I’ll miss you, dragon age!
Halo Infinite killed the franchise for me.
I still get my friends together to play Halo a couple times a year. But finishing Infinite was the first time I was no longer excited for the next installment.
Ever since Halo 2 dropped my best friend and I have co-opped each one in one sitting. Infinite is the first time in 2 decades that we couldn’t get through an installment. Open world was fun but empty, and they tried to have it cover for a plot. The entire 4-5-6 “trilogy” is more disjointed than the star wars sequels. Story was not compelling, no emotional pulls. Halo was legit top tier sci fi and infinite felt like it was written by a committee ina meeting room. Just sad.
Hmt I might say the story of 4 and 5 was halfway decent.
In a vacuum.
While not comparing it to Reach (or 3. But that hasnt stuck hard in my memory. CE was peak for me. I remember getting lost as a little kid in the hallways on the Pillar of Autmm on the way to the rescue capsules)
Honestly used to love Minecraft, still have a soft spot and will likely return to it at some point. All that said, MSoft has made me give up on Mojang and Minecraft. Mojang also just ignores pretty serious feedback about gameplay and don’t seem open to discussion with the community which always creates friction between mojang and the community.
Luanti (luanti.org) (née Minetest) exists!
The world size is much smaller, but as a play system and exploration thingy it is still quite fun. Also has several games (adventures), mods and gamemodes.
But Minecraft’s ecosystem makes it super easy to run any version you like best. Play the Minecraft you loved and ignore the latest versions if you don’t like them. It’s basically just a game engine anyway, the actual game is all the mods you install.
Definitely a good point, Minecraft would have faded without the modding scene, especially performance mods which seem to be the backbone of any Java based playthrough. That’s also part of my problem, I don’t want to have to download mods to turn off the telemetry, chat reports, a button for their servers that are awful. I’d rather invest my time in an open source solution like minetest or other non MSoft options if I’m relying on mods to remove junk.
I’ve never been a big Minecraft fan, but has Hytale reawakened any of that passion in people?
If you enjoyed the survival aspects of Minecraft, maybe you’d enjoy Vintage Story? It overtook Minecraft for me in terms of block games I enjoy, since it feels a whole lot more rewarding getting better tools, weapons or armour in game.
Goodbye, Mass Effect.
Replaing the trilogy for probably the ninth time, and it confirmed to me that there is no way a new installment can ever live up to the lightning in a bottle that the trilogy had.
Also, like, the trilogy’s ending was kind of final, and the potential endings veeery different. Andromeda had to happen in another galaxy because that was the only way to be compatible with the drastically different endings of ME3. But they lost so much of the world building. I’m assuming. I’ve never played it. But the Citadel was a big thing in the original trilogy, as was citadel politics.
They could’ve made the fourth Mass Effect franchise game good though. They could’ve had it take place before or between the events of the main series. With different characters as the player’s team. Between ME and ME2 there’s a healthy amount of time for a bunch of events and the crew wouldn’t have to run into Shep at all.
Who wouldn’t want to explore the darker side of the Citadel? Maybe another look at Omega. Definitely the various species’ homeworlds like Sur’Kesh. There’s so many awesome worlds we saw a bit of in the main trilogy that they could expand on. And yes, of course they could still add new ones too.
Completely agree with all points. It’s my favorite gaming franchise and you’re exactly right. The point of the different endings was that it was the end. The galaxy moving forward is what you decided it would be.
As for Andromeda, it’s worth a play sometime. It got a lot more hate than it deserved. It’s not amazing, it’s not trilogy level, but it was a fun romp and a decent way to kill some time. Just go in with those expectations. They didn’t disrespect the cannon or betray anything, it just didn’t have that spark of the trilogy.
Assassin’s Creed
Diablo
There’s more, but those two hurt the worst.
Don’t you guys have phones? will live rent free in my head as one of the funniest on stage failures ever.
It does annoy me a lot that diablo immoral made “LOL, WHAT WERE YOU SAYING, HATERS???” amounts of money
You can tell they were so far up their own asses by not being able to forsee that. Any gamer would have told you “fine announce the mobile game. But you better be fucking ready to also announce the next actual installment too”
I think Luke on the LTT WANshow has an excellent point about that:
Game devs do not have the PR filter of a (hehe) PR/marketing-person.
