20 years since 2004. The greatest step forward in PC gaming?

[bigmike20vt]

i dunno there have been a few "eras" which have shown large jumps.

i remember taking the .... out of my mates pc when i had an amiga back in the late 1980s.. the PC had awful sound, awful colours and awful controls

then, at a guess, sometime around 1990 games like wing commander, F1GP, and then the seminal wolfenstein 3D came out, games like nothing i had seen before.

(sure F1GP and wing commander did come out on the amiga, but unless you had an upgraded machine or later an A1200 (which really came out 2 years too late, or looking at it the other way, a processor half the speed it needed to be to compete), they were barely playable

 

[VincentHanna]

1996 when 3DFX first released the Voodoo GPU. Took games such as Half-life to another level.

I agree, this was the biggest step.

Though Half-life wasn't released until late 1998

 

[Drollic]

No man's sky and the meme content that followed was pretty special. Cyberpunk provided some challenge though.

 

[NZXT30]

Doom 3 wasn't a flop, it scored pretty highly on metacritic. Its a much better game than the more recent reboots which are just a series of small arenas with none of the great map design the originals were known for.

It was such a flop that it almost killed the franchise, it took over a decade for another Doom game to come out. The recent Doom games are absolutely fantastic and infinite times better than Doom 3.

In 2023 PC gamers got Hogwarts legacy, Baldurs Gate 3, Armored Core 6, The Last of Us, Starfield, Resident Evil 4, Alan Wake 2, Star Wars Jedi Survivor, Diablo 4, Street Fighter 6, Mortal Kombat 1, Dead Space Remake.

Even counting just some 2023 indies puts the list in the OP to shame: Cocoon, Lies of P, Dave the Diver, Dredge, Lethal Company, Cities Skylines 2, Warhammer 40k Boltgun, The Darkest Dungeon 2, Amnesia the bunker, War tales, Atomic Heart, Sons of the Forest and many more.

If you think 2004 was better than 2023 your nostalgia is out of control or you simply don't enjoy video games anymore.

 

[Tombstone]

Just thinking back to 2004 releases. Half Life 2, Far Cry, Rome: Total War, World of Warcraft....

Interestingly, I view 2004s release of World of Warcraft as the marker for when the MMO genre started its demise for me. Was once upon a time my favourite genre and I look back today and consider the golden age of MMOs to be the pre2004 era, with EQ1, AC1, UO, DAOC and SWG. Things in the genre, in hindsight, took a wrong turn with WoW and the genre changed forever.

 

[malachi]

I agree, this was the biggest step.

Though Half-life wasn't released until late 1998

Yeah, I didn't pay much attention until I saw it with Half-Life. Was too poor lol

 

[Jono8]

In 2023 PC gamers got Hogwarts legacy, Baldurs Gate 3, Armored Core 6, The Last of Us, Starfield, Resident Evil 4, Alan Wake 2, Star Wars Jedi Survivor, Diablo 4, Street Fighter 6, Mortal Kombat 1, Dead Space Remake.

None of those games are that special/innovative/ground breaking, apart from maybe Baldur's Gate 3.

Most of them are just more of the same regurgitated stuff with a prettier frock on.

 

[Removed User 345456]

None of those games are that special/innovative/ground breaking, apart from maybe Baldur's Gate 3.

Most of them are just more of the same regurgitated stuff with a prettier frock on.

 

[melmac]

It was such a flop that it almost killed the franchise, it took over a decade for another Doom game to come out. The recent Doom games are absolutely fantastic and infinite times better than Doom 3.

You don't have a clue what you are talking about. Doom 3 was the most successful ID Software game ever when it came out in 2004. Also Doom 3 gets around the same review score on Metacritic as Doom and Doom Eternal. That's despite having many more reviews than both the other games.

 

[Lighters]

such good memories!

 

[Nasher]

None of those games are that special/innovative/ground breaking, apart from maybe Baldur's Gate 3.

Most of them are just more of the same regurgitated stuff with a prettier frock on.

Exactly and 2 of them are 00s games with updated graphics! Probably with missing features as seems to be the way with these rehashes.

Alan Wake 2 wasn't as well received as the original. Jedi Survivor is nowhere near as good as the old Jedi Knight games gameplay wise, also has fraction of the content and no multiplayer, maps are mostly jump puzzles. Starfield is considered a flop by most, won zero awards and un-surprisingly BG3 cleaned up.

What has happened is all the good games studios have been assimilated by EA, Ubisoft etc. They have become too corporate and the talent has drained away over the past decade. Go back and look at the environment the original Doom games were made in (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HpEBUV_g9vU). So much more creative and relaxed. That's why games back then were so much better. You didn't have developers slaving away in basically a techy sweatshop.

