All the best games I’ve played recently are deliberately low poly models, low res textures, and 100% focused on JUST satisfying gamefeel and fun gameplay mechanics.
Fuck graphical fidelity and fuck “AAA” studios for wasting our time and money on it.
I WANT SHORTER GAMES WITH WORSE GRAPHICS MADE BY PEOPLE WHO ARE PAID MORE TO WORK LESS AND I’M NOT KIDDING
Actually, on that point, I love it when a game becomes a platform for continuous content. Minecraft is a bit trite as an example but it fits: You buy it once, and you can beat it in a couple hours if you really want to, but you can extract as much enjoyment out of it as your imagination will allow, and the developers are constantly adding more stuff to do (although not all of what’s added feels great all the time…)
Absolutely on the shorter games. I just do not have time for 30 to 40 hour games anymore. 8 to 10 hours is the sweet spot for me. After that I get bored and the game feels like a drag.
Imo it feels like the content is not very fresh compared to when you played that first rpg/open world/etc. It just does not feel like these aaa studios are innovating anymore- I’m looking for compelling stories and tight gameplay loops but they’re feeding us rehashed side quests fillers and eye candy. Anyone feel like they’re just playing borderlands sequels where you’re constantly forced into a meaningless quest to do somebody’s bidding?
This may be an unpopular opinion, but I am soooo fucking sick to death of everything needing to be ‘open world’ (for some reason) that I could puke. Sure, some games may benefit from - or hell, even be downright enriched in some manner by - their use, but outside of a few, notable exceptions (Elden Ring and RDR1/2, in particular, spring to mind, for example) when I see a studio touting their “new and improved, expansive, X times bigger, blahblahblah” open world, all I can think is two things:
There will almost certainly be no more than five types (and likely significantly less, tbh) of copy/paste activity I’ll be expected to engage in shotgunned haphazardly across the map. The studios that go ‘above and beyond’ MIGHT attempt to switch things up a bit by slightly altering building or adversary layouts in places, but that’s usually a ‘best case scenario’ kinda thing, and you’ll probably be fortunate to end up with some sort of palette swap. How compelling, eh?
I’m going to be subjected to either a veritable fuckton of bland, faceless NPC’s with an equally bland line or two of ‘dialogue’ that is ultimately meaningless or a flimsy pretext to go over there somewhere for… reasons… or a handful or so of them that are inexplicably absolutely VITAL to (or otherwise the impetus behind) everything that is plot - which they have a flimsy pretext for, natch.
Look, I played WoW back in the day already. If I really desperately wanted to waste dozens of hours of my time delivering imaginary packages to forgettable people, or being sent in search of someone who is the only one who can help stop BBEG/the apocalypse/whatever - and will totally help, but need a favor first… Ugh - then I’d go back to the good ol’ WoW treadmill. I left that shit behind because I was sick of it all just feeling like checkmarks someone had to tick off somewhere to appease the C-Suite douchenozzles that don’t understand why we can’t add in a battlepass. (Those are SOOO hot right now!)
Tbh I don’t think you’re in the minority. By far there are so very few truly well done open worlds, but how many of them were anything like mass effect which tied the stories together and had actual ramifications? The time investment is so not worth running around their lifeless worlds accomplishing nothing; I really dislike open world games
That is to say, they tried. And now there are basically no fucking games on whatever they’re calling the latest X-turd, and barely anything worth note on the PS5.
You would think if anyone had any brains they wouldn’t want you to have to buy new consoles all the time. Aside from Nintendo, the hardware is usually a loss leader for the other major players and they make all their money on the licensing costs on the software, i.e. game sales, whereas they lose money every time a console ships out the door. Especially nowadays when the distribution is mostly digital and costs them practically nothing vs. the bad old days when they had to press discs and print labels and shit. Machine sales themselves have never been profitable at least for the first several years each system is out for the last several console generations.
It would be more profitable for Sony and Microsoft to keep you on the same console generation forever – with the inevitable falling cost of manufacturing the things, to boot – keeping it at the same MSRP and simply selling you more and more games for it.
Plus it would make their console sales numbers look really badass… eventually. “The Microsoft Xbox X One X S XS Series OneX S is the best selling video game console in history, selling 1.2 billion units over its 45 year life cycle, and counting!”
I don’t really think it should be “worse” or specifically low-poly. There is a balance that can be struck and I feel that accepting the lowest quality possible is an excuse for developers to put in as little work as possible while still charging us as much as possible.
All the best games I’ve played recently are deliberately low poly models, low res textures, and 100% focused on JUST satisfying gamefeel and fun gameplay mechanics.
Fuck graphical fidelity and fuck “AAA” studios for wasting our time and money on it.