So they might pick the most illusioned with the project to present on stage. But those may also drop thse nuggets in the believe that they made a game the gamers would enjoy
I kind of enjoyed Valhalla … but maybe that’s because I’d never played any other AC games in the past, so I didn’t have any expectations to disappoint.
Overall, on the better side of mid. General gameplay and exploration was pretty fun, world was very detailed and beautiful. The AC parts seemed a bit shoehorned in. Hated the arbitrary parkour challenges, and really really hated the modern-day meta storyline. Kind of wish they’d just have let all the AC stuff go and just made a fun Viking game without any of that other bullshit. Still, I enjoyed playing it for quite a while. Maybe I’ll play it again someday, but it’s definitely not on my shortlist of replayable games I keep coming back to.
Yeah, that’s how people started to feel around ACIV: Black Flag.
But during AC1-3, we were all excited to learn more about the modern day mysteries and have more assassin stuff. We all wanted more!
Then Ubisoft decided to make it a yearly thing and kill off any characters with plot points that might hinder their multiplayer battle pass, yearly release dreams. Then it all fell apart and they had to scale back… But the damage was done.
I haven’t even played it the first time but it seems like they’ve made them so long that replay would be a burden.
True. It was quite long, especially if you’re trying to do everything.
But, hey, as long as you’re enjoying a game as you play it, being long is kind of a good thing.
Also, I’m pretty sure it could be much faster if you don’t bother exploring everything and doing everything and just focus on the essential story missions alone. But in that game, exploring the landscape and doing all the things is really the fun part, so you don’t want to skip it.
GTA when I watched how GTA:V shifted from a single player game to a multiplayer online service.
Gay Tony died for this
But he’ll be burried in a solid gold coffin covered in diamonds because holy fuck are players stupid and giving rockstar so much money with that online service bullshit.
It’s such a venn diagram between potheads and literal children…likely with lots of overlap. Lol
It’s going to get worse. Getting the people behind Fivem means it’s going to go to the next level with VI. It’s going to be Roblox meets the current GTA streaming RP stuff.
I revently played GTA online again.
The role playing aspects become very obvious right now. Loads of little side jobs are appearing like firefighter, deliver newspaper/pizza, taxi driving etc.I bought a PS5 a few years ago specifically for GTA VI. I’ve already decided between price hikes, and general trends, that I’m NOT buying that game. Not even just for single player.
Because I’ve already been told that single player will be a non-profitable after thought that barely exists.
Welp. Fuck that shit.
Ace Attorney (a.k.a. Phoenix Wright)
It peaked in the first trilogy. Each game built on what was good about the previous game while adding a new mechanism that flashed out another part of the game.
The second trilogy of games collapsed trying to follow it up. Both the writing and gameplay show the same issue. The games are trying to be a clean break with new characters and powers but the game designers were afraid that they might scare away fans of previous games, so the old characters and gameplay all come back to make an appearance. None of it works. The returning characters and gameplay are all very brief and shallow without the progression they got in their original games, but they take up so much space that the new characters and mechanics don’t have room to build up over the course of 4-5 cases in a game.
I am now trudging through the two prequel games. The game designers finally had the determination to make a clean break, but it seems that they lost the magic of the initial games. There are new characters and new gameplay. There is too much plot, not enough game. There is too much (bad) writing between player interactions and when they happen, the game is more hand holdy to make sure the player is given a bucket of clues about what to do next. And there is no reason to make the game easier, since there is a new easy mode that plays the game for a player if they ever get stuck.
Yeah, so often I want Capcom to process that Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney is my least favorite of the whole series, not because of the new protagonist, but because Phoenix is way too present in it.
I can start to see some indie games following through on the formula, which to me is a great evolution though. Very little has the creative inventiveness of the original trilogy though. So hard to alleviate from brain drain.
The Elder Scrolls
Bethesda is dead.
Lol. “Skyrim in space.”
Its why they’re so afraid of ES6. They know they can’t do it. What I don’t know is does that make them better or worse than the studios who are trying to bring back old franchises
Halo. We’re never getting another real one.
Borderlands.
Word.
Borderlands 2 had my best game memories beating Vermivorous the Invincible with 3 friends, me playing as Maya. First of all getting it to spawn is tense.
I so desperately want to like BL2 because it has Gaige, my favorite Vault Hunter of all time, but I can’t replay it because the story is so infuriating to me. It’s like the writers are punishing me for thinking the Vault Hunters from the first game were cool.
