Top 10 Worst Design Trends in Video Games
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- Опубликовано: 9 окт 2023
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I've played a lot of games in 2023. It's been a banner year for quality on the whole. But there's still nagging trends that keep rearing their head in the AAA space that grind my gears. Today I'll be detailing my choices for the worst design trends in the industry, including games such as Star Wars: Jedi Survivor, Hogwarts Legacy, Starfield, Star Citizen, Destiny 2, and Final Fantasy XVI. Very curious to hear your thoughts on my choices and what indsutry trends draw your ire. Let me know down below!
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To me, the biggest problem with striving for realism so much is that it makes it VERY easy for the artstyle of your game to slip into the uncanny valley. Sub-par stylized graphics still usually look alright, but sub-par hyperrealistic graphics look goofy at best and legitimately horrifying at worst.
This need for near-perfection with realistic graphics just exacerbates the time and budget issues mentioned in the video.
case and point, Starfield npcs
In a rather cosmically ironic point of view that is a big reason why we need consoles like the Switch, an actual challenge to force creative game design and solutions under punishing constraints. Forcing these incompetent publishers and devs to actually take a hard look at their over inflated products, at least try to adjust their obscured priorities and try to meet that more proverbial _"Nintendo Seal Of Quality"_ we all expect from every game on any given console let alone the Switch. And the fact so many of these third parties fail spectacularly to do so is even more damning evidence of how fucked the industry is. Looking at you Square Enix....
Am I calling the Nintendo Switch the Dark Souls of video game devices? Maybe XDXDXDXDXDXDXDXD
@@TeryJonesit's honestly the thing I find funniest from every Sony Pony complaint about the console... "man the Switch hardware is such dogshit because it runs that PS 2-4 game ported to it like dogshit"... When the reality is that PS2-4 game was so sub-optimised that the PS4 game barely would have stressed a PS2 if properly compressed, the PS3 game was DRMed to shit, and that PS2 game was just left uncompressed to waste Switch SD card space because Sony just likes to hog your system memory and only gives out installers on physical to keep proprietary game data.
And in a final insult they just cap 30 frames out of either spite, caution, or laziness rather than necessity.
@@xelith6157 The problem is when devs care more about the graphics at the cost of all else. Look at FF7 Remake. Square cared more about making everything look gorgeous they wound up only making the goddamn prologue, using their hubris as an excuse to turn it into an episodic money pit.
Look at callisto protocol. Striking distance poured so much money into graphics to make jacob look like josh Duhamel and he still looks like a generic dude protagonist. While the graphics ARE visceral and gory the story suffered which sucks bc glen Schofield helmed the game.
#9 really hits home for me. The emphasis on realism was the death of the unique art style. Yes, the current AAA games look gorgeous. But they lack uniqueness, and they age like milk. Games from past generations that went for hyper-realism start to look worse compared to games like Wind Waker and Okami; they still look gorgeous to this day despite being 15-20 years old, because they went for a unique art style that make them stand out.
I remember Wind Waker getting panned for it's style at the time too. Yet here it stands today, as gorgeous as ever.
Yes! HiFi Rush was one of my favorites this year and the cartoony art style was so great.
This is basically why I'm going past from liking Racing Game, because basically most of them nowadays is just Forza Clone.
Man if i want Forza i'll play Forza or Assetto Corsa for how moddable that Game is.
If not at the very least like idk Automobilista and shit like NFS:Unbound, can you do that?
I'm playing Tales of Arise, and aside from the anime look, there seems to be a subtle cel-shaded or paint aesthetic to the game environments. And frankly, it looks gorgeous. I also played Breath of the Wild for the first time this year, and it's still breathtaking to look at.
I also think that, in a weird way, Ghost of Tsushima might age better than some other Playstation heavy hitters solely for it's use of color and lighting in the environments. It straddles the fence of "realistic, but stylized." Looking back at the screenshots, I just think "man, I wish more games did this."
This is why I regard pixel art styles timeless. More of a style than limitation--like SotN, Blasphemous, Sea of Stars, Valkyrie Profile, Chrono Trigger, Death's Gambit, Terraria, Megaman X series, all pixel art yet artistically distinct and beautiful
This was such a cathartic list. I get so anxious now thinking of the sheer volume of game releases every year. Knowing they'll all be dozens of hours long because of padding, how a lot of them will feel samesy because of the obligatory checklist AAA titles have, and anticipating the unfinished state most games will ship in. The live service model is a cancer on creativity.
Why?? You don't have to buy or play all of them.
I'll rather wait and support what I am interested
Just focus on the polished, well optimised games with no additional monetization that are actually fun to play. Examples? Armored Core 6, Hades, Hollow Knight, Metroid Prime Remastered, RE4 remake, Journey, Inside, It Takes Two, Hi-Fi Rush. And more...
