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[Urprobablyright]

A few months ago i embarked on an ambitious program of game sale exploration. I hadn't really bought many recent games for a few years, but i spent a wee bit o' duckets to secure such titles as Hitman 2, Assassin's Creed: Odyssey, Red Dead Redemption 2, LOTR Shadow of War, TW Warhammer 2, Battlefield 1, Battlefront 2, Jedi Fallen Order, Divinity Original Sin 2, Hellblade and a few others.

Spoiler: what i think of them and the wider industry now

After playing various of these titles to various extents, i have had the growing feeling that today's big games are, in some cases, pretty exceptional. Take Red Dead Redemption 2. Beyond its gameplay which everyone seems to agree is pretty flawless in its genre, it's a technical jaw dropper. I haven't even progressed much in it because all I've wanted to do thus far has basically been to hunt deer and watch their fur and my bloody shirt. Battlefield 1 isn't that new anymore but it's still gorgeous, the detail and effects, it's all a revelation to me.

Beyond these examples, there's the efficiency of the engines. My laptop is a bit expensive (Alienware 17) but it's getting on in years, but I'm still playing these games without much trouble at or near max settings. There are older games with worse engines that seem far tougher for my machine than the ones I've mentioned above. I am pretty certain that i would be able to enjoy DOOM Eternal at a level of fidelity that, while certainly not maximum, would still see me enjoying the best looking games I've played to date. And I've preordered Cyberpunk 2077 (though I'm sure I'll have to compromise a lot on that one or get a PS5 ) Unreal, ID tech, and more besides, these engines seem to be masterpieces of creative problem solving, smoke and mirrors, new ways of conveying detail and such, and optimisation.

Artistic games, Hellblade, Death Stranding, technology seems to be allowing gameplay and storytelling to expand in similar leaps.

The above is all opinion, doubtless I'm just blown away by the sudden rush of having access to these recent titles lag free, but the general point i want to discuss with you is this:

Are games today being boosted by developer experience and artifice, and ingenuous graphics engines, into a level of artistic and technical achievement that is out of step with regular game progression, or... Are they not?

 

[Bakkus]

Games today are better on a technical level, but games definitely had more creativity and quantity from around the millenium shift to 2010. All quirky Japanese developers shutting down or being reduced to mobile development is much of the reason here.

 

[Elektro Demon]

They're great technically but games used to be more daring and experimental.
Nowadays games seem to play it safe which results in all the games being almost the same.

#restoremythreadmakingabilities

 

[HE1NZ]

Games today are better on a technical level, but games definitely had more creativity and quantity from around the millenium shift to 2010. All quirky Japanese developers shutting down or being reduced to mobile development is much of the reason here.

Funny because for a long time people shat on 7th gen games for being only grey cover shooters and such. There's definitely more variety today than it was at that time

 

[kungfuian]

In general I agree with the OP. Games seem to be improving, with the highest quality AAA stuff existing on an entirely different level than older games, the indi scene seems healthy as ever, and the best VR games are just mind blowing.

That said I think it's impossible to really get a feel for the market as a whole these days. There are just sooooo many games now designed for so many different audiences. I could play x3 awesome games back to back and say the market is great, or I could play x3 that I don't connect with and say the opposite. There are way to many games for your experience to not be considered anecdotal.

 

[xrnzaaas]

They're great from the technical standpoint, but most of the big games are soulless copies/varations of past titles or they're straight up money making machines. I'm seeing myself playing more and more AA/indie games and even taking interest in Japanese games which I've been ignoring for years.

Maybe I would've have had a different approach if I started playing video games a few years back and everything was still fresh. These days I don't pee in my pants just because the game offers a huge and realistically done world or because the character models are extremely detailed.

 

[Terenty]

Mostly shit with some exceptions

 

[mcz117chief]

Mostly shit with some exceptions

I agree, most games today are too samey, unoriginal, trying to cater to the most current trends and widest possible audience at all times. Each year I find maybe 2 or 3 truly exceptional games that try to break the mold and are truly exciting for me. This year I found Deep Rock Galactic (which has been around for some time though).

 

[Humdinger]

It's hard for me to separate my own subjective experience of games and the objective state of gaming. I've been losing interest in games over the past couple of years, and I'm not sure if that's because I've changed or because games have changed. It may be both.

In any event, if I try to take myself out of the picture, games do seem to have gotten safer, less original, and more predictable with time. I see this as the natural result of larger budgets and larger teams. I originally looked to indie developers to supply the missing originality, but that hasn't panned out.

 

[hunthunt]

There are good games just like always.

Admittedly we receive less good big budget games because of the high cost of them but we also receive less shitty games, i swear the proportion of good/shitty games in the Nes, Snes and Ps1/n64 era was like 1/10

And dont even start with the xbox 360/ps3 era and the bald marines trend. Awful stuff.

