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No, not even remotely. The biggest game of the year was an antiquated cRPG, followed by a bunch of sequels and remakes. The industry as a whole has been rocked with scandal after scandal, with the most recent being the large, widespread Christmas layoffs. Innovative gameplay is now something that completely eludes AAA studios, who only seem to know how to regurgitate trends popularized by better games.
2023 was another shite year for gaming, and rewarding it with brain-dead articles like this is why 2024 probably won’t be any better.
“Antiquated” is certainly not a word I’ve heard anyone describe BG3 with until now. Personally, this is the first year in a long time that AAA has spoken to me, because they haven’t been catering to me much for the past number of years.
I mean, Larian isn’t even a AAA studio. They’re still technically an independent studio, though with the success and polish of Divinity I think most would have considered them AA even before BG:3. Also you’d need a lot of evidence to convince me that any cRPG isn’t a product of antiquated design, there’s a reason the genre completely died off. From my experience playing it, even Larian couldn’t figure out how to make combat with 20+ enemies feel fun, a problem nearly every cRPG has had for years.
I’d consider them a AAA studio, at least at this point. BG3 had a budget of $100M, a team of 400 people, and if I remember correctly, a 30% stake from Tencent. I think they count now.
As for antiquated, they added emergent design elements on top of a solid CRPG foundation and married that with a level of production value that we typically associate with RPGs that had to tone down their RPG systems, like Mass Effect or Cyberpunk, which is why I’m having a hard time meeting you on that word. If I was going to assign reasons to why CRPGs died off (only for about 10 years at that), I’d say it was because people were chasing that production value, but the audience still hungered for the depth that their predecessors offered. I had a ton of fun in the BG3 combat encounters with 20+ enemies. I love XCOM, and I thought BG3’s combat encounters were more fun than anything I played in XCOM.
I’d even say the genre never died, just became a little more niche. I think the ARPG kind of dominated there for a bit, but CRPGs still existed. The time between Baldur’s Gate 2 and Dragon Age: Origins was only 9 years. There were several games between those games that I quite enjoyed (Arcanum, Fallout Tactics, Icewind Dale, Neverwinter Nights 1 and 2, and more). I realize that wasn’t your argument at all, just wanted to add a little more weight to what you were getting across
I haven’t played DA:O to know if it counted, but I do know it was at least trying to tap into that lineage a bit. I was mostly going from NWN/KOTOR-ish to the Kickstarter boom that birthed Shadowrun, Wasteland, and Torment successors, among others.
DA:O was touted as the spiritual successor to BG2 at the time, so totally was. And yeah, there was a little lull, but there were still games in there.
30% stake from Tencent
Gross
The genre didn’t die off though. It may have become a niche, but died isn’t the right description. Not saying that means you should like it, just that it has been in the background for a very long time.
I hope cRPGs never die
Not saying you‘re wrong, but your arguments are weird. cRPGs are obviously not dead, and I‘ve encountered a group of more than 10 enemies maybe a handful of times. And, subjectively, that was fun.
I would call either Divinity game polished
I didn’t really see anything in BG3 that was antiquated, but I also didn’t see anything innovative. It’s DOS2 in Faerun.
What made BG3 “antiquated” to you? Just the nature of it being a cRPG? I thought it had some really good modern game design.
To me, it fell into the same trap basically every cRPG falls into; late game combat is a chore. Once the number of enemies and skills you have to juggle gets high enough, you can’t realistically use real-time on the harder fights, but you can run into so many enemies that turn-based takes forever.
I don’t even really mean that as a criticism of Larian, since nobody else ever managed to fix that issue either. It’s a big reason why the genre died off for so long.
Real-time isn’t an option at all in BG3, and RTWP always felt messy to me anyway, even as I’m now playing Pillars of Eternity. Especially in a lot of those old Infinity Engine games, it felt like it incentivized devs to add more trash mobs, as opposed to paying closer attention to pacing and encounter design.
KOTOR was plenty fun at lategame
I totally apologize, you’ve unlocked a memory. It’s so good in KOTOR that my brain doesn’t remember it’s a cRPG. I’m really hoping that if it gets a remake, it keeps all the guts of the original combat system, and doesn’t get simplified to a toggle between real time and pause.
Biggest game of the year for me was Terra Nil. What a fantastic experience
oh shit this game looks awesome, thanks for the suggestion.
I have read and used the term “The Jackpot” to describe the current era of human life because of the overwhelming choice of every movie ever, every show ever, every song ever, every play ever, every game every everything being available all the time in my domicile plus many of us get get to pooh indoors which is nice/antibiotics.
Unfortunately people don’t seem any happier.
