Why AAA Games Have No Soul | Asmongold Reacts 

Fromsoft games are among the few modern games that actually feel like games instead of interactive movies. They also don't add a lot of padding and/or empty space.

Gamer’s not accepting “you are not the target audience of this game or feature” is a massively under explored topic imo and I am glad to hear you mention it, even briefly.

'Stop talking if you don't want people to talk back' should be the number 1 golden rule of Twitter. But there's too many entitled folk who think their opinion is always correct and therefore if they post a tweet full of nonsense and get called out for it then they're being 'harassed' or 'bullied' 🙄

I've always been a nba2k Player gamer but I heard and saw so much of Elden Ring that I decided to Iry it out. It was so far out my comfort zone. It had me either standing up or on the edge of my seat which games don't really have that feel anymore. I can now say I'm a fan and willing to play future games of from software. It was a big shake up to the gaming industry I'm sure. Look at those sale numbers. Also bruh it brought me here to your channel and probably others that normally wouldn't be here so there's also that.

i think the main reasons i never get bored of gaming is 1) indie games 2) just go back and play the classics you’ve never played before cos just recently i’ve been starting games like dead cells, octopath, professor layton, and other games just cos i’ve never played them before and heard they’re really good games. i’ve also been getting into visual novels recently which means there’s literally a whole new library of games that i have never even touched yet that’s in store for me so basically the best thing to do is to just constantly open the door to new types of games and you will go a really long time before you ever even start to feel like your bored of gaming and maybe even surprise yourself with a new favorite game of all time

The saddest thing about Ubisoft is that they made the legendary Prince of Persia trilogy all released on the PS2 in the span of 3 years. You get entire triple AAA games that take 7 years to develop that don't have half the story of a single Prince of Persia game, and they did that three times in 3 years.

The marketing with this game actually went hard in late night shows and cable commercials. I remember visiting my parents and they were watching the walking dead, I saw 3 ER commercials while I was there.

I'd go as far as to say this has been the case with the lack of decent aaa games even around when ds1 was released. I found out about that game by mere chance and at a time when I was so bored of games in general. When I played ds1 it awoke something in me I thought long gone. There was real consequence for dying. Which made the victories even greater. Boss battles felt like a genuine obstacle to overcome. And stunning visuals and storytelling made it so the basic character creation and basic combat wasn't even a big deal at all. Dark souls made me actually BELIEVE that games could be made great again.

The problem with sports games from EA lies with their business practices. They first purchase the rights to the likeness(es) of the players, teams, and league(s). This means no one else can make a competitor, which leads to minimal development between games and 0 options for gamers hoping to play a type of sports game. They essentially have created a mini monopoly within the sports genre.

Thanks for featuring our video Asmon! Really appreciated your in-depth thoughts and feedback. Would love to hear in the replies to this comment if any of you guys have ideas or suggestions for future topics! 🙌

The 80/20 rule in game industry doesn't make any sense, you can't create AAA game on your own, there has to be a goal that every worker aims at. Otherwise you will end up with 100 assets to different games.

I think the major issue is that they come out with these big titles make it look cool as shit and then they expect the developing team to get it done in a month without really knowing what the game is even about. Like I mean a month is a bit exaggerated but it mind as well be a week

"elden ring too easy" -guy who struggled to duel 4 children

3:15 GoingIndie: "Because the steak scraps just aren't edible." Asmongold: "Yeah they are!" Spoken like a true $2 Steak King.

