7 Gaming Trends That NEED TO RETURN in 2023 

I love how passionate Falcon is in this video because you can tell he genuinely cares.

The passion about #7 speaks for the entire gaming community.

What we really need is a comeback of split screen multiplayer games.

Vampyr and Plague Tale were two of the most memorable games I played in recent years, and they're both beautiful AA. AA are some of the best because of that mentioned sweet spot between budget and indie-style risk taking. They're usually the most balanced in terms of innovative and fun.

I feel like AA games can stand to have a few misfires without completely falling apart. Every single AAA game seems to need to hit for the company to survive.

"Smaller more focused games (bigger is not always better)" is a trend that needs to return

How frequent you guys put out quality content is actually insane truly a channel made for gamers by gamers

I think point #4 comes back to point #7 to me. If a game is complete and fun, it doesn't matter how long the game is. I'm just as happy with a short 15 hour story as I am with 100+ hours. I think it is important to note that when I say complete, I mean that everything in the game serves a purpose. Some of these huge open world games don't feel complete to me because besides the main story, the rest of the world feels dead or artificially filled in.

Falcon is just the voice of many of us who will never be heard. I'm glad there are still people really passionate like the guys at gameranx that actually care about the industry and not only see the problems but also present solutions, that, hopefully, companies will learn from. Thank you for another quality video!

I love the passion in this video. I remember when putting out a complete game was the norm and not something we had to ask for. The good old days.

I also miss the AA game dev. These days you either have to be a Kickstarter indie project or a AAA game studio. Devolver and Annapurna do a good job representing that mid-tier though.

I fully agree. We need a resurgence of Rock Band-like games. They were truly enjoyable (especially with a group of people). Obviously not the exact same, but inspired by & similar.

5:49 I think one of the reasons you don't see "Double A's" anymore is because they get bought up by triple A's. You specifically reported on that in your "Trends that need to die in 2023" video (not the exact name) a few days ago.

100% on #4. I would so much rather have a focused, engaging 15-20 hour experience than a bloated time-wasting 60 hour experience. Devs just seem intent on ruining their games by artificially making them longer than the amount of quality content actually supports.

Techland is a SOLID example of a "AA studio" that pushed the envelope in EVERY way for 1st-person mechanics. They have created new standards for combat, movement, level of visceral detail, accurate mouth movements to speech, depth of side mission content, and a variety of other mechanics that while not perfect, are on a whole new level that should be deeply studied by every AAA studio for everything from parkour movement concepts to centralized account rewards and engagement incentives.

Number 5, which was AA games, I’d love to see that market come back. The issue that I see is any chances are so polarizing. People either love or hate them, and they often don’t get sequels. Everyone clamors for something original, they get it, and don’t buy it.

The passion conveyed in number 7 especially was epic. Complete games rule!

I agree we could do with more AA studios, especially in times when AAA games get delayed or far too many indi games flood the market. AA would easily fill the gap with decent games.

I'd definitely like more linear games to be coming out. I find I tend to drop-off midway through the big open-world titles and want to play something new. And I'd much rather pay for a solid 12 hr experience than a padded out 40-50 hrs

Point 3 really resonates. There were definitely more genres of games a while back and now it all sort of feels the same. I feel like I was making much more use of my PS1 and my PS2 because I could play a lot more different things and my PS5 is a bit wasted on me really.

I love the passionate delivery of Falcon in these videos! 😂❤️

Totally agree with the short games comment. As a kid, it was all about more bang your buck baby! Bring on FF7 and the duel discs! But now as an adult my gaming time has decreased significantly. It'd be nice to beat a game in 12 hours or so and replay it for new endings or something than slog through 80+ hours of story in one playthrough.

I think a game series that has length AND depth for days, is the Yakuza/Like A Dragon series. They have very long stories, and 100% on those games are really long, but are incredibly engaging for every minute of it.

Number 4: I agree. Shorter games aren't a bad thing. I hate when I feel bloat in a game. I'd rather it be shorter than feel like the devs were padding the length.