Maybe you don't like spending hours in the same game, but people who can only afford a few games a year definitely appreciate the extra hours of gameplay. I think maybe you play too many games to the point you're starting to dislike them
@@aytekineric8306 The problem is that the padding isn't meaningful. You can buy AC Odyssey and spend 120 hours chasing objective markers doing pointless tasks... or you can spend 120 hours exploring Hollow Knight and overcoming its challenges. That game is fifteen (15!!!!) dollars on full price btw, so you being poor isn't a reason to excuse shitty AAA devs.
I absolutely despise how gaming feels like a chore nowadays. We’ve completely lost the plot. These fucking companies still made millions back in the day when they still cared about the consumer the content they are making, so I accept no excuses for how lazy and greedy they are today, they have tripled their resources and profits yet cannot for the life of them put out a creative and finished product.
Calling the Microtransactions entry now
It's No. 1 on the list! 🤣
Yep
The explanation was very nuanced, though. Not just the typical AJS type ranting, which I wouldn't expect from Demodcracy anyway. Great vid, got me through this DMV line
Same
Well yeah, obviously.
Im always worried about live service games creeping into everything because one thing I value most is FINISHING a game and moving on to another. Maybe replaying it someday later if I love it enough or has a sequel coming up. I feel like companies don't even care about consumers like me who want the game to end and uninstall it and move on to another.
The problem isn't live-service itself, but publishers mandating the model to be inserted into genres it has no business being in. Live service for fighting games, competitive shooters, or MMOs? That's fine and dandy. The gameplay loop of the genre and their inherent focus on community interactions through mostly PvPs allow that model to work. But live-service in an action adventure game? In an open world game? No... they're trying to insert a triangle block into a square hole, and they're wondering why people don't like it...
Funny enough, this ties into a big issue I have with modern TV and film, the fact that no series is allowed to just end, or even be allowed to be its own standalone syory, and everything needs to be rebooted or run into ground. The Office, How I met your Mother, iCarly. To use some film examples, the MCU, Universal monsters (Dracula, The Mummy), DCEU.
A lot of these properties would be way higher quality if they weren't shoehorning everything into the same 10 IPs, or reusing the same 20 just for quick nostalgia bucks
The emphasis on realism/high graphical fidelity is a big one for me. It's gotten to the point that if a developer makes realism a major point in the marketing for a game, it immediately kills my interest. It tells me that its gameplay is going to be half-baked at best, with few if any unique mechanics of its own, its going to run like ass because I don't have the highest end system/PC (and even I did, there's still no guarantee it would run well), and its probably going to have a ton of unnecessary bloat to pad out run time. All for the sake of looking very similar to or outright indistinguishable from every other AAA game on the market.
Man I remember playing Pokémon legends not one the best looking game I’ve played but fuck it was fun doing what I’ve always wanted to do in a Pokémon game
some xbox games have stylish graphic
sunset overdrive
recore definitive edition
grounded
sea of thieves
high on life
hifi rush
#9 is SOOOOO true. I'm sick of "realism". I want good looking style. Lies of P looks AMAZING, but it has a style that pulls it back away from realism and gives it an edge and I adore it.
I actually had a conversation with a Discord group yesterday where we talked about that the Soulsborne games (which Lies of P got inspiration from) are meant to look realistic, but they are still stylized. The characters are often in elaborate armour or clothes, it is rare you can see a clear face and if, the face is something you will remember. The scenery makes it clear to you where you are. You could probably show me a random Dark Souls screenshot and I would be like "Oh, that is that and that area". The game goes into realism, but into stylized realism. From what I have seen from Lies of P, they go down the same route and that is so much more amazing than being able to see every rock on the ground in 4K or every pore on a character's face.
some games with stylish graphic
soulstice
kena
sifu
sunset overdrive
sea of thieves
grounded
recore definitive edition
high on life
hifi rush
@@MrsLittletall Thats what I like about the Fromsoft games, and anyone who pulls the look off, really. Realistic but still stylized. Doom Eternal doe it well. It looks realistic but is clearly emulating the style of a heavy metal album and it works.
Honestly, I think gamers are to blame for games having padding. I see so many people that unrealistically stick to "every game I buy has to have 1 hour of gameplay per $1 of price tag or it's not worth it." So corpo executives said "Oh, you want more hours? Sure, we'll copy and paste things everywhere and make the world artificially large, problem solved."
HARD disagree. Padding is 100% a developer choice. That’s like saying a chef squeezing junk out of a tube onto a plate is the customer’s fault because they complained about small portions.
