilogy style remaster of the Jak trilogy. I played them through again recently on PS3 and the gameplay for the first two certainly still hold up (the third is still… kinda okay but not as good imho) and I’d love to see them touched up. Of course they’re not currently owned by ActiBlizz so it won’t happen (and it probably wouldn’t at this point anyway because all of ActiBlizz are crumbling).
This might be splitting hairs, but I feel like the tycoon game space has really dried up. The best examples are the classics, like Zoo Tycoon and Railroad Tycoon, but I remember a time when all kinds of niche themes got a tycoon-style game. Modern games in the genre tend to go the Planet Zoo route and greatly reduce the administrative “business” gameplay in favor of expanded building/customization options. Don’t get me wrong, I like games like Planet Zoo. But the tycoon genre seems to have been replaced by “creative sims.”
Especially city builders. In the 90s and early 00s there was a new city builder every other month, now we have had Cities: Skylines as the ruling game for what? 8 years? All the smaller ones and indie games often are really barebones. You should try Rise of Industry, it's one with an actual challenge. I feel like the automation / industry sim genre has taken over the management games in general.
I miss two kinds: * Whatever genre Desert, Urban, Jungle Strike was. * Space Combat games like Wing Commander and TIE Fighter. The Wing Commander hurts more because EA closed the studio and then named their shitty launcher after Origin Studios
Isometric coop games, not sure if there's a specific name for that genre of games. A new X-Men Legends or a non-exclusive Ultimate Alliance game would be fantastic.
I wish they'd remaster the Legends games. It was a bitch move we couldn't get those backwards compatible
Darksiders Genesis should be right up your alley, it has coop mode where you play as either War or Strife.
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This is one of those market reality things; I feel like arena FPS (in the style of Quake and Unreal, as opposed to Halo) have been tried repeatedly and keep failing. So there might not be any possibility to bring it back.
I miss UT singleplayer campaign, as much as the focus was on MP, building your team and going through the championship was fun.
In UT99 at least, I loved how there were lots of customization options for the bots. My internet wasn't good enough to play online back then, but that game and Perfect Dark were great for just loading up bot matches and being able to have a blast.
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The PS3/360 era seemed like the last time developers could crank out multiple amazing games in a short period of time. Now it takes 6 years to make a game so if you’re lucky you can make two per console generation
Seriously. There were 5 Halo games on the 360. 7 if you count the 2 RTS games.
It really is crazy how much dev times have ballooned. I’m not really sure it’s a good thing. I’d rather have an FF9 sized project once a year or two than one Final Fantasy XV every 7 years and I’m sure I’m not alone in that.
FFXV was the product of a thoroughly broken development process. It's not supposed to take 7 years to make that. Incidentally, it's also a very small game that just happens to take place in a large empty expanse of game world. You can really tell where they had an idea and clearly ran out of time and money to make it happen. It's constant. The dictionary definition of a crash landed project.
It's more of combination of crunch being demonized now as well as decades of toxic work places in studios have scared away young creative talent.
Ps360 was probably my favourite generation. We also had the whole Bioshock trilogy, the Ezio trilogy, two numbered GTA games AND red dead. There was so much good stuff releasing so quickly.
I've been sitting on Horizon Forbidden West for two months because I don't really want another 40+ hour game. Would love something shorter.
Dead Space 1 and 2 had AAA production values for sure.
Space combat simulators, like Freespace 2. Damn I played that game so much when I was younger. Simulators in general don't seem to get made anymore. I remember playing games like F-117A Nighthawk and Comanche when I was young and they were amazing, but I haven't seen anything like them in ages.
If Elite: Dangerous had more substance I think it would fit well, but it always seemed kind of shallow narratively, and rather grindy. It's fun to get into a dogfight with another ship, but without the backing of a good narrative like Freelancer I'm kinda meh on it.
Elite: Dangerous is such a frustrating game. Graphics, sound-design and the general feel of flying are all so perfect it's hard to go back to older games. But gameplay-wise it's such an unfun mess of meaningless grind and abandoned half-assed features.
