Probably why Lethal Company, a game made by one person with little experience, is the 9th highest selling game on Steam.
I hope this happens more often and AAA studios realize they can also make small experimental games with small budgets and few staff. They don't need to spend 10 years doing nothing but work on their next monolithic title. Give some passionate staffers a chance with their unique idea and release smaller games along the way.
It is disingenuous to say that the lethal company dev (zeekers) has little experience. He already has like 5 games on steam and some of them got very popular.
Why would we want anything from jobbers? People who can do this don't need those publishers.
And the only options for mobile games nowadays are gachas! Rip gaming
Truth. I have a decent amount of spare Google Rewards credit to spend on games but there are no good games to get. (any recommendations?)
Polytopia if you like strategy. You can buy tribes if you want to, but the basic 4 they give you have the "strongest" in the game, there's no p2w. I've ended up buying all the tribes and am well on my way to all the skins (they only have one extra skin for some of the tribes at the moment) but that's because I play it a ton and have for years, so it's just to support the dev.
Dev is active and makes improvements regularly, just released a long anticipated update that had some significant game play changes so it feels fresh, and the changes seem to make it more interesting / balanced so far.
There's also a very dedicated fan community on discord that sets up frequent tournaments or team games if you find you like it.
I was in the same boat and stumbled on Dawncaster. It's the best mobile game I've ever played. I'd honestly play it on PC too, but it's strangely mobile only. You could compare it to Slay the Spire, but I have found Dawncaster much more satisfying and fun for me personally. Also very active devs who are opposed to micro-transactions.
Spaceflight simulator. Good stuff. Free for the basic stuff, you pay for extra components, planets and building space
I wouldn't say the only option
You can run Winlator and play indie games and older games (runs Fallout 3 and Oblivion)
The industry at large has gone to shit, but there are positives. Game dev tools are more accessible now than they've ever been. The indie market is thriving and has recently produced games that are some of the most creative and interesting I've ever seen
Share some gems? :)
If you like story focused games:
Outer Wilds
Disco Elysium
Omori (TW very dark game, haven't finished it yet)
If you need a good gameplay with it:
Katana zero
Sanabi
Furi
Hollow knight
This meme is giving "I have only played Ubisoft/ea/actizard titles for the past 4 years" and I mean do whatever you want but it seems silly to complain about games you continue to buy no?
I loved Pokemon, but it hasn't really changed in like 20 years. I'll play some romhacks, maybe I'll "try out" a newer pokemon game, but I haven't bought one since like omega ruby/alpha sapphire. The point I'm making is if we stop buying repetitive garbage, we can bring the small devs up and let them determine the course of game design moving forward.
Or I mean you can just.... Keep playing assassin's creed: (insert vague cultural name here) I guess
This meme is giving "I have only played Ubisoft/ea/actizard titles for the past 4 years" and I mean do whatever you want but it seems silly to complain about games you continue to buy no?
Mate, the first line says it's talking about AAA games.
I actually had Cyberpunk in mind because my friend is currently obsessed and acts like the issue is that I failed at liking it and need to be fixed by having it crammed down my throat. I'm a brokeass with very few dollars to vote with but hard agree on "stop giving big studios money for making franchise shovelware", especially those three you mentioned and also bethesda.
Hey that's fair, cyberpunk is a very "safe" game in the rpg genre.
Honestly you might just not be into RPGs at all, and that's totally fine. Don't let other people tell you what to play ya know?
There are good games out there, but the big studios are not making them. Except maybe from soft and larian (imho)
Can you recommend some good open world indie games?
Sure!
Valheim is fantastic, Kenshi is brutal and unforgiving but very fun, outward is similarly difficult and fun, also very unique.
Open world is kind of a huge genre, so I'd even say games like Subnautica, terraria, etc might be up your alley.
Edit: I can't believe I left out no man's sky and hyper light drifter! Highly recommend them both, no man's sky is such a good space life sim and hyper light drifter is kind of like a throwback to the first Zelda game, but obviously updated and with some different intentions to the gameplay/story. Happy gaming!