@@BlackXSunlight
The reason I mostly blame gamers is because I think 60+ hours is a pretty unreasonable request, unless you're planning on going for 100% achievements or something like that. Like, how many AAA games do you think have 60+ hours of great content with no filler? I can only think of a tiny handful like Elden Ring, and even that you could argue there's quite a decent amount of filler with constantly reused enemies and bosses.
Most great AAA games in my experience are usually between 20-40 hours. And if you have tons and tons of people saying "I won't buy your game unless you have more hours" and they don't seem to care about filler, I can't really blame devs for feeling forced to put some in. I don't like it, but I understand why so many do it.
@@Trio3224 sure, except no one is screaming "I won't buy your game unless you have more hours" in any space where a number-crunching executive board and project director can hear, nor would they care if they could. That is why I say it is 100% the developers' choice. If there is money to be saved in padding in content rather than dedicating development time to actually making content, they will do it.
Man, I always say half an hour per dollar and I'm counting LIFETIME play time not a single playthrough.
So that could be a very reasonable 20 hours of fun, as long as its fun.
Its funny cause for me, Terraria is both mercilessly and unyieldingly beating the sh*t out of every other game with its $/hour ratio lol.
@@UltraVarietyChannel
See, that's a very reasonable goal for value. I just did a reddit poll the other day that got over 300 votes and about 20% of ppl said they wanted a single player game to have 60+ hours of content in one playthrough.
And yeah, some games like Terraria are just super high value for money if you really dive into them. Or even free to play games. There are people that spend thousands of hours in games like Fortnight and Apex without ever paying a dime.
Playing Witcher 3 for the first time this year was so refreshing. Not the best combat design, but incredibly rewarding as a narrative focused RPG. I was totally hooked into doing a lot of side quests.
That thing can also be a problem. Making a RPG games with predetermined main character is quiet hard. The Witcher is kinda good example on how to do it since Geralt is already a strong characters, so we can feel the sensation of role-playing as him. But the RPG mechanics from AC (oddysey and valhalla) are just kinda insulting. If you can't make a strong protagonist, just made a silent one (like from fallout, TES, or dark souls)
Found the narrative to be a total letdown. Every single narrative outcome is scripted, nothing is a dynamic result of moment-to-moment gameplay. As a storytelling modality, cutscenes and scripted dialogue are antithetical to what video games are as art and entertainment media, and weaken their ability to tell a coherent story.
@@harya7517 what? I think it's easier, and BETTER.
@@alondite215it isn’t inherently a bad thing as games that do what you want from them often feel meaningless and directionless, and even if they don’t, what they accomplish is different and not “objectively” better.
God remember when games would come out, you pay once and get 10s to 100s of hours of unadulterated fun from them then moving on to another equally fun game? Seems like such an uphill battle in the current climate. Good video Demod 👍🏻
Man I became depressed when you mentioned that gaming is a luxury, an escapism from reality and now they are milking it without remorse giving us next to nothing in return. Awesome video, thank you for taking the time to point out the trends that are taking down our greatest hobby
I HATE how expensive gaming has become, it’s gone from me pulling out my wallet once or rarely twice, to keeping my wallet open 24/7, it honestly makes me NOT want to play video games at all.
Just don't play live service trash
As an amateur game developer, this just breaks my heart. I wanted to make games to make people happy, not to exploit their good will. It's so fucked.
Major game companies are just that, companies. They exist to make money, not make games.
Indie games still do that. Most are made by developers with a passion that want to push the medium with creativity. AAA development is a machine for pumping money very simply.
“It’s so fucked”. Welcome to the real world pal. It’s like that in every industry
I miss the games where you upgraded your character and you could actually see the upgrades on either the weapon or character. And hate games where you change your armor and the outfit doesn't change
Like God of War?
A couple of minutes in and I already love this video. This isn’t just a list of complaints, but also a list that shouts out games that offer solutions to these various game designs
I wish less games tried so hard to broaden their appeal rather than do what they do well enough that they convince gamers to broaden their taste. Baldur's Gate 3 as well as Fomsoftware's entire catalogue from the last decade are a perfect example of how profitable that can be.
This.. so much this. It’s tiring to see so many franchises or genres i love devolve into something much less unique & fun all in the name of accessibility and appealing to the masses.
I often hear it said that "Hyper-realism is dated on arrival, but an art style is timeless." This is why I stopped playing AAA games and stuck to titles like Hades, Dredge, and Psychonauts 2. They're still gorgeous even if you can't see every hair on everyone's frenulums.
Haven’t finished the video yet but I am so sick of live service games with a seasonal model.
Everything is a damn subscription now.