Falcon never disappoints. You could tell the true passion Falcon has for games especially with the first entry. I think one AA game that was great lately was Greedfall. I have only played two games by developer Spiders but I got sucked into both. I think the success of Oblivion in the mainstream was a big reason for the push for huge games from the western market, I definitely looked for mainly long games after that. Morrowind was even bigger but wasn't quite the break through as far as I can remember. One nice thing about day one patches now compared to when I really started gaming is the connection speed. I remember when file transfers were measured by Kbps instead of Mbps, a game might take days to update instead of minutes. It is probably just nostalgia on my part but I agree about experimentation in games, in the nineties there was so much untread territory it was easier to find games that seemed completely new but now with the amount companies invest in development they only seem comfortable in making games that follow a proven formula, almost every game I play for the first time feels familiar from control scheme (which I actually appreciate for the most part) and mechanics to plots and twists.

Just a quick shout out to the video editors. Love how Falcon or Jake talk and do their thing, while the videos makes it visually pleasing and entertaining. Eg: at 9:38. Falcon says "...different schedules, different tastes.", as pictures of a calendar and Patrick's tongue pop up. 😆 So simple yet it adds to already quality content. Thanks for your hard work everyone, much love. 😍👍🥳

AA games have given me some of my favorite experiences. Games like vampyre, Technomancer, Mars War Logs, The risen series, and Greedfall might not be as polished or have the best graphics, but they're solid games and I know going into them what I can expect and they're just really fun

Regarding peripherals, I think the "simulator" genres are thriving the most in this regard. Sucks for people that are not into them like car racing sims or aerospace sims, but if you're into it - you have options from low cost to high-end with real-life counterparts, for example Thrustmaster has a joystick that is a real-life recreation of an A-10 Thunderbolt, also known as the Warthog and you can go extra nuts in this direction. I would love to see though some other stuff that can be used in various games as well and make a come-back. For example, I miss the good old Light Guns that could be used in some shooter sims (although they can be impractical and I can understand why they were easily replaced by conventional controls - especially mouse and keyboard). And I bet other stuff like the guitar mentioned in the video will be appealing to others as well.

This new vibe and energy on the voice is actually cool. I actually appreciate it

No.7 is something I 100% agree with. Most games are incomplete or runs awfully that I refuse to pay full price for any game. I'll either get keys or wait for Sales.

25-30 hours is the sweet spot for me. Give me enough time to do all the side quests and story and I’m good.

Really agree with the whole colourful and arcade shooter thing. Missing when we had more grounded and immersive shooters

With the serious shooter concept I also want to see guns taken seriously especially attachments and modifications. I hate having only one or two slots for modifications when there are so many parts you can change on most guns to fit one need or another. Devs limit it because of "balance" but in a single player campaign I should have the full experience of tweaking and personalizing on a mechanical level the guns I am using.

Absolutely love how you started off the most important point - no more unfinished games being released as "complete" 🤘

As a parent of a young child with a wife, a full-time job and more interests than just gaming, I LOVE shorter games. Just beat Tunic and it was a really great length. More sub 20 hour games please!

You sir are not the only one longing for a return of Rock Band. People can laugh and sneer but that game was straight up fun and I had a blast playing that with friends

Hey Falcon, thanks for the video! it would definitely be great if a lot of these things came back! I think the major issue with games (and, let's be honest, most other media) is that once something gets popular, everybody tries to emulate it, and we just get a long line of things that are way too similar. We need variety!

If a game has no buggs at start it’s a rare case

Right when I was telling to my friends that recent shooting games were too much like a big unicorn vomit, when older games were more "serious". You read in my mind lol.

In old games, you often get only a few weapons but they're each special. I imagine mirage using this, rather than gearscore. I think it's relevant to game length and really just general quality.

I think community events should be trending more often too, the gaming industry can really toxic at times, especially among gamers, gamers really need to get together and show the positive side of things more.

Falcon has been in such a great mood lately. I love it.

Rock Band 3: I bought the $300 Fender Stratocaster, all 3 Beatles guitars 88 keyboard Midi, Electronic Drum kit with two kickers. The Rock Band 4 removed the Pro stuff making my investments useless.

I don't believe I've ever heard Falcon so riled up and intense, shows this man's passion.. and I love it. and agree with his intensity

I'd love to see more 15-20 hour games come back but the trade of there is I don't want to pay $60 for a game you can beat in a weekend but if they priced them between $35-40 I'd be in.