To me it sometimes feels like this is not just about AAA games. It's about western companies in general. Like a lot of them really used to give a great product to the customer with great quality. But something changed in the last decades. Companies somehow changed their focus from selling a great product to just maximizing their profit. They started to reduce quality and fire a lot of smart people who would regularly bring new innovation and instead they filled their companies with managers. And these managers are just there to maximize profits for their shareholders and themselves. That's all. Instead of creating good products (I know there are still lots of good products from western companies but they are slowly losing their quality) they went to just increase marketing and implement a bunch of bullshit features (planed obsolescence, ingame-shops, ..) to gerade more money out of the customers. And by doing that they started to lose focus on what they are producing and what made them so good in the first place. Western Game company did and are doing this until today, they don't give a shit about their games. They just want your money. Meanwhile Japanese companies are a different story. It seems like CEOs of a lot of Japanese companies are living for their products. Like take Nintendo for example. They make a lot of mistakes but they always ensure that the player gets an awesome experience. They don't do shit like Microtransactions and instead give you good gameplay. As far as I know the CEO of Nintendo even lowered his own salary when Nintendo made losses. You can literally see that they care for their games. A lot of their important managers are the inventors of the great titles you love. Like Shigeru Miyamoto who created Zelda. He is the head of the development section of Nintendo. Not some idiot who don't give a fuck about anything but numbers. A person who knows the game and loves it. And I think the same goes for From Software. They invented Dark Souls and whole new genre. And until today they keep on incrementally enhancing the Souls experience. They don't care for maximal profits and making the game more accessible. Because they know who their fans are and they know what they love: A hard but rewarding game. And thus they created Elden Ring which started as just a successor for Dark Souls but instead became a world wide success. Not because they implemented the perfect graphics or added fuckin' Keanu Reeves into their game. And not by making it easier so that every idiot can play it. No, they just enhanced the formular they knew was great and added a bunch of great features to it. I don't think they ever planned for it to become such a success, they just perfected their game for their own niche and when people realized how great it is they started playing and loving it. Instead of making their game more accessible, fans had to adapt if they wanted to be successful in Elden Ring. And I think this is what made it so great. It's not some soulless AC where every idiot can beat it with their eyes closed. No, if you made it and beat a boss, you felt like a goddamn god. And this is the feeling that makes game good. It's the reason why people do sports and train hard every day to become better. To challenge themselves and beat something you thought was unbeatable. And that's something that is just lacking in western games. You don't feel like a master if you beat them, you feel like the younger brother who just pressed some buttons on a disconnected controller while your older brother did the work for you.

The Answer; All the game devs we loved from our childhood retired a decade ago and the only people left are the soul less children of the modern education system who are incapable of original thought and can only craft increasingly derivative copies of what we used to love.

Man these videos about AAA games are always the same thing.

Hahaha, I loved Asmon's "EW, WTF?" expression when the guy in the video went from burned steak to legitimately delicious ham. Dude loves his cheap and overcooked steak too much, haha.

It's not just games, it's the music industry, movies, television, et cetera.

I’m a bit confused about the revenue list talking about game uniqueness. Isn’t elden ring technically similar to the dark souls franchise? It’s just bigger with a few different features…which all other similar games tend to do. Like the sports games where they add new features every year bladdyblah. Idk I could be wrong and I’ve never played a souls game or elden ring, but the similarities are there

fromsoft is possibly the best modern day example of a decently big studio sticking to making good games. Even the fact they're going for an armoured core game rather than elden ring 2 shows that their priority is creating what they think is a good game instead of milking cash cows whenever they can. Heck, they literally made a VR GAME knowing that it wouldn't sell well, they still made it cuz the goal is to make good games. At this point I genuinely don't even consider playing any new ubisoft/blizzard/ea.

It's not about making new assassin's creed games that is the problem, it's more about it being the same gameplay wise. Look at final fantasy, people don't really say that square enix's releasing the same game over and over again (some would even argue that it's suffering from making too many changes sometimes). If ubisoft made the same amount of changes they made between AC1 and AC2, or between Syndicate and Origins, but every time, nobody would argue that it's the same game.

Asmon saying "but _Fifa and Madden are bought by a lot of people, therefore they are great_ games"... has the same energy as "but _a lot of people bought Twilight and 50 Shades of Grey, therefore they are top tier books_ dude" LMAO

The problem with the whole get good phrase. Is that the casual players can’t or aren’t willing to spend 6 to 8 hours a day for a week just to get good at a video game. I work for about 10 to 12 hours a day and with household chores and personal relationships. I usually only get maybe around 5 or 6 hours a week to play games. I still enjoy playing games and am willing to put in the work to play a game. But many people like me just don’t have a shit load of fee time to learn all the hacks and work arounds. To beat a boss

Its the same reason why outer wilds is such a timeless masterpiece. The game oozes soul, sorrow and joy at all times, lets the player be themselves and just lets you enjoy the experience

I feel like we just need new studios to pop up and aren't controlled by a large corporation, I feel like games got more and more samesy after studios started getting bought up until half of the games are owned by the same company making all the same decisions.

