I mean, to me those examples feel a little unfair. It’s easier to be groundbreaking in a nascent medium, and those came out thirty years ago - way before the term AAA was even used in the games industry. The bar for interesting and groundbreaking can’t be “literally invent a new genre à la Wolfenstein 3D”. That’s a little bit like saying “I feel like the blockbuster movie climate is so stagnant these days. When was the last time someone did something groundbreaking like The Jazz Singer?”
For my money what Remedy is doing with both their mixed media, their connected universe and their storytelling is pushing the boundaries of AAA gaming, but if that is not enough for you then how about Half-Life: Alyx (2020)?
For the record, I do agree that the overall AAA landscape has become stagnant and risk-averse, much like blockbuster movies. But it’s also unfair to say literally nothing interesting is happening.
Well I don’t play shooters, so I can’t say. Don’t get the feeling they invented much since the Duke Nukem time though.
And I disagree hard, jazz was out a century+ ago, video games has still a lot to explore, why is there no “new better” C&C, WoW or even Minecraft? They just sit back and serve the new FIFA etc.
Because C&C (along with the RTS genre in general) was killed and everyone interested in that genre either started playing DOTA or LOL, or the surviving hybrid genre games like Total War, WOW absorbed all the features of its competition except for what it couldn’t (good music and writing), so it’s living alongside its main competition, FFXIV, and Minecraft is just a multiplayer sandbox that is still incredibly popular and developers have been working on and releasing features for it for its entire lifetime. It is its own sequel a few times over. The big innovative games between now and Minecraft are probably Binding of Isaac for rogue lites, PUBG introducing the Battle Royale genre, Vampire Survivors for inventing Bullet Heaven.
Well I can’t say I didagree, you’re basically saying not very much (new good stuff) have happened since quite a long time, right?
BTW I only tried out BOI but it’s just a frenetic shooter with a theme? Battle royale is just a shrinking map, right? I didn’t know what bullet heaven was, a slo-mo bullet hell sort of thing, or a sort of moba-like with more control?
BOI is there because it popularized Rogue Lites, or basically games with procedurally generated maps and permadeath, with some upgrades and unlocks that persist through your runs. It’s been a huge genre in the past decade ish, especially among indie games.
Battle Royale isn’t just the shrinking map, it’s also the massive player count and free for all nature where everyone starts with almost nothing and gets weapons as they find them. PUBG also got its lunch eaten by Fortnite, which popularized the battle pass, but that’s a monetization innovation moreso than gameplay.
Bullet Heaven is one that’s new enough that there aren’t that many games in the genre, but it’s basically a Rogue Lite where your main verb is moving and picking skills when you level up. Basically you’re picking skills to keep huge waves of enemies away from you for a set amount of time.
Point being, most of the innovation is in smaller indie projects. I’d look there if you want interesting ideas. The big dogs you asked about are either still around and so successful at what they do that they take up all the air in the room or their entire genre crumbled around them and morphed into something else.
And Minecraft is the only new thing you mentioned. Dune 2 was made by the same company as C&C and came out three years before, while WOW is something like the 5th big MMORPG, after ultima Online, Everquest, Final Fantasy 11, and EQ2. I’m also not confident that Minecraft is totally original, but it’s probably the most original of that selection.
I was thinking along the lines like groundbreaking games, like when HOMM or C&C came out for example.
I mean, to me those examples feel a little unfair. It’s easier to be groundbreaking in a nascent medium, and those came out thirty years ago - way before the term AAA was even used in the games industry. The bar for interesting and groundbreaking can’t be “literally invent a new genre à la Wolfenstein 3D”. That’s a little bit like saying “I feel like the blockbuster movie climate is so stagnant these days. When was the last time someone did something groundbreaking like The Jazz Singer?”
For my money what Remedy is doing with both their mixed media, their connected universe and their storytelling is pushing the boundaries of AAA gaming, but if that is not enough for you then how about Half-Life: Alyx (2020)?
For the record, I do agree that the overall AAA landscape has become stagnant and risk-averse, much like blockbuster movies. But it’s also unfair to say literally nothing interesting is happening.
Well I don’t play shooters, so I can’t say. Don’t get the feeling they invented much since the Duke Nukem time though.
And I disagree hard, jazz was out a century+ ago, video games has still a lot to explore, why is there no “new better” C&C, WoW or even Minecraft? They just sit back and serve the new FIFA etc.
Because C&C (along with the RTS genre in general) was killed and everyone interested in that genre either started playing DOTA or LOL, or the surviving hybrid genre games like Total War, WOW absorbed all the features of its competition except for what it couldn’t (good music and writing), so it’s living alongside its main competition, FFXIV, and Minecraft is just a multiplayer sandbox that is still incredibly popular and developers have been working on and releasing features for it for its entire lifetime. It is its own sequel a few times over. The big innovative games between now and Minecraft are probably Binding of Isaac for rogue lites, PUBG introducing the Battle Royale genre, Vampire Survivors for inventing Bullet Heaven.
Well I can’t say I didagree, you’re basically saying not very much (new good stuff) have happened since quite a long time, right?
BTW I only tried out BOI but it’s just a frenetic shooter with a theme? Battle royale is just a shrinking map, right? I didn’t know what bullet heaven was, a slo-mo bullet hell sort of thing, or a sort of moba-like with more control?
BOI is there because it popularized Rogue Lites, or basically games with procedurally generated maps and permadeath, with some upgrades and unlocks that persist through your runs. It’s been a huge genre in the past decade ish, especially among indie games.
Battle Royale isn’t just the shrinking map, it’s also the massive player count and free for all nature where everyone starts with almost nothing and gets weapons as they find them. PUBG also got its lunch eaten by Fortnite, which popularized the battle pass, but that’s a monetization innovation moreso than gameplay.
Bullet Heaven is one that’s new enough that there aren’t that many games in the genre, but it’s basically a Rogue Lite where your main verb is moving and picking skills when you level up. Basically you’re picking skills to keep huge waves of enemies away from you for a set amount of time.
Point being, most of the innovation is in smaller indie projects. I’d look there if you want interesting ideas. The big dogs you asked about are either still around and so successful at what they do that they take up all the air in the room or their entire genre crumbled around them and morphed into something else.
And Minecraft is the only new thing you mentioned. Dune 2 was made by the same company as C&C and came out three years before, while WOW is something like the 5th big MMORPG, after ultima Online, Everquest, Final Fantasy 11, and EQ2. I’m also not confident that Minecraft is totally original, but it’s probably the most original of that selection.