One man's repetitive garbage is another man's wealth of treasure (or a mix of gold and junk).
One of the best things about Pokémon imo is the music. Most generations, they hit it out of the park, even if the gameplay is similar. Sometimes people are so used to the formula that it's hard to have it change. (This is reminding me I need to continue Legends Arceus.) For the record, I was so disappointed by Pokémon Sun due to it being closer to a movie than a game that I ditched the franchise until Legends Arceus and S/V.
However, I think we need to be doing better to recommend alternatives to Pokémon If so many people are dissatisfied with the direction of the franchise. Whenever I search Pokémon alternatives, I get listicles of Pokémon games or maybe romhacks. What about other RPGs somewhat similar to Pokémon but different? The only close thing I've actually played was Fossil Fighters Frontier, and that was because a friend already was playing games in that series.
It's pretty sad that I can't tell if this list was made yesterday or four years ago. If people are able to have fun despite a stagnant industry, all power to them, but I haven't seen a good game out of AAA in a long while.
I really hope one day business schools will start teaching people that trying to blindly follow trends in art has literally never worked. Hasn't worked for all the film studios trying to make their own cinematic universes, hasn't worked for game studios trying to chase the new live service dragon, but still we get braindead suits getting senior level positions approving derivative drivel.
Alright, new theory:
You guys don't play too many games, right?
For the record, the best selling games of this year had fewer live service games than last year and the year before. The top of the charts was consistently single player games without microtransactions and this is one of the main GOTY candidates of 2023 following trends from "business schools" straight into... eh... a climactic absurdist musical number.
I'd tag that as spoilers if I could because, as I said, it's increasingly clear you guys haven't been playing this stuff.
You're right, the best selling games have been single-player focused. So why has Ubisoft, EA, Square Enix, ActivisionBlizzard, Warner Bros, and Sony Interactive been pushing to jump on the recent extraction shooter trend? Hell, find me a triple A publisher that does not have a live-service game being maintained, I'll wait.
If you're argument is that AAA is not wasting millions of dollars on chasing trends, you'll have to find more evidence than all their projects being failures.
I just had someone telling me if I can't tell the new street fighter installment from the old one then i must not have eyes. It looks practically identical to the previous three installments. I think I'm done trying to interact with gamers for literally anything.
It's not great! 2023 games that I have really enjoyed this past year have been Tears of the Kingdom, Cassette Beasts, and Hi-Fi Rush.
Oh, man, I had forgotten those were this year.
My list also includes:
Pikmin 4
Baldur's Gate 3
Spider-Man 2
Street Fighter 6
Mortal Kombat 1
Dead Space and RE4 remake
The Talos Principle 2And I didn't even get around to Alan Wake 2, which everybody's been raving about. Or that Dave the Builder thing. Or Lies of P. Or Jedi Survivor. And I guess I'm not counting the new Prince of Persia because that's this year, technically. And I'm not into 2D Mario games, so I'm guessing skipping Super Mario Wonder makes me a bit of an outlier.
Look, I know it feels good to be jaded and edgy and cynical, but... yeah, no, it was an all-time great year for games in 2023. And a terrible year for the games industry. But the games? So good.
Too bad pretty much everyone, including Larian, Owlcat, all of these "we're doing it for the game and for the fans" adherents have also fallen for the "Rush to Market, Fix It Later" mentality. Been deep-diving Rogue Trader for the past weeks and playing through rough Beta content really isn't fun when the game is considered launched and complete. Same for Baldur's Gate 3, I binged it at launch and had to stop in Act III because most of my quests were soft-locked, or displayed incorrect information in the Journal.
After Cyberpunk I decided to be done paying $50+ to take up a quarter of my disk with a highly-acclaimed game that turns out to be the same old cookie-cutter 3D game with an expensive makeover. Anymore I mostly just play small indie games that friends recommend, and generally have a way better experience for it.
I couldn't get behind Tears of the Kingdom. Idk what it was, just didn't draw me in. Couldn't keep at it. Put in 10hrs and haven't picked it up in....3 months?
