Introduction
I bolded the most important points if you’re not planning to read the entire article.
This is a little bit of a special, more off topic post than what you’ve seen before. Hopefully, you guys will agree with me on a lot of things I feel are worth discussing amongst the gaming community. If you do some searching around this topic, you’ll find a lot of community forums about people wondering if games are getting worse, or if we’re all just getting older. I personally think that it’s the first thing I’ve mentioned. I’ve had to work harder at finding ways to enjoy a lot of modern games, even though it seems like they’re becoming so much more capable of pushing consoles to their limits.
I first remember this feeling when I played the first Watch Dogs, The Division, and Battlefield 4. There seemed to be some sort of missing magic that I remember experiencing when I played games like Halo Reach, Super Smash Bros, and the infamous Assassin’s Creed games starring Ezio. At first, I thought it was just me, but I felt the need to write this article once I found out that I wasn’t the only one.
In this article, I’ll try to shine some light, from my perspective, on why a lot of us feel AAA have lost their originality, both in creativity and how the structure of their games has worsened.
In my opinion, modern video games are worse than before because they have declined in originality and have fallen short in a number of ways.
- Storylines are less original
- They’re no longer split screen
- Good games just get remastered
- Big companies rarely listen to community feedback
- Storylines are less innovative
Storylines Are Less Original
Multiplayer features are definitely awesome and can always bring people back to a game (if it’s good). But what about the replayability of story missions and other features in modern games? I mentioned this already, but besides the Last of Us, I can’t remember another time I replayed a video game because I loved it so much since 2011. Feel free to disagree, but every game that was released during the 2018 E3 conference was either taking place during an apocalypse, in the future, or some sequel to another game.
Take for example Dying Light 2, Anthem (a rework of Destiny which is a rework of Halo), Days Gone, and Call of Duty WWII (a rework of Battlefield I). The only original game I noticed last year was that super wack one by Hideo Kojima: Death Stranding.
I’m not saying all companies should take up the same, controlled single player model that Naughty Dog goes off of. Open world games and all the other genres are great in their respective community but since Assassins Creed Revelations, I’ve yet to admire the effort Ubisoft puts into making characters memorable or creating complicated story lines.
Ghost Recon Wildlands is a Perfect Example
Let’s take for example Ghost Recon Wildlands. If you’re going to surround the player with three NPCs that follow you around the entire game, at least give SOME sort of background story into the characters besides a stereotypical badass military career.
I think they missed an opportunity to develop complex characters that the player actually felt attached to. They could have developed the camaraderie of the Ghost team the same way we saw it play out with Noble 6 and his team in Halo Reach. Instead, the game was filled with mission after mission, snatching up cartel members day in and day out with little development of a story. The game was still great, but there’s my reasoning as to why it won’t be as memorable as Halo Reach.
What stopped Ubisoft from implementing split-screen multiplayer into the “campaign” or creating a forge mode where players could build forts and attack each other??
Games Are No Longer Split-Screen
Everyone remembers Modern Warfare III and all the ones before it right? I can’t forget the obvious one too, which was the king of split-screen gaming: Halo Reach. I find it hard to understand why someone couldn’t make a game with the exact same features as Halo Reach. It was an absolute genius how they integrated the online multiplayer AND split screen into the freaking campaign! If someone can think of a modern game that integrates these co-op functions like Halo Reach did, leave a comment! I think all of us would agree that its flexibility to integrate LAN and online players into all of it’s functions was one of the best multiplayer ideas ever.
Playing video games is something you no longer do when you’re friends come over unless you have an Xbox 360 or PS3. I remember all the Friday nights I looked forward to as a kid where everyone would come over and play Forge Mode for hours on end. Other games like COD did a fantastic job of integrating Co-Op into all the games’ features as well.
I’m honestly really curious as to why gaming companies don’t do this anymore. I know the technology has gotten way better and I know for a fact it’s more feasible to host massive online multiplayer servers than before. How come Bungie and Activision figured it out? I don’t think it’s sufficient to only have games in which someone with another, seperate console is the only person who can drop into your gaming session. It’s way better when your friend can actually come over to your house and not sit miles apart since that rarely counts as social interaction.
Good Games Just Get Remastered Into Sequels and Spinoffs
I can point to a lot of games that have a remarkable amount of similarity to popular games of the past. These new games, quite frankly, are even worse than the ones before it. I first noticed this when Destiny first came out. The concept of Halo creators and COD creators was cool, but they both forgot what made both of their franchises so great.