Why does botw and totk seemingly get a pass on so many of these kinds of lists? Genuine question…
Let's not forget Pokemon Scarlet/Violet. The biggest money maker in the world and it looks and runs like garbage
Its more the merchandise and the anime, the games are a small fraction. Graphics aside, game was actually fun. I'll say i enjoyed it way more than Final Fantasy XVI. Though i guess thats because I'm a sucker for turn based RPG's and I've been playing pokemon games since Silver on the Gameboy Color. You are right about the graphics and performance, though, and I'm not dense enough to say it's the Switch's fault. In the future I really hope Gamefreak gets more development time and possibly outside help from other studios.
@@Hydra_X9K_MusicI enjoy every Pokémon game but it's only really because of nostalgia. the games aren't good, if I didn't have a childhood connection to the games I would dismiss them
This entire list hits so close to home for me. I went from buying games left and right with tons of variety to only a few a year cause so much new stuff doesn't appeal to me now thanks to these kinds of trends. And now that ive played most of the things i missed as a kid that i wanted to its even more obvious how little im excited for upcoming games anymore. On the bright side those few i do buy tend to be some of the most amazing games ive played yet.
Armored core 6 was an absolutely perfect game in all the ways that matter to me. Runs well, plays well, and it knows when to end.
Nice Bloodborne profile picture
A fellow Armored Core 6 enjoyer. Fist bump Raven.
I can recommend Resident evil 4 remake too. No bloat, fun encounters, short cutscenes, no meaningless open world, can be completed within 15h and the main gameplay loop is fun. Full of secrets that are actually worthwhile in gameplay sense.
@nenadmilovanovic5271 I liked it. The one thing that was kinda unnecessary was those side quests. They were straight up filler.
I think i prefer the original a little more still though cause it felt a little better paced
The fact that Dark Souls 3 has better player retention almost a decade after release than Starfield does already it crazy to me. Literal proof that the #1 point is more evident than ever.
Idk bout that tho
Dark Souls 3 has PvP though. The analogy you made is kinda weak.
IMO none of the OP's statements really apply to Starfield. Starfield basically stumbles at the RPG aspects. Mediocre/bad companions, mediocre story, mediocre world. It also doesnt have the vast amounts of lore that are previous Bethesda franchises. They should have just copied ideas/plots from other sci-fi movies or tv shows & adapt them to the world of starfield, but obviously that would be a lot of work.
Fromsoft is also basically the undisputed king of games.. except maybe nintendo
It's times like these, that suggest to me that another Devil May Cry might be needed to exceed expectations and set the industry standard (again)
Emphasis on realism is the biggest one for me (right next to quanitity over quality trend)
I really dont care how realistic your game looks.
i just want it to be fun
There's another reason for #3. One word. Pre-orders. People these days have no clue about how well AAA-games are optimized and how well they run when they buy them. That's exactly why publishers and developers tell people to pre-order all the time and sweeten it with various pre-order bonuses. It's paramount to make people buy games BEFORE release. In that case, publishers can set up any unrealistic release dates they want, get people's money off of pre-orders, and let developers fix everything later. Sure, Steam has a good refund policy, so they could lose some money from there, but it's very difficult to get a refund from Sony, Microsoft or Nintendo. So, if people pre-order a game for PlayStation, Xbox or Switch, unless it's completely unplayable, they can't get their money back. As long as pre-orders are a thing, the #3 trend is going to be prevalent in AAA-games.
Pretty much every game i can think of would benefit from a more focused, less open world. Open worlds just create inherent problems with progression and replayability. Its so hard to overcome these pitfalls, even the good open world games, such as elden ring, i think would have alleviated much if their problems through more linear progression. I also becomes way too easy for open world games to become an ubisoft checklist, spoon-feeding the player with meaningless collectibiles to emulate a sense of progression.
Thats why I believe that ToTK and BoTW both shines so much, but if you find the atractive to them.
These are games that are meant to play them anytime and can be enjoyed even when you don't gain any real progresion other than a couple of objects. The progresion is made accordingly to the player and every place is equally interesting.
You don't need to make a NG+ or something in order to still having good fights , worthy exploration and fun overall, which I think that ER should actually had been more similar to these open world
Great video!
I feel like a lot of games are trying extremely hard to be an "everything"-game. It's like the developers/producers think that the player MUST have a hundred different options for every choice in the game leading to ever expanding decision-trees.
I miss games that were heavily focused on just being games, rather than every game needing to also be a movie, a lore archive, a character customization sim, etc. all in one. I don't mind linearity if the gameplay is fun and I don't mind fewer choices if the choices are well-designed. Not every game has to be Baldur's Gate.
The major problem with companies being fined for shady behaviour is that the fines are almost always lower than the profit made for shady behaviour. Making it just cost of doing business. Companies caught doing shady shit should be fined the entire amount of said behaviour, cost and profit, making the risk of getting caught extremely detrimental to the company and not just a slap on the wrist.
