It is but perhaps because the last few years were just lacking any great games. For me there wasn’t a single title better than 9 out of 10 since DOS2 until this year.
Everyone had just been dumping pseudo big, pseudo long open worlds with a boring story. And the main strategy games are ruined by corporate greed with countless DLCs (just check EU4 price with dlc).
This year though: Lies of P, BG3, FFXVI, F1 23, just great and I still have lords of the fallen to play.
This is definitely a matter of opinion. There have only been three games this year that I have been excited about which hardly constitutes the best year for gaming in awhile.
You’re doing better than me! I’ve not seen anything this year that I even remotely thought about purchasing. I’m glad that some people are enjoying this year’s releases though. It’s always interesting to me that writers assume that almost everyone automatically loves every hyped game.
What are you into? A game I’m looking forward to is releasing tomorrow (October 31st) yet I only know of it because of Steam’s demo event. It’s called Jusant and I’ve heard absolutely no hype for it.
You've got RPGs and strategy/tactics games listed as some of your favorites, but Baldur's Gate 3 never caught your eye? How about Starfield or Cyberpunk, or the early access game Dread Delusion? Given tactics games and an interest in MGS, you could check out the Metal Gear collection or Shadow Gambit: The Cursed Crew (or Shadow Gambit's developers' previous games, Shadow Tactics: Blades of the Shogun and Desperados III, which I think I like better than Shadow Gambit). There's Wargroove 2, if you like the Advance Wars brand of tactics. It's 2D, but given your interest in other space games, you could take a look at another early access game (not on Steam) Starsector that a friend of mine got really into.
There's just so much out there this year that I'm not sure who'd be left unhappy.
Something like Baldur’s Gate 3 could be an enjoyable game for me, but unfortunately the world didn’t click. A friend is really into it and let me play for a while, and it just didn’t feel like a good fit. I ran into the same problem with both of the Divinity Original Sin games. I’ve never been a big fan of most fantasy settings for some reason, although I do enjoy some of them. Dread Delusion, Shadow Gambit and Wargroove 2 could fall into the same category, although I would have to watch some gameplay first. Some of the advance information on Starfield looked interesting at first, but gameplay footage I’ve watched hasn’t made me want to buy it. I would be more excited if things would be a bit more seamless. I got Cyberpunk on sale a while back and put about 10 hours into it before I quit. I can’t really put my finger on what it was, but I just wasn’t enjoying it. I haven’t played it since that point, so it may have changed for the better. I already have the Metal Gear Collection with MGS4 for PS3, so the PC port won’t be anything I’ll pick up until it goes on sale.
The two older games from Mimimi both look interesting. In fact, I did purchase Desperados III on a sale, I’ve just never downloaded it yet to play between XCOM runs!
I either never saw or overlooked Starsector, so I will have to look into that one a bit. Endless Sky is top down, so it sounds somewhat similar!
Starsector is definitely a sleeper hit building a cult following. I wouldn't have heard of it if not for a friend of mine. If fantasy settings don't typically do it for you, you can encroach on a lot of things that people like about Divinity and BG3 in the Wasteland games. Wasteland 1 is an old RPG that's almost a text adventure, but Wasteland 2 and 3 are pretty modern. Cyberpunk also got a huge revamp right before its latest expansion drop, so even the original game's RPG systems and world systems work very differently now, and there's a lot of positive buzz behind it (I haven't gotten to it yet myself, but I liked the launch version).
For fantasy settings, definitely don't play Wargroove for the story, but one thing I learned to enjoy about fantasy stuff is it can create a rock/paper/scissors of strengths and weaknesses of classes/races that you can't quite hit in most believable sci-fi settings. I never got far into Divinity, but one thing that really worked for me in BG3, apart from its production value, is that it doesn't just bombard you with lore. It gives you the bare minimum setup you need to get going, and then it diagetically fills you in on the larger world as you go, with dialogue that doesn't feel like an info dump, much like Game of Thrones managed to do. Plus, IMO, there are far more interesting tactical options in BG3's combat than in XCOM; and I love XCOM.
