Gamers are feeling a little disappointed these days. While the occasional game like Elden Ring helps to create the magic once more, these experiences are fleeting. Gaming just doesn’t feel like it used to.
The Problems With Some New Games
The main reason for this is the massive hype and lack of delivery. Gaming studios constantly promise the world but fail to deliver titles that give players what they want.
Take Blizzard’s Diablo IV, for instance. When the game was released, it had over 9.3 million concurrent players. Now that figure is down to just a few tens of thousands, which is ridiculous for AAA titles. One significant challenge players face in games like Diablo IV is the arduous task of acquiring large amounts of diablo 4 gold to reroll gear stats, further exacerbating the disillusionment with the gaming experience.
You also had the near-criminal problems with Bethesda’s Starfield. That game should have been like Skyrim in space. Instead, it turned out to be a dull hybrid of SWTOR and the original release of No Man’s Sky. (That’s now a much better game by the way).
Other low-quality games to release over the last couple of years included virtually everything from DICE (the makers of the incredible Battlefield Bad Company 2 in 2010), the dreadful new Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III, and a poor showing from CD Projekt Red, the creators of Cyberpunk 2077 after their Witcher III triumph.
Why Gamers Are Returning To The Classics
As such, many gamers are returning to classic games and going back to their roots. Perhaps they can recreate the magic that way.
The appeal of retro gaming is the nostalgia it offers. Gamers feel a strong connection to the past and love old mechanics. While they were simple, they were often enough to draw them back into games and hold their attention. Loot boxes and other predatory monetization practices simply didn’t exist.
Warcraft II is an excellent example. This early RTS was simple and honest and came with a fantastic map editor that let you play around with virtually every aspect of the game. You could create scenarios where hordes of darkness withered against your long-range, ultra-high-power guard towers, or situations where death knights had 100 times the default health, making them almost unstoppable.
Doom II is another excellent example. Once you download the game, it’s yours for life. Shooting pixellated enemies in the fast-paced shooter is still a challenge today, despite years of technological progress. (The most recent Doom: Eternal is a rare example of a modern game that doesn’t have any of the pitfalls of previous entries).
You even have gamers returning to the old-time games pre-installed on operating systems. These remind many older folks of spending lazy afternoons in the office on Minesweeper or Freecell. Nothing quite compared to the magic of Windows 3.1 or when Pinball arrived around 2000.
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Wrapping Up
Clearly, PC gaming is going through a rut. Gamers are wondering whether it will ever be as good as it was in the past. However, the advent of AI means that dumb, hand-made games won’t be the norm for much longer. Generative intelligence means that gaming worlds and NPCs will become much richer and more complex, again, helping to make games more engrossing than ever before.
Categories: Gaming Talk Stuff