While I completely agree that we need the return of more "fun" peripherals, one trend I am happy to see gaining momentum are those aimed at accessibility. I think it's a great step in the right direction to better assist and include those individuals that might otherwise have difficulties enjoying games with more traditional input devices.

Dude this video is great. You hit everything spot on, things I didn’t even realize I completely share the same opinion on. Gave me a lot to think about! I love videos like this you guys put out the most!

Falcon went wayy hard on this one ! I felt the frustration man, I'm right there with you on everything.

“Cyberpunk 2077” “Thats a full sentence.” “I don’t need to say anything else!” 😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂 Effing love Falcon!!!!

You can see that on every official Rock Band post everybody is begging them to produce more guitar controllers so that we could buy them, but they refuse to do so

As someone who loves playing GT7 with a proper wheel... alternate controllers can be exquisite.

For number 2 that's exactly why I loved FFX. Sure it had some comedic moments, but the story really was very sad and tragic. You don't see that alot anymore and it made for one of my personal favorite games.

Love point 4! I have become a real fan recently of shorter games, purely because I don't have the time to play them like I used to. In the last 12 months I have played some really fun games that I usually wouldn't have purely because they are shorter, such as The Quarry, Until Dawn, Alan Wake, Detroit Become Human, A Plague Tale etc.

Steam became an Oasis - totally agree, usually itself becoming the hub for reviews for anygame out there helps me all the time, whenever I'm looking for a game that is on Epic, Gog, PSN or whatever. Their curadory sometimes is funny but you can really look deeply into some guys dedicating a full essay when reviewing a game - with metrics, OKRs, status, descriptions, summaries of why giving a certain note, etc. - it's insane, but awesome.

"Because this is the drum that I frankly love beating" immediately thought about Rock Band / Guitar Hero comeback, glad to see it on the 1st spot. You are not alone on that one Falcon

gameranx, love all the work recently! its AWEsome!

I watch the Gameranx videos everyday and they're always entertaining and well put together but this one just knocked it out of the park. Seriously a fantastic list that I completely agree with and some real passion about the subjects from Falcon too. Great work as always guys. Peace.

The intensity in this video is actually great. We feel you Falcon and we all agree! And yes, I am behind on playing a ton of games because of various reasons, but we do need shorter games. The drag outweighs the story a lot. And I love a great story with immersive play.

On #3 - a "AAA" studio is not comparable to AAA today. They could be more experimental because by today's standards they were somewhere between AA and Indie.

I definitely want long single player games that don't have tedious repetitive tasks. A say, 30hr+ spg with a great story that keeps you intrigued enough to WANT to do a second(maybe) 3rd playthrough. I've completed ghost of shusima & rdr 2 twice now & there's a good possibility I'll do them again

in regards to the peripherals bit, Rock Band/Guitar Hero is still super popular. I play Magic The Gathering at this local game shop that also sales old video games, and man do the guitars sale fast. One week they have 15 guitars, then the next, I am hearing people ask about them and they are out of stock

THANK YOU for championing AA games. Another AA team I always pay attention to is Spiders. They are peak Eurojank, but they always punch above their weight and come up with some really cool ideas. I'm really excited for the Greedfall sequel.

Game length is totally dependent on how the game feels. I Platinumed Elden Ring in 72 hours, and it felt like it went by fairly quickly, even though I died a lot. I Platinumed Spider-Man Miles Morales in like 9 hours, and it felt SOOO long. I’m just over 20 hours into GOW Ragnarok, and although I’m enjoying it, it’s feeling long already for some reason, and I don’t think I’ll get the Platinum. You would never want a game like The Last of Us to be 70 hours, but I can play all the Uncharted games back to back to back for around 70 hours, and they just fly by for me. When I played RDR2 back in 2018, I blinked and I was at 90 hours. Every new play through I do of Skyrim I seem to eclipse 100 hours in the first day. 😂

For me like 15 to 20 hours is the sweet spot for games under that are normally to short for me because 12 hour games I'll normally finish in like 6 or 8 hrs so i just leave being unsatisfied but those 15 some hours have to actually have meaningful and interesting content not just filler with no story

Great video Falcon. Although I don't agree 100% with everything, I do like how passionate you are and some points are spot on. Gameranx is absolutely my favourite gaming channel, you're making me proud to be a 90s man!

