8 ms·

The story lines have been getting more and more shallow. Simple cooperative heists, killings, theft, etc, with very predictable gang assertion themes. They are

The story lines have been getting more and more shallow. Simple cooperative heists, killings, theft, etc, with very predictable gang assertion themes. They are investing far more time and effort into "online" - the leaks confirmed this. "Open worlds" lend themselves to shallow micro-stories. Maybe I'm being a grumpy old man, but in video game history, the best games were those that had complex character development, and novel worlds that supported a deep and thoughtful plot - something that would make the player have some emotional investment in. I don't see any evidence of that in recent GTA games.

jeffwask 4y ago
I played the GTA5 campaign twice it was brilliant. RDR2 had a brilliant campaign. I'm not giving up on Rockstar delivering a superlative campaign and multiplayer
- logicalmonster 4y ago
  Rockstar has a jaw-droppingly great track record, and I can understand giving them the benefit of the doubt and having super high expectations. They're one of the few entities that has earned that respect. However with some of the trends in the gaming industry, as well as the heavier focus on multiplayer and transactions that nickel-and-dime customers, I'd personally temper my expectations about any future titles to avoid disappointment.
  - bobthepanda 4y ago
    In general, pre-ordering isn’t a great idea. Money is worth more now than in the future, and the quality and price of the game does not change significantly between the last day to preorder and the first day reviews drop.
    - icecap12 4y ago
      You’re absolutely right, I’m done preordering games. I didn’t do it much anyway, but nowadays it’s just not worth it. The most recent and egregious example that comes to my mind was the latest Battlefield. My goodness was that a turd, and lots of people felt rightfully burned after preordering that game and essentially getting a totally unfinished product.
      - bluefirebrand 4y ago
        This is what happens when game companies basically set their revenue targets based on preorders, and games as a product are non-refundable. It's very easy to imagine a bean counter saying "we hit our preorder target, let's cut back our development budget now, release it, and we've already basically maximized our profits on this. The state of the game industry at large is pretty gross as a result of a lot of the money incentives not lining up around building great games.
  - jeffwask 4y ago
    The problem is TakeTwo is a shit house on fire just like Ubisoft, EA, and Activision so it feels like the entrenched leadership at Rockstar has been beating back the TakeTwo culture but it's always a losing battle so when does it finally break. (See Blizzard and Bioware)
- conviencefee999 4y ago
  It's all about financial incentives and this far down the pipeline it ain't happening. GTA Online is a multibillion dollar business, GTA V Singleplayer not so much.
  - qikInNdOutReply 4y ago
    Games that followed these incentives to the end of the line joined the hegemonial blob though, becoming indistinct and uninteresting in the long run. Jack of all Trades, Master of None, but people will buy masters only in the longrun. And take for example minecraft, which proofed that the whole market is willing to dissappear for years on end to into a simulation were the player can tell its own singleplayer story, uninterested in any content any company has to sell. One more longterm succesfull open-source sim of that kind without online shop and half the industry is forever gone.
    - Sohcahtoa82 4y ago
      Minecraft can be used as digital Legos, making it just as much of a toy as a game.
  - wsatb 4y ago
    I think you're overestimating what's necessary for online to be successful. GTA V is almost 10 years old and still raking in cash from online. The focus does not need to be on online play for it to be successful, they have billions of dollars in evidence that confirms that.
    - Rebelgecko 4y ago
      I would say that GTAV is focused on online play. A lot of the content is only accessible that way, ESPECIALLY the content added after launch. If you look through the list of new missions/locations/vehicles added to the game[1], they're almost exclusively only in GTAO [1]: For example here: https://www.gtaboom.com/gta-online-update-dlc-history/ https://www.gtaboom.com/gta-online-update-dlc-history/
- chrisfinazzo 4y ago
  The basic decision to make the heists a focal point of the game - drawing on the reaction to "Three Leaf Clover" from GTA IV - was a good one, yet it did make the overall experience feel shorter. A series of three short stories as opposed to one long arc. Whereas in GTA IV, by the time you confront Dimitri on the island, I felt as if something was really accomplished and it was about revenge for what had taken place, over many years, not the just the handful of slights by a person whom the main characters got screwed by.
- cm2187 4y ago
  I wonder if they will be able to maintain a bad boy story line in a world where you are supposed to not offend anyone. I think they will be successful if they do, but I fear they won't and gta6 will be insipid.
  - afavour 4y ago