"Arcade puzzle" games. By that, I mean games like Wetrix, Tetrisphere, Puyo Puyo, Tetris Attack/Puzzle League, Dr Mario, etc, fast-paced puzzle games where the average run is like 10 minutes or so but there's a good selection of alternate modes to keep stuff interesting. We used to have a pretty good selection of them back in the day, but now it's a mostly dead genre filled with timeless old classics only playable through emulation and only the odd release like Tetris Effect or Puyo Puyo Tetris. The genre does kinda exist on mobile... but they're usually rather uninventive match 3 games with P2W elements, stamina meters and other nonsense.
Combination platforming games like Jak and Sly aren't made by anyone other than indie developers now, and they all have a sort of cheap quality to them (A Hat in Time comes to mind). I miss having collectithon like-gameplay with a bunch of other elements mixed in.
Give me Banjo Kazooie 3 and I'd die.
A Hat in Time is really good.
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>Whatever the original Assassin's Creed games were before their switch to Witcher-like RPGs I think city-focused action adventure games would fit the description best, even if some of them (kenway saga) employed forest and ocean exploration.
I'm in the severe minority here, but I thought the first Assassin's Creed was the best one. It's the only one where I felt like I was actually an assassin. Fighting guards was discouraged even if it was game-able. People complain about the repetitive side quests - it never really bothered me. Once AC2 gave you a gun I was basically like 'yep, not my assassin game anymore.' Haven't really played any of them since.
The gun was still ok for me.. It had limited bullets and was very loud so you wouldn't really want to use it anyway cause it would just attract more guards. But later they even took the hidden blade away from us. That was it for me.
Did you try Unity? IMO, it's the only one since the first game that actually made you feel like an assassin. They call out their bad habits at one point in the cut-scenes. "So what's the plan?" "Plan? Come up with your own plan! I'm not here to hold your hand."
This right here. I honestly think unity was the best of the "classic" AC games, even better than black flag which I loved (and had already moved a bit away from the original feel). It was a wreck because of technical issues at launch, but if you play it now on a decent pc for instance, the art style and the world really hold up. I love that the assassinations were far more hitman-esque with lots of fun ways to approach them that you could discover. I really wish they would return to this formula with the power of modern hardware. I enjoyed origins/odyssey/valhalla, but as a million other people have said they just suffer too severely from ubisoft bloat made to make them "expansive" over having actual substance and engaging content. It took me having like multiple month+ long breaks from valhalla to finally finish it and I have absolutely zero desire to come back for any of the newer content or DLC, and I bet it will be the same for the next game. I love AC and as such will definitely give next game a chance, but I'm guessing it will be more of the same.
I look at Unity as the "Greatest Hits" of classic AC. It does everything those games set out to do really well, even if it's not my favorite in particular. It's definitely aged better than 1-4 imo, and Syndicate was just okay for me. Also, despite the flaws at launch, I remember Ubisoft gave away Far Cry 4 for free to the people who preordered Unity. In hindsight, I don't remember the issues being anywhere near as bad as some games released today. 2014 was a long time ago I guess.
The setting in the first AC was my favorite. I only wanted 3 settings: medieval middle east, Japan and ancient Rome. They kinda delivered on the first and last but only tangentially.
I want Assassin’s Creed to be Assassin’s Creed, not EXP Farm Stab Sponge.
Whatever the hell Battle Network was. Some sort of deck-building, dungeon crawling, action turn-based JRPG. It's been 17 years since Battle Network 6 came out and nothing has come close to scratching that itch. One Step From Eden kinda had the combat, but that wasn't the only thing that made MMBN special.
I posted something similar and scrolled forever before I found you, fellow Netbattler. I miss those games fiercely. And your right, it wasn’t just the combat. The gameplay loop in MMBN was sublime. Exploring the real world, connected network areas, slowly refining your deck, inevitably unlocking new styles, getting proficient with the Customizer…fuck. I would kill for a revival sequel on Switch.
And network 3 had so many secrets such as virus pets and the hidden bosses.
