7 Gaming Trends That NEED TO RETURN in 2023

The Video Game World is one that has

constant change in it some stuff sticks

around some of it disappears it’s not

always the good stuff that sticks around

either hi folks it’s Falcon and today on

game ranks seven gaming trends that need

to come back in 2023. I don’t want to

mess around I’m just gonna hit number

seven right off because this is the drum

that I frankly love beating it makes a

great sound and wow it would be awesome

if it got paid a little bit more

attention by the industry so number

seven is gonna be feature complete games

at launch this is one of those that just

has to be said in the past few years

there has been a noticeable increase in

the amount of Unfinished games being

released and I don’t mean Early Access

games I mean games that should be early

access games put into retail boxes and

digital downloads in the various

storefronts that don’t have everything

in them that they’re intended to and oh

let’s not get started it on the bugs

sometimes they eventually get fixed too

but here’s the thing that really blows

my app in mind sometimes they don’t like

they’re just like all right well we put

out an incomplete game hope you like it

in a world where patches are possible

like are you not concerned if I will buy

the next game it’s really nice when they

do get fixed but it’s also kind of weird

that releases are no longer about when

the game comes out they’re also about

the following months when it gets

updated when the performance improves or

when the devs finally manage to patch in

some features that they promised but

never did like it’s so much worse with

the games that pretend to be finished

too but it’s still annoying to have to

sort through all these actual Early

Access games like I know I was

complaining about the releases that are

Early Access but aren’t really but Early

Access isn’t quarantined to steam

anymore you can get an early access game

just about anywhere and it’s annoying to

deal with as a complication when you’re

reading about the game figuring out off

I’m gonna buy this I’m looking at a game

sounds interesting I’m thinking wow

these features these ideas sound real

cool oh it’s in Early Access everything

is including the games that aren’t in

Early Access yes Early Access works

great for a lot of games out there I’m

not gonna say it doesn’t but there is a

certain threshold that a game needs to

be for it to be okay to release An Early

Access version of it and it varies upon

the scope and idea of the project shirt

but as a player of games I want to play

a finished game not something piecemeal

that might look completely different

when the game actually comes out which

could be years away or in the case of

Star Citizen freaking never now I’m not

saying that early access is bad for an

indie developer trying to raise money to

finish a game it’s off in a way that

works better than Kickstarter in fact

and the good sales look good in terms of

promoting the game but like something

like Disney’s dream light Valley

that shouldn’t have come out in Early

Access that’s too far like do you you

think the Disney Corporation really

needs to raise enough money to finish

their game I no they can afford it so is

it so much to ask to get a complete game

at launch and no I’m not even

complaining about day one patches if

they ship a game gold and continue

working on it until the day of release I

I know that we all used to complain a

lot about that but you know what that’s

actually awesome when a day one patch is

the difference between a super buggy

game and a complete game and sometimes

it is that’s actually fine even if the

publisher is trying to rush a game out

but man a lot of games really come out

in a rough State a cyberpunk 2077 that’s

a full sentence I don’t need to say

anything else that is the subject that

is the predicate the noun the verb

that’s the whole thing the only upside

is that somehow a lot of big developers

are allowed to actually continue working

on their games and fix it that’s the

only upside to this and it’s an upside

that if this wasn’t a problem wouldn’t

have have to be an upside and number six

is curated marketplaces so marketplaces

suck they’re hard to navigate they’re

slow they’re overloaded with shovelware

it used to be a big deal when something

like life of the black tiger came out on

PSN but every day is Black Tiger day on

PSN the same way every day is Friday at

Wendy’s most of the crap we’re talking

about isn’t even a game a lot of it is

scams stuff that would have been laughed

out of the Xbox Live indie game service

for being awful most of them have barely

any gameplay they can be finished in

five to ten minutes like pretty much

every free online arcade has games that

are better than these and it used to

just be steam with all of the shovelware

but now compared to eShop and PSN the

steam store is like an oasis it didn’t

used to be this way either it used to be

the console Marketplace that were super

curated and moderated you’d see like a

few releases a week and you know it gave

games the chance to stand out and be

noticed and now a lot of really good

indie game games get totally lost and

ignored basically the only way you’d be

able to find the good ones is through

Word of Mouth like Nintendo Nintendo

they used to be especially ruthless

about what would show up at the eShop