Mass Appeal is my favorite one in this list. I remember last year reading an article in my game mag, where they wrote about some newly announced game (forgot the name) and they were so positive about it because it should feature some fantasy world where you get to travel to different dimensions (planets?) in all kind of states. So they were happy about it because it said that you can have a wild west szenario in one place and some fantasy in another and then going to the next stage with a scifi setting. Wow! I don't know why they were so positive about this, because the way I read this was: "Well, we want to do some game because we want money, so we don't have an artistic vision of what it should be about, instead we cramp every imaginable thing into it, and then market it as freedom for the player." Best games are the ones that follow a clear vision and stick to it. I'm glad that FromSoft refuses to make an "easy mode" for their games as it would ruin the overall vision that makes their games outstanding in favor of appealing to the mass market by watering down the games.
The only other medium that actively engages you is reading. Reading books makes you actively imagine the world as you read. Even in comics/manga as you’re actively imagining the movement of the characters.
Games actively engages you to be responsible of the controls as you become an active participant.
So why did my run button turned into a walk button? And why was the cutscene so long that my controller disabled due to inactivity?
The worst trend in gaming: Releasing broken games.
Great video 👍 I was thinking about why i like armoured core 6 so much today during my 12th playthrough and this list confirms why, because not a single point from this list applies to it. They prioritised fun over realism, it runs great, no boring cut scenes, no microtransactions. Its not perfect but i'll take a solid 9 over something trying to be 10 and failing.
Probably a bit small but sliding is something I’m so exhausted by in FPS games. Every fps plays the same nowadays
Trinketitis.
I cannot stand the over abundance useless trinkets to pick up and clutter my carry capacity and stress out my adhd riddled brain.
Thank you for pointing out the "cinematic" games. I know the other trends are more pressing, but all those cutscenes take away from more time playing the game.
Disagree. Clearly most people love these types of games. They sell, and they’re rated as some of the best games ever. Just look at rdr2 tlou etc. Just cuz you dont like it doesn’t mean it’s bad
As someone who mainly play JRPGs I don’t understand how you guys are so impatient that yall can’t sit through a 2-3min cutscene? Like I’d rather watch cutscenes than read dialogue for 15-20 minutes every 5mins.
Its kinda sad that these games are so popular when they underutilize the strenghts of the medium
It’s especially annoying when they force “Gameplay” Cutscenes where all you do it hold forward for 10 minutes
Your overall tone and timbre make it clear just how shitty and exhausting going over these trends was for you. I had no idea quite how shitty and shady the microtransactions got for games like fortnite. You described it pretty perfectly.
Excellently put together and tactful with the depth of the topics and information. I’m pretty tied into the gaming scene and there were still instances you mentioned I didn’t know about. It’s a sad reality our hobby is faced with, thank you for being a voice against this garbage. Earned my sub.
man so happy to see demod back with consistent videos always ecited when he uploads can't wait for another great one
I honestly miss the days before gaming was a gigantic business. People had fun and made things that were enjoyable, if lacking sheen and being a little undercooked. Now, we're just trying to fill the void with digital junk food: hearty, plentiful, and ultimately unfulfilling servings of stuff that just passes the time.
I’ve stopped play Live service games all together because I play games to have fun, not have price tags thrown at me
6:30 Don't forget Over reliance on Upscaling as a side note on number 8, games like Remnant 2 seem to have slipped through the crack when it comes to the years most unoptimized games, couple that with the fact that it was "designed with upscaling in mind" and yet still struggles to perform on even top of the range rigs while graphically being only a marginal improvement over the original and nowhere near the likes of Cyberpunk 2077 or even Battlefront 2 (2017). It has gotten only one performance patch which barely made a difference and it still has a bunch of optimisation issues.
I wondered why Remnant looked so rough when I played it. I actually refunded the game after an hour in no small part because it looked unpleasant.
Your first point was a great one. As much as I often enjoy the well-produced movie-like presentation of most AAA games, there's SO much more you can accomplish with storytelling in video games (as many indie games have proven) and I'd love to see AAA developers do more interesting things with their stories than gameplay-cutscene-gameplay-dialogue-gameplay-cutscene-etc.
Man you nailed it with the critique on developers releasing unfinished games. This is something that has unfortunately become far too common these days and it absolutely needs to stop. However, since they're managing to get away with it and still rake in the cash I don't see it changing any time soon.
TBH none of these issues are not going to change, because they all rake in oodles of money from a consumer base that doesn't want to do 5 minutes of research for a $70+ purchase.
Honestly expected this video to be the usual Ubisoft/EA bad Fromsoft good, Starfield bad BG3 good. Was pleasantly surprised that it was a well thought out video that was fair in its points and dind't shy away from using the same metre for the usual targets and people's darlings alike. Great video all around!