13:49 I agree 100%. The current assassins creed games (Origin, Odyssey, Valhalla) aren't "Assassins creed" games IMO. They might have the AC title but in its bones its a different game. Its closer to something like The Witcher 3 than it is to Assassins creed games that came before. Thats why I'm excited for the new AC game that is supposedly going back to its roots. Finally we will have an assassins creed game about being an assassin and not some guy that needs to level up to kill enemies because the game will no longer be an RPG but a stealth game like it was supposed to be.

The thing on assassin's Creed for me is the fact that in my own experience saw the growth from where it came, the gameplay evolution starting from the prince of persia games on ps2, then on ps3 came AC1, which at first started out as a prince of persia: assassin game, then til black flag on every game there was something new and you noticed the development growing. then after unity they took the generic RPG route and made it the way it is now, and that style now overshadows the great games in the series, and ppl think all of them are alike. then again i'm sure alot of ppl can have counter opinions, this is how i look at the AC series now

“But then elden ring came out” Fucking exactly man. Elden ring gave me hope that there will still be games in the future that make me feel like I’m a kid again, discovering a new world and having a great and memorable adventure.

80/20 rule is also called the pareto principle, business and EHS management use its corresponding diagrams to help solve multiple problems by focusing on only a couple issues. I'm not sure if it works too well for video games though. This is more for consistent Quality, Enviornmental impacts, and safety issues.

Honestly I would be interested in comparison to the past. Why games take less risks now than before, why are there less new I.P:s than before, or is that actually true? It is easy to forget bad games of the past, but they do exist.

16:11 Mass Effect!.... I slept on the 1st one for a couple of years just from the box art, front and back..... Played 1 and it was the the best game I had ever played by far!!! They did amazing with 2 and 3 They can VERY easily bring back that IP to success if Bio had a good team behind it Mass Effect 1 was incredible back in the day! SO MUCH DEPTH

Man... who would have thought that releasing a game that isn't bug-ridden and stuck in Early access forever and actually has all the features that they have promised the game would have at launch.... would do well?!... holy shit! this is truly a mindblowing strategy!... DAMN! why haven't anyone thought of this before?!

"Maybe the games that some of you are shitting on was just not made for you" THE MOST SENSIBLE THING ASMON HAS EVER SAID. I have more respect for him now!

I would argue (regarding the top selling games list and how they're all established IPs) that it's because the companies only make these games, which of course makes them the most popular. If it were similar to the wild west days of the 90s, where everything was new, ALL of the time, that list would fairly random to match. That said, I have too many other worries at this point in life to be concerned with new IP and learning new lore, etc. (Yes, if I were rich and had the free time, I would likely continue to keep up. Unfortunately, we can't all me asmongolds)

asmon really is a good guy for featuring a youtuber with smaller sub count hope the exposure helps its crazy what one asmon reacts can do for a channel

>We gamers are tired of Ubisoft games >Their games are literally having record breaking sales for their series Can someone please reconcile these two things?

Elden Ring is indeed formulaic to FromSoft's formula, but FromSoft's formula is so different from everyone ELSES formula that it felt pretty damn fresh with them trying the Open World design with some of thier own tweaks, some that were massive hits and others that in retrospect could've done with alot more polish. But that experience felt fresh, it felt like an experiment. Bethesda, UbiSoft etc. world design is very... Predictable. Because we have seen it for nearly 2 decades now. If FromSoft made Elden Ring 2, or if the (most likely) coming DLC doesn't have some new tweaks, it too will feel formulaic and a bit stale in comparison to baseline Elden Ring. I would assume we're going to see some cool use of the vertical space even more so than base game (think of things like the first DS2 dlc's elevator pillars) and I will be sorely dissapointed if there aren't some refreshing surprises to where stuff is hidden and so on.

Asmongold - "Why is that bird on a flatscreen computer?" That's how good the egyptians were at predicting the future :3

Maybe a lot of people don't want to have a totally new feeling and don't want to have to relearn controls? Maybe a new story, new graphics and new characters are all it takes for players to be excited and comfortable at the same time?

I've found myself playing a lot more games developed by smaller studios lately. I've recently found myself playing a lot of Satisfactory. It feels so good to play a game without a bunch of micro transactions and I love the feeling of knowing I can earn everything in the game myself, not just buy it.

Those examples didn't actually feature the pareto principle though. One example had "20%" mentioned in it, but not in relation to pareto. It was just saying to allocate time for people to be creative, but didn't factor in the 80/20 rule at all.

