Subjectively at least - and this might be rose-tinted glasses influencing my judgment - it feels like it was more common, that certain genres were almost expected to come with an accessible level/map editor. I think I spent more time with the one from Age of Empires than the actual game.
A AAA game will have these kinds of details today, because it’s expected by customers. AAA(A) games that don’t (looking at you, Ubisoft, with your shoddy animations) get relentlessly mocked unless they excel in every other area. First party Sony titles in particular are expected to push technical boundaries (at least of their hardware) in some way or another. That’s part of the reason why people are buying these games and the systems they are running on. This isn’t an optional thing, it’s not a choice, it’s the baseline.
You also have to consider that even if this wasn’t the case, you can’t just radically change the way studios are being organized. Large studios are art-heavy in terms of their manpower, in large part because it’s very easy to produce tons of game assets in parallel. It’s not easy to hire or retrain people after a switch in priorities and it’s much more difficult to apply the same kind of manpower to game design tasks. The old saying that nine women can’t birth a baby in one month applies here as well.
Taking a rough look at the credits, Horizon Zero Dawn had 30 designers working on it (world, quest, writing, etc.). Compare this to 57 coders coding things and 148 artists creating audio and visual assets. There are other departments like production, marketing, HR, etc. that I’m not counting, but I think you get the picture.
It’s not an “either - or” thing. The artists modeling fine details like peach fuzz had nothing to do with the game’s design and it also had no influence on how replayable the game would be.
Dorfromantik. I had bought the award-winning board game as a gift for a relative and figured I’d try the videogame version. Please send help, I can’t stop playing. This game is so addictive, it should be classified as a dangerous narcotic. I have deliberately not installed it to my Steam Deck (which it’s verified for), because I need at least a few hours per day that I’m not playing it. In completely unrelated news, who knew birds are waking up this early?
I’ve also been playing a bit of GTA Vice City and San Andreas, not the botched remasters, but the original PC ports with mod packs (Reviced and SA Enhanced Edition Plus) that restore features from the PS2 version and overhaul them a little. I’m having a blast, unsurprisingly. These are games you can replay forever. San Andreas in particular absolutely glows (both figuratively and literally) with the restored lighting and holds up incredibly well. Since it’s been a while since I last played it, I noticed just how incredible the architecture in this game is. Weird thing to focus on, I know, but every building has the right proportions and, by PS2 standards at least, a remarkable amount of variety and detail, in large part due to the photo textures. Even most newer open world games don’t even come close, like the entire Saints Row series or the recent Mafia 1 remake (which I actually enjoyed quite a bit otherwise). It’s a huge step up from Vice City in this regard, which is however still a ton of fun. The attention to detail in SA remains impressive in every way, like how radio talk hosts will comment on story events.
I tried a bit of the classic hacking game Uplink again, with the brilliant UplinkOS mod that modernizes its UI and makes the game usable on modern display. I haven’t done many missions yet, but it’s still as enjoyable as when it was new 23 years ago. It’s remarkable how little this old Indie darling needs to set the right atmosphere: Some appropriately beepy Hollywood sound effects, a charming electronic soundtrack and just the right amount of well-written text.
Parking Garage Rally Circuit: Little retro arcade racer with a delightfully limited scope. If you like the old Sega arcade racers, this one is a well-crafted throwback and even if you don’t, it’s the perfect game to play in short bursts. The difficulty is old-school hard too - and comes with tons of filters and resolution options to make it look like it’s playing on your parents’ crappy old tube TV.
Just make sure you have GPU that can do ray-tracing, since it’s one of the first games that requires hardware support for this feature. If it can, the game will likely run very well and look just as good.
Simon Tatham’s Puzzles is my go-to. No art to speak of, but it just does what it’s supposed to and you’ll quickly find a few favorites. No fluff, no ads, nothing to annoy or distract from the gameplay.
People on Steam are complaining about their antivirus freaking out about this game. While that’s the PC version, this isn’t exactly a good look, especially not on a F2P game.
As a vegetarian, this kind of reminds me of what I’m going through sometimes. Eating out in particular can be annoying, with most meal options in most restaurants containing meat.
I’ve still got a Samsung Odyssey+, which is a WMR headset, a standard from Microsoft that they have unfortunately sunseted (update 24H2 drops support), which is why I can’t recommend it. I’m sticking with 23H2, which should give me until November of next year to find an alternative. It’s a shame, really, because these headsets are cheap, easy to use, work with most games and all have rather excellent screens. Controllers aren’t the best, but still good enough even for demanding games.