As we head closer to the launch of the PS5 and whatever the hell numbering the next Xbox has, I thought I'd take a look at the current generation and see what I thought went wrong and stopped this generation of gaming from being remembered fondly.
Media Centres
This isn't a negative on the console as having the ability to stream, play blu rays and incorporate things like Spotify have been incredible features on this generations consoles, the negative however is that these features overshadow the console and it's games as a result. My Xbox one s is used for this and I still play the previous generations consoles more than this one.
Lack of Strong, Original Titles
Don't get me wrong, there have been some good games on this generation's consoles but nothing substantial. The last gen had Uncharted, Mass Effect, Assassins Creed, God of War, Gears of War, Borderlands, Dark Souls, the Batman Arkham series and more whereas I struggle to name anything from this generation that I'd like to see more of (outside of Overwatch, that game was awesome!).
Too Many Remasters/HD Collections and Backwards Compatability
As I write this article, I have just finished another play through of Batman: Arkham Asylum on the 360 and currently getting stuck in with the first Devil May Cry again (the ps2 title). My most played games on the Xbox one and ps4 have been Final Fantasys 7 to 14 (with 14 being the only one from the current gen), the Assasins Creed Collections (collecting the previous gen's games), the Metal Gear HD collection (because the ps2 era of Metal Gear is my favourite era of Metal Gear), Minecraft and a bunch of Lego games (these are with my 7 year old but also all games that came out on the last gen with the exclusion of Lego Marvel 2). Of those games there are hardly any that warrant getting a new console for, let alone regarding it as one of the greats.
Sequels Falling Flat/Unfinished Releases
I'm going to start this by using Assassins Creed as a prime example. It's first current-gen title was Black Flag which, while fantastic, had already been released on the 360, with only graphical enhancments separating it from the previous gen's version. This was followed up by Unity which was famously unfinished and featured unplayable missions and laughable cutscene glitches. The unplayable mission thing was patched almost immediately but by that point I'd pretty much given up on the game. Then the Ezio collection was released, containing the 3 previous gen titles focused on the story started in Assassins Creed II and pretty much killed off any interest in Unity by comparison. I gave Origins a chance on release but couldn't get into it as it didn't feel like a traditional Assassins Creed game (outside of the frigging walking quests).
Then there's the Batman Arkham series. This series is one of the best series in gaming history but, to me, peaked in the first instalment. Arkham Asylum is a fantastic love letter to the source material. Don't get me wrong - City, Origins and Knight are all strong titles too, but Asylum is hands down the best entry for me. The issue this series had was it's need to increase the scale for each sequel. The first was confined to the titular Asylum, then City to a portion of Gotham that had been locked down and converted to a large scale prison (which worked) then Origins covered a similar scope and by the time Knight rolled out it was the entirety of Gotham complete with the Batmobile (which sounds awesome but got old really fast with the amount of tank battles and races thrown in there). With the increase in scale came an increase in collectables which took the fun, exploratory nature of them from Asylum and turned them into a frustrating chore.
One of the games that I've picked up every year for the past two decades is the annual WWE game. Starting with SmackDown in 1999 by THQ, the series has been a staple of my gaming year ever since. However back in 2013 THQ went under and the games were taken over by 2K Studios. This saw the same game copied and pasted across the following 3 years on the 360/PS3 while the current gen versions continued to improve each year from 2K15 onwards. Throughout all of these games, Yukes had been greatly involved until the latest release, WWE 2K20, which is still a gltichy, unfinished mess some 6 months after release. The sad thing is, we know that 2K21 is going to be released in 6 months time so if 2K tries to fix 2K20 then it will more than likely be at the expense of 2K21 meaning 2K20 is unlikely to ever be finished.
In summary, this generations crop of gaming is destined to be an afterthought unlike such eras as the 360/PS3, PS2/Game Cube, PlayStation One/N64, Mega drive/SNES eras, all of which have offered up classics that I still play to this day. I honestly can't think of a single game from the current generation that I'll be playing in 5 years time, let alone 20 (such as Devil May Cry, Final Fantasy X, Metal Gear 2 and the whole side scrolling Sonic library).
Good point, I think places like CEX, Cash Converters and the global equivalents also do a lot to drive the value of games down which 10 years ago we'd only have a couple of places that offered trade ins and usually good value ones at that. It's good for us that we can pick up a top title such as Fallout 4 for a couple of quid but sucks for the developers/studios as it drives their profits down as a result.
One of the problems with this current generation and it will probably be the same with this next generation is that making games for these consoles is very expensive. Studios are less likely to try out a new IP or original title because of the risk of it not selling and recuperating the expense spent on making a new title. Hence the reason we have COD, FIFA, Assasin Creeds titles coming out of our ears because the publishers know these well-known titles will sell. This is why if you want originality in games, it makes sense to go for the Nintendo Switch. This is because making games for that platform is a lot cheaper, therefore developers and publisher are willing…