6 ms·
> It was far from flawless, but it was really trying to push the boundaries of a young medium. Great read, it made me realize how far we've come. Video games a
by gyomu 2y ago
> It was far from flawless, but it was really trying to push the boundaries of a young medium.
Great read, it made me realize how far we've come. Video games as an art are really in an interesting spot right now - big budget projects all end up being bland, buggy, cookie cutter rehashes of the same couple templates.
Companies that once represented the pinnacle of creativity and what could be achieved with high budgets - Blizzard, Bethesda, Ubisoft, etc - are now the laughing stock of gamers. Not that it matters when the bulk of gamers are still putting dozens of hours and plenty of microtransaction dollars into decade old games like Fortnite/Minecraft/GTA every week.
What's the last big budget release that actually left a strong artistic impression? What's the next big budget release that will actually move the needle of the medium meaningfully?
Thankfully, there are a bunch of indie developers that still release fresh experiences - but they too kind of end up falling into the same tropes (if you like 2D roguelike/platformer/puzzler there's plenty of choice, otherwise...).
Not too unlike the state of the film industry. It's hard to imagine what a solid shakeup of these behemoth, mature industries could look like.
- ekianjo 2y agoGTA5 had a super big budget yet received very good feedback from gamers and critics alike, and is still played to this day. So not sure you can just discard big budgets as a whole. And then Star Citizen is quite innovative in many regards and has virtually unlimited budget, and would not exist in the first place without a long runway
- dijit 2y agoGTA5 released more than 10 years ago fwiw, the zeitgeist has changed significantly in the last 5-7years.
- paulryanrogers 2y agoIn what way(s)?
- dijit 2y agoThe way the parent suggests. > Video games as an art are really in an interesting spot right now - big budget projects all end up being bland, buggy, cookie cutter rehashes of the same couple templates. https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/rs-gaming/indies-games-1000xresist-another-crabs-treasure-clickolding-1235231726/ https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/rs-gaming/indies-games-...
- ekianjo 2y agohardly. I bet GTA6 will be a major success just like GTA5 was at the time, which will again counter the argument that big budget is killing the creativity in games. And I see no counter against Star Citizen yet
- throwup238 2y agoI haven’t played V or online but after III/Vice/San Andreas, GTA is the last game I’d use to argue for creativity in the gaming industry. It’s just the only game series in the “run over streetwalkers in a stolen car” genre, which is still a profitable niche apparently. (But I don’t play many video games these days so what do I know)
- iknowstuff 2y agoWhy are you opining on things you’re wholly unfamiliar with
- throwup238 2y agoWhat do you think HackerNews is for? And playing the franchise for over a decade isn’t “wholly unfamiliar.” Why are you using language you’re apparently quite wholly unfamiliar with?
- ekianjo 2y agogTAV was much more than that.
- throaway1989 2y agoGTA5 was criticized for dumbing down the driving and other mechanics, and generally being way more goofy and casual than 4 and even San Andreas & Vice City
- theshackleford 2y agoAnd four was panned by many for taking itself too seriously and grim dark. Damned if you do, damned if you don’t. Can’t please everyone.
- throaway1989 2y agofour was mostly critically acclaimed. It was definitely the best written.
- msm_ 2y ago>What's the last big budget release that actually left a strong artistic impression? Witcher 3 comes to mind. But I just realised it was released 10 years ago...
- the__alchemist 2y agoI'm playing through that now. Just finished the main question, and doing Hearts of Stone. Probably the best single-player game I've played. Maybe it's the "next-gen-update", but the graphics are still great.
- cr125rider 2y agoCyberpunk 2077 I hear is great now after its many bug fixes and DLC
- hackernewds 2y agonot from a large American gaming production company. Black myth wukong comes to mind but also in the same bucket
- leoc 2y agoCP2077's not American but it largely came out of the usual mould of big-budget, big-studio game software, especially after CD Projekt Red ended up abandoning promises to do certain things differently.
- dijksterhuis 2y agoI hope Stalker 2 gets to this point as well, with more A-Life brought back in after whatever performance optimisations they can squeeze out.
- nobankai 2y agoSpoilers: nothing short of a complete story rewrite could salvage what Cyberpunk 2077 ended up being. It's less of a No Mans Sky redemption story and more of a Duke Nukem Forever one.
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- drodgers 2y agoBG3 was great. I don't think it counts as big budget, but I've recently gotten into Last Train Home and it's a fantastic and unique premise (with gameplay that's a mix of Company of Heros + XCOM + This War Of Mine).
- mock-possum 2y agoLast train home is coming up soon on my todo list and I’m pretty psyched to get around to playing it, the demo 100% sold me on it
- huckyaus 2y ago> What's the last big budget release that actually left a strong artistic impression? Elden Ring. You’d need to go quite a bit further back for the last one before that though.
