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What genre/setting you miss the most? Or one that devs barely, if ever, touched?

Nautilus

Banned
I was watching a few videos about how movies quality and creativy has stagnated, in a general sense, and that got me thinking: Gaming has been going a bit through that too.

Sony is known for having big Cinematic Action Adventures and little else.If that was the only "problem", it would be too much of an issue, but all of them are also dialogue heavy. Its not like they vary with games that have a character action focus like DMC and Bayonetta, to more involved stuff like Skyrim. No, all of them are dialogue heavy games, that really resembles novelas where the character drama at least half of the driving force behind the plot and they barely drive away from this formula. They do have representation in Racing, like Gran Turismo, or platformers, like Ratchet and Clank, but Cinematic Adventure games is about 75% of their offerings right now.At least that's what it feels like.

MS has a similar issue, but in a different way. They are known for three franchises, and almost the rest is either forgetabble or don't get enough love(and budget). It's the reason they are going in a shopping spree after all.

For third party in general, its not nearly as bad, as EA is surprisingly making a nice comeback in terms of variety and quality and while Square almost always deal with RPGs, these RPGs vary in scope, genres and style.

But then you have your Ubisoft's, your Activisions, and many other ones that either focus on one genre or one franchise.




The question I want to make after this unexpected long intro is: What type of genre, setting, or style of game you think this industry is missing? Be it one that existed before, but devs moved away from it, or one type that you always dreamed about playing, but no one never really made?(Much like Star Wars was for the Space Opera, and Back to the Future was for Time travel films?)

For me personally, I think there are two settings that have been largely unused that could bring a healthy dose of creativity back to this industry:

1) Time travel. And a game that makes good use of it.A sequel to Chrono Trigger could be that, but Square refuses to touch that IP.

2) A Star Fox game that becomes kind of a Space Opera, instead of purely being a rails shooter.

So guys, what would be yours?
 

Rush2112

Banned
Single player FPS games had a lot of popularity in early 2000s: half life 2, doom 3, FEAR, bioshock, black (xbox exclusive), killzone (ps exclusive), far cry (original, not the casual open world series), chronicles of Riddick (xbox), perfect dark (xbox), and prey (original not the weird one arkane made).
Now all single player FPS campaigns are window shopping for the live service portion because thats easier to monetize long term.
 
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MiguelItUp

Member
Single player FPS games had a lot of popularity in early 2000s: half life 2, doom 3, FEAR, bioshock, black (xbox exclusive), killzone (ps exclusive), far cry (original, not the casual open world series), chronicles of Riddick, and prey (original).
Now all single player FPS campaigns are window shopping for the live service portion because thats easier to monetize long term.
To piggy back off of this. FPS games that came with solid campaigns, solid multiplayer, etc. That was such a standard in the peak of FPS popularity on PC, and I absolutely loved it. There was so much content in one game. I know the only IP that we know of that still does this is COD, but I wish there was more. The last other IP I saw do this was DOOM (2016), and it felt amazing. It had the campaign, multiplayer, and snapmap stuff.

I think it's lacking in beat 'em ups, and I'm talking about beat 'em ups that lean into the use of the best engines available. So you could have a cool cooperative beat 'em up that has destructible environments, great physics, etc. We've had plenty of indie games do beat 'em ups over the years, and a lot of them were pretty damn successful. I just think there's some really cool potential there, but for whatever reason, it just hasn't been touched by largers devs with bigger budgets.
 
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Nautilus

Banned
Castlevania
Adam Scott Comedy GIF by Apple TV+
 

T4keD0wN

Member
Over the top arena shooters like Unreal Tournament and Quake 3 arena with 0 progression systems.
Sci-fi RTS like C&C, dawn of war and starcraft. (cant wait for Tempest Rising)
I am surprised that we havent got hundreds of Spore clones by now, evolution games need to be a genre.
 
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I would say action games but I can't really complain with Bayonetta 3, Gungrave and Evil West all being released last year. This year so far we have Wanted Dead and hopefully Stellar Blade. So I'll piggy back on the Castlevania answer
 

TintoConCasera

I bought a sex doll, but I keep it inflated 100% of the time and use it like a regular wife
I want more games depicting high fantaay themes developed by japanese studios. Dragon's Dogma, Dragon's Crown, stuff like that.
 
3D platformers. Like yeah there's lots of kind of junky / middling indie ones that are coming out these days but that's kind of it. I'm talking about big or at least decent budget ones from great developers. Nintendo gifts us a Mario every 5-6 years and that's about it. I guess Kirby last year too.
 

SLESS

Member
I’ve be wanting a wanting an immersive sim of System Shock 2 calibre since I first completed. Nothing has bettered it for me to this day. Prey was good, SS2 was Great.
 

TintoConCasera

I bought a sex doll, but I keep it inflated 100% of the time and use it like a regular wife
Well we are getting FFXVI and Granblue Fantasy: Relink (hopefully) this year.
Yeah and I hope those come to PC, wouldn't want to get a new console just for two games. :goog_relieved:

FFXVI looks extra nice tho, and the combat director being the same dude who worked on the combat in Dragon's Dogma makes me even more hyped.

Oh and btw, nice avatar my dude.
 