    I think that’s more of a right wing meme than reality. Plenty of TV shows and movies revel in “bad boy” storylines. I think what’s changed is that people expect some actual depth in explaining the motivations of “bad” characters, but I don’t think Rockstar has ever really struggled with that, their last few offerings have had relatively well rounded narratives.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
  - inductive_magic 4y ago
    You're very free to offend anyone in the real world. "The world" is bigger than the environment curated by big tech from SV and US-media. Treat yourself to some GTA V radio shows (you'll find them on youtube), Rockstar plays the cultural meta game better than other company, they do legit art playing with the dominant political stereotypes. Rockstar are not in the market of appealing to cowards, their entire brand identity revolves around the exact opposite.
    - rustybelt 4y ago
      GTA V came out in 2013. "The world" has changed considerably.
      - inductive_magic 4y ago
        I can only assume you would be surprised by the contents of the aforementioned radio shows (and lots of the scripted conversations in game), because they dealt with this exact topic in 2013 - in depth and par excellence. GTAs audience explicitly wants an over the top explicit, non-politically correct product. In the last game, a main character (Trevor) was introduced by stomping an npcs brain into the ground before finding rests of it on his shoe. There is nothing pc about GTA, it takes place in a cynic take on reality that doesn’t respect the common sentimental denominator of marketing departments in the real world.
sorenjan 4y ago
I don't disagree with you, a lot of the missions felt like more of the same. And the focus on online has been disappointing, but that just means I haven't played GTA in a few years. I also rarely play any games, so I'm not a very picky gamer, I just like the game mechanics in GTA and being able to roam a big world with interesting details and humor. Sometimes I played it for a few hours without even starting a mission. I get what you're saying about character development, but at the same time some of my favorite games are Mario 64 and Mirror's Edge. Sometimes I just want to play a shallow game, not take part in a deep story. Most of the story in GTA happens as dialogue in the car when driving to the mission, and I'm usually too distracted to follow along anyway.
flycaliguy 4y ago
Personally I’m more nostalgic about games like NHL 95 and PlayStation era Madden. That’s just what my friends and I were playing. Maybe it’s easier for me to enjoy GTA for what it is because that’s more my genre.
bena 4y ago
I had to double check, because I couldn't remember any game coming out after GTAV. And it was the latest one. It came out in 2013.
- ekianjo 4y ago
  wow almost 10 years...
CyberDildonics 4y ago
> the best games were those that had complex character development, and novel worlds that supported a deep and thoughtful plot - something that would make the player have some emotional investment in. I think you're confusing games and movies. Most games have no plot and almost no character development beyond art direction.
- InitialLastName 4y ago
  I think you're confusing movies and books. Most movies have no plot past the Hero's Journey and no character development that can't be translated by a computer into every language on earth.
  - CyberDildonics 4y ago
    Do you feel the same way about movies made from books?
    - ekianjo 4y ago
      Pretty much because its very difficult to fit long and complex storylines with more than a few characters in 2 to 3 hours.
- elliekelly 4y ago
  You should play Rockstar’s Red Dead Redemption and Red Dead Redemption 2. RDR2 is basically a choose-your-own-adventure movie. But so much better. I read a lot but I was more emotionally invested in these fictional video game characters than I’ve ever been in characters from a book or a movie.
  - CyberDildonics 4y ago
    That's one game, not 'most'. Lots of games don't even have characters at all, let alone character development. It's bizarre for someone to say "most games don't have character development" and someone else says "here is one game that does". This person said "the best games have in depth character development" when it's very rare even in the biggest and most popular games.
parasti 4y ago
Open world games generally let the players enact their own stories. That's kind of their main draw.
gthrone 4y ago
I actually feel like they've gotten better in terms of story and character development with each iteration. Niko Bellic was one of my all time favorites, and I thought they did a good job balancing 3 characters in GTA V. They're all certainly... over the top, but given what you do in GTA, it makes sense.
- squeaky-clean 4y ago
  > but given what you do in GTA, it makes sense. This was my only issue with Niko. He was a great character but then the mission ends and I drive away at 100 mph and run over 5 pedestrians and he shouts "I hope you have insurance!" Sure you can play the open-world sections true to the character... But pacifism isn't what you do in GTA :P The GTA 5 characters were designed better in that regard. Niko had the deeper/more complex story overall, but he's at odds with the gameplay.
  - omnibrain 4y ago
    In this context I learned of "Ludonarrative Dissonance". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludonarrative_dissonance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludonarrative_dissonance
sidibe 4y ago
