We've had The Last of Us setting a trend of desaturated "mature" games where you're a grumpy man in ordinary clothes shooting guns and throwing bricks to distract enemies, We've had Skyrim setting the trend for Hand-crafted open worlds in dozens of franchises since it came out (Dragon Age, Zelda, Far Cry), and before that we had Gears of War defining the third-person cover-shooter for a generation of shooters, and before that we had World of Warcraft introducing the new standard for questing in RPGs: "Do X thing Y times!"
Now a new generation stands before us. The new game that has opened the eyes to millions of designers is Death Stranding.
The prospect of limiting the player's ability to move using the analog stick by complicating it with tertiary mechanics is an idea so brilliant it had to seep into a new generation of games, even First Person games where tripping over is the fastest way to be eaten by the monster. Before Death Stranding the browser game Q.W.O.P. inspired Hideo Kojima to create the ultimate innovation: control of locomotion, and ever since Death Stranding made it mainstream all developers have been chasing the design that one-ups Death Stranding in a violent arms-and-locomotive-legs race!
So you're sitting here, with your PS5, Your RTX3080TIs and I7-9770X, or your Xbox Scarlett playing these new games.
Was it worth it? Do you like Far Cry 6? How do you feel about the fact that BioWare fixed the faces in Mass Effect 5 but made a locomotion system more wonky than Andromeda's crab-walking?
With some hindsight do you have regrets about where this generation went?
Now a new generation stands before us. The new game that has opened the eyes to millions of designers is Death Stranding.
The prospect of limiting the player's ability to move using the analog stick by complicating it with tertiary mechanics is an idea so brilliant it had to seep into a new generation of games, even First Person games where tripping over is the fastest way to be eaten by the monster. Before Death Stranding the browser game Q.W.O.P. inspired Hideo Kojima to create the ultimate innovation: control of locomotion, and ever since Death Stranding made it mainstream all developers have been chasing the design that one-ups Death Stranding in a violent arms-and-locomotive-legs race!
So you're sitting here, with your PS5, Your RTX3080TIs and I7-9770X, or your Xbox Scarlett playing these new games.
Was it worth it? Do you like Far Cry 6? How do you feel about the fact that BioWare fixed the faces in Mass Effect 5 but made a locomotion system more wonky than Andromeda's crab-walking?
With some hindsight do you have regrets about where this generation went?
