Right? After AC3 i stopped caring.

I firmly believe we are entering the dark ages of AAA games, with the cost to make and GenAI they are going to be shit.

Support indie devs.

Because filthy rich is more attractive for capital.

We are at a point now that games from the PS3/X360 era still look and play well, so newer titles need to contribute something new in order to make an impact.

If a AAA-studio releases a 7/10 title in 2026, it’s not just competing with the 8s, 9s, and 10s also releasing the same year - but also every single such title from the past 20 years!

This will also only continue to get worse in coming years as the backlog of exceptional titles will continue to build.

For the last little while now, I’ve been finding that my most played games have been on my old 360 that I decided to plug in again, and my old old PS2 collection that I ripped and loaded to an emulator because the old hardware broke a long time ago.

Third place is “new to me” games that I finally buy when they go on a good sale years after they were “new” (is. RDR2 and Cyberpunk)

I haven’t bought a new AAA title in years on console because I can’t justify the cost.

The only ones I play these days are Warframe and occasionally PoE2…

I didn’t know they made Power over Ethernet into a game, let alone a sequel.

Yeah. I guess I’m too old to understand the drive for better and better graphics.

To me, you don’t repaint a new version of the Mona Lisa just because we have better paints available today.

Graphics (for me) peaked in the 360/PS3 era when games started to nail smooth “movement”. After that it was just about making things more and more photorealistic, which is so completely uninteresting to me because I’m playing a game.

Painkiller wasn’t great either. Just saying.

I have played all the way through all the resident evil series, picking up the last 3 when they came out, which is rare for me. I am usually a patient gamer. I assume RES is a AAA game, but correct me if I am wrong.

Point is each one has been fantastic. Not many games hold my attention like those do. So apparently it can be done. Hoping the next one out soon is just as good.

Oh, and I played all of them on Linux, they worked flawlessly.

PS2 games look and play great on the Steamdeck. Probably my favorite way to play them.

By the way, I have a couple of PS2’s, and I use a harddrive so the hardware just keeps working. Usually it is the laser that fails. There are also options to network and play from NAS, or use a micro SD.

I think their point is AAA studios could already have been doing things to gauge feedback but that they are largely greedy entities which would prioritize the profit that could be extracted from a scenario over the value it could provide to the game.

I’ve already beaten the game so idm but at least on the app I’m using, there is no censor bar effect on your comment.

Mine was the laser as well. Unfortunately it was years and years ago and I just tossed it away like an idiot. My collection from then on began collecting dust until last year when I decided to take one of my old Android Phones and a Razer Kishi and turn it into a handheld emulator.

thanks, I just edited it out

Some “DLC happy” games seem to work in niches while mostly avoiding the micro-transaction trap. I’m thinking of Frontier’s “Planet” games, or some of Paradox’s stuff.

I’m confused at some games not taking the DLC happy route, TBH. 2077, for instance, feels like it’s finally fixed up, and they could make a killing selling side quests smaller in scope than the one they have.

Games are ok, meaning there are good ones. Trying to release more and more to get more and more money - that’s going to fail, yup

Also, look out the window: we have so much more to spend time and resources on

I find the QA potential to be enormous. I’ve seen my share of good EA games and the paper feedback is really what makes the difference. You’ll have devs revisiting assumptions that would be really difficult to challenge if you didn’t have a stream of real reactions to what you’re doing.

Sometimes, yes. Sometimes, no. Just look at Kerbal Space Program, for example. It pretty radically changed a few times through Early Access.

That era also has good control schemes. I went to replay Perfect Dark on my analogue 3d and hoooooooo boy, those layouts are like wearing beer goggles or trying to ride a reverse handle bar bike. I’ll need to try the dual controller layout but I am considering butchering a cheap controller to make something that matches modern layouts.

“Popcorn movies” are a big thing, and most of those big investments are these. They’re “turn off you brain for two hours and chill” events. A game, even the most chill ones, almost always last much longer and require more engagement. That is the defining trait of the medium. If you can totally turn your brain off then you didn’t make a game, you made an expensive movie. Games, for players, are an investment. Movies often aren’t.