 

[Tesseract]

the mechanical golden era is over, high point was early 2000s

still plenty of excellent games, outliers will always remain to push boundaries

 

[ROMhack]

Games are better but the industry seems a little bloated and it's hard to get excited about them in the same way. Reminds me a bit of music in that the remarkable nature of modern technology has opened up the doors to musicians but it's resulted in a loss of feeling like you're part of something different.

Gaming culture is much less remarkable now than it was in 2000-2015. People (not just here) seem far less passionate about them.

 

[Birdo]

The rising cost in game development has made taking risks far more of a gamble.

I think it wil only get worse next gen, with most games aiming for photo realism.

 

[LazyParrot]

Big budget releases have definitely gotten more polished in terms of presentation and accessibility over the years, but also less original and more predictable. It's a natural consequence of rising development costs. If you're going to be spending upwards of $100 million making a game, playing it safe by trying to appeal to the largest audience possible is the logical choice.

Indie titles seem to be picking up the slack, though, so I'm not too worried. I can get by without AAA titles just fine.

 

[EverydayBeast]

Gamers have decided if other things than graphics (world building, creation tools etc.) rise than everything about today's gaming shows developers are devoted to this UNBEATABLE hobby.

 

[Moogle11]

Simplest that I can put it is that I’ve been gaming for around 35 years and enjoy games today more than ever. I love cinematic, narrative-driven games and those have only gotten better over the years.

I got into gaming with NES and SNES, but still spent more time playing outside, playing and watching sports etc. hit was when games like Resident Evil, Final Fantasy 7 and Metal Gear Solid hit that games jumped to my top hobby and have remained their since.

 

[anthraticus]

Mainstream gaming went downhill big time when all this AAA nonsense started.

I'm sure the kiddies & casuals love it, but it's def not for me.

 

[Bakkus]

Funny because for a long time people shat on 7th gen games for being only grey cover shooters and such. There's definitely more variety today than it was at that time

From western developers, sure. But Japanese developers still made interesting stuff on Wii/DS/PSP

 

[Sander Cohen]

Visually, they are getting better and better but there is serious lack of innovation and experimentation in the last 5-10 years. It feels like everyone is playing it safe. Still great games all around but safe. For example I cannot understand such a excitement about TLOU 2 game that uses same old gameplays concepts from eons ago.

Also, people are way to eager for remakes and that’s why we’re getting them in such a volume recently. It kinda pisses me off all the excitement and I guess success of FF VII remake (25 year old game) while they completely shat on FF XV which represents present, time we are living right now. Like they are incapable of creating good modern games so they resort to times when they actually could. It’s sad.

So yea, I wish there were more Nier Automatas in this world and less TLOUs but yea, that’s not happening.

 

[JoeyWestSide]

Anyone play rage 2? The open world felt free but not empty. The pink lidded chests were hidden in smart areas that made you feel smart if you found it. Combat was smooth and characters were fine. All in all it was better than you would expect for "another open world game".

 

[JoeyWestSide]

Visually, they are getting better and better but there is serious lack of innovation and experimentation in the last 5-10 years. It feels like everyone is playing it safe. Still great games all around but safe. For example I cannot understand such a excitement about TLOU 2 game that uses same old gameplays concepts from eons ago.

Also, people are way to eager for remakes and that’s why we’re getting them in such a volume recently. It kinda pisses me off all the excitement and I guess success of FF VII remake (25 year old game) while they completely shat on FF XV which represents present, time we are living right now. Like they are incapable of creating good modern games so they resort to times when they actually could. It’s sad.

So yea, I wish there were more Nier Automatas in this world and less TLOUs but yea, that’s not happening.

Dude, I'm playing through nier right now and my immediate thoughts are the open areas are a little empty but holy shit if they didn't do crazy things with the camera, controls and how smoothly they switched things around is so awesome!

 

[SirTerry-T]

(old man here)
"It's all a bit safe these days innit?"
I can understand why, big budgets require big profits. Thank God we still have the indie sector and A-AA games that still want to try and freshen things up a bit.

 

[Virex]

A lot like Hollywood. The gaming industry hasn't run out of ideas. I has just run out of good ideas

 

[StreetsofBeige]

Great looking games with better production values. Even the indie digital downloads are a step up vs. last gen.

BUT, gameplay/AI I don't think has evolved one bit.

The biggest changes in gameplay if you can even call it that (which it isn't), are systems getting people social and doing streaming.

Lucky for devs many gamers focus on having fun in social ways as opposed to focusing on non-internet core gameplay like this was 20 years ago when hardly any console gamers played on the net (except those lucky DC gamers).

And because many gamers like watching streams and doing MP, devs can focus less on AI as some gamers focus all their attention on MP, there's no cpu AI to even play against.

