> t felt like the 00s and 10s were marked by 'everything you expect, with one magical new feature.'
In fairness, this was often enough to make a game really stand out and inject a lot more fun into an otherwise expected formula.
It's certainly a lot better than what the 2020s have been so far imo. There have been a couple of stand-out games this decade but mostly I'm so interested in anything the AAA portion of the industry is doing. No one seems to be pushing things forward almost at all anymore from what I can tell
Granted! I have my preferences, but I recognize that both Halo and Gears were amazingly designed and executed games.
Personally, I'd just rather have a tragically-flawed but also creatively-great Populus, Lemmings, Myst, or Worms.
> No one seems to be pushing things forward almost at all anymore from what I can tell
Imho, that's the tyranny of spectacle budget. At any given time, it costs this much to make something that meets state of the art, and gamers expect state of the art from their AAA games.
Hopefully gen-AI provides a (still-likely temporary) reprieve from that, by lowering the cost of AAA-quality via more efficient labor and therefore making publishers take more risk on unique games.
In fairness, this was often enough to make a game really stand out and inject a lot more fun into an otherwise expected formula.
It's certainly a lot better than what the 2020s have been so far imo. There have been a couple of stand-out games this decade but mostly I'm so interested in anything the AAA portion of the industry is doing. No one seems to be pushing things forward almost at all anymore from what I can tell