For starters, they both removed the split-screen option. It was a pain in the butt to get players to join you during story missions, and most of them required you to be such a higher level than you actually were. I personally don’t think it was ever a good idea to implement leveling systems that impeded someone’s ability to play with a friend because they weren’t a high enough level. Wizard 101 already showed us that was a dumb idea.
Assassin’s Creed III, Halo, COD, Mass Effect Andromeda, Battlefield: all these games have experienced too many releases in succession without demonstrating any sort of innovation to gameplay, story, or anything that gives players that “wow” factor. We can all agree that the original releases were awesome, however.
I’m not saying that good games shouldn’t have sequels, only that succeeding games ought to demonstrate more innovation and be unique in a way that doesn’t ruin the franchise completely.
I feel that a lot of developers forget what made their game so great in the first place. The combat of Halo was more addicting than anyone wants to admit. Assassins Creed reached a point where stealth was no longer feasible, and COD became so “futuristic” it felt like it was just a bunch of Avengers fighting each other in a small map, bouncing off the walls and flying around, respawning on the spot only to die again.
Big Companies Struggle to Interpret Player Feedback
All EA had to do to make Star Wars Battlefront a success was survey the gaming community on what they liked about the original game. Even if they didn’t do that, all they had to do was remaster the first couple games, throw them into one, and then not even touch it! For obvious reasons, they didn’t do so well because of all the microtransactions and how long it took to unlock certain characters.
I feel like the financial incentive for companies has overruled much of what creative developers had in mind for many games. I’m honestly really curious as to what types of discussions take place between the producers and game developers behind closed doors. I also wonder if there is often a huge disagreement between what developers see the game becoming vs the other way around.
EA is an exception because they don’t listen to their players, but most companies actually try to. I was reading on a forum related to this topic and a lot of developers note the inconsistencies with feedback received from a forum post vs what the players actually like most about a game. According to them, it’s hard to interpret what people really want, and to make it feasible.
Taking a couple of game design classes proved to me how hard it is to implement even the most basic features so I can imagine what it’s like on a massive scale. I think if companies showed a little bit more transparency into their efforts to listen to player feedback, there wouldn’t be as much negative pushback from the Internet. Furthermore, I think companies need to take a closer look as to what made games before 2011 great. It wasn’t the complex design of games nor the impressive graphics.
Why Naughty Dog Gets It Right
Of all the gaming companies I know of, Naughty Dog developers are the only people who seem to understand ongoing originality in their games. They have the discipline to not overkill a franchise and don’t hesitate to bring a game’s story to a close. We’ve seen that in their famous Uncharted series, and Neil Druckman, during the 2018 Sony conference notes that they’re only making the Last of Us Part 2 because they truly felt there was another story to be told, and that is something he doesn’t say often.
If you know anything about the company’s game development history, they know when a story is complete and time to move on to the next idea. I think a lot of gaming companies have something to learn from their successes, as their games, along with Nintendo, have some of the highest replayability out of all other brands. When was the last time you played a re-run of Watch Dogs 2? I beat this game in a month and I know I’ll never play it again, but a game like The Last of Us is something I’ve replayed more times than I can count.
Conclusion
I think the best era in gaming so far has been 2007-2012. During this time you had the first releases of Mass Effect, Uncharted, MWIII, Halo Reach, Gears of War, The Last of Us, Assassins Creed Ezio series, Red Faction 2, Dead Space, Spore, and so many others!
I think there are a couple of solutions that can be offered to gaming communities if they are looking to make a comeback and start new trends for innovation. More than ever before, it is so much easier to survey communities across Reddit, Twitter, Youtube, and every other social media platform. I’m sure this already takes place, but I think companies should be way more willing to listen to what ideas the gaming community has in store for its developers. This is one of the easiest communities to receive feedback from since it’s already talked about.
Just because a company sucked at one series doesn’t mean they’re going to totally collapse (except EA). I honestly think creating a video game idea thread on Reddit could be one of the best ways to develop something truly unique. From start to finish, I’m sure tons of people would be willing to contribute original ideas that a company like Ubisoft could easily take and put their own spin on it. Ultimately, I think a company could easily boost their reputation and community support if they focused less on what will earn them tons of money and making flashy games with no longevity and went back to the fundamentals that made older games so legendary.
As always, if I missed anything or have something to add, feel free to leave a comment or reach out at entertainmentden.ns@gmail.com and I’ll do my best to respond. Thank you all for reading!