I've always been more emotionally invested in games where I make my own plot, which is the genre GTA is supposed to be. I haven't played since GTA 3 but maybe they're providing too much of a story which is unsatisfying? The really open plotless games are so much easier to lose yourself in than a well manicured plot. Like Sid Meier's Pirates back in the early 90's and Mount and Blade Warband
drummer 4y ago
> the best games were those that had complex character development, and novel worlds that supported a deep and thoughtful plot - something that would make the player have some emotional investment in. Try Cyberpunk 2077. ;)
lm28469 4y ago
> the best games were those that had complex character development Very often it's mostly nostalgia and playing these games over again prove they were much worse than in our memory
- azemetre 4y ago
  Highly disagree. I still replay No One Lives Forever (hilarious game) and the Max Payne 1 & 2 every few years. These games had great stories, game play, and characters; last time I replayed them was during the pandemic in 2020.
  - lm28469 4y ago
    Then I agree to disagree, playing my childhood games feel like trying to drive a horse cart after having used a 4wd electric car made in 2022. The characters and stories are ok at best but they only feel nice because the rest is absolute dog shit by modern standards
    - azemetre 4y ago
      What games are these tho? Gotta give specifics in a thread of specifics. I mean you still see people on twitch playing “classics” all the time. You also have cliques that still routinely play games like mother and chronotrigger on a religious level.
    - pdntspa 4y ago
      It really depends on the game. I agree with GP that those particular franchises are timeless. DOOM is also imminently replayable as-is. But there are plenty of games that aren't.
rowanG077 4y ago
Huh I recently played GTA vice city and the storyline is MUCH less deep the GTA V.
criddell 4y ago
Maybe I’m even grumpier and older. I often hold up Pac Man, Asteroids, and Scrambler as examples of good games to my kids.
Fricken 4y ago
Vice City and San Andreas where the only 2 games I've played where I consistently enjoyed watching the cutscenes, and loved the dialogue. Rockstar later decided dealing with big Hollywood egos was too much of a hassle, and it shows in later GTA iterations. The quality isn't there. And aside from that, how many car chases can you get into before you've had enough? Been there done that. It was fun while it lasted.
noobermin 4y ago
Play another game like god of war or something. Some would say "games are about fun" first and foremost, not to be interactive stories you press x to advance. If anything, the "theatrical" aspect of gaming for this old man has been one the things that has ruined gaming in general (that and hand holding), but thankfully, there are many games out there that hold the "fun" and "challenging" torch, they just often happen to not be triple A titles.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- __david__ 4y ago
  The neat thing about games is that they cover such a broad spectrum of experiences, from what you hold as good to what you casually dismiss (visual novels, walking sims, etc). I agree with you though—even if the biggest triple A game of the month doesn't appeal, there are countless other games out there that fly under the radar and are startlingly good. Unfortunately there are also countless games out there that are startlingly bad. The hard part is figuring out which ones are which :-).
Melatonic 4y ago
If anything the recent GTA games have had MORE of all that stuff. Earlier GTA games were very much about open world and did not really have a crazy amount of story. The top down ones I do not remember having any story at all (could be wrong)
WA 4y ago
For me, the best games were always those with close to zero story, but great game mechanics. That is mostly true for competitive online games, but stuff like Anno 1602 worked, too. If I want a story, I read a book or watch a movie. Games don’t need stories and if they have some, the story is usually not interesting to me.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- outworlder 4y ago
  Depends on the genre. Mass Effect would be unremarkable without a good story. And so would The Witcher series. If we are talking about Quake, then we don't _need_ a story(Arena). We can have one though (later installments) and that's fun if you care about that. They you have things like Dwarf Fortress, which has a unique story every world generation.
thiht 4y ago
> Simple cooperative heists Are you kidding? The heists in GTA V were amazing, easily the best in the series. And definitely not « simple », no matter your definition of the word
azalemeth 4y ago
I agree with this. One of my favourite old classics is Baldur's Gate 2 (and the whole "trilogy" series) – it's both very much on-rails and very open at the same time, providing a huge world that you can interact with characters within and do basically anything within some guide rails. Zelda BOTW is another highlight and a fantastic example of video game design. Similarly with The Witcher. Anything else "AAA" largely seems to be a let-down of micro-transactions or designed to push you into online services. Dragon Age Inquisition, for example, is a pale imitation of those other two. I'm not surprised GTA is going the other way.
soulofmischief 4y ago
So you're telling me GTA III had more character development than GTA V?