and just being on the platform was like

a sign that there was a certain

threshold Max and it is not like that

now and let me just quickly say I don’t

think that Mega type moderation that

ends up rejecting would-be masterpieces

is good and that’s something that we saw

a few years ago in a lot of these places

but the alternative there is to have

bigger moderation teams that are able to

check out more material not just open

the friggin floodgates and let everyone

in because frankly we are in the era of

the spam game

and number five and I think a lot of

people are gonna back me up on this one

the double a publisher like I talk about

this all the time with so many different

people this is one of my main theories

of why we don’t see as many good games

now there’s basic basically types of

games anymore indie games and AAA games

and there’s almost nothing in between I

mean we see a few double A but way back

there was a thriving double A industry

with Publishers that were not the big

dog but they were putting out major

games like old school THQ Acclaim Atlas

marvelous Incorporated not every single

one of these games were great but they

had budgets behind them and they were

often more interesting and Innovative

than the stuff coming out of the AAA

space and the reason for that is your

only options were not pixel art game

made by one guy and most realistic

expensive project you’ve ever seen made

by a couple thousand people the market

had a lot in between those things

further a lot of the double A Publishers

could just take risks the AAA Publishers

can’t and it’s because they have budgets

but they don’t have the biggest budgets

instead of saying hey here’s a half

billion dollars to make a game they say

hey here’s 30 million give us the best

you can out 30 million they’re gonna go

you know what let’s do more than anybody

has done with 30 million dollars and

then I’m making something that makes a

half billion dollars and then they’re

not a double A you know game studio

anymore but yeah and that doesn’t mean

everything that came out of THQ or a

claim was great uh there’s a reason why

those companies don’t exist at least as

they did back then THQ is a completely

different thing now but the good sticks

out in our memories a lot more than the

bad because these games with moderate

budgets were often still very high

quality thankfully it does seem like the

industry is kind of heeding this yeah

they’re these big Publishers like

Ubisoft and EA that are clicking on to

the few massive hits that keep them

afloat there are smaller Publishers out

there that are just consistently putting

out really good games I’m talking about

companies like Annapurna devolver

digital Focus entertainment like they’ve

been quietly releasing some of the best

games the last few years and sometimes

they’re as good or even better than some

of the AAA stuff

and number four is shorter games like

look at the major games from the last

year and there’s gonna be something that

stands out they’re huge God of War

Ragnarok Rising forbidden West Elden

ring midnight Sons Dying Light two

Xenoblade Chronicles 3 them deciding

that we can play Persona 5 on any

platform we want now but all these games

take minimum 30 hours and you know what

at this point 30 hours almost feels like

a shorter game I know it’s cliche for a

game reviewer or commentator or whatever

to complain games too long because we’re

lazy we want to finish the review faster

you know do our job quicker but here’s

the thing I love long games in the 1990s

I played Final Fantasy games because it

would take me forever to beat them and I

loved living in those worlds but they

were also among the very few games that

took that long to beat when every single

game is that long it’s just exhausting

that’s when you start to realize that

the goal of the games is to be longer

because you start seeing a lot of games

where the content doesn’t match the

length and the game just ends up tedious

it’s a common complaint with the recent

Assassin’s Creed games and while I do

like the style of those games I think

they could be shorter like I was ready

for Valhalla to end long before it ended

doesn’t mean I think Valhalla is bad I

actually think it’s incredible it just

wears out its welcome and everybody has

an idea about how long a game should be

for a lot of people 100 hours should be

the Baseline maybe because they only

play one game a year anyway so they want

their money’s worth for others 12 hours

is more than enough and they’re ready to

move on to something else what counts as

long as different for everybody we all

have different schedules and different

tastes but what really matters is the

quality of the content there’s a lot of

stuff that’s in games that isn’t there

to be fun or even interesting or even

really add anything other than time to

the experience and that just wow it

could stop and I’d be happy I’m pretty

excited about Assassin’s Creed Mirage

for this reason it’s apparently going to

be a more focused experience that is

more like the older Assassin’s Creed

games so it’s gonna be shorter My Hope

Is that it’ll lead to a better game that

people actually like and it’s a huge hit

because if it does end up being a flop

we’re probably only getting the big ones

from now on and that’s not to say I

don’t want the big ones I want both give

me a mirage and a Valhalla give the