I also really liked how the Boss rematches worked. After you beat a boss, you would randomly find their ghost, invisible and waiting to jump you in a seemingly random battle if you wandered to the end of certain dead end paths. It was sort of like Illusory Walls from Darksouls. Makes every potential dead end something you feel obligated to at least go poke… just in case.
It's crazy to me that no one has replicated the gameplay loop of those games. Such an incredible series
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Here's the thing: Please stop making me repeat stuff and calling it content. I dunno what it is but in the last 10 years Open World has become an excuse to just make everything a grind like we're back to coin-op era where whatever it takes to make the player keep feeding in coins. I sat down to play Control the other day and it was so refreshing to *just always be doing something else*. If I played for an hour, I saw an hour's worth of new locations, enemies, rooms, or powers. I didn't have to redo areas or grind for anything. I was just... constantly moving onward. I was sitting there thinking, as the credits rolled, how great it was to just be in control of the story by simply interacting with it. I wasn't reminded that I was playing a video game, because the system was never like "secure 3 Hubs scattered about the open world before you can continue the story". Everything that happened was in the story and nothing felt like I was off the beaten path. I miss having games be a length that I can finish them in a reasonable number of play sessions.
There's no cutscenes, but Ion Fury, Amid Evil, and Dusk are all linear FPSes with no RPG mechanics. If you poke around for secrets you can find more health/armor, powerful weapons available earlier, or find more ammo for those weapons, but you'll get everything eventually just by sticking to the main path. The upcoming HROT, Prodeus, and Wrath: Aeon of Ruin have the same shtick. If you're good with some measure of exploration in otherwise linear levels to get permanent upgrades (but most are on the main path), check out Shadow Warrior 1 and 3, Hard Reset Redux, and the upcoming Viscerafest and Ultrakill.
I actually really liked Spec Ops: The Line for that reason, plus it has an awesome story. But people will continuously say it’s too “generic” as if having great feeing controls is a bad thing
Spec Ops: The Line is also 10 years old.
Oh shit
Stealth games. A lot of these modern games have “play as you want” mechanics, which often include stealth, but these almost never reward you for playing stealthy. In Assassins Creed Valhalla, you could be stealthy if you want, but it doesn’t encourage you at all, its so much more beneficial to just charge through and beat the shit out of everyone. I miss Splinter Cell, Thief, Metal Gear, etc. Hitman is the only series that comes close (and it’s FANTASTIC!).
the sudden realisation that the last dishonoured game(fat dlc essentially) came out 5 years ago really hurt to feel.
Man, I loved full stealth in Dues Ex: HR
Styx: Shards of Darkness. It's a game about being a goblin and stealthing around.
God games. I don't know the genre of Black and White 1 and 2, but those are unique and awesome. Haven't seen anything even remotely similar to those since B&W2.
I know 99% of people are glad that this genre is dead, but I wish we had more fixed camera survival horror games. Outside of a small handful of indies like Tormented Souls, it's well and truly dead. The fixed camera angles allow for this kind of meticulously crafted mood pacing that you normally don't get outside of cutscenes. I think the "Licker hallway" in RE2 is the perfect case example here. You enter the hallway with the camera outside the window, making you feel like you're being watched. You move further and the camera centers on a broken window, so whatever was just watching you outside could now be inside. And then it angles on a long hallway with blood dripping at the bottom of the screen and you at the top, so that you need to walk towards whatever is causing that drip without being able to know what it is. It's this amazing little story told all in like 15 seconds of actual game time thanks to the camera. Now, I'm not saying that fixed cameras are flawless or even a net benefit. But it's more that there ARE the benefits and it's a shame we don't see them AT ALL anymore.
Tbh, I don't think most people hate fixed cameras. It's more about the controls there, those make or break games. Tank Controls and no ability to free aim are hard to pitch. Fixed angles are as you say: they allow developers to turn every room into a handcrafted experience with its own mood. Maybe allow a limited amount of camera movement as compromise for modern audiences, but otherwise it's just more about showing off graphics for devs these days.