Part of it for me was that the people you meet in the first game don't reference the first game. Like pyrah for example has a massive crush on link in BotW yet in TotK she acts distantly to him. Also I felt it was repetitive, especially when I've already done similar if not the same things in BotW like korok seeds.
The steam reviews for cassette beasts drove me away from it, what did you like about it? Also what's your in game time, if you don't mind me asking?
It's just Pokémon but if the series grew up with the fanbase instead of stagnating on the age group it did.
It's a really good "monster collector" game with solid gameplay and a mature story.
I played ~30hrs and there is still a lot to go.
That being said, it's not AAA by any means.
I'm curious considering it's currently at 96% positive, what about the reviews drove you away? For me, the game captured the feeling of playing Pokemon for the first time (Heart Gold) again. It was similar enough on a basic level to draw me in, but all the fundamentals and mechanics are totally different and bring a wave of fresh air to the stale Pokemon formula.
If you've played Pokemon on the DS and didn't like it, this game probably won't be your kind of thing. If you did though, Cassette Beasts has a lot going for it. It has creative monster designs, a cast of unique side characters with their own story quests, a very memorable soundtrack (including my most played song of 2023), a not-overwhelmingly-massive open world with plenty to do, and just a smidge of analog horror.
I have ~30 hours in it iirc.
If this is turning into an indie/AA game recommendation thread, I highly recommend RAILGRADE. I bought it Sunday night and put in 13 hours between that and the next day and I'm only like 1/4 of the way through the campaign.
It's basically like Satisfactory meets Mini Metro and it's so goddamn addicting.
I have Railgrade on my wishlist and I have been back and forth about it. I'm a big fan of Satisfactory though.
Some of these aren't universally bad. Not every protagonist needs an arc. Not every crafting system has to be complex or function differently than a store. Not every game needs a compelling political statement. These things could actually detract from the experience if poorly implemented.
Hype trains are always bogus and can be mostly avoided by never pre-ordering and waiting for reviews before purchasing. I was excited as hell for Doom Eternal, but I waited until a week after launch before buying it. Patience is the way to go for big budget entertainment. I don't seek out blockbusters until I see the reception, and I don't buy AAA single player games until I know what I'm getting.
Small budget stuff and things you want more of should be supported, but chasing hype just isn't wise. Don't expect the world from something that doesn't exist yet.
TBH I had a pretty good time since the CRPG-resurgence.
I'm glad you're finding content to your taste, but I kind of have the opposite problem: I find RPGs exhaustingly tedious and convoluted, and every genre is infected with its worst parts - grinding and levels and crafting and loot and fetchquests and equipment - because it's the "in" thing to do. everything feels so damn confused about what kind of game it's trying to be and ends up doing nothing well.
some of them are titties
Lies, not in the 2020s where tittes are illegal :P
I've never been into big A games. I'll pay them if they're highly reviewed and end up on sale, but I guess sim games are my thing. NFS underground me would never believe the driving sims I do with a sim rig and vr headset.
Simple solution, do not play triple AAA games. Find newer studios, indie devs, or smaller publishers who have yet to have private equity sink their teeth in to them.
no you must be shamed into compliance with my opinion that Age Old Franchise 5 (the fifty-fourth Age Old Franchise game) was decent and acceptable therefore AAA is good.
Be glad the points aren't:
-ads
-microtransactions
people who complain about ads and microtransactions in games are confusing to me. just don't buy it -> no ads no microtransactions ezpz. people really be throwing money around every year out of FOMO and complaining about the thing they knew they were buying afterward.
If that makes it a 10/10 game for them thats cool. I'd check a screenshot if those animated boobs overwhelmed all the rest of the negative review.
ITT gamers melt down and act like rowdy children when other people have opinions about games
edit: guys guys guys Larian studios will be fine, you don't need to defend them or shame me into compliance because BG3 doesn't look enjoyable to me. Jesus christ you'd think I was trying to take the game away from everyone.
edit2: guys capcom isn't going to sleep with you because you bravely defended the literally 40th Street Fighter title against some rando's disinterest and failure to hail it as a great moment in gaming or something. sheesh.
