I would like to see this crazyness in chasing after ultimate realism and VR and similar crap end, or at least easen up a little bit so that big AAA studios once again put their efforts to were their strengths were in the days long gone by... great storys and innovative gameplay.
None of the likes of Ubisoft or EA got big by ripping off themselves on a yearly basis, being dicks to their customers, and generally chasing after trends and endlessly producing sequels to horses long beaten to death. They got big by creating (or investing in) great ideas and design. By actually finishing games before they release them. By not tailoring games to looking good in pre-release trailers, but looking good when run on the averages dudes crappy computer. By not wasting most of their money on marketing and elaborate management structures, but paying the actual developers of their games and keeping them on the team even after the game was shipped.
I'd like to see customer stop investing into serial scams like the yearly FIFA installement or the yearly CoD (even though it seems that genre-definer-turned-into-serial-crap spawns some sleeper hits from time to time). But then I guess that is part of the reason why a lot of the games coming out in the decade have been so MEH! Would not happen without people pre-ordering games time and time again, paying for overpriced DLC, demanding better and better graphics yet at the same time seemingly being oblivious of the exploding budgets for producing games when game prices remain stable (safe for F2P and DLC sheenigans), and seemingly still putting up with all the crap the Ubisofts and EAs of this world try to force down their throats (and lets not forget Konami and Capcom... as much as I would like to be pissed about Metal Gear Solid, I don't know the series well enough. But I am pissed about what became of Castlevania!... as for Capcom, F*** you for abusing the BoF series for cheap phone games).
If the average Customer would be informed enough that there are far, FAR more games to play out there than just what the biggest AAA studios put out, would ignore the marketing and mainstream media, have enough patience to NOT EVER pre-order anything unless its a Kickstarter project they really want to see come to life, and not even buy a game at release, but wait AT LEAST 6 months to make sure the game is as good as advertised and actually is in working condition by the time the game is bought, big AAA studios would have to adapt or die the death many of those deserved for years.
Well, really, having had that old mans rant, and giving up on the AAA industry to ever do the right thing, which is listen to fans and the market instead of weird focusgroups and analysts, there is not much I miss in todays gaming releases if I ingore the general crap many AAA studios are slinging around.
I do miss good old school RTS games. Without any MOBA-crap tacked on, without trying to be innovative yet failing to achieve that. I did play some recent hardcore-ish WW2 RTSes which were quite good, still having a go at it in DoW 1 from time to time. Blizzard games are not my cup of tea even though I generally have to admit they are far from the usual modern AAA crap... so Starcraft really is not for me. I tried, and gave up on it. Still, I can see why some people like SC2 so much.
Still, I miss the C&Cs, and the time when all Dawn of War needed was a slightly clever idea to keep the RTS formula from getting into a base building contest, a good use of the 40k license and some good campaign storys. No dicking around with elaborate early rush blockers and MOBAesque stuff, no super units tacked on that also made the tabletop game break under its own weight.
I miss the time when good teams would take a risk releasing a new RPG expierience. To be more precise, when the budgets of an AAA release where still low enough to be able to take risks while at the same time working with some AAA writers and artists.
I know that CD Project red has achieved that to some extent with the Witcher, which was a well done game from the start, and something of a risk given the novel was most probably not that well known outside of Poland. I really have to find the time to play the whole trilogy one day.
I also have to bow my head before guerilla games because clearly Horizon Zero Dawn was quite a risk, if not gameplay wise, then at least when it comes to the story and setting. As much as I see how it borrows heavely from other games gameplay wise and I even think the combat system has many flaws when really put to the test, the setting alone makes this already a contender for my personal game of the year. And really, I don't care if you call that game an RPG, or Action Adventure, or Open-World-Whatever. Its an Action Adventure with RPG elements to me.
At least it seems we have the time of the half-inspired WoW-MMO-Clones behind us. Another one of these generic fantasy worlds which started with an interesting idea and then executed on it by making it look and feel like WoW and I would start to scream.
I would go on to complain about the lack of interesting Metroidvania games lately, but then there are a ton of Indie ones I still have to play, I haven't finished Guacameele or Ori and the blind forest yet, and then there is the shimmer of hope that ritual of the night can continue the real castlevania SotN expierience Konami refuses to work on since over a decade. So I guess we are quite covered on that front thanks to Indies, and designers and devs leaving the AAA dickhead culture to get back to create good games once again as Indies.
