The games that sit at the top of the player counts are almost always multiplayer competitive games. In a lot of ways, there’s been nearly 0 movement in the space at all since covid. The same games are still right there at the top because no new massively multiplayer game has released to top them. FPS players play CoD, Apex, Fortnite and Pubg, Dota is massive in Asian countries, GTA V has a huge cult following (check out its twitch category).
Satisfactory being top 10 is an outlier rather than the norm, being a single player game.
I agree with the other commenter who said that players of these games consider themselves players of Apex/CoD/Pubg before they consider themselves overall gamers. That’s the case with me now, and I rarely launch anything outside of CoD or Apex as I have little to no interest in single player games.
While it definitely felt to me like turn-based RPGs were looked down on for a time, particularly when Final Fantasy abandoned its roots, I'd say the pendulum has been swinging back in the other direction for quite some time now.
Persona 5 was a smash hit, Fire Emblem is doing quite well, Dragon Quest is still going. Bravely Default and Octopath Traveler were solid mid-budget titles carrying on FF's roots where actual FF won't. Mario & Luigi is getting a revival. Over in the indie space, Sea of Stars and Chained Echoes have done well. And then you have tons and tons and tons of classics that have been getting remasters or even full remakes lately.
Oh yeah, and then there's a li'l game called Undertale that seems to have been fairly well received.
I started replaying the original ffVii on my steam deck, now. Using several 7th Heaven mods that really make the game look and sound like it didn’t come from the PS1 Era. It’s a slow start, but so far it’s still shaping up to be the great game I remember playing 25+ years ago.
Plus, unlike the remake, it’s all one game instead of 3+ take your money releases across two or three console generations.
There’s a turn-based RPG sale/event happening on Steam right now. I can’t vouch for any of those games, but new ones do exist.
As for why they seem to have declined in popularity I can only guess - smartphones happened, removing the need for a home computer from many would-be RTS gamers.
I’m pretty sure there’s a lot more gaming pcs now days, too. Consoles have been loosing out on the gaming market share since the 90’s. PC overtook consoles in both popularity and profits a bit over a decade ago.
Disheartening enough though, is that as far as profits are concerned, mobile games make $ more than pc and console combined.
Many fans of RTS and Halo swear on Halo Wars when it comes to RTS on a console. Apparently, they really figured out how to do it right, but I haven’t played it myself.
Not op, but I’ve been playing the series (just finished the sixth game, Cold Steel), and I’d suggest not starting from a later point in the series, as every game references the previous ones in some way. Although even if they didn’t, I’d still suggest starting from Sky, then playing Zero and Azure, as they are really good (and imo much better games than CS).
You can play Cold Steel 1&2 as your first if you want a more modern introduction to the world and like the persona style school setting stuff, but CS3 is when the stories of all the previous games start merging together, so it’s very highly recommended to have played Sky, Zero and Azure before that or you will miss a lot of it.
Also there is a 3D remake of the Sky trilogy coming, starting sometime next year with the first game. Though so far it seems to be Switch exclusive.
I remember playing MGS as a kid and thinking “graphics will never get better than this”.
It didn’t age well, but I still think of it as one of the most witchcraft-powered games I’ve ever played. I still can’t believe that they were able to craft such gorgeous environments and fluid, cinematic cutscenes on the PS1.
To his day, it’s still one of my favourite games ever.
I said the same thing about Daytona USA. When I booted up a GameCube for the first time and saw PSO I was amazed, although the GC was closer hardware wise to the Dreamcast, which we had.
Grass? Trees? BIRDS?! I remember the grass in Oblivion melting dual GPU setups back in the day.
Started Horizon Zero Dawn. I usually don’t like open world games, but this one has an interesting setting and the gameplay seems fun, so I’m giving it a try.
Finally finished Trails of Cold Steel which was meh. It felt needlessly padded (it could have been shortened to like 30 hours instead of 60 IMO) and there were too many uninteresting characters (I actually can’t think of an interesting one). Hopefully the following games are better, as now the setting should be more interesting.
I’m going to start with my most played game and work backwards from there. So… K for Kerbal Space Program.
Maybe not the best choice in terms of number of games but I’d still get stuff like
Knights of the Old Republic
King’s Quest
Killer Instinct
Katamari
Kingdom Hearts
Killzone
Kirby
Probably others, but obviously not as extensive as a letter like S or T. Still I would probably opt to pick the letter with my favorite game of all time in there than one that just gives more options.
Penny’s Big Breakaway (Steam, PS5, Switch, Xbox X/S)
Penny’s Big Breakaway is a 3D platformer somewhere between Sonic the Hedgehog and Super Mario 3D Land, I suppose, though that’s not a perfectly accurate picture of it either, and it’s also got a lot of Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater DNA. You’ve got a yo-yo that you can use to attack, swing, or ride for mobility and speed. It’s very close to being one of my favorite platformers ever, but there’s just a bit too much jank around how the game handles certain edge cases with its physics system, and it can break the flow of an otherwise very good game. If you’re anything like me though, that won’t stop you from having a lot of fun with it.
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