Lack of interesting games

[BAB]

The last new game I was excited for was Kingdom Come: Deliverance. Luckily, it was great. However, both this year and for the foreseeable future, I have no interest in almost anything resembling AAA games. Even Cyberpunk 2077 I might get, but I'm not actively following it because I'm not much for the cyberpunk genre. I've been looking backwards and finding all kinds of gems from ages past. I'm only in my early 20s so there are a ton of great games from way back when that I'm just now finding. I'll come back to the present when it stops being stale.

[PriestTroit]

Dunno what's gonna come out, but here's a list of things I'm hoping won't happen.

1) Open World games - So tired of this. They're usually done badly and are boring.
2) Multiplayer focused games - Can we just stop? You can only make so many Cods and Battlefields before it gets old
3) Sequels, Prequels, PreSequels - I'm getting real bored of the Nth iteration of popular games. Why can't they make NEW games? Looking at you Assassins' Creeed, COD, Bfield, Dragon Age, Mass Effect, Fallout, etc.....

I want new IPs, or at least for them to not ruin a series I liked. I just hope Bioware gets back on its feet and either makes something original or doesn't fuck up the next Dragon Age. Did you see how bad that last Mass Effect was?!

[Yoshi]

I don't know if it's just me, but there definitely seems to be a decline in AAA game launchs that are of much interest to me for 2019.

It's cyclical. Whenever we near the end of a console generation, the AAA games tend to dry up, because the big studios are working on next gen projects.

[Hadley]

It's definitely not just your imagination. While whether the titles are interesting or not is a matter of debate (though certainly not from me!) the number of AAA launches have declined in years past. Big studios have gone from many smaller investments to a small handful of gigantic investments. This means bigger budgets and higher risks, which explains the complete lack of willingness to try anything new.

Luckily we have the indie scene to keep things from getting too stale, otherwise we'd be playing sequels for the rest of our lives.

[JackofTears]

Yeah, most of the AAA games coming out this year bore me; almost every game I'm looking forward to in 2019 is an Indie or AA creation. The last couple years have produced some excellent material in the small developer scene, which I am happy to see, as it means AAA developers actually have some market competition. I suspect, unless things change, the AA developers of today are going to be the AAA developers of 5 years from now. Then we'll see them go through the same character arc - they'll start out strong, trusted, companies who value customers and listen to criticism, then slowly they'll be corrupted by money, see their idealism crushed, and be bought out by heartless megacorps; it's the game developers circle of life.

[Noobc0re]

I haven't cared about AAA for years. Once in a blue moon a game comes along that is actually good and generates some buzz, like Doom 2016. But generally I just ignore the AAA games.

[Kashimi]

Its just you. There are plenty. The bigger question is what is making you ignore all the "big" AAA games?

Clearly it isn't just me, look at all of the responses here. Many people share the same sentiment as me.

[isturbo1984]

Okay. Not "just" you. But you are still wrong. You might get a sense of accomplishment by others validating your false point, but that doesn't make it true. I mean, will me listing off the big, AAA games we got just this year that dominated the Game Awards make a difference?

[Kashimi]

Just because something wins an award doesn't mean that it was interesting. Most reviews of AAA games are dead wrong and were provided by shills just trying to suckle the teet of large producers and publishers just to stay in good graces and receive their free hand-outs and sponsorships.

I hate the be the burster of bubbles here, but I think you're going to find that you're the odd man out on this one. Most interesting video game projects are coming from AA and lower. You can disagree as much as you want, and you can resort to saying erroneous things like "You might get a sense of accomplishment by others validating your false point" but that's what this conversation has been, a conversation to gauge if others felt the same way as I. You were the only one to come here and disagree so strongly that you decided to be rude about it.

[The Final Boss]

AAA has been (mostly) a dull, uninspired, repeating stream of crap for years. It's just that earlier they did the stuff that's already been done with a bit more care and made it look pretty, the latter being enough for some people (I actually saw some comments on the MK11 (or M11K) trailer saying "OMG THE GRAPHICS ARE SO GOOD!". On a fucking prerendered trailer). Lately they've been focusing more on monetization than actually making their game work or even just making the actual game, as in the case of Activision where they straight up drop the campaign to get CoD out earlier and cheaper. Or for another example, I saw in one of the recent AC games, where the player hid behind a flag pole or something, and the guard couldn't see him, because they couldn't be bothered to code more than 1 vector for the vision check.

They've finally reached critical mass, where even the overall quality is shit, in addition to scummy motenization. We all know they're just selling to investors at this point, make all the money and spend as little as possible. Obviously this can't be sustained forever.

[xMobilemux]

Something that I miss deeply about AAA games is those games that are just "video game as a video game can be" if you get what I mean.
Like AAA games today are always doing the boring, artsy, trying to be taken seriously, cinematic, walkie talkie feels-a-thon approach.
It's ruined 2 franchises that I used to love(Tomb Raider and God of War) and there are more franchises out there in danger of falling victim to that approach.

I miss those big AAA games that just went full out and embraced being a Video Game, hell it's the reason a lot of the franchises today even became franchises in the first place.

[Guammastermind671]

Depends on if the games your talking about are Triple A Titles or indie games from steam. Triple A titles have been going down in popularity for myself and this is due to the political injections and trash quality some companies do to their games (E.g - Fallout 4, Sims 4, SWBF I &II, BF1 & 5). Plus there's also the way some Triple A Companies treat their customer base, which is completely unacceptable in my opinion. I understand you want your company to grow, but if your quality of games is shit and all you care is making money, so you can have a bigger "stick" than the other guy, then I hope your company falls apart and gets restructured and taken down, so then you can have reality show you that quality content is always better than quantity content. Hopefully 2018 will show Bethesda, EA and many other Triple A titles, that were their bread and butter and not the investors who just want to join the 1% Bandwagon.

For indie games though, I have nothing but praise for certain games like Rimworld, SCP:SL, Subnautica, Stardew Valley, Rocket League and many more. You can see in those games, that the quality is up and thats what drives us to pursue those games.

[PaXXXman]

AAA industry still had a chance with me even after that shitty game they call Diablo. But then... Destiny happened... they completely lost it. I wont even start on the lie Activision/Bungie was able to sell us or else I'll fill up the whole god damn page

[Bipolar_Sloth]

Yeah i think alike, that is one of the reasons i don't like SONY exclusives, they always make the same AAA cinematic thing over and over, and somehow people is still applauding, they really get the technical part and the cinematic elements nailed, but as games.... well, they are extremely overrated by the journos.

on the other hand we have the AAA EA and Ubisoft which are just trying to milk us down at every opportunity they have, besides Ubisoft is just making the same games over and over again with a different skin it's not even funny at this point.

The only AAA experiences i am kinda excited for this 2019 are RE2 Remake, DMC5, DOOM: Eternal and Metro Exodus (i doubt Cyberpunk comes out this year)

In anyway most of the games i play are considered indie or AA games, AAA games nowadays are just uninspired, generic experiences with pretty graphics and puddle deep depth.

[RetroRex]

With the exception of Nintendo's first-party titles, I rarely play games from big developers anymore. I'm more into games from smaller Japanese developers (like Falcom) and indie games.

[UncleSwiggle]

I've been having this same issue, as a long time World of Warcraft player along with multiple other games like Mortal Kombat and Tomb Raider, nothing new has really seemed worth playing. If anyone has any suggestions please let me know as i'm done with WoW until they make it better (if they make it better)

[Smackems]

RE2 Remake, Metro Exodus, Sekiro SDT, Rage 2... I'm pretty covered for the next few months.