Love the end where you have to draw two circles to show people that they aren't the majority. And how it devolves into them wanting you to resize and color said circles. A simple "yes that's about right" would have worked. Then they power off their neon lighted PC and open a book or go outside with harps playing while real life godrays shine on mannnn

There’s a pretty human reason that these types of games are safe and sell well, which is habit. People buy a lot of things out of habit because it makes the decision process a lot easier. Habits give safety and people form even more habits, routines and rituals around things they know and interact with regularly. Games are designed around specific habits and routines as well (UI/UX, combat etc.). Franchises are great for this because they usually don’t change these or only do it incrementally over a long time which gives people more safety and less to contemplate than games that require new/different habits. How habitual a person is depends on a bunch of factors but most people are in one way or another. Games aren’t without “soul” (whatever that is supposed to mean) they’re the designed around the financial stability of catering to those consumers. Sometimes they even do more ambitious projects but those probably aren’t cash cows right away and are the first to be axed during economic downturn.

In addition to the "game may not be made for you", every year a whole new set of gamers are born that never played a Ubisoft/EA Sports game. When they get into gaming and the latest iteration of some game you're tired of seeing appear yet again, is new to them.

Elden ring is my first souls game and I was very surprised at how fun it was even though it was quite hard at times

Personally I just liked Forbidden West more than Elden Ring. Elden Ring def deserved Game of the Year more, but I just love the whole robot animals and picking off specific parts during combat, I liked the story much more, and the graphics in that game are second to none imo. I felt there was plenty of "world building" which is something Elden Ring fans love to champion which is fine but personally I don't really like that as the main vehicle of story telling. I like a good mix of that and being "spoon fed" a story.

This is why I stick to retro games and the games I grew up with. Back then games were designed to be fun, not just as a source of income.

I've been saying it for years ever since I started delving into indie games on my Xbox360. The indie scene is going to lead us to the best age of gaming we've ever seen. There's a reason the indies are thriving right now, and there's a reason bigger developers are starting to release more indie-like games with the help of smaller developers. That reason is because indies are where most of the creativity and fresh ideas are now. We're getting there. Just wait and watch. 👍

i swear there is a "AAA is bad" reaction video every week

For the last 2 years, I've struggled to find any kind of enjoyment logging into the games I played over the last 15 years. Most of the time when I login I just sit there and try to get motivated and end up just logging out and doing something else so I made a decision that I would get to level 70 on my main in dragonflight and retire from gaming and treat RL like a game with skills to level up.

Something people forget we're really really small compared to the actual gaming landscape. Gta5 made 180 million sales over its 10 years life time. Minecraft have almost that many players playing every month. Candy crush has 280 million players every month. Even AAA games are pretty small compared to the actual landscape, and you want them to appeal to you, who specifically like games that only sold 1 or 2 million units at most? That's what asmon meant by target market at the end there.

i agreed on that comment you said from 20:25 to 20:35 because not every game needs to be set to certain people's expectations. you can play cod, mk 8, fifa, sonic fontiers and a huge number of other games and the player can enjoy the games they want to play.

I think Hogwarts Legacy is the fine line between creativity, and doing what sells. It has all the Ubisoft busy stuff all over the map, but at the same time has creative ways to use spells to solve puzzles, and interesting yet simple combat.

One thing people seem to not realize is all the devs, people etc. who made those legendary AAA games are no longer in those studios anymore. Take a look at call of duty for example, everyone complains that call of duty is not the same as the legendary Modern warfare and Modern warfare 2 from back in the days, but if they took an hour of their time and watch credits they would realize those people who worked on those games have been gone for a while, the 2 masterminds behind call of duty modern warfare from inifinity ward were fired 1 month after the release of the OG MW2 by Activision CEO who betrayed them in a disgusting fashion and they went on and created Respawn Entertainement and made Titanfall and Titanfall 2.

I honestly consider that Elden Ring is a sequel as well. It's got a new name and story, but the core game play is very similar to the souls games that came before it. Modern Warfare 2 is a really big marketing mistake. Even someone like Asmon think it's just a remake of the old MW2. When in fact it is a completely new game with all new story. It's more MW 1.5, the story takes place between MW1 and MW2. But you wouldn't know that by looking at the title.