Because somehow despite our society’s overabundance of wealth and power, we’re all working more hours/days than most humans in history.
Because contrary to the opinion of most terminally online people, media consumption is a very tiny part of life and happiness. It’s literally non-essential.
I disagree. There are studies that show that people cut on food even to get some entertainment.
Yes, and lab rats will shock themselves to get cocaine hits. People doing something doesn’t mean it’s good for them.
Lol, no one except the completely deranged would forego a meal for an episode
When you in a situation of that type you’ll see…
You can thank a combination of Hedonic Adaptation and the Paradox of Choice for that.
Nah, imma thank capitalism
Not even close. As others pointed out, this is definitely recency bias. Maybe 1-2 games this year will become “classics”. There are years out there with 7-10+ games like that.
1998 was WILD.
the peak of your civilization
Are you an alien or something? Because otherwise, it’s your civilization too. :P
It’s a quote from The Matrix
Nah. Lots of great games, but I think there’s a bit of recency bias. 2001 or 2004 would be my pick for greatest year(s) for gaming.
I mean you’ve got Ocarina of Time, Baldur’s Gate 1, Half Life, Banjo Kazooie, Final Fantasy VII, Resident Evil 2, Panzer Dragoon Saga, Sonic Adventure, Pokemon Red and Blue (in the US, Yellow dropped that year in Japan), Goldeneye 007, Metal Gear Solid, Spyro The Dragon, Starcraft, the first Thief game, Xenogears, Unreal (as in Unreal Engine), Crash Bandicoot 3, Gran Turismo 1 (in North America and the EU), Tekken 3, Beatmania, Marvel Vs. Capcom, Mario Party 1, Tribes 1, Star Wars: Rogue Squadron, Need For Speed III: Hot Pursuit (aka the first good one), Fallout 2, Gex: Enter The Gecko, Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six, Castlevania: Symphony of The Night, Jazz Jackrabbit 2…
Suffice it to say that a lot of wildly important game franchises started that year, and several older ones were reborn in 3D for the first time.
For something more recent I think 2011 is a solid candidate. Skyrim, Minecraft, dark souls, portal 2
Also correct
1998 is the correct answer
2004 would have my vote. For the lazy:
- Halflife 2
- Halo 2
- World of Warcraft
- GTA San Andreas
- Counter Strike: Source
- MGS3
- Fable
- Star Wars Battlefront
And a bunch of other bangers
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Games wise, very likely. There are way too many 2023 games that I bought (that’s on sale) that I haven’t even touched yet, and still more heavy hitters that I’m waiting for a bigger discount (e.g. Alan Wake 2, Baldur’s Gate 3, Yakuza Gaiden, Spider-Man 2, etc). It’s not only newer IPs, there are many games based on older IPs that are well received, e.g. Dead Space, FF16, RE4, Armored Core 6, etc.
Game devs wise, it’s probably one of the worse. There’a already more than 9000 layoffs, with many studios shuttered. Half of them probably came from Embracer Group. We are probably gonna be seeing a rapidly shrinking number of mid-size games within the next 5 years.
Was this written by AI? Like no one in their right mind would ever think 2023 was the best year in gaming.
there are people in this thread who are putting forward the argument that it is–i’m not sure why we need to pretend someone who says this is a Degenerate AI User peddling clickbait or any other number of goofy charges.
Lol wut? Almost all of the comments in this thread are saying that it isn’t.
Plenty of people in their right minds are calling it the best year in gaming, or pondering the possibility because it’s at least close.
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. Remember for the first half of the year every new release competed with the last to be “the worst release of all time”. The second half of the year was spectacular though!
This past year started the show with a show stopper when Hi-Fi Rush came out. Then things started popping off in spring.
Isn’t that the game full of voice acting by alleged abuser and confirmed creep Justin Roiland?You’re thinking of High On Life, the FPS metroidvania from last year. Hi-Fi Rush is the cel shaded character action game where you’re essentially playing a Saturday morning cartoon version of Devil May Cry in time with music.
Oh, I remember that now, thanks. I think I heard it described as being similar to sunset overdrive?
Maybe in tone, but otherwise, I wouldn’t compare them. Check out some footage. It’s on Game Pass, and it’s on sale. I loved it and would recommend it.
you could have just googled this–and the answer is no, you’re either accidentally making something up wholesale here or confusing this with High on Life, a completely unrelated game which was made by a studio he helped found but which he resigned from.
You’re right, thank you
“There’s never been a better time to be playing video games”
And there’s never been a worse time to be making them.
The industry keeps consolidating and there were a ton of layoffs, despite great profits.
This year was great, but sad.
No 1998
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