I watch RU-vid randomly but you guys are a go to. Like when I watch RU-vid, this channel will 100% be watched by me. And when a new game comes out, "Jedi: Survivor" , it's your channel I look at. And especially after watching this video, after the 1/4 that you spent on your first point, I will always make decisions based on this channels, or maybe Falcons point. I genuinely felt your anger and passion mostly on the first point but also the entire video. Thank you.

Amazing video, i'm glad there still are journalists using popularity not as to focus on the core group only, but to use as a tool to reach people, educating them of something that needs to be heard before it can be forgotten, or changed.

Game Save Slots would be awesome for some games

I agree with 7 strongly we need completed games! Not release now fix later is just bad.

I agree with number 6 and 7 completely. There are still some good B (AA) game publishers out there. The thing is most AA publishers moved up to AAA or were merged with bigger studios, while most indie developers haven't reached that AA standard yet (or choose to stay indie). Indie games tend to be on the shorter side, and many are quite good. I love me a good indie game that is 6-10 hours but leaves me feeling satisfied. Personally I usually play one long big budget game a month and spend the rest of the time playing shorter piecemeal indie titles. Gaming needs a new renaissance, perhaps a new competitor to put a wrench in the system. Also this is more of a personal preference, but when it comes to retro styled games, I want to see more things based on the PS1/PS2 era of gaming. Pixelated games based on NES/SNES nostalgia are starting to get old at this point. Always preferred Guitar Hero over Rockband but I agree, we need more rhythm games in general honestly.

Thank you guys for all the hard work you do. Your videos are the highlight of my day and really help get me through some shit days. Much love for you guys over at gameranx

I love how much I felt Falcon's frustration here. Not sure if he was on a new mic or just actually delivering our heartfelt opinions strongly.

I am with you on a lot of these. But games need to be cheaper if you want them shorter. Especially at current prices

You missed a very important one... $50 games, now that is a trend that definitely needd come back.

I've really fallen in love with Annapurna games, they're just so often truly quality games. Sure, there's some stinkers, but I mean, like What Remains of Edith Finch is going to live in my brain forever. They're a good publisher for sure.

i still waiting for cyberpunk "final version" to be able to finally play it

I love this channel every video never lets you down

I was actually going to sell my copy of guitar hero world tour for the wii along with a white Gibson guitar controller and some other guitar. My buddy cam over for drinks and chess and he saw the guitars in the corner of my living room and asked what's up with those? Told him I was gonna snap pictures and list them for sale. He asked if they worked and we should get down! A couple beers later and a quick battery hunt we were jamming out! This has convinced me to keep it.

1:40 This reminds me of an earlier post: Complains if a game is delayed. Complains if a game is released incomplete. We want everything, we want it now, and we want it to be perfect, and we want it now.

Number 7 is Darktide all around. Pretty much an early access

Yea the lengths of games is a fine line. I played through Surge 2 and Control and they both felt too short. I didn't want them to end cause they were both so good

OG Guitar Hero was recently dug out of my attic and is currently set up 😊

you know when i saw "NEED TO RETURN" as the title i thought it was an exaggeration or clickbait but no, these do in fact NEED to return

We should start a trend to add a Early Acess tag to games that are supossed to be one.