I think your take on "maybe the game just isn't for you" is spot on. It's not just saying some best-selling game is terrible though--it's also the attitude that you're not a "real gamer" or you have "terrible taste" if you don't like some game like Elden Ring. Elden Ring is not my kind of game. I don't like action melee games, nor do I like sports games, nor do I like bullet hell games, nor do I like platforming games. I admit I have a pretty picky attitude :)

I simply miss the time when you had no idea what to expect of a game and be amazed by its uniqueness. Today executive game producers are out of touch with the life itself, not to mention their vision of a game project idea is less and less original

17:50 Well that didn't age well

The issue is entirely derived from management, as someone who knows multiple devs from various companies and as a student game developer myself, no one at the dev level wants to put lootboxes or paid battlepasses in theit games, at least they don't think about it untill they fully flesh out the ideas with the gameplay, mechanics and interractions. You see this with indie studios, they create banger games with minimal or absolute 0 monetization which they put in as an afterthought or a way to support the devs (deep rock galactic, vampire survivors, outer wilds, etc) As soon as a corporate level gets introduced, the focus shifts to making everything profitable, which loses sight of what makes games successful, that being how fun or entertaining they are

Asmon: "Elden Ring and every other game other than Sekiro are a joke." Says the man who struggled for hours fighting almost every boss because he'd only jump attack lol

Never in my life would I have guessed Asmon was an Aesop Rock fan but it actually makes a lot of sense.

The game has intense combat combined with a complete open world, all paired with infinite build options. Almist any boss can be beaten at any time with any build. Combine all that with the fact that it takes place in a high magic dark fantasy setting. Magical enough so people who dont like dark fantasy can suround themselves with the more mystical elements. Yet grim enough to where people who want a less magic-filled experience can ignore it as much as they want. The games genre perfectly balances itself while giving the players all the freedom to enjoy it however they want. Thats why elden ring sold so well. Same as skyrim.

Now that Iv played Hogwarts legacy, I see how it sets a new bar for “quality” and detail. The detail in the game is unmatched

We need Bloodborne PC 60+ FPS unlocked

“Most AAA games feel copy-pasted” But Elden Ring is too? Don’t get me wrong it’s not a bad game, but the argument would have made sense without the context of Elden Ring. Because quite literally, FromSoftware makes the same souls-like game. The real reason Elden Ring is so good is because the game challenges it’s players rather than holding their hand like a toddler. Ultimately it is why Elden Ring feels like a breath of fresh air, because the game is derivative to other AAA games.

I agree regarding sport games. I'd guess that after years and years of development fifa, madden etc.'s gameplay are about as polished and optimized as they can be. Doing anything else would be stupid. The bullshit does not lie in them not changing the game, but in pooping out a yearly release when they could instead opt for a more sensible platform. For example they could run fifa on a subscription platform and sell a yearly season pass. They'd probably rake in even nore money if they nailed execution on it.

Normally love your takes but you couldn't be more wrong. Just because a lot of people buy them, doesn't make them good. The reason many people buying sports games yearly is because they have no other choice. Most of the franchises have monopolies on the market so fans are forced to buy yearly roster updates or play the old game, which then has its servers shut down, forcing players to get more recent ones. It's a horrible cycle.

3:40 yep that was me. I was so scared of playing souls games but when I heard the hype of elden ring I decided to give it a try. it is now in my top 3 games of all time that I love

Remember, if you see AAA games new releases that contained "FPS Shooter", "Live Services" Made (or Partnered) by "Blizzard", "Ubisoft", "Electronic Arts", " Activision" or "Bethesda" *Avoid.*

I would argue there's a difference between "you're not the target audience" and "the game is objectively designed to be addictive in order to scam as much money out of you as possible", and mobile games definitely fit in the second group

“normies” are called “normie” because they are “normal,” they are the majority

Capcom and Square Enix haven't disappointed me. The Monster Hunter games are probably the best gaming franchise I've ever played. They rarely disappoint. Such a simple formula, hunt monsters for materials, make cool weapons and armor. Setup skills for your preferred weapons and play styles.

i don't think the aproach is right. it's not that ppl don't recognize being served same mechanics over and over with different eras and settings, it's more like the mechanics are wanted within new settings. games where mechanics vary from the predecessors are often hated and abandoned, you see that mostly in 4x titles (age of wonders).