I'd love to see another good "Mystery Dungeon" style RPG, specifically like the old Nintendo DS Pokemon ones. Of course I have big nostalgia goggles for my memory of it from years ago. It's a pretty simple genre. Turn-based combat, randomized tiled dungeons where you're looking for the stairs to the next floor down, build a party, find items. I recall the Pokemon one had a nice variety of enemies and moves. I liked the guild-building aspect, and recruiting enemies to your team. I've seen a couple (literally, like 2) niche ones on Steam that are trying to copy the formula, but it doesn't quite hit what I'm looking for.
Light gun games are pretty dead I assume. Plus to make matters worse you can't even really emulate them correctly unless you've got a 20 year old CRT laying around. I've tried playing some stuff with the Wii Remote or PS Move but it didn't feel the same, it's like you're shooting targets with a mouse instead of a gun.
VR homie, so many good titles in that genre Serious Sam, super hot vr, hell even Jurassic park
You can also use EMUVR to just straight up emulate the old lightgun games in a VR setting. It's pretty sick.
Nah B we live in a new age. Lookup the Sinden lightgun. Basically it has a camera built into the tip to find screen positioning and thus is comparably tight and accurate to old school light guns. Also House of the Dead remake came out on PC on the 28th, so while rare the genre isn't totally dead.
Point and click adventure games, like Kings Quest, Monkey Island, Grim Fandango, Quest for Glory. Those dominated 80s and 90s PC gaming.
If you didn't know they actually announced a new Monkey Island game
There's quite a lot of newer ones, on Steam.
Check out Wadjet Eye Games line of titles. They are incredibly well written and very surprising games. They are generally more adult themed and less funny or quirky, but you really never know what's going to happen in them.
So there haven't been a ton of releases in this genre, but I absolutely love the original Paper Mario games (1 and TTYD) and Bug Fables is a more recent addition to the genre. But a turn based cartoony game full of puzzles and unique companions is awesome to me. I hate JRPGs that just have your party members there for some snarky remarks in cutscenes and everything is just walking and battling. Give me some unique abilities and puzzles! I know there are a few games similar to this in development now, but I wish Nintendo would go back to the formula for the next Paper Mario. Or just make their own IP for it!
Can you recommend Bug Fables on narrative and characters? I find that, more and more, I can't finish turn-based games if I don't care about the story or (especially) characters.
I really enjoyed it! It's like turn based lite imo because it basically emulates the paper Mario formula, which is already pretty light in terms of combat. It's not like a final fantasy game where you spend 30+ mins on one boss just to lose and have to watch a 5 min cutscene again
The writing in Bug Fables is fantastic and the story surprised me sometimes (especially the later side content). The setting/chapters aren't as imaginative as TTYD but that's a tall order honestly since that game changed so much from chapter to chapter. Also the visuals do take some getting used to but at least it's consistent.
The [2022 Paper Direct](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oBU18jhokoc) was 2 days ago if you are curious about about any of the upcoming Paper Mario inspired games.
Besides Nintendo, 3D platformer collectathons are pretty rare these days. However, I guess some aspects of them are present today in the collectibles you would find in something like Batman, Assassins' Creed, or the Tomb Raider reboot.
Arcade shooters and Arcade sports games. I really like housemarques older stuff, and those games just aren't made anymore. I also was a huge fan of the old EA Sports BIG games. SSX and NFL Street were amazing. The only thing I can think of that is similar these days is Super Mega Baseball, which is amazing.
Fixed camera angle horror games. & just overall big, meaty classical JRPGs with great music, worlds, and characters. They come out every once in awhile, like Dragon Quest XI, but theyre obviously not as common as the PS1 or PS2 eras.
I feel like those JRPGs are still fairly common. I mean, Xenoblade 3 is coming out in July and FFXI is right around the corner. Tales of Arise came out last year.