jeffwask 4y ago

I played the GTA5 campaign twice it was brilliant. RDR2 had a brilliant campaign. I'm not giving up on Rockstar delivering a superlative campaign and multiplayer

logicalmonster 4y ago
Rockstar has a jaw-droppingly great track record, and I can understand giving them the benefit of the doubt and having super high expectations. They're one of the few entities that has earned that respect. However with some of the trends in the gaming industry, as well as the heavier focus on multiplayer and transactions that nickel-and-dime customers, I'd personally temper my expectations about any future titles to avoid disappointment.
- bobthepanda 4y ago
  In general, pre-ordering isn’t a great idea. Money is worth more now than in the future, and the quality and price of the game does not change significantly between the last day to preorder and the first day reviews drop.
  - icecap12 4y ago
    You’re absolutely right, I’m done preordering games. I didn’t do it much anyway, but nowadays it’s just not worth it. The most recent and egregious example that comes to my mind was the latest Battlefield. My goodness was that a turd, and lots of people felt rightfully burned after preordering that game and essentially getting a totally unfinished product.
    - bluefirebrand 4y ago
      This is what happens when game companies basically set their revenue targets based on preorders, and games as a product are non-refundable. It's very easy to imagine a bean counter saying "we hit our preorder target, let's cut back our development budget now, release it, and we've already basically maximized our profits on this. The state of the game industry at large is pretty gross as a result of a lot of the money incentives not lining up around building great games.
- jeffwask 4y ago
  The problem is TakeTwo is a shit house on fire just like Ubisoft, EA, and Activision so it feels like the entrenched leadership at Rockstar has been beating back the TakeTwo culture but it's always a losing battle so when does it finally break. (See Blizzard and Bioware)
conviencefee999 4y ago
It's all about financial incentives and this far down the pipeline it ain't happening. GTA Online is a multibillion dollar business, GTA V Singleplayer not so much.
- qikInNdOutReply 4y ago
  Games that followed these incentives to the end of the line joined the hegemonial blob though, becoming indistinct and uninteresting in the long run. Jack of all Trades, Master of None, but people will buy masters only in the longrun. And take for example minecraft, which proofed that the whole market is willing to dissappear for years on end to into a simulation were the player can tell its own singleplayer story, uninterested in any content any company has to sell. One more longterm succesfull open-source sim of that kind without online shop and half the industry is forever gone.
  - Sohcahtoa82 4y ago
    Minecraft can be used as digital Legos, making it just as much of a toy as a game.
- wsatb 4y ago
  I think you're overestimating what's necessary for online to be successful. GTA V is almost 10 years old and still raking in cash from online. The focus does not need to be on online play for it to be successful, they have billions of dollars in evidence that confirms that.
  - Rebelgecko 4y ago
    I would say that GTAV is focused on online play. A lot of the content is only accessible that way, ESPECIALLY the content added after launch. If you look through the list of new missions/locations/vehicles added to the game[1], they're almost exclusively only in GTAO [1]: For example here: https://www.gtaboom.com/gta-online-update-dlc-history/ https://www.gtaboom.com/gta-online-update-dlc-history/
chrisfinazzo 4y ago
The basic decision to make the heists a focal point of the game - drawing on the reaction to "Three Leaf Clover" from GTA IV - was a good one, yet it did make the overall experience feel shorter. A series of three short stories as opposed to one long arc. Whereas in GTA IV, by the time you confront Dimitri on the island, I felt as if something was really accomplished and it was about revenge for what had taken place, over many years, not the just the handful of slights by a person whom the main characters got screwed by.
cm2187 4y ago
I wonder if they will be able to maintain a bad boy story line in a world where you are supposed to not offend anyone. I think they will be successful if they do, but I fear they won't and gta6 will be insipid.
- afavour 4y ago
  I think that’s more of a right wing meme than reality. Plenty of TV shows and movies revel in “bad boy” storylines. I think what’s changed is that people expect some actual depth in explaining the motivations of “bad” characters, but I don’t think Rockstar has ever really struggled with that, their last few offerings have had relatively well rounded narratives.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
- inductive_magic 4y ago
  You're very free to offend anyone in the real world. "The world" is bigger than the environment curated by big tech from SV and US-media. Treat yourself to some GTA V radio shows (you'll find them on youtube), Rockstar plays the cultural meta game better than other company, they do legit art playing with the dominant political stereotypes. Rockstar are not in the market of appealing to cowards, their entire brand identity revolves around the exact opposite.
  - rustybelt 4y ago
    GTA V came out in 2013. "The world" has changed considerably.
    - inductive_magic 4y ago
      I can only assume you would be surprised by the contents of the aforementioned radio shows (and lots of the scripted conversations in game), because they dealt with this exact topic in 2013 - in depth and par excellence. GTAs audience explicitly wants an over the top explicit, non-politically correct product. In the last game, a main character (Trevor) was introduced by stomping an npcs brain into the ground before finding rests of it on his shoe. There is nothing pc about GTA, it takes place in a cynic take on reality that doesn’t respect the common sentimental denominator of marketing departments in the real world.