I’ll look into the Wasteland games and see what I think, might be something I’ll enjoy. I have heard some good things about the 2.0? update for Cyberpunk, so I should probably start a new save and give it another chance. I enjoy some of the cyberpunk aesthetic, so that helps.
Interesting point on the fantasy classes, I hadn’t thought of it that way previously. I’ve never been able to figure out what fantasy elements don’t work for me, because it doesn’t seem to follow any particular logic! I may give BG3 a shot if it comes up on sale at some point, it might just be a slow build and I might just need a bit more time playing for me to enjoy it.
I can definitely see why you’ve struggled so much since the common factors between the games you didn’t like are the most rampant in the industry right now. I’ve tended to find myself in a similar situation and would only remove Spider-Man from the list of not liked. Because of constant push-backs, I’m honestly not sure what the release forecast looks like at this point because I’ve refused to play into the hype train for a while now.
In case you haven’t already tried them, based on your favourites list, I’d recommend taking a look at Satisfactory and Jusant. The first is Factorio but in 3D so it plays into some of what people like about Stardew, in my opinion and Jusant is an interesting blend of Journey and Shadow of the Colossus from what I’ve played so far. It also has a rare thing called a ‘demo’ on Steam so you can at least easily and freely give it a try.
I’m hoping to eventually find something that checks all the right boxes! In the meantime, I still find a few that I really like here and there, and old favorites are always fun!
I’ve definitely seen Satisfactory before, I’ve just never bought it. It looked like it could be interesting, I’ll have to look into it a bit more. Jusant I hadn’t heard of, but I’ll check it out. Thanks!
Is it because there aren’t enough good games or because you aren’t hyped by games anymore? For me between CS2 (counter strike AND cities skylines), Battlebit, the Cyberpunk DLC, TOTK… Thats already quite a lot of new good games coming out that I am hyped for
I’m hyped about several games, many of which will come out next year. I would not say that I’m not hyped about games anymore. I named three that I was excited about that came out this year. My point is that the premise of the article is silly from the start. A year being the best for gaming is entirely relative to the individual. This year was not even close for me. It sounds like maybe it was for you.
This article coming out on the same day as another wave of layoffs, this time from Bungie, is an excellent view on the state of gaming criticism. Even if it were the best year for the products (there are several titles in the article that are curious), it’s definitely one of the worst years for the people who work on them.
I hope the current wave of unionizing keeps manifesting and spreads to the gaming industry, because this situation is dire and it’s only getting worse.
Even if it were the best year for the products (there are several titles in the article that are curious), it’s definitely one of the worst years for the people who work on them.
For sure. As an armchair analyst, it seems to be the result of getting out of the era of cheap credit and VC money. I don't expect it to get worse, but I do think live services and enormous open world games ran out of money spreading their customers across too many games.
I’m not sure the worst year is specific to game developers though, the whole world is under economic squeeze, take a look at the layoffs in the tech industry.
Agreed. I'm putting 2023 in my pantheon alongside 1998, 2004, 2007, 2011, 2013, 2015, and 2017. A great year for RPGs and fighting games, with the latter bumping up two of my favorites from previous years, Skullgirls and Guilty Gear Strive, a few notches via updates. Hi-Fi Rush is the first game in the character-action genre that clicked for me, and I've tried to make it click so many times before.
Hi-Fi Rush just consistently reminds me how comically bad I am at rhythm games. I love the game, but man I got burnt out because even though they made it “easier” for folks with no rhythm like myself, it’s still tough if you just can’t match the beat.
I am some kind of masochist though, because in the past I beat both Parappa the Rapper and UmJammer Lammy.
It hasn’t exactly been banger after banger for me personally this year, but I can still recognize how big 2023 has been and how much excitement there has been year-round, from Hi-Fi Rush’s shadow drop to Alan Wake 2 right now.