This is why challenge value is so important and we're losing it due to many tropes.
Its hillarious how you put SMT IVs world map theme under your 6th point. That games developers actually decided to cut out all the padding between A and B point and replace it with a more traditional world map, which was a good idea until they decided to make it into a maze that i was stuck on sometimes for more than 30 minutes, which is something that rarely happens to me in games that have huge ass worlds like Fallout.
Spot on here, my man. Very well articulated points we can only hope gets the notice of at least a few people with influence on dev teams.
The performance section just makes me love armored core 6 so much more. I ran that shit at 120 fps and it never stuttered once. How does Fromsoftware make balteus, ice worm, and Ibis series run at steady frames when in Jedi survivor I run at 30 fps walking down an enclosed hallway
Poor optimization is not a design trend. Yes it's an issue that I'm not defending, but putting what is usually company greed and impossible expectations for release windows the devs can't do, leading to bugs and poor optimization. Calling that a design trend just feels like a weird excuse to complain about what everyone in the industry has already been talking about for years
Yeah, list could be renamed to just "trends" and the issue would fit.
I like this type of top ten list. The way things flow into each other like a video essay rather than a disjointed content farm style of top 10 list is enjoyable. Good video
Always appreciate the use of SMT 4's Tokyo theme
Why doesn't RUclips let me get notifications for your channel? super weird. Love the content man keep it up!
To your point at the end about gaming having always been a business, it's worth remembering that games originated in the arcades, where developers would design a game to seem easy and approachable at a glance only to then ramp up the difficulty in order to gouge you for more quarters.
This is why I love Devil May Cry, no over complicated level designs, no constantly looking to upgrade your equipment in the menu, no leveling exps before unlocking new moves, ( just using red orbs to buy more moves ).
The levels are linear, the story is straight forward, the combat is a bit complicated but it depends on how stylish you want your combos to be. But you can still finish it satisfied and can even come back to it years later for a reply. The former god of war games were the same too.
As straight forward DMC games were, you can still find lots of lore to talk about and they are still people that talk about this game years later even though it's only 20 levels.
I hope that if AAA and AA developers take anything from this year is that gameplay performance matters more than they may think!
Damn, this really lays out the problems expertly. Great video.
I hope RUclips spreads this like the plague. The more people that are aware of this stuff, the better armored we as gamers will be against it.
I knew about Fornite's card information thing and that was already wild. But swapping the confirm/deny buttons on purchase screens is
I have no words. I fear for the future.
People have basically completely forgiven cdpr for cyberpunk's launch and it's sad. Even if the dlc was good it shouldn't be that commended. The dlc is honestly more like an apology for their initial failure rather than proof they changed for the future.
There will always be younger people who will just accept these new trends because they've never experienced what came before.
This is some amazing content man. It takes a very smart person to put together a video like this.
It's always great to see a DeMod vid
1) Making everything open-world, like that concept hasn't been done to death already, even if it means tossing out practically every aspect that made the franchise so iconic and enjoyable to begin with. BotW and TotK are guilty as sin of this trend, as they discard proper dungeon design, enjoyable combat, and manageable overworld exploration just to have a huge open-world - why add limited stamina to this? Why make weapons and shields so incredibly fragile? Why make the Divine Beasts and the Temples so frustratingly one-note and repetitive and bland?
Zelda herself doesn't get any actual character depth, as her story is relegated to optional flashbacks that the player has to go _out of their way_ to find and watch - when previous partners, such as Midna and the King of Red Lions and Tatl and, oh yeah, _Phantom Zelda_ all get organic character development due to actually tagging along with Link. I really do not get why people like *this* Zelda incarnation so much - Skyward Sword's Zelda does more than this Zelda.
2) Force female player characters into everything, even if it makes no sense. Alan Wake 2 has the player spend far more time as a female SWAT member than as Alan Wake himself; Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart gives most of the action (including the battle arena and the prison escape sequence) to Rivet; Spider-Man PS4 and Spider-Man 2 have forced stealth sequences with Mary Jane, instead of allowing the player to remain as a Spidey-guy the entire way through (Miles Morales' game, thankfully, avoids this); GTA 6 will be the first GTA game to have a female PC, when every one of them since GTA 3 managed to be high sellers and fan-favourites with only male PCs.
Also, the canon character of Assassin's Creed Odyssey is somehow Kassandra, when that makes *no sense* historically (women straight-up were banned from joining the military or mercenary bands, or from participating in politics), or from player choice (most players chose to play as Alexios). Oh, and Fire Emblem Fates' 'canon' version of Corrin is the female one, as shown in Engage, and while Ephraim shares an Emblem Ring with his female co-star in terms of gameplay, Ephraim never appears in Bond conversations or in the hub.