 

[Yams]

Games are as good now as they ever were. Just don't expect to play the best games available if you limit yourself to triple A studios.

 

[Bryank75]

If you're on PlayStation and buy exclusives and are selective about what other games you buy.... I go for a mix of Capcom, R*, Square and a few select others..... You're pretty well set, you can answer one of the two top answers.

People buy Xbox and PC and they get disappointed when they have to count on multiplats that always fall short because there is no reason to reach for that bar of excellence.

That is why Alyx was so excellent, they wanted a piece of software to sell their VR. IMO.

 

[SantaC]

The creativity from the 90s are long gone.

 

[Persian buttercup]

Much better than the 7th gen.
BOTW has changed everything.

 

[JimboJones]

If you're on PlayStation and buy exclusives and are selective about what other games you buy.... I go for a mix of Capcom, R*, Square and a few select others..... You're pretty well set, you can answer one of the two top answers.

People buy Xbox and PC and they get disappointed when they have to count on multiplats that always fall short because there is no reason to reach for that bar of excellence.

That is why Alyx was so excellent, they wanted a piece of software to sell their VR. IMO.

Riiiiiiigght...lol

 

[Spokker]

Generally speaking, games seem more streamlined today. There are a few types of games and they choose off the shelf parts for a particular game. This feeling may be a consequence of middleware and third party tools. The rush to realism has made a large segment of gaming samey and uncreative. When everything imitates nature, where is the art?

Stories tend to be samey, where you are likely to hear, "Ok, what's the plan??" and "You don't have to do this!" at some point.

A lot of open world games see you activating a tower which vomits up a whole bunch of shit onto the map and off you go to check it off.

Developers are under pressure to give players 30-40 hours of shit to do regardless of quality. A game may try to be jack of all trades, master of none.

Multiplayer games are a major timesink. Instead of firing up a match and everybody having fun, it's got to be your career now to get anywhere in the online progression system. So much grinding. And then when the servers are shut down and the next game comes out, you do it all over again. At least when I grinded in SNES and PS1 era RPGs, I can still fire them up today and admire my handiwork.

Maybe I've just been around too long.

 

[JimboJones]

The creativity from the 90s are long gone.

From large publishers i'd say that's true but indies have definitely stepped up and filled in that gap, there are tonnes of experimental games coming out all the time but they get ignored because "lol indie, not a proper game"

 

[SpongebobSquaredance]

Modern games are still good, but back then they definitely had way more creativity and I'm not trying to sound nostalgic (I dont have nostalgia for most old games, I'm just interested in them) or something. If you buy 5 random PS2 games and 5 random PS4 games. chances are high that those PS2 games all play different mechanically and those PS4 games all share certaint design philosophies. Modern gaming can feel very samey. Not every game is like that luckily and especially the indie scene got some very creative people behind them, but generally speaking I feel like the golden age is over. It is pretty telling that some of the best games for current gen are either remakes, remasters/ports or sequels.

 

[mortal]

Some of them good, some of them terrible, most of them mediocre, and few of them are truly great.

Most games generally now have nice visuals, even when their game design is inadequate. So even bad or mediocre games have technically good graphics now.

 

[Northeastmonk]

I’m having a blast. I love new games. I love the technical, artistic, and captivating journey. I have some of my favorite games this gen.

I also see a lot that I’ve played from the last two console gens (this one and the last) that haven’t had the “figure it on a larger level” type of gameplay. A lot of it is easy and it’s well known when it isn’t. A lot of things were done differently because that’s the technology that was available at the time.

It’s obvious to say that there were dreamers and talented ideas since Atari consoles. It doesn’t look that way because more work and better technology made better experiences possible.

Enough praising current stuff. A lot of newer games have similar pacing. Progress, cutscene, progress, cutscene, and finally boss battle. Rinse and repeat. Throw in the mocap and cinematic banter and there you go. What’s actually new and creative are the set pieces or the art of the world.

I am really enjoying FF7R. I have a lot of praise for it, but it’s also super linear. Really linear. There’s no wondering in the woods. It has a lot of interesting stuff, but you aren’t feeling like you’re traveling all over the world. Outside of FF7R and a dozen or so modern JRPGs, I prefer retro JRPGs or at least their remake/newest port. They felt larger in scope versus a game that plays in small segments at a time.

 

[Silvawuff]

Are we talking about only big-budget developed and published games here? The Indie scene would like a word with you. I think indies are filling the sorely needed experimental game design gap as the former type of games become bloated and piecemeal offerings laden with DLCs and special editions just to get the whole shebang. Indies are also proving it's worthwhile to keep content multiplatform.

 

[synchronicity]

"today's games" is such a broad topic.

If we include everything available within that phrase, gaming has never been better imo.