I think there was confusion on Sonic belonging on the list of top 20 games. You can't disagree with what the other youtuber stated, as he's correct. He said "Every game is a continuation of the same IP", but what I think he meant to say is "Every game is a continuation of the same game" as gamers often use IP in that context. Asmon's argument was correct in the sense that while Sonic is an IP, the games are not clones of eachother since it's a universe/lore and not a confined genre of game whereas Madden NFL will always be Madden NFL with little to no changes.

Oddly enough, I love the pokemon games, and the ones I was LEAST interested in, were the ones that tried to change things up too much. The past few games I completely skipped, because I just didn't like the large changes to the formula. BUT, I loved games like Pokemon Tower, etc. Where they took the franchise an entirely different route.

Asmon misunderstood the 80/20 rule. It means take the same IP, but innovate enough so its actually better/newer than the previous one. Dont just slap better graphics on it. Elden ring IS dark souls 3 formula but the 20% is the fact that its open world.

I was once a player who played Ubisoft, Blizzard, EA games but they were the first time the games were made. Starcraft, Battlefield 1, 2 & 2142, Diablo. I was in my mid 20s. Now I don't play any games from AAA, not one game in that top 20. All souless to myself and been done over and over. I love gaming but there isn't many games made for me at 52. Last games I enjoyed, Planetbase, Ark, Conan Exiles, Subnautica and now I'm scratching my head to think of other games.

It's also important to point out that simply making a sequel to a game isn't the issue. The issue arises when it's a hollow sequel. Dark souls, dark souls 2, dark souls 3, yes, they're sequels. They're also well made and have substance

4:10 I was absolutely dying. He delivered that like he was talking to someone that had said the dumbest thing on Earth to him.

Its very hard to create something new nowdays, because pretty much everything is basicaly done already before. If you look for inovation right now in gaming it is probably going to be some interesting mix of multiple janres rpg-survival , rpg-strategy something like that...

The success of ER is just confusing to me; if it's for you, that's fine, I just don't get it. It feels so linear, with one simple loop albeit done very well. For me, I like a more comprehensive game world: historical lore with a compelling, ongoing narrative to engage with; a living world with characters, events, culture, conflict, and believable day to day life; character development with a range of opportunities to become who you want to be and establish your place in the world. Honestly, the last really good version of this I've seen was Skyrim. Still struggling to replicate the experience.

"ubisoft think if they just change the period and setting of their games we won't notice" well you didn't notice that elden ring is exactly the same game as every other dark souls minus some impressive visuals and that character meant to emotionally manipulate lonely men into thinking they had a good gaming experience because they now have an a.i. girlfriend.

I believe the problem is that these big companies think they have a fail proof formula for making games and they just take or add small things with each new entry (sadly, mostly take) to make them seem fresh. Devs like Fromsoft keep the basis, but try different things with each game.

The challenge especially with F2P is you’re already in debt to the devs. So they have a wide birth to “cash grab”. Naturally that’s gunna feel like theft. Including if, the games value is lesser so, enough to feel lazy. If that’s the case, why is there a $100 price tag. I hate how adding a 2 or 3 after a game title without much change doesn’t warrant it being sold full price for what’s simply a graphics update.

Bro all the developers that I’ve genuinely trusted haven’t let me down, fromaoftware, rockstar, supergiant, insomniac, respawn, ryu ga gotoku, I even have high hopes for a lot of newer/smaller studios like team cherry, play dead, Santa Monica and Nagoshi studio. Lucky for me I never could really get into any of project red, Bethesda, Ubisoft or blizzard properties actually Hangar 13 and Valve have let me down with terrible pc ports and disappearing respectively so I lied. It’s no we’re near as bad as people are making it out to be though in my opinion people are acting like gaming is dying.

you need to do more content like this my dude. this is when you're in your element

I was one of the people who had never played souls games, then I tried Elden Ring, one of these days I will go back and play every Souls game, but henceforth I will for sure be buying all of FromSoft's releases, they nailed it with ER!