It’s also been a great mix of new properties and long-running franchises. Zelda, Resident Evil, Diablo, Final Fantasy, Street Fighter, Baldur’s Gate, Mario, and even Armored Core all had well-reviewed, major releases this year.
I’m nowhere near calling 2023 the best ever–I think it’ll take a complete paradigm shift in the industry to ever top 1998–but a lot of people have been eating very good this year.
It would be great if Sony would commit to its own creative endeavors.
The PSVR suite has some great potential, but outside of like… 3? first party games, it doesn’t have anything that you can’t find elsewhere. And for the titles that are available on other platforms, they tend to be updated more frequently or are otherwise more feature rich elsewhere. There’s a lot of power behind the platform, but almost nothing to use it for.
PSVR 2 is not compatible with PSVR1 from the PS4, so all of your accessories and games don’t carry over.
The newly updated Meta Quest 3 can run standalone or linked up to a computer. I don’t expect Sony to ever open up compatibility outside of its ecosystem, but history has shown that Sony is fine with abandoning ideas that don’t immediately print money.
VR is dead in the water. It has always had serious flaws as a consumer product, but now the public opinion forming around the “metaverse” concept is the final nail in the coffin.
I reckon Apple might be able to give AR a shot, but that won’t have any effect on the gaming industry.
Just my predictions as a nobody. I’m sure many will disagree…
If PSVR2 was PC compatible I probably would have bought it by now.
If it has a better library I’d be at least considering it. I’d like to play Horizon, but that’s not worth spending over $500 for. Gran Turismo 7 would be intriguing (both VR and regular) if it didn’t have micro-transactions.
Honestly the library issue kind of applies to the whole console. I kind of understand that the pandemic led to more cross-gen games, and multi-platform games are good for the industry as a whole. But I’m still not seeing a lot of reasons to buy a PS5 on this list. The list disregards PC versions, which I kind of get because Sony is publishing AAA games on PC and you often need to spend 3x the cost of a PS5 to get a PC powerful enough to run them. But some of these indie games like Stray and Tchia feel like a stretch.
I share your thoughts. Feels like for better or worse, this generation has exceedingly few true console exclusives. The Xbox ecosystem offers more sales in my corner of the world plus the option for gamepass if you’re so inclined, so it seems like a better value.
I finally picked up a PS5 on sale for a family holiday gift. I originally wanted to grab one for VR, but the longer I hold off, the more I’m seeing that it’s simply not a competitive package for that gaming space. I don’t have a gaming computer, so I’m limited to a few options, but for what my kids are interested in, a Quest 3 just offers more.
It’s kind of dumb. I want to spend my money on VR, but I don’t want to waste it. It’s a bit of a catch-22 where the ecosystem needs supporters now to grow, but people like myself don’t want to support it because it hasn’t grown (to meet the competition’s offerings, anyways)
I’ll say that fewer console exclusives is for the better.
Maybe my issue is just how console gaming has changed, and how all 3 companies have screwed consumers.
If I buy Stray on PS5, will I still be able to play it 10 years from now? 20 years from now? Will the PS6 and 7 be able to play PS5 games? Does it matter if I have the physical or digital version? Am I going to be able to rip and emulate PS5 games on a PC at any point? Once my PS3 dies, I lose my digital games and at the mercy of the emulation community to play my physical games. Once my 3DS dies… It’s all gone, and piracy will be the only way to play the games I paid for.
I already bought Stray on Steam. It’s not a guarantee, but I like my odds better there.
I bought my PS5 expecting that there would be some great exclusives there eventually, and that even the ones with PC versions would be better on PS5 (at least at launch and while I’m still rocking an RX580). But all Naughty Dog has done is remakes so far. I love Insomniac, but I’m not a Marvel fan and I miss their more creative work.
The biggest use I’ve gotten from the PS5 has been using the DualSense in PS4 games because I don’t like the DS4.
Avoiding the sites ads and other garbage, I fed the url through the Kagi summarizer (“key moments” mode); here’s the output, verbatim:
Shawn Layden, former CEO of Sony Computer Entertainment America, has concerns about rising costs, consolidation in the industry, and game preservation.
