Is gaming right now what you thought it would be?

[Pighardia]

I have to be honest, things are not progressing as I imagined they would years back. The current trend for me seems to be things looking shinier but games getting less interactive, and in the end I find it hard to get excited about new releases now.

Everyone going on about next gen when new consoles are released but they just have better looking games. When a new trailer is released 99% of comments are talking about how good it looks or if their graphics card will handle it. I'd be more interested in seeing gameplay innovations, a new level of interactivity, improvements in immersion or quest complexity. It is so rare though.

I was playing AC Valhalla earlier(an excellent game imo btw) and there were 2 groups standing next to each other. I know these groups hate each other and are at war but they just walked past each other. I paused the game and just thought to myself "haven't we got to the point yet where they should react to each other?"...I find myself thinking similar in lots of games atm.

As a slight aside, I mainly play and enjoy RPGs, and I have played most recent isometric RGPs from the last 5-6 years. Good games that I like but tbh they are mostly just better looking versions of the same game made 20 years ago. Divinity Original Sin 1 and 2 are the only ones that I feel have really tried to push things forward(and they did that imo. Excellent games).

This is not to say that there are not games out there that are innovating or improving these areas, but they are few and far between.

Anyway that's just something I've been thinking recently. What are everyone else's thoughts?

Cheers

 

[Pighardia]

Assassin's Creed is pretty much dead and replaced by a cut & paste affair. I could look at the current version and hell it might as well be Odysssyey/Greece because of assets being re-used.

Tbh I think the AC games get a bit of an unfair rep. The overall gameplay does get very samey, and they do resuse assets way too mcuh but they actually try a lot of new things in each game that gets overlooked...I really can't be bothered right now) but if I made a list of new features in each AC game in order I think most people would be surprised at how much they switch things up. Problem is the main gameplay loop stays exactly the same.

Just the last 2 games off the top of my head-

Odyssey from Origins- added Mercenary system, Assassin targets, battles, ship combat, extensive loot system, choice of protagonist.
Valhalla from Odyssey - Removed ship combat and mercenaries. Added Raiding, social stealth, restructured main story in to arcs(which I like a lot), Reworked loot system, completely changed the way they handle side quests in an interesting way.

Imo Valhalla is excellent, but it is the point where it will get stale if they keep reusing assets(I had to move the exact same crates in anciient Greece, ancient Egypt and medieval England!) and don't fundanentally change the moment-to-moment gameplay for the next game though.

 

[Pighardia]

Hardware is so powerful in comparison today, but I honestly don’t see what much of the benefit is. We get new features like RT that add little, whilst significant gameplay elements are lacking in comparison.

Absolutely. Take a game like Assassin's Creed Valhalla .... Honestly it looks good enough. I'd much rather have a game released on that engine looking exactly the same but with the developers working on improving AI or creating more interesting gameplay mechanics and stories than wait years for a better looking game with the same level of gameplay and no improvements in enemy AI or physics.

 

[Pighardia]

But there are still great games and gameplay experiences to be had.

Oh definitely I would say that also. There are games that are pushing things forward. Without properly thinking things out I would single out RDR2, honestly not a great game imo but the AI and specifically the animal AI is scarily good. Divinity OS 2 just gives you so many tools and options and reacts brilliantly to your actions. Even something like the Dishonored series(criminally overlooked imo) for having its own aesthetic and excellent level design with many options or how to play. There are certainly still games that impress me a lot in how far they've come

 

[Pighardia]

Nah I think it's great. I never thought we would have real VR but it works! And it's awesome, Half-life Alyx is truly epic.

I'm playing Horizon Zero Dawn now, and it is brilliant, and it looks great but mainly the gameplay and the story are just great. Never been a better time to be gaming IMHO.

I was going to mention VR and Half Life Alyx especially actually. I've not played much vr but from what I've seen Alyx is a pretty high benchmark and one of the first great implementations of vr imo. Very impressive.