It's not that the devs are being hindered, most of the devs come from the same background as those in charge of the studios. They all grew up with video games, the early publishers did not. They didn't understand video games back then or what worked so you got funding for a lot more projects with good and bad results. The good was that they took chances on a creative project which is often how we got popular IPs today like Fallout and GTA. There was a point where that generation who grew up with video games in the 80's and 90's became devs, got in higher positions and they think differently to the people who came before them. The way they look at the video game industry now is "I don't need to ask the kids what they want to play because I know". Since they grew up with video games they think they already know everything and that's how video games fell into a mass produced mess. When they see somebody trying different things or somebody getting praise for a game that doesn't fit inside the box of what they think is good it makes them mad. Even indie games are not immune to this lol. What started as creativity and thinking outside the box has become cookie cutter copy old retro game and/or make it about mental illness because that's apparently all anybody will ever want.

I think monster hunter franchise has been in the same vein as Elden Ring there, with the broke out of MHW like ER for Souls games. And their devs, with their manager/director are actually play and enjoy the game themselves, so they're made with real passion

Shareholders don't want to wait 8 years to see returns, which forces upper management to lay into devs to speed up the process, more attention to profit leaves less attention to detail of the final product, which imo explains most AAA games released in the last 7-8 years atleast. and why its been "release now and fix the bugs later" type of industry ( all my opinion i don't actually know)

A 30+ Gigabyte day 1 update. That's what set it apart for me, since that is a literal 5 day download.

Games like Elden Ring, Hogwarts Legacy, Final Fantasy 7 Remake, No Man's Sky, Batman: Arkham Asylum...these are AAA games that felt like they had all the soul in them that their development teams could give. They felt like labors of love, of passion, of wanting to create something great. And I enjoyed the heck out of them all. Assassin's Creed used to represent a series I started out enjoying tremendously. The original is still pretty meaningful, but playing it outside of PC or on PS3/360 is a difficulty in itself (least with the new Xbox units they do have 360 compatibility in mind). AC2, on the other hand...that was where you could tell things kicked up to an 11. Even though it had two sequels come out, they worked because they built up the protagonist AND the story he was a part of in regards to the previous game. Despite the 3rd game having its share of haters, I enjoyed it a LOT. AC4 was where things began to taper off...and I started caring less about the modern storyline and more about just going into the past. Each entry afterward began to feel more like they were just starting to get slapped together and I just wanted to run through the modern parts to get back to the historical ones. A couple of years ago, I had a chance to get AC Origins and Odyssey both for a dirt cheap price and I decided to see how things played out. I enjoyed them well enough, and Valhalla was alright. But they didn't feel like games I wanted at launch, and not for $60. $10-20, on the other hand...that was a lot more palpable and I felt like I got my money's worth then. Mirage is just another chapter that has me feeling like waiting for the sale. Ubisoft games lately have felt like that (among Far Cry, Assassin's Creed, Watch Dogs, etc). And if the modern story continues to be trash, I'll prefer to just continue on to the historical bits.

it is not being good or bad at the game, it is learning the game and some times it is nice to have a game that do not take you by the hand and show you what to do like DeadIsland 2 i played the last days was awesome and i explored even when there was not that much to explore but then i bought Dying Light 2 and played it and even at the start of the game i start to lose the interest because i was using the Scan more then i was looking around same count for the witcher and so on i hate that scan mechanics but i use them always when they are there and they break the game imersion by far.

For me it was the open world and flexibility i've wanted to play Fromsoft games for awhile but i don't like bashing my head against a wall on one boss but if you give me options in a giant open world. You went from creating an okay/decent game to perfect with one move. All they needed was to make the world feel full of life and they did just that to cap it off it was a game of the year well deserved.

People have problems with interactive "Movies" but I don't. I don't think there's anything wrong with that type of gaming aslong as you know what your getting into. If the game ends up being quality and tells a great story, it's perfectly fine. If you don't like it, Just don't play it. Every game isn't for every person

Honestly for me I don't mind if the gameplay is repetitive but i do start having a problem when they start milking it putting into micro transactions when there doesn't need to be any or when the game has a clear ending but yet they go and force another sequel when again there shouldn't be one and for one reason why i don't mind repetitive gameplay is because hey if it works why try something new and ruin the game and its also hard to find some new way to go about how gameplay works you know but that's why i mainly play games for their story if the story is lackluster then i wouldn't want to spend my time playing the game. *cough* looking at you forespoken *cough*

i played every TES game and it felt different in terms of gameplay but have a bound by story

People talk about CoD MW2 2, but they never talk about Kill Butt 3 2 by Paul Beenis Games

this is what i miss the most about gaming in the 90s and early 00’s, it seemed like many game studios were more open to try new things.