This a well said and greatly edited video. Great job dmod! Always love a good microtransaction / corporate greed rant
Edit: Spelling
I didn’t know about that shady practice for encouraging accidental purchases. Well done for publicising this.
I remember who I believe to be the director of God of War Ragnarok in an interview saying he actively chose not to include freakin Mjönir as a playable weapon in the game as that would’ve been too “easy and predictable”. Despite thinking the game was great this line stuck with me bc it just sounds like the most pitiful Hollywood-esque reason for a choice in game design, and I think its an ideology that will be largely detrimental to video games if widely adopted.
I hadn't heard that. Bruh, it's a game. I want to smash things with legendary hammer. Often the obvious choice is one to roll with - especially if it means making a video game FUN
Seriously where did this fetish for subverting expectations just 'cause/avoiding the obvious choice no matter how much sense it makes and how good it'd be come from and why did it spread like wildfire throughout entertainment industiries despite it being widely despised by the general audiences?
Hey, you may not have been able to weild Thor's hammer Mjolnir, but you're going to have a ton of fun riding a yak around picking apples while having your ear bit off by two akward teenagers. Doesn't that sound much better?
I didn't realize the scope of this video when I started watching it. I assumed it was simply about gameplay mechanics, but the scope of it was obviously far greater. Not what I thought, so much better. Great vid!
We need more people like you
We deserve more
AAA industry can be much more than this
Thank you for this transparency and honesty
None of these are even close to the worse design trends. There are design trends that have been _critically_ suppressing the potential of video games for decades. And most of it comes down to developers not understanding basic mechanic design, or how to derive depth from interplay.
Honestly, nowadays the only games i buy are single player, with no micro transactions and at least 6 months after release, it's just not worth it to me spending my money to feed practices that i don't agree with and it bothers me seeing these companies being "rewarded" by players while taking advantage of them.
I FINALLY GOT A VIDEO NOTIFICATION FROM YOUR CHANNEL!!!
RUclips pls
Personally I'm getting tired of games that don't actually have any real decisions for you to make but only give you the "illusion of control" during a story that is linear. Why not just make a movie?! It's a video game as in: GAME! Im supposed to be challenged!
It's insane how the type of players that allowed the gaming industry to grow is now the niche minority that investors are afraid to please because of the risk involved in making original and fun things instead of releasing the same all over again
Gear crafting really ruined god of war Ragnarok for me. You'd think that a core design philosophy for development would be: "the less time spent fiddling about in menus the better" but apparently not 🙄
Great video. More like this, please!
I agree 100%. I prefer single player games which are complete. Back in the day expansion packs became a thing but if you liked the game it was a no brainer. Now, I'm not into multiplayer games or live service. If the gamers in general support these I'll just stick to the older games that I liked. The industry will never be the same again
Level caps in RPG's.
"Wow, I'm really enjoying the story! Lets do the next quest-"
"Nuh-uh! Your level isn't high enough! Do tons of shitty side quests to get to the recommended level so by the time you're done the pacing of the story sucks, and your investment is lowered!"
"But that sucks..."
"Well there *is* the microstransactions to raise your level..."
Also I highly recommend Ultrakill. It’s like doom on crack
Great list. I agree so much with everything here. I’d have to say my least favorite thing in gaming now is releases being basically unfinished. There is not much worse than getting hyped up for a game and it’s unplayable on release. It does seem like the methodology now is to release broken and patch. Have game companies never heard the “you only get one first impression” adage?
When I played return of the obra dinn, at the end I felt like solving the puzzle was the reward, not whether I got a purple or gold weapon.
I like how most of this shit comes only from AAA or AA games, and not from gigachad indie games
Wait till you discover indie mascot horror games
The only game Dev trend i like is making stealth optinal in all games especially platformers and RPGs It would bring creativity in gamer's playstyles and builds but the only weakness in this trend that makes stealth games a bit redundant now of days and that's why there's not too many stealth games that much
I love how theDeModcracy doesn't try to be a guy who speaks only good about the famous stuff. He calls out the devs when they make stupid design decisions in their games, be it famous games Elden Ring, FF16, or Sony movie games, this man speaks his heart out. That is why you are my fav creator. And TBH, I agree with all of them.
Hey dmod. If you need any game recommendations. There’s this awesome little metroidvania game called touhou Luna nights. It has awesome combat with very unique mechanics. It’s available on steam and it’s has awesome boss fights
Will give it a look! Despite my complaints in this video, my backlog is still a mile long with worthwhile games to try out
I would give demod 100 bucks if he somehow goes into the touhou rabbit hole
This entire list just feels like something i would see on r/gaming, and the title of the post starts off as "Unpopular Opinion....."