sorenjan 4y ago

I don't disagree with you, a lot of the missions felt like more of the same. And the focus on online has been disappointing, but that just means I haven't played GTA in a few years. I also rarely play any games, so I'm not a very picky gamer, I just like the game mechanics in GTA and being able to roam a big world with interesting details and humor. Sometimes I played it for a few hours without even starting a mission. I get what you're saying about character development, but at the same time some of my favorite games are Mario 64 and Mirror's Edge. Sometimes I just want to play a shallow game, not take part in a deep story. Most of the story in GTA happens as dialogue in the car when driving to the mission, and I'm usually too distracted to follow along anyway.

flycaliguy 4y ago

Personally I’m more nostalgic about games like NHL 95 and PlayStation era Madden. That’s just what my friends and I were playing. Maybe it’s easier for me to enjoy GTA for what it is because that’s more my genre.

bena 4y ago

I had to double check, because I couldn't remember any game coming out after GTAV. And it was the latest one. It came out in 2013.

ekianjo 4y ago
wow almost 10 years...

CyberDildonics 4y ago

> the best games were those that had complex character development, and novel worlds that supported a deep and thoughtful plot - something that would make the player have some emotional investment in. I think you're confusing games and movies. Most games have no plot and almost no character development beyond art direction.

InitialLastName 4y ago
I think you're confusing movies and books. Most movies have no plot past the Hero's Journey and no character development that can't be translated by a computer into every language on earth.
- CyberDildonics 4y ago
  Do you feel the same way about movies made from books?
  - ekianjo 4y ago
    Pretty much because its very difficult to fit long and complex storylines with more than a few characters in 2 to 3 hours.
elliekelly 4y ago
You should play Rockstar’s Red Dead Redemption and Red Dead Redemption 2. RDR2 is basically a choose-your-own-adventure movie. But so much better. I read a lot but I was more emotionally invested in these fictional video game characters than I’ve ever been in characters from a book or a movie.
- CyberDildonics 4y ago
  That's one game, not 'most'. Lots of games don't even have characters at all, let alone character development. It's bizarre for someone to say "most games don't have character development" and someone else says "here is one game that does". This person said "the best games have in depth character development" when it's very rare even in the biggest and most popular games.

parasti 4y ago

Open world games generally let the players enact their own stories. That's kind of their main draw.

gthrone 4y ago

I actually feel like they've gotten better in terms of story and character development with each iteration. Niko Bellic was one of my all time favorites, and I thought they did a good job balancing 3 characters in GTA V. They're all certainly... over the top, but given what you do in GTA, it makes sense.