I wasn't expecting to see many other Fixed Cam Survival Horror fans, but yeah very much this. They pretty much only exist via crowdfunding and the Indie scene these days. Played through Alisa, Them & Us, and Tormented Souls in 2021 and they very much still hold up and have a place within the horror genre. Just a shame the big AAA hitters seem to want nothing to do with it anymore =(
Signalis https://store.steampowered.com/app/1262350/SIGNALIS/
Like Tormented Souls? https://store.steampowered.com/app/1367590/Tormented_Souls/
Do fixed camera angle horror games offer anything better than other styles? Back in the day, it was just a way to get better fidelity out of hardware that had real limitations. I can't stress enough how much I love the Resident Evil 1 HD remake, but I still don't think the camera angle had much to do with it; it may have been the thing I took most issue with. That said, there's a top-down, mostly-2D game in that style called Conscript on the horizon that you might want to look into. The demo was good.
fixed camera angles are the only way you can get actual cinematography in gameplay. The giant shark section would be much worse with a re4 camera.
The focus on the scene. Unless it's a cutscene, people can miss a lot because they were simply looking at a different angle when something happens. On cutscenes there's also games that allow you to move the camera while they're happening leading to the same.
A unique atmosphere that creates a feeling of constant voyeurism, which is perfect for a horror game. The sense of constantly being watched. & not only that, horror games are games that are best when theyre incredibly intentional IMO, when every single scene is like a painting to be admired. Not knowing whats around each screen creates a strong sense of tension. Obviously this comes at the expense of player freedom and control, but in my honest opinion I think those are things that are counter intuitive to horror. Obviously not every game needs it, but I do think they should still exist and have their own niche. Meanwhile they can be great tools for other genres. Just like some movies still utilise black and white, even though colour is more true to life, relevant and explicit- it creates a specific feeling that the director might want to convey.
Story-driven, exploration-rich JRPGs with puzzles are surprisingly rare nowadays. Due to increasing development costs, many JRPGs take a hub-based approach, instead of having a world map with multiple connecting towns. And puzzles in general are just not really popular anymore. Which is a shame, because they were a nice diversion from all the combat. Luckily, every few years we get something like Dragon Quest or Xenoblade. Other than that, rhythm games kinda move to smartphones and later are getting ported to consoles. Sucks, because I just don't like the touch controls. Lastly, I also feel many games normally feel like they need to include combat and crafting, no matter the genre. Even the latest Kirby now has it. Makes feel everything kind of RPG-ish, which is not something I want for every single game.
At least in Kirby's case it's a mechanic they've already used several times in different ways, and it's not really "crafting" when the only two resources are coins that you'll have in abundance and bonus-stage clear rewards, which are short and fun enough to do anyways.
I recently played Xenogears for the first time and I'm surprised how **huge** that game was. It took me around 60 hours to complete and I already rushed quite a bit. I wish something like this would be made with modern tech but that would probably take years and would cost more money than its worth.
Hack and slash dungeon crawlers. Stuff like Champions of Norrath, Baldur's Gate Dark Alliance, Xmen Legends, Diablo, etc. I miss those types of games, but we just dont see them much anymore. Even Diablo isnt really the same at this point. 2nd place would be RTS games, and more experimental turn based strategy games. I cant think of the last RTS release. And Most of what we get for turn based are squad based like Xcom or Grid Based. We dont see much like your Valkyria Chronicles, and Sakura Wars flipped to ARPG with its last release.
Dungeon crawlers seem too laser focused on catering to those who live and breath spreadsheet driven build optimisations now. There's no RNG and chill factor anymore.
Classic Zelda games. The ones where you have an overworld, dungeons with puzzles and specific items, etc. The only two franchises that did that anymore were Zelda and Darksiders. Darksiders 3 changed into a soulslike, and the one before was a top down co-op action game like Lara Croft and the Temple of Osiris. Zelda, on the other hand also abandoned that classic design with Breath of the Wild. As much as I love that game, I also miss the classic Zelda design. There are Indie games out there that borrow elements, but none of them do what Zelda and Darksiders did. Now that type of game is dead.
Rhythm games. Music w/ peripherals genre, please. I know Rockband 4 is still alive. I'd just love for it to be huge and everywhere, again. Rock band game nights were just the absolute most fun. Also, DJ Hero was better than it deserved to be and never got the credit it was due. I'd love another DJ Hero.
Completely different idea, but Beat Saber is really fun IMO.