First time I’ve seen this take. BL2’s story is my favorite of the series, and the best feature of the game IMO. Then 3 happened…
I will miss those lighthearted adventures…
everything blizzard made.
I wouldn’t say that about World of Warcraft. Its certainly a roller coaster with many ups and downs but I would say its up right now and Midnight is lots of fun.
Blizzard is a corpse being puppeted.
It’s just Activision. Has been for years.
Until you learn about Blizzard’s bro culture that has existed almost as long as the company that resulted in a female employee committing suicide because no one would take her sexual assault allegations seriously.
What “until”?
Blizzards artistic merit was killed by Activision, until you find out they have always had a female-abusive work environment.
What?
It’s another valid reason to boycott blizz… But you’re adding that factoid as if it counters mine? It’s also not relevant for why their IPs are souring. It’s another reason why they don’t deserve customers, even if the games were still good, but its not the reason their games are suffering in terms of quality.
What “until”?
It’s just Activision.
You think it’s all Activision’s fault until you learn that Blizzard was toxic from the get go. Blizzard products had issues before Activision bought them, they cut content for time, overworked & underpaid people, killed what could have been great games, all on their own.
Activism is just a corporate scapegoat for the mess Blizzard has always been. Separating Blizzard into its own company won’t fix any of its problems.
I didn’t say it was all Activisions fault. Blizzard had to be the kind of company that would join forces with Activision for the merger to happen. I’m well aware of the smaller details.
I’m saying the Blizzard that created the IPs people love, has long been dead (in that the people who made those things are no longer in positions to do so again).
What’s left, is “a corpse being puppeted by Activision” in that actiblizz is lead by the type of people and decision-making that Activision is a lot more known for.
It’s a really short way to express to people who still have nostalgia goggles for Blizzard, that the things that allowed them to make good things, are gone. Replaced by profit motivated suits that have no respect for art.
Blizzard doesn’t need saving. It’s a rotting corpse of a brand. Remove activision, and you still have just a rotting corpse.
Besides all the mentioned ones, here are few from my side:
Need for Speed - played since 2 SE until Undercover. It is impossible to release the same game each year and the peak was MW’05.
Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater - some may say American Wasteland was good. I didn’t liked it but it was not as bad as anything after.
CODs - that is a pet peeve of mine. Great game, but it overstayed it’s welcome. OG MW1 and MW2 still hold a special place in my heart.
Battlefield - same as above. BC and BF3 can’t be beat.
World of Warcraft - that is an entirely different game to what it used to be imo.
I was (and still is) a Battlefield 2. I found battlefield 3 an alright sequel, though I wish they hadn’t bullshitted with the whole “the game is too complex now for map and mod tools”. But it is unreasonable how much fun Bad Company 2 was. I was one of the early haters of it because they took away prone and the faster paced gameplay. But boy did my opinion on it changed. Even my brother who rarely plays shooters sat and grinded out weapons on it. I know even DICE are questioning why it was such a success.
WOW- if it wasn’t for classic and now anniversary, I never would have renewed my subscription.
Retail is just horrible and getting worse.
This happened for me with Destiny.
For me it was Pokemon.
Started in order and got the games new as they came out since DPP. The core of the game to me was exploration, Pokemon, then battles. However over time Battling got more and more popular to the point where the game just became boring. This was Black and White for me.
I hoped it would get better with each release, but it was Sun and Moon where I just couldn’t care any more. After that I tried a game here and there. But nothing ever went back to that core of Exploration, new Pokemon the battling.
In my opinion, Pokemon peaked in gen 2. Why? Because every game after added new gimmicks that distract from the core gameplay instead of adding to it. What is the core gameplay? As the motto goes “Gotta Catch 'Em All”. Gen 1 had 150 monsters for the player to find and catch. Gen 2 added time of day specific spawn rates and Pokemon that you could only get by breeding. And that is it. None of the further games made the monster collection any more interesting until Legends Arceus, a spinoff title. The future games added fashion shows and secret tunnels (at least, I don’t think so. I have not played all of them).
Pokemon Home is, obviously, a game changer, but it is something outside the game and too little, too late for someone like me who fell off the franchise.