Falcon spitting truth

I've been gaming since Commodore 64 days. Setting aside the amazing games the Wii had that people fail to acknowledge, and that it is my favorite system of all time. I liked the motion controls. At the very least the controller set up. As it allowed me to rest in positions or play in ways where my shoulders and arms weren't forced inward. Further, sure. Their above and beyond more examples of motion controls done bad for the Wii but when a company did put in the effort? Missed opportunity for the medium honestly. Their were some really neat ideas and implementations. Especially considering it was just using a power glove 2.0 motiff. The tone pf games as well. No other system I'm aware of goes from say...Little Kings Story to The Last Story to Pandoras Castle, Madworld, that weird Buddhist prayer bead horror game thing (Cursed Mountain?). Not to mention one of the best fights ever with Tatsunoko vs Capcom. Though I'll admit my bias as I grew up watching Tatsunoko stuff as it came out. Modern gaming seems far too...sanitized or processed. It all feels so samey and uncreative. Everything is either a throwback or another "whoa graphics walking simulator game in third or first person! Watch exposition as they slowly walk so cooooOl". Even indie games that may be good tend to be derivative or subservient to the genre or game it's paying homage to. A common element we have now is well, controllers. Generally it's controller (which they're basically all the same now) or keyboard. The wii broke that restriction. Of course like you I'm not saying go crazy with the control types but with the wii I feel when games were developed they said "what can we actually try doing with this?". Where now since controllers are more or less the same it's more of a restriction e feature. "We have to confine our ideas with the tools we have available". I do wish the vehicle combat genre was still kicking though. I'm also one of the few who genuinely enjoyed the PS3 Twisted Metal (black,2 and Head On are better but it wasn't terrible and if anything released now would have faired better). But ya the Wii is great. If anything it was the last console that had personality. The different channels. The different music. The little Mario jumping block when loading the store. Consoles now feel like another piece of electronic equipment rather than an interactive experience. The PS2, had the memory card shenanigans. It had its opening sounds and other tricks. Anyways I'll end my oldmanrant by recommending some games if you made it this far. 1. Fragile Dreams: Farewell Ruins of the Moon 2. Shadow Hearts 3. Deadly Creatures 4. Shinobi (PS2) 5. Mark of the Ninja Some movies 1. High and Low (Kurosawa does no wrong) 2. Time Bandits 3. Tokyo Godfathers And books. 1. Don Quixote 2. Don Quixote 3. Don Quixote

I remember the day rockband came out, opening up that big ass box and setting up the instruments, it was such a game changer and made game nights that much more memorable

AAA games with distinct and stylized art directions.

You totally nailed it about the exhaustive amount of time games take to complete. And like you said it's either those long games, if you want a good one, or shovelware. I haven't properly enjoyed a game since RDR2, think I played 150 hours on that. GOW: Ragnarok took me 60 hrs and it still felt like work a lot of the time. And those are the only new games ive played in 3 years aside from TLoU II which felt awfully long compared to the first one.

I love the new energy with the music and upbeat passion of the video. Change is good, Gameranx

The passion in your voice expresses all our frustrations with what's been going on. This is one of my favorite vids of yours. Keep this kind of content up, please!

love gameranx. been watching since 2015 ❤️

Love these videos🔥

I feel you, I remember having a GameCube controller that had fans in it to keep you hands from sweating.

It's weird to realize being a "game tester" was once a paying job - now, people PAY to do that job for free... why wouldn't big publishers take advantage of that? Nevermind the ever growing list of games that never gets finished.

Can we bring back split screen gaming? I miss playing with friends all in the same room.

I'd appreciate if more games start giving photos modes or even in game cameras (like GTA, Watchdogs). That should've definitely been a standard by now but you'd be surprised how many games don't include it

I really like difficulty settings in games, as someone who struggles with motor skills and processing information, I would rather play a game on casual/easy while I figure things out, and then switch to another difficulty maybe for a second playthrough. I love the lore behind a lot of games, but being unable to play some of them is a bit sad. I get slightly disheartened when a game I wanted to play has no difficulty controls, and I try to play it and struggle so bad I give up. Tough games can be fun, like the monster hunter franchise, but there are waaayy to many souls-like games now, or games that are just difficult for the sake of being difficult. (if that makes sense) same goes for being able to customize controls a bit, which is always nice. (rant over, sorry about that)😅

Something that I kinda want to really return that I was thinking about the other day, that kinda resonates with #1 is video games in 3-D. Not 3D, but 3-D as in movies. Stereoscopic. I remember around 2010 a couple of games just suddenly came out with this 3D format, including glasses most notably Batman Arkham Asylum, then in 2011 there were a bunch more, then it suddenly kinda died in 2012. It wasnt all that great, but given the time now and the tech now, and the fact that people getting 3D monitors is a bit more doable now, it would be awesome if this trend could come back even for just a small while.

Number 1 would be awesome to have back! I miss playing guitar hero/rock back with friends. I still play sometimes but I need new controllers, which they do not make anymore.