I recommend CrossCode, if you haven’t tried it. It’s a top-down twinstick shooter/fighter so the gameplay is comparable to some of those you’ve listed and the story is long and unforgettable, with tons of fun optional content. Probably my favorite game narrative; there’s nothing like it.
Some other favorites of mine are Revita, but there’s little in terms of story, and Outer Wilds, but it’s a slow burn. And if you’re looking for games to play with friends, these are some of my favorite multiplayer indie games:
Deep Rock Galactic
Roboquest
Gunfire Reborn
Don’t Starve Together
Risk of Rain 2
(Also Starbound, Terraria, & Core Keeper but those are bigger time investments)
Saw where you mentioned being into fighting games, action games, & shmups, so I wonder which games you find yourself bouncing off of more.
Along with reasons other have mentioned that are similar to my own (many games demanding a lot of time, better finding what games really click with me, etc.), I’ve also been put off by other details (hyper-monetization, big budget photorealistic & cinematic styles, etc.). Personally it’s less being into very few games, and more being into more specific kinds of game design and creative style, which are sometimes harder to find.
Like not being into drawn out progression systems immediately narrows one’s options pretty significantly, especially among many recent games.
Oh, absolutely. It probably has a lot to do with falling out of favor with current design and monetization trends, I agree.
Some of the games I've been playing for years: Guilty Gear, Under Night In-Birth, Bayonetta, The Wonderful 101, Crimzon Clover, Smash TV, and Catherine.
Mainly games built for replaying, so arcade puzzlers like Super Hexagon/Tetris Effect/Mixolumia/Equaline/etc, roguelikes such as FTL/BrogueCE/etc, or strangesims like Powder Toy or Vilmonic. Although even with those it’s more occasional, like when I’m uncertain of what I’m wanting to do.
I think my tastes have remained mostly the same, it’s the industry that is losing me as a customer for two reasons:
more and more games now are based on shit that I hate - multiplayer, GaaS, micro transactions, copy and paste gameplay mechanics with new coats of paint, etc.
studios that used to make my favorite games have really gone downhill over the last decade, like Bethesda, Bioware, and maybe CDPR (hopefully the cp2077 release was just a fluke but we’ll see).
maybe CDPR (hopefully the cp2077 release was just a fluke but we’ll see).
Cyberpunk 2077 was Witcher 1 repeat tbh, people forgot Witcher 1 was a mess at launch since they patched it up a bunch and some other stuff to try to make amends
I have a very similar experience to @Zarxrax. When I was younger, I’d play just about anything I could get my hands on. But now, it’s like you, where 99% of what’s out there doesn’t interest me.
I think this happened for a few reasons for me:
Games are a pretty big time commitment compared to other media, and my time has only become more valuable as I get older. I’m just not willing to invest it in a game that isn’t really scratching an itch effectively
There are more games out now than ever before in history. Combined with the previous point, there’s never been a better time to be picky.
AAA games are stagnating pretty badly due to profit incentive. While there a still some that break the mold and show artistic value, most of them are so commodified and painfully derivative, it’s difficult for an older gamer who has already played things like it to get excited
I’ve become more attuned to my preferences in genre, and know what I will and will not enjoy, which is something I didn’t have as much when I was younger, since everything was still relatively new and therefore, interesting enough to play.
But this last one is the biggest reason for me: games are not reaching the potential they have locked within them.
I say that as someone who is a massive fan of storytelling, good writing, and immersion in games. Compared to books and movies, writers are still given extremely low priority in the gaming industry, which results in a tremendous amount of cognitive dissonance, simplistic writing, and a lack of innovative gameplay inspired by said writing.
Indies have been the most willing to experiment, but that’s mostly with pure mechanics or themes, and writing is still often neglected.
There have been a few titles that I think reach that potential, but most of them are quite old now. With so few to truly tickle me in that way, I’ll instead opt for arcade type games that manage to create a tight gameplay loop, as it let’s me not lament the lack of a good story so much.
Disco Elysium (even though I personally didn’t really care for the game due to the setting, the writing is undeniably high quality)
A Mind Forever Voyaging
All of those games have, IMO, a tremendously good sync between gameplay and story, where everything lines up to the point where you can become fully absorbed into whatever experience the writer/designer crafted. I would say Thief accomplishes it the best, while Mafia’s and Deus Ex’s clunky gameplay hold them back, but I can see what they were trying to achieve, and overall are close enough to my ideal.
Oddly enough I actually pre-ordered a physical copy of Primordia, and got a ways into it before stopping for some reason. I should really go back and finish it!
I used to buy tons of games and I enjoyed them all. These days I rarely buy any, unless it’s something that’s really got my attention. But I’ve got a ton of old games to play.
@mohab Eh. I like what I like, which is relatively narrow, and the major industry quit catering to me 30 years ago. Luckily indies picked up the torch that AAA threw away.
Ah, man, I feel the same. I like some indie titles, but haven't run into anything I could add to my favorites except Crimzon Clover World EXplosion. Nex Machina and Furi got really close too.
I definitely feel like my tastes have narrowed with age. Or maybe it's just that I've found a few games to really really fall in love with, and not much else pulls my attention away from grinding those top favorites.
When I was a kid, I could only get a new game every few months or so, so I kind of had to make the most of each one. Now I've got several hundred games in my Steam library, and more than half of are unplayed, because they don't grab me enough to boot them up over playing another ranked online set of riichi mahjong today.
I'm extremely picky, and I'm lucky to have a game I love to bits that's been consistent the last two decades. I don't think it's a bad thing, and I've come to accept it. I still play games socially with my friends, even if I wouldn't have played that game by myself.
I went through the same thing you did, trying games that are popular and finding that I don't enjoy them that much, and then thinking that I've become jaded and no longer enjoy games. However when I do play a game I enjoy I enjoy it very much indeed, so perhaps I'm not jaded after all.
This is me with current books and music. For books, common styles of prose or an abundance of certain tropes used now simply don’t hit with me, and I’ve even gone back to mid-to-late 20th century books recently to try to avoid all that.
I’d say the best way to try to broaden your taste is to make sure you’re touching on the hits in different genres, and–if you can handle dated gameplay and visuals–to go back and try games from previous generations as well.
I don’t think you’re alone in this. I’m kind of becoming the same way, and I figure it’s because as you become older you become wiser, specifically wiser to the way that so many modern games are bullshit now.
Nowadays it seems like almost everything is just a cynical cash grab. And with a lifetime of experience, you know how to spot that bullshit. Oh look, it has always online components. And an in game store. And season content. And gatcha mechanics. And grind. Not only just regular old grind, you know, where you need to level up and be at least be this tall to beat the beef gate (which always has the tantalizing possibility of being able circumvent it by cheesing it or being very clever). No, it’s just grind with no mechanical justification. You must fill the bar before you’re allowed to access this content. Would you like to make a microtransaction to fill the bar faster?
Fuck that, and count me out.
The current fascination is on delivering games as a “service,” and that just rubs me the wrong way. Everything is transient, nothing is permanent, and everyone is making a desperate grab for recurring revenue over creating a compelling experience or indeed anything anyone would ever want to go back to and play again. It’s all just crap designed to feed into people’s sunk cost brains, and it feels like damn near every major title wants to be your full time job.
I have even started eschewing Nintendo titles and some modern indie stuff specifically because they display a complete and utter disrespect for not only the player’s intelligence, but also their time.
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