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SHA

Member
Old school fps ,side scroll, many ps one , nes , snes , Sega DC, ps2 games , can't make a huge list , I think you got an idea of what's not available today.
 
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Guilty_AI

Member
We used to get tons of driving-focused open world games, often trying to piggyback on GTA's success. Now we don't even get GTA, and i have doubts about the quality of the next game with Rockstar insisting on their ancient game design and all the changes they went through - not to mention their games long stopped putting driving mechanics at the forefront.

The few open world driving games we do get are too online focused, have bad progression systems and/or plain suck. The few truly good ones belong to very specific niches. Just gimme another Driver game.
 

Guilty_AI

Member
Old school fps
Single player FPS games had a lot of popularity in early 2000s: half life 2, doom 3, FEAR, bioshock, black (xbox exclusive), killzone (ps exclusive), far cry (original, not the casual open world series), chronicles of Riddick (xbox), perfect dark (xbox), and prey (original not the weird one arkane made).
Now all single player FPS campaigns are window shopping for the live service portion because thats easier to monetize long term.
To piggy back off of this. FPS games that came with solid campaigns, solid multiplayer, etc. That was such a standard in the peak of FPS popularity on PC, and I absolutely loved it. There was so much content in one game. I know the only IP that we know of that still does this is COD, but I wish there was more. The last other IP I saw do this was DOOM (2016), and it felt amazing. It had the campaign, multiplayer, and snapmap stuff.
Haven't we been getting tons of new old-school style FPS games? There are even threads about this

https://www.neogaf.com/threads/retro-shooter-renaissance.1516237/

https://www.neogaf.com/threads/the-boomer-shooter-tsunami.1652879/
 

KàIRóS

Member
Evil West and Gungrave GORE made me realize how much I miss Third Person Shooters without cover systems, Dead to Rights and Syphon Filter particularly
 

MiguelItUp

Member
Haven't we been getting tons of new old-school style FPS games? There are even threads about this

https://www.neogaf.com/threads/retro-shooter-renaissance.1516237/

https://www.neogaf.com/threads/the-boomer-shooter-tsunami.1652879/
Yes, but majority are indie or indie adjacent, if not AA. I wasn't just talking about FPS titles, but FPS titles chocked full of content. The way they used to be in the 90s, some in the 2000s. A good campaign, good multiplayer, maybe coop, and then some.

I was also more so referring to "AAA" or "big budget titles", which is why I referenced COD and DOOM (2016).
 
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fart town usa

Gold Member
A few years ago I would have said inventory management/puzzle-based Survival Horror but those titles made a serious comeback.

At this point I wish there was another Amped: Freestyle Snowboarding or Skate type game. I wish there was a demo for the other two recent skateboarding games. It's all about the controls and I don't want to spend $50 to test the waters.

Steep exists for winter sports but I downloaded it via PS+ the other night and I couldn't play without registering for an Ubisoft account. Promptly deleted that shit off my PS5. Fuck Ubisoft.

It is what it is, Skate framerate is rough to go back to even though the games are still damn fun. The OG Amped is just as good today as it was back in 2001. That game is insanely impressive with it's graphics, framerate, controls, draw distance, etc. Really showcased what the XBOX could do when it released.
 

HL3.exe

Member
Stealth games. Not this 'optional in action games'. THIEF comes to mind.

I also just replayed Manhunt recently cuz why not, and man, that dreaded atmosphere and fun reactive chatter from NPC's, combined with simple but intense stealth gameplay. Would love to see Rockstar make something like that again. Gameplay wise Manhunt is way more open-ended than any of their modern titles with strict, linear, fail-strate heavy design.
 

L*][*N*K

Banned
I would have said Tactical strategy games like Commandos that was popular back in the late 90s and early 2000s, but that genre saw a resurrection since 2016 and it is actually great right now, all thanks to a small developer called mimimi games
 

Roni

Gold Member
Survival horror, locking me in the room with the monster(s) or lacking puzzles should instantly disqualify any game from being called that.
 
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TheInfamousKira

Reseterror Resettler
I miss the economy of gaming in the late 90's and early 00's. Where the technology was getting to the point that it was impressive but it was still affordable to take risks. Nowadays everything is so cost prohibitive and dependent that most big names (another issue I have, detailed later) go through so much behind the scenes scrutiny that it's highly unlikely to not at least break even. This means adhering to the established and projected trends of top sellers and ending up with seven games that have the scope of eight games twenty years ago each, and none of the depth. Factory line shit.

Back in the day, AA was an honest contender and you'd have runaway hits on shoestring budgets that spawned into entire franchises. It's kind of a bigger, more pronounced version of how TGA is. AA was like the player's choice, and AAA was where all the rich dudes who don't even play games would regurgitate trends. Now AAA is basically all we got unless we dip into indies.

Also, big franchises are the only thing that gets love anymore for much of what I expect is the same reason as all the shit I rambled about above.
 

Naked Lunch

Member
Rail shooters.
Gimmie all out skilled based action ala Sin and Punishment N64 - running/jumping/aiming/dodging - and load that shit up with branching paths all over the place.
or this template:
Make a decked out 50+ level Star Fox with none of that on foot junk - nothing but hardcore difficult space flight levels and tons of bosses.
 
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