Consolidation through acquisitions can reduce creativity as studios are absorbed into larger companies and projects.
Blockbuster games requiring huge budgets and long development times are risky and could limit creativity.
The focus on only a few popular genres may prevent gaining new players who are not interested in those genres.
Preservation of older games is important culturally but the industry has no unified effort to make past games widely accessible.
Backwards compatibility has improved but many games from platforms like PS3 remain difficult to play on new consoles.
Layden worries large acquisitions could reduce the number of creative voices as smaller studios are absorbed.
The entry of tech giants like Google, Netflix, Apple and Amazon could disrupt the game industry.
Layden believes companies need to take more risks, find broader appeal, and develop more sustainable business models.
While some acquisitions save studios, Layden remains concerned about the long-term impact on creativity within the industry.
I think as chairman of world wide studios beside shun yoshida, he hasn’t done a bad job. Game that came out that time were good and at least a bit more creative than at the moment. So i understanding to be more risky is a good point.
But he tells us now for years, that games get more and more expensive and i think he was as well responsible for very expensive games, like the naughty dog games. So does he think this popular games were a mistake?
No ads, ‘read this!’, ‘watch this video’, slide-out bullshit though. I got two paragraphs in and the text was like 1/4 of my phone screen, the rest were ads/links/slide-out offers. Fuck allllll that noise.
See, that’s the thing: I can’t install stuff for everyone’s phones. But I can offer a solution for others when I feel that it’s worth taking a minute of my day to do something for the benefit of many. So I did.
Or, more obviously: tf you complaining that I’m trying to help everyone? Lol
I have seen people post factually incorrect AI summaries often enough that I don't trust them by default. This one's crime was just not being a summary but a paraphrase, lol.
I asked it for key points though, as a wall of text seemed counter-intuitive. Out of curiosity, here’s the “summary” style:
Shawn Layden, former CEO of Sony Computer Entertainment America, has expressed concerns about consolidation in the video game industry leading to less creativity as large publishers acquire more studios. He worries that independent studios will lose their creative spark when absorbed into massive projects from big publishers. Layden also questioned if the industry can continue growing by relying only on the same popular genres. Additionally, he advocated for better preservation of older games, arguing publishers have an obligation to make their entire history accessible to new generations. However, game preservation often does not help the bottom line. In summary, Layden makes compelling points about the need for disruption, more risks with new IP, and greater access to gaming’s past to ensure its vibrant future.
I think you’ve done readers a service, I checked your comment before even looking at the article, as I’ve seen so many garbage articles posted here (no hate Lemmings, it’s not your garbage writing, it’s bad journos doing bad journo stuff).
I appreciate you fam, and those complaining of ads need (on Android at least) to use an ad blocking DNS (I use Adguard DNS) in conjunction with an actual ad blocker.
I find it laughable that there are people out there in 2023 not using some form of ad blocking.
Yeah, I roll with NextDNS + Iceraven with uB, and + (at home) I also run a secondary DNS check locally on my router for adverts (and other categories), in the unusual chance that either uB or ND let one through. I have built this dome around my/family’s devices, but I get that it’s tedious and many don’t understand how to do this, but want to get the benefit. Plus in this particular instance, I find it really cool how the Kagi ai tool works (I’ve used it a few times myself when I don’t want to read a novel-worth of an article) and I’m paying for the privilege anyway so why not share the output.
Cheers for the in depth response! I can’t decide if you’ve made my decision making harder, easier, or some combination of both.
In the rare occasions UBO/Adguard let one slip through, I find 99% of the time a refresh solves it (different ad it does pick up maybe?) Failing that, I just wait for an update and that process has yet to fail me.
I’ll have a look around, my server is not yet entered into service, but I am looking to run Pihole network wide, I have yet to decide on a DNS for it, but I will certainly give NextDNS a looksee as a starting point to see if it fits my use case.
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