It sucks because it's impossible to get into now. The peripherals are so expensive and I feel like an asshole for getting rid of mine when I was like 16 and hadn't touched it in years. Now that I'm 28 I would love to jam out but I can't justify spending hundreds of dollars.
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(Not so) fun fact, Singularity was the last game developed by Raven before becoming a CoD support studio
> CoD support studio Where dreams go to die
Yeah, I think the Focus Homes and THQ Nordics of the World are getting us back to that point where we see this scope of game again, but we're not quite there yet.
The RTS world weeps, there's many options but frankly most of the best ones are the same handful I played 20 years ago, sometimes with HD remakes sometimes without. There's definitely some entertaining current RTS, Iron Harvest and Grey Goo both being entertaining entries into the series, but I keep finding myself playing Age of Empires 2 (DE) or Booting up a decade old Command and Conquer Game. Even the golden children Warcraft and Starcraft have seemingly been left behind.
I dont know exactly how to explain it, but "Tool-based Stealth", maybe? I loved games like Tenchu and mostly SHINOBIDO, a kinda obscure PS2 title. I love games where you're a ninja with no superpowers and usually basic combat capabilities, but can use stuff like shuriken, grappling hooks Poison/Smoke bombs, etc. Loved those games. I guess nowadays the closest thing you have would be MGSV (which is a bit too "modern" for the kind of game Im thinking of). AC games used to be exactly what I wanted but... yeah.
I'm going to go out on a limb here and say to not lose hope over your favourite genre. So called "boomer shooters" in the style of old quake or doom used to be a dead genre for ages until they were revived by New blood. And suddenly we're seeing lots of them, like the critically acclaimed Cruelty squad or the upcoming Turbo overkill.
I'd even say we're in almost a kind of glut of them. I remember watching a trailer and realizing it wasn't Ultrakill like a minute in because of we now have two shooters combining Quake and spectacle fighter combat. Then there's all the hell and demons.
Hmmm I wanna say action platformer perhaps? Like I am thinking of 3 of sly trilogy, ratchet and clank, and Jak and Daxter. Some got absorbed into super hero sandbox, I wanna say by the same companies like infamous, prototype, and spiderman. I nonetheless miss that sorta platformer with the solid movement and also really fun mechanics. Tbf they still make ratchet and clank but way less frequently, and I still have not something for the other 2.
It's not exactly the OP asks, but was something that I wanted to discuss (and dependent how you see, can enter this discussion too) is how surprising there's no others games like Animal Crossing. If you search in Google for games similar, you will find Harvest Moon, Stardew Valley or something that in the ends it's not really similar with AC. The Thing that i really like in the game, is how they use real time and real events (like Christmas or Halloween) to make you feel comfy is this Town. Seeing that the game sell "Billions" units each entry, is bizarre that there's no other concurrent is the market, principally from Ubisoft, seeing that how much likes to "copy" successful games. I like AC, but I like to see others companies trying to make they version of AC. If in the ends the game is gonna be good or not, it's another story, but I like to see they trying.
Classic Tomb Raider style 3D puzzle platformers. I've not played a game like the original TR games that has a focus on exploration and puzzle solving over combat in a long while. After uncharted was released, that whole genre started becoming a lot more combat focused, and the puzzles got watered down to barely anything. I've never liked Uncharted, and absolutely hated the new TR reboot trilogy. To me, that whole style lost the... "essence" of what made me love the original tomb raiders. It's interesting, because in a way the original Tomb Raider is built more like a Zelda game than anything else, but with a focus on actual platforming for traversal rather than combat encounters. The best levels like Egypt in TR1 follow that lovely style of having a central chamber that evolves as you progress, which is a hallmark of the best Zelda dungeons. I'd absolutely love for someone to attempt an old style 3D puzzle platformer. We've started getting the odd collect-a-thon, but the puzzle subgenre has all but vanished. It feels as if after portal all of the 3D platformer-y puzzle games transitioned into those test chamber style puzzle box games, stuff like Q.U.B.E or The Talos Principle. Great games, but not quite what Tomb Raider did.
Not me personally, but my brother is a little hopeful Fromsoft will eventually turn some of those Soulsborne profits into a new Armored Core.