If we limit it to mainstream big-budget releases, I'd say it's still pretty good, but the creativity and originality needs attention - broadly speaking. Too many games in this category are too similar. The "recipe" for a "good" game has been established, and everyone wants to make it.

 

[Bakkus]

If we include everything available within that phrase, gaming has never been better imo.

I'm so sick of people using this type of argument when judging when the best time for gaming (or any other medium) was.

 

[synchronicity]

I'm so sick of people using this type of argument when judging when the best time for gaming (or any other medium) was.

Why? There's more great games available now than ever before imho. That's what I see anyway. We're flooded with so much great stuff...constantly. It's a smorgasbord.

 

[anab0lic]

Put it like this, barely anything made in the last 10 years is anywhere near my top 50 and only a handful og games would make my top 100.

One of my biggest issues with modern day gaming is how insultingly easy the games have become.... the games are more about mindlessly grinding your way to victory, rather than having to acquire skills or use your brain to any real capacity. Outside of the indie scene not many devs are making the kind of games I grew up on, that retain the things i value most in a game. Graphical advancements have been tremendous, but many other areas of game design has devolved....Its a shame really, that so much great art is wasted.... when its paired with such shit gameplay.

 

[Bakkus]

Why? There's more great games available now than ever before imho. That's what I see anyway. We're flooded with so much great stuff...constantly. It's a smorgasbord.

Because the point of the threads is always which year/timeframe was the best for games rerelased within said year/timeframes. With your point of view there honestly isn't a discussion to be had.

 

[waltyftmus Prime]

• Today's games are artistic and technical masterpieces which break standard progression expectations
• Death Stranding is a perfect example

 

[synchronicity]

Because the point of the threads is always which year/timeframe was the best for games rerelased within said year/timeframes. With your point of view there honestly isn't a discussion to be had.

Oh, I think you misunderstood me. I'm not talking about "everything available" including going back in time to include all gaming. I mean everything available including indies/lesser known games today.

I think gaming is the best it has ever been today relative to any time/gen prior because of all that is available in the present - relatively recent releases. My answer is that gaming is NOW better than ever, but less so due to big-budget mainstream stuff and more so due to all the fringe/creative stuff. Granted, I do love some mainstream stuff of today for sure.

 

[GamerEDM]

quality varies significalty from one publisher/developer to another. For example with Ubisoft you know you are going to get Cookie cutter cut and paste garbage (tower climbing etc). But then you got Sony and their developers who are constantly pushing the medium forward.

 

[mr.dilya]

The good ones are reaaallly good. Everything else is just dressed up garbage.

 

[Bryank75]

quality varies significalty from one publisher/developer to another. For example with Ubisoft you know you are going to get Cookie cutter cut and paste garbage (tower climbing etc). But then you got Sony and their developers who are constantly pushing the medium forward.

Yup, Sony and Nintendo are top of the heap IMO.

Maybe Capcom, Square aaaaand Namco Bandai below them....

Then all the rest

 

[Bakkus]

Oh, I think you misunderstood me. I'm not talking about "everything available" including going back in time to include all gaming. I mean everything available including indies/lesser known games today.

I think gaming is the best it has ever been today relative to any time/gen prior because of all that is available in the present - relatively recent releases. My answer is that gaming is NOW better than ever, but less so due to big-budget mainstream stuff and more so due to all the fringe/creative stuff. Granted, I do love some mainstream stuff of today for sure.

Ah, ok. Personally I think 2017 is one of the best years in gaming of all time, but I don't think many other recent ears holds up that well compared to the likes of 2010, 2007, 2004, 2001, 1998, 1997, 1995, 1994.

 

[synchronicity]

Ah, ok. Personally I think 2017 is one of the best years in gaming of all time, but I don't think many other recent ears holds up that well compared to the likes of 2010, 2007, 2004, 2001, 1998, 1997, 1995, 1994.

I don't usually think in terms of "years" when thinking about gaming. Eras or generations sometimes, but I don't focus too narrowly in my own view of the medium.

But yes, there were some phenomenal gaming years in the past, no doubt! I wouldn't want to trade any era for any other. Great stuff all across the history of gaming imho.

 

[zcaa0g]

If the choice was today's games versus full blown remasters of old games, I would take the latter in a heartbeat.

 

[SpongebobSquaredance]

Maybe a point could be made about modern games being to polished. Let me explain: Deadly Premonition is a game with poor graphics and tech, the controls aren't exactly great and dont get me started on the speed your car does have in the first half of the game. It can be very tedious. And still, its partly those flaws that make the game so charming. Not mention the game world is very intriguing and the story is very enjoyable too. It's rough, but a master piece and I would take it above any super polished AAA snore fest thats out there currently.

 

[GreatnessRD]

Games today are trash. Period.