 

[bigmike20vt]

It was such a flop that it almost killed the franchise,

obviously just subjective but Doom 3 is for me by far the best in the franchise and is the only one of the series i have loved. (bear in mind i was always a quake and heretic/Hexen and even wolfenstein 3D fan over Doom)

whilst i completed doom 1 and 2 (and all official DLC) i gave up on Doom reboot and not even bothered on eternal or what ever it is called.

in some ways modern games makers face an impossible task. Back in the day as hardware improved it allowed new features prevously impossible before due to hardware constraints.

be it FPSers 1st going real time smooth locomotion, then being able to have multiple levels, or go from small corridor shooters to fully open world realisation,

or racing games having far superior physics and laser scanned tracks etc etc set.#

now really there is nothing which cant be done, so to make something truly new now is almost impossible

VR maybe........................... going from playing say elite dangerous on a screen through to actually sitting IN my ship and being able to go inside space stations and fly down to planets all in VR, for me that was a game changer and floored me when i 1st experienced it ... wow 10 years ago now.

 

[rare]

Doom 3 was a massive commercial success. The idea that it almost killed the franchise is madness. It sold over 3 million copies.

It may not have been a genre defining game like Half Life was but it was very much the Crysis before Crysis. Could given high end hardware of the day a bit of a struggle.

 

[NZXT30]

Doom 3 was a massive commercial success. The idea that it almost killed the franchise is madness. It sold over 3 million copies.

It only sold 3 times less than Halo 2. Doom 3 along with WOW kickstarted the "dark years" of PC gaming with many developers losing interest as they could make way more money elsewhere.

WOW pretty much sacked the life out of PC gaming for a half a decade so I wouldn't celebrate it's release as a PC gamer. "Is PC gaming dead?" articles were a monthly occurrence.

In the future when we look back the current era will be regarded as the golden years of PC gaming with an endless amount of choice and an enormous userbase breaking records year after year. Nothing lasts forever though.

 

[bigmike20vt]

In the future when we look back the current era will be regarded as the golden years of PC gaming with an endless amount of choice and an enormous userbase breaking records year after year. Nothing lasts forever though.

i really dont think so. i think the golden era of gaming, be it pc or otherwise is long past us.

as said earlier, there just isnt the evolution any more (and this is understandable because hardware is no longer a barrier to creation - i remember playing transformers on my spectrum dreaming of if only i could jump around those levels from within the view of my cab..... this wasnt possible then so once we transitioned to 3D that was massive (and when they got filled in instead of wireframe...... wow!) but what we have now are micro transactions, buggy releases which take months to be fixed (if they ever are) and games deliberately released half complete with the goal of charging for dlc later (sometimes the content is even finished and in the case of console games is sometimes even included on the disk but locked away.

i miss the times when a game launched complete and "cosmetics" were what encouraged you to investigate the game not something you bought from an in game cash store.

and the less said about golden ammo and P2W / progress quicker the better.

 

[rare]

It only sold 3 times less than Halo 2.

It was still a huge commercial success.

The golden age of PC gaming was the late nineties to mid 2000’s.

Most of the standout PC games now are console ports. It’s still a great time to be a PC gamer but it’s not as great as it once was.

 

[Freddie1980]

i really dont think so. i think the golden era of gaming, be it pc or otherwise is long past us.

as i said earlier, there just isnt the evolution any more (and this is understandable) but what we have now are micro transactions, buggy releases which take months to be fixed (if they ever are) and games deliberately released half complete with the goal of charging for dlc later (sometimes the content is even finished and in the case of console games is sometimes even included on the disk but locked away.

i miss the times when a game launched complete and "cosmetics" were what encouraged you to investigate the game not something you bought from an in game cash store.

and the less said about golden ammo and P2W / progress quicker the better.

Even 20 years ago games were never 'complete' especially on the PC. From what I was playing back then I can remember people on forums complaining about never ending bugs on title like Rome Total War, X2, Sim City 4, The Movies. Even before that there was a game called Battlecruiser 3000AD which was hyped up to be the greatest thing ever only to be the biggest disappointment as it released before it was ready.

 

[bigmike20vt]

Even 20 years ago games were never 'complete' especially on the PC. From what I was playing back then I can remember people on forums complaining about never ending bugs on title like Rome Total War, X2, Sim City 4, The Movies. Even before that there was a game called Battlecruiser 3000AD which was hyped up to be the greatest thing ever only to be the biggest disappointment as it released before it was ready.

sim city 4..... that was one of the earlier always online games wasnt it? (edit no that was sim city online sorry) iirc it created quite a storm because when the servers broke , which they absolutely did the game went down. EA said it was not possible to run the game without the power of the cloud........ and then hackers removed therequirement and the pirate version ran just fine offline

but that said i was thinking more around the era of sim city 1, 2 and 3. i dont remember any issues with those games

 

[clv101]

No doubt early 2000s were a golden age for PC gaming. Whilst today's games are dramatically more sophisticated, complex etc - I'm not convinced they are any more 'fun'. Unreal Tournament was my highlight.

 

[Nasher]

No doubt early 2000s were a golden age for PC gaming. Whilst today's games are dramatically more sophisticated, complex etc - I'm not convinced they are any more 'fun'. Unreal Tournament was my highlight.

They aren't more complex at all. Most of the time the content is very simplistic and lacking. E.g. We rarely see an FPS now with a full single player story and multiplayer, complete with separate maps and mechanics. With server software and mod support. In the old days that was expected.

Now they just licence an all inclusive engine package and it's almost drag and dropping assets to make a game. Then they stick a cash shop on top. The talent requirement bar has dropped way down.