Omg I 💯 agree with number 10! I kinda hate how on the nose it is, sometimes it pisses me off to see damn near almost every AAA game (Sony, Xbox) Nintendo at least tries. We need more of these types of videos.
I will never get tired of hearing strickerbrush ramble that song literally can bring some nostalgic tears to my eyes sometimes
I listen to the DKC2 soundtrack regularly to this day
@@theDeModcracy I know right!!! But stickerbrush symphony is on another level!! Not bashing the rest of the soundtrack or any of the donkey Kong country soundtracks but that one “slaps” or is “bussin” as the kids say hahahaha but truly makes my eyes well up a bit every once in a while….btw thanks for the reply you rock man!!! Keep up the good work brotha!! Umbassa!!
Funny you mentioned What Remains of Edith Finch, which should go into a category called "Games that aren't actually games"
The FlyFF Soundtrack on Nr.10 hit me hard in the feelings
KUDOS on mainly using examples from games released this year, thats the best part in my opinion helps make it so fresh in the mind.
I feel like everyone complains about a lot of these topics but as a way to brush it under the rug most people talk about the most egregious examples and not some of the most recent mistakes in such an insane year for gaming releases
I'll never stop until Demod ranks Tears of the Kingdom bosses
worst design trend is charging extra (aka delux edition) just to play the game "early". Shameless cringe marketing that more and more companies are doing, very cringe and soulless.
6:34 a good example of this is mortal kombat 11, that is a game which doesn't allow the player to zoom in on a single texture, and yet all of them are rendered in 4k at any given moment, this makes the game 150gb which is an entire elden ring of file size larger than the newer mk1, and yet they can cut back on literally every single texture in the whole game, which will drastically reduce the file size and increase performance, and yet will not change how the game looks.
Yeah. People kinda forget human eye can only see so much. Like you are activley hurting yourself by making textures 4K but it does not matter because you are not selling the look of the game but the buzzword of 4k textures.
One thing I'll say is that padding is not exclusive to new games. I've been playing a lot of old games lately which artificially lengthen the game by tedious grinding, unbearable backtracking, and some questionable quest designs. The only difference between them is that in few cases, it was done to make the playtime longer because of hardware limitations of that time, versus now where it is usually done because of lack of care or to keep people playing for long enough to make them rather pay for shortcuts.
I think this guy just doesn’t like gaming😂 I’d recommend reading, going to an art museum, watching tv/movies, playing a sport, etc.
I despise slowly walking across bridges/squeezing through cracks. So boring and tedious.
@@one-fk1ko kinda true ngl.
Oh boy, this is certainly going to be an interesting watch!
And what is worse is 2077 is still the gift that keeps on giving. Picked it up again after Phantom Liberty launched and got 30 levels into the DLC before coming home and seeing my save was corrupted.
Apparently the PS5 version had a chance of corrupted your profile. Not just the recent save, but all saved connected to the DLC. The patch they released to fix it, only fixed new saves. So I have to restart the game ALL over again.
Sorry. But my salt for 2077 is still strong.
An excellent Video Demod - I am impressed by your script.
Number 10 is actually the biggest thing for me - I call this depth through gameplay. Uncharted was always a culprit to me in that regard. I like the stories and cutscene Nathan - he is funny, witty, intelligent and likable. I do not like Gameplay-Nathan - or Terminator-Nathan, who wipes out entire armies and catches grenades with his teeth. Nathan is intelligent, but Naughty Dog does not believe their players are, that is why it is a very basic shooter.
The greatest example to me is the Anju and Kafei Questline in Majoras Mask. Reverting time at the end and seeing the masked Kafei coming your way on the first day, after going through the hardships (story- and gameplay-wise) of reuniting him with the love of his life a minute before, is heartbreaking. It combines gameplay and narrative in a perfect way.
The other example is Ico. One of the most emotional Stories I ever witnessed, almost exlusively told through gameplay with minimal dialogue. But all Fueda games are awesome.
These are games, that could never work in other media, unless they are drastically rewritten. They understood how the media of video games could be used to tell a story in a way that books or tv-shows never could.
I'm so glad your back.
In addition to micro-transactions and live update models, I think the core problem in the modern industry is this bizarre fixation AAA organizations have with attempting to create cinema rather than games. Polished gameplay, fun and rewarding mechanics, art direction, and even quality storytelling all come secondary to graphics and spectacle. They’ve just blurred the line so hard that most of these big titles feel like an uninspired movie with you as the projectionist keeping it rolling, except all you do is press the D-Pad in one of 4 directions and tap ‘X’.
I've honestly come to loathe how repetitive realism is in games. And I barely have time to play open world games, which is frustrating because I want to play many of them.