squeaky-clean 4y ago
> but given what you do in GTA, it makes sense. This was my only issue with Niko. He was a great character but then the mission ends and I drive away at 100 mph and run over 5 pedestrians and he shouts "I hope you have insurance!" Sure you can play the open-world sections true to the character... But pacifism isn't what you do in GTA :P The GTA 5 characters were designed better in that regard. Niko had the deeper/more complex story overall, but he's at odds with the gameplay.
- omnibrain 4y ago
  In this context I learned of "Ludonarrative Dissonance". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludonarrative_dissonance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludonarrative_dissonance

sidibe 4y ago

I've always been more emotionally invested in games where I make my own plot, which is the genre GTA is supposed to be. I haven't played since GTA 3 but maybe they're providing too much of a story which is unsatisfying? The really open plotless games are so much easier to lose yourself in than a well manicured plot. Like Sid Meier's Pirates back in the early 90's and Mount and Blade Warband

drummer 4y ago

lm28469 4y ago

> the best games were those that had complex character development Very often it's mostly nostalgia and playing these games over again prove they were much worse than in our memory

azemetre 4y ago
Highly disagree. I still replay No One Lives Forever (hilarious game) and the Max Payne 1 & 2 every few years. These games had great stories, game play, and characters; last time I replayed them was during the pandemic in 2020.
- lm28469 4y ago
  Then I agree to disagree, playing my childhood games feel like trying to drive a horse cart after having used a 4wd electric car made in 2022. The characters and stories are ok at best but they only feel nice because the rest is absolute dog shit by modern standards
  - azemetre 4y ago
    What games are these tho? Gotta give specifics in a thread of specifics. I mean you still see people on twitch playing “classics” all the time. You also have cliques that still routinely play games like mother and chronotrigger on a religious level.
  - pdntspa 4y ago
    It really depends on the game. I agree with GP that those particular franchises are timeless. DOOM is also imminently replayable as-is. But there are plenty of games that aren't.

rowanG077 4y ago

Huh I recently played GTA vice city and the storyline is MUCH less deep the GTA V.

criddell 4y ago

Maybe I’m even grumpier and older. I often hold up Pac Man, Asteroids, and Scrambler as examples of good games to my kids.

Fricken 4y ago

Vice City and San Andreas where the only 2 games I've played where I consistently enjoyed watching the cutscenes, and loved the dialogue. Rockstar later decided dealing with big Hollywood egos was too much of a hassle, and it shows in later GTA iterations. The quality isn't there. And aside from that, how many car chases can you get into before you've had enough? Been there done that. It was fun while it lasted.

noobermin 4y ago

Play another game like god of war or something. Some would say "games are about fun" first and foremost, not to be interactive stories you press x to advance. If anything, the "theatrical" aspect of gaming for this old man has been one the things that has ruined gaming in general (that and hand holding), but thankfully, there are many games out there that hold the "fun" and "challenging" torch, they just often happen to not be triple A titles.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
__david__ 4y ago
The neat thing about games is that they cover such a broad spectrum of experiences, from what you hold as good to what you casually dismiss (visual novels, walking sims, etc). I agree with you though—even if the biggest triple A game of the month doesn't appeal, there are countless other games out there that fly under the radar and are startlingly good. Unfortunately there are also countless games out there that are startlingly bad. The hard part is figuring out which ones are which :-).

Melatonic 4y ago

If anything the recent GTA games have had MORE of all that stuff. Earlier GTA games were very much about open world and did not really have a crazy amount of story. The top down ones I do not remember having any story at all (could be wrong)

WA 4y ago

For me, the best games were always those with close to zero story, but great game mechanics. That is mostly true for competitive online games, but stuff like Anno 1602 worked, too. If I want a story, I read a book or watch a movie. Games don’t need stories and if they have some, the story is usually not interesting to me.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
outworlder 4y ago
Depends on the genre. Mass Effect would be unremarkable without a good story. And so would The Witcher series. If we are talking about Quake, then we don't _need_ a story(Arena). We can have one though (later installments) and that's fun if you care about that. They you have things like Dwarf Fortress, which has a unique story every world generation.

thiht 4y ago

> Simple cooperative heists Are you kidding? The heists in GTA V were amazing, easily the best in the series. And definitely not « simple », no matter your definition of the word

azalemeth 4y ago

I agree with this. One of my favourite old classics is Baldur's Gate 2 (and the whole "trilogy" series) – it's both very much on-rails and very open at the same time, providing a huge world that you can interact with characters within and do basically anything within some guide rails. Zelda BOTW is another highlight and a fantastic example of video game design. Similarly with The Witcher. Anything else "AAA" largely seems to be a let-down of micro-transactions or designed to push you into online services. Dragon Age Inquisition, for example, is a pale imitation of those other two. I'm not surprised GTA is going the other way.

soulofmischief 4y ago

So you're telling me GTA III had more character development than GTA V?