- azakai 2y agoDefinitely Elden Ring. As evidence, even Harper's Magazine wrote about it: https://harpers.org/archive/2024/11/dying-is-a-form-of-education-gabriel-winslow-yost-video-games-elden-ring/ https://harpers.org/archive/2024/11/dying-is-a-form-of-educa...
- Jagerbizzle 2y agoBrilliant article, thank you for sharing.
- popcar2 2y ago> What's the last big budget release that actually left a strong artistic impression? Elden Ring and its DLC, probably. The Japanese games industry is doing far better than their western counterparts, there have been huge headlines that in 2024's Game Awards, 4 of 5 games nominated for Game of the Year came from Asia (3 Japan, 1 China). The last game (Balatro) was an indie game developed by one person. Not a single nominee was from a major western company like Ubisoft, EA, etc. They may be financially successful now, but the games industry is imploding. This is what happens when you treat developers poorly and chase greedy trends while expecting consumers to put up with it. Like you said, most AAA games releasing these days are either dead on arrival or completely unnotable and miss expectations.
- hackernewds 2y agothe nominees did, but the winner ultimately was still indicative of the circus that is US gaming awards
- frontfor 2y agoFor one, id software is still making great big budget single player experience, see Doom 2016, Doom Eternal, and the soon-to-be-released Doom the dark ages.
- the__alchemist 2y ago> What's the last big budget release that actually left a strong artistic impression? Talos Principle 2. Does that count as big budget?
- TingPing 2y agoCroteam is quite small, 40 employees total.
- the__alchemist 2y agoThat checks out; I think I should not have included it as an example, given that context. Maybe it instead reinforces the point that we rely on smaller companies for the gems.
- 3eb7988a1663 2y agoDon't get me wrong, I love Talos Principle, but I did not feel a strong connection to the world of #2 vs #1. The sequel levels just seemed like, "Here is some sexy stuff the art team designed." No real connection or unifying theme. Super pretty, but that is true of any number of AAA games these days with big action set pieces. At least in one, it felt a bit more cohesive in that you could imagine that canned video game assets had been corrupted and copy-pasted into new configurations.
- anal_reactor 2y agoI recently got to play Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth. Gameplay is virtually the same as the previous entry in the series, but the story is interesting and entertaining.
- like_any_other 2y ago> What's the last big budget release that actually left a strong artistic impression? To add to the other answers - Half-Life: Alyx ;)
- maccard 2y ago> What's the last big budget release that actually left a strong artistic impression? Kingdom come deliverance, baldirs gate are two massive titles in the last 12 months. God of war, spiderman, Indiana jones are other titles that are just stand alone artistic experiences, again in the last little while. > What's the next big budget release that will actually move the needle of the medium meaningfully? I think it’s funny you mention that because the games you sniped at (Fortnite Minecraft GTa) were seismic shifts in gaming - in the last few years - Fortnite wrote the book on live service games IMO. But, when they’re “popular” suddenly they’re not cool anymore. > It's hard to imagine what a solid shakeup of these behemoth, mature industries could look like. What do you want? IMO the industry is in an ok place - aside from the mass layoffs over the last 24 months. But for consumers there’s so much choice - there’s massive hundred million dollar budget tiles with new content every year (Ubisoft/CoD/ Sony/microsoft doing these) there’s “smaller” budget games in the 50-80millon mark that are achieving critical success on PC and Console, there’s AA-budget games in the 15-30 million mark coming out every month that are hits and misses, there’s a thriving indie scene for every genre you could possibly imagine, and many you can’t (e.g. trombone champ). There’s options at every level, dozens of games coming out every year - more than any single person could ever play. disclaimer: I’ve worked on one of the titles you’re talking about here, but don’t anymore. Opinion is mine, not theirs.
- TingPing 2y agoMy concern is that consolidation has hit the industry pretty hard in the last decade and is only a bad thing for its future IMO.
- maccard 2y agoIn my experience working there - it comes and goes in waves. Layoffs happen, people leave and start their own studios. We saw consolidation under publishers in the 90’s and people laud it as one of the best periods of games. I do think we lost our way a little from around about 2018-2022 where we had these absolutely gargantuan flops like Concord that were a symptom of many things, but I really really believe we’re in another golden age right now.
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- tikhonj 2y agoI haven't played many different games over the last few years, but both Half-Life: Alyx and Zelda: Breath of the Wild left strong impressions. Both games have a rare sense of place that's hard to replicate in other mediums—the same thing that stood out for me after the first time I played Half-Life 2. These games feel less like a movie I've seen or a story I've read and more like somewhere I've been. This isn't unique to video games—I've had the same feeling from, say, 2666 or Stalker—but video games seem especially well-suited to do this as a medium.
- dceddia 2y ago> What's the last big budget release that actually left a strong artistic impression? Control was very good!