Pokémon here, too. I used to be more attentive to the franchise as a fanwork creative, but the franchise went into decline starting with G6 (X and Y) in my opinion. It got so bad to the point that I basically left the games back in Gen 7 (Sun and Moon) and go by mostly by the side games and fanwork by this point. For my contemporary work I mostly ignore everything from the games that is not the Pokémon themselves, and for when that’s not enough I create my own Pokémon and also am working on adapting a few concepts from Palworld (Palworld will always be a nice, stingy reminder of what Pokémon can get back to).
Speaking of sidegames, the Pokémon Mystery Dungeon games are real gems that Nintendon’t seem to remember anymore past getting us a “Kanto remake” of, and Pokken is a fun fighting game but rather restricted in roster and sad in retrospective in a “look at what we could have had if the franchise spun more in this direction” moment. Today Pokémon Close Combat exists which is a decent fangame in more or less the same direction.
Pokemon lost its way once they got rid of the shithead rival character. The “rivals” they have now are too plucky and lacking in antagonistic traits. I don’t even think they choose a type-advantage starter anymore.
I am ashamed to say that Pokopia (on my sibling’s Switch 2) is pretty great. It’s a sublime, cozy exploration game, basically absent of battling so far.
Pokopia is a subcategory of Pokemon. What kills it for me is that the game is Switch 2 exclusive. So I might get to try it in a decade.
Mystery Dungeon is still my goto favourite Pokemon game. Combat is back set, exploration top priority
Pokémon Mystery Dungeon my beloved 👀💜
They made it into in A button simulator lol.
I only ever played DPP and BW/2 a long time ago, but I then happend to jump to SwSh when it came out and it literally became a live joke between my sibling watching me play to see how far we could go through the battles by only mashing the A button.
I think we made it to like between the 7th and 8th gym before I had to actually change my attack/pokemon using the c-stick.
Dungeon keeper
Halo. Still holding out a sliver of hope that something cool in the universe will be made one day.
The Bungie Halo era games had problems, sure, but overall were a masterpiece of a series. Everything since then has been ok at best, and borderline insulting at worst.
So much retconning, characters with zero arc, contempt towards the fandom, and build up with no onscreen payoff.
From what Halo Studios has announced regarding Campaign Evolved, and how they’ve dug in their heels in response to fan feedback, I wish I were as hopeful as you.
In my opinion, Halo should have always remained a Bungie property with connections to the Marathon universe, and neither series should have ever been a live service game.
I found some of 343’s multiplayer fun, but yeah their storytelling has been dog water
I really liked the multiplayer of Infinite, it actually felt like a Halo game again. But by then the damage to Halo’s reputation was already done.
Halo
The games? Yeah, eh, one of these days I’d consider Infinite single player if it’s like $10.
The series? I can’t remember if people said Season 2 was…watchable…but that makes me sad…
I remember liking the books, though. The books were rad.
I didn’t even make it through more than a handful of episodes in season one. The books are solid, yeah. I did fall off after the Forerunner trilogy, though.
343 hasn’t come close to knowing what the fuck they’re doing
Halo was DoA for me after growing up with twitchy PC shooters like Unreal Tournament, Quake and Starsiege Tribes. The gameplay was glacially slow compared to what I was used to, but it did usher in online multiplayer to the console masses.
I really loved that about halo. The slower TTK makes for more chess like engagements, well with the exception of eating a shotty or a rocket to the face. Still, bouncing a perfect grenade or pulling off a ninja jump just feels so satisfying
It did before they turned it into call of duty with halo skins
Those are fundamentally different kinds of games. Sure, they’re all first person shooters, but there are more differences than similarities.
I feel like it’s the equivalent of saying something like: “Poker was DoA for me after growing up with fast paced card games like Uno, Slap Jack, and 52 card pick up.”
That’s fair. It’s not to say that I didn’t try the multiplayer in college. I was the only guy doing work-study with the network admin team so everyone needed me to configure their Xboxes for the campus LAN.
My favorite thing to do was to find a warthog and barrel around the map like a maniac trying to run people over. Still better than a dirty camper!
The Warthog physics made diving around like a maniac so much fun. Some of my fondest memories are of LAN parties, and Halo was always a staple.
I know you meant Dead on Arrival, but Dead or Alive is 100% on my list. It was so much fun during DOA 2/3. Now it’s just a micro-transaction dress-up store.