I WANT SHORTER GAMES WITH WORSE GRAPHICS MADE BY PEOPLE WHO ARE PAID MORE TO WORK LESS AND I’M NOT KIDDING
Can I have my cake and eat it too? I want games with a short critical path, but satisfying ways to spend more time with it if it’s fun.
So like interesting NG+ stuff, boss rush modes, different builds, whatever.
built in randomizers please
Actually, on that point, I love it when a game becomes a platform for continuous content. Minecraft is a bit trite as an example but it fits: You buy it once, and you can beat it in a couple hours if you really want to, but you can extract as much enjoyment out of it as your imagination will allow, and the developers are constantly adding more stuff to do (although not all of what’s added feels great all the time…)
Absolutely on the shorter games. I just do not have time for 30 to 40 hour games anymore. 8 to 10 hours is the sweet spot for me. After that I get bored and the game feels like a drag.
Imo it feels like the content is not very fresh compared to when you played that first rpg/open world/etc. It just does not feel like these aaa studios are innovating anymore- I’m looking for compelling stories and tight gameplay loops but they’re feeding us rehashed side quests fillers and eye candy. Anyone feel like they’re just playing borderlands sequels where you’re constantly forced into a meaningless quest to do somebody’s bidding?
This may be an unpopular opinion, but I am soooo fucking sick to death of everything needing to be ‘open world’ (for some reason) that I could puke. Sure, some games may benefit from - or hell, even be downright enriched in some manner by - their use, but outside of a few, notable exceptions (Elden Ring and RDR1/2, in particular, spring to mind, for example) when I see a studio touting their “new and improved, expansive, X times bigger, blahblahblah” open world, all I can think is two things:
There will almost certainly be no more than five types (and likely significantly less, tbh) of copy/paste activity I’ll be expected to engage in shotgunned haphazardly across the map. The studios that go ‘above and beyond’ MIGHT attempt to switch things up a bit by slightly altering building or adversary layouts in places, but that’s usually a ‘best case scenario’ kinda thing, and you’ll probably be fortunate to end up with some sort of palette swap. How compelling, eh?
I’m going to be subjected to either a veritable fuckton of bland, faceless NPC’s with an equally bland line or two of ‘dialogue’ that is ultimately meaningless or a flimsy pretext to go over there somewhere for… reasons… or a handful or so of them that are inexplicably absolutely VITAL to (or otherwise the impetus behind) everything that is plot - which they have a flimsy pretext for, natch.
Look, I played WoW back in the day already. If I really desperately wanted to waste dozens of hours of my time delivering imaginary packages to forgettable people, or being sent in search of someone who is the only one who can help stop BBEG/the apocalypse/whatever - and will totally help, but need a favor first… Ugh - then I’d go back to the good ol’ WoW treadmill. I left that shit behind because I was sick of it all just feeling like checkmarks someone had to tick off somewhere to appease the C-Suite douchenozzles that don’t understand why we can’t add in a battlepass. (Those are SOOO hot right now!)
Tbh I don’t think you’re in the minority. By far there are so very few truly well done open worlds, but how many of them were anything like mass effect which tied the stories together and had actual ramifications? The time investment is so not worth running around their lifeless worlds accomplishing nothing; I really dislike open world games
BUT HOW DO WE FORCE PEOPLE TO BUY OUR NEW CONSOLES?
That’s the fun part: you don’t! :D
That is to say, they tried. And now there are basically no fucking games on whatever they’re calling the latest X-turd, and barely anything worth note on the PS5.
You would think if anyone had any brains they wouldn’t want you to have to buy new consoles all the time. Aside from Nintendo, the hardware is usually a loss leader for the other major players and they make all their money on the licensing costs on the software, i.e. game sales, whereas they lose money every time a console ships out the door. Especially nowadays when the distribution is mostly digital and costs them practically nothing vs. the bad old days when they had to press discs and print labels and shit. Machine sales themselves have never been profitable at least for the first several years each system is out for the last several console generations.
It would be more profitable for Sony and Microsoft to keep you on the same console generation forever – with the inevitable falling cost of manufacturing the things, to boot – keeping it at the same MSRP and simply selling you more and more games for it.
Plus it would make their console sales numbers look really badass… eventually. “The Microsoft Xbox X One X S XS Series OneX S is the best selling video game console in history, selling 1.2 billion units over its 45 year life cycle, and counting!”
I guess that’s why they’re hoping that cloud gaming takes off, so that people “rent” consoles instead of owning anything
I don’t really think it should be “worse” or specifically low-poly. There is a balance that can be struck and I feel that accepting the lowest quality possible is an excuse for developers to put in as little work as possible while still charging us as much as possible.