valhallas the longer development cycles

and maybe release two or three of the

mirages in the meantime I mean there’s

plenty of Exceptions there are short

games coming out if you look for them

but they’re not the biggest games of the

year so companies take it down a notch

and number three is weird experimental

games from major Publishers the video

game industry used to be like the wild

west Innovation was constantly happening

and game design is just something that

kind of happened people had ideas and

they turned them into games and

sometimes it made sense and worked

sometimes it didn’t they still put it

out and Yeah it led to a lot of crap but

seems like there’s more crap nowadays

than there was then so what gives we

just talked about the lack of curation

on the storefronts did we not but it

seems like in terms of the larger

developers in recent years everything is

super Focus grouped play tested and

carefully crafted yeah a lot of the time

that’s probably for the best because it

does mean the games meet a certain

standard but it also feels like there’s

something a little bit lost let’s look

at some some of the games that Sony put

out for PlayStation back in 1996 uh

Crash Bandicoot 3D platformer Aqua nuts

holiday Scuba Diving Game PaRappa the

Rapper cartoon rhythm game Twisted Metal

2 car combat game and epidemic and FPS I

know what was a different time but

that’s a ton of variety from one

publisher in one year in total Sony

published or co-published 48 games in

1996. in 2022 they published six games

two of them were remasters one was a

baseball game one was a racing game and

two of them were open world action games

look at every major publisher like

Activision or EA similar Trend yes

Indies are giving us the nice weird

ideas but I kind of miss big developers

doing it too like Crash Bandicoot

actually is an extremely weird

experimental game where Naughty Dog

literally had to program for the

PlayStation in a way that they weren’t

allowed to that’s a weird story if you

want to look into it but PaRappa the

Rapper what is that you never see that

from AAA now and number two is the since

serious serious shooter we were all sick

to death in the mid-2000s the brown and

Bloom every major game was desaturated

murky and laughably self-serious when

games started to have color that felt

like a revelation nobody could ever

possibly want to go back to the old days

right and look I get it I was right

there with everybody else complaining

and I think if that’s all that

everything was I probably would complain

again but we have gone so far in the

other direction it’s not just colorful

it’s like garish and the plots they’re

like cartoons it’s it’s like a Marvel

movie where everything is self-aware

everything’s like making fun of the fact

that it’s a video game I get it Bioshock

really did a great piece of satire but

it wasn’t necessarily to even be funny

it was toying with what you thought

about a game at the time and I am a

millennial I am completely a millennial

but I am tired of millennial

sensibilities like think about it gears

5 Halo infinite Far Cry 6 these games

are super colorful super jokey less

serious is like even Modern Warfare 2

has kind of a cartoony action movie Vibe

especially if you compare it to the dark

relatively at least by Cod standards

grounded storytelling of the previous

Arcane is taking this direction like

prey was super serious death Loop was

kind of goofy although I’m not

complaining about death Loop redfall

almost seems like it’s gonna be kind of

more of the same I don’t know the game

looks good anyways but that doesn’t mean

I want devs just chasing the popularity

of fortnite or MCU or whatever it just

seems too far in that direction and it’s

less that I don’t want humor at all in

games and more like I don’t think every

game needs to be a comedy game some

games can be serious and within a

serious game there can be humor like

every other entry on this list there are

some super big exceptions like tail

Requiem Elden ring fantastic game super

serious but as far as Shooters Go

Everything feels like it’s bright and

colorful and irreverent and I know that

Saints Row isn’t primarily as shooter

but I think that’s representative of

what everything’s supposed to be now and

nobody liked it I’d just like to see

some more grounded games that’s all

and finally at number one peripherals

yeah this actually kind of started out

as a joke but then we kind of started to

talk about it and realize there might be

something there you might be wondering

what a smoking but hear me out so the

mid-2000s was just the time for game

peripherals the Wii came out was

flooding the market with cheap plastic

crap you could strap on your Wiimote

there was the Guitar Hero Rock Band

stuff Undisputed Kings of that first

Guitar Hero hit in 2005 we hit in 2006

major sweet spot right there these days

the best you’re getting for peripherals

are some alternate controllers maybe a

carrying case for the switch and

sometimes Nintendo will put out some

weird thing that works for a single game

but that’s about it and no I don’t think

anybody’s clamoring for a return to the

days of the Wii or a Wii too motion

controls can stay mostly dead but when

something is mostly dead that means it’s

partly alive I think there’s some room

for some goofy alternate controllers

remember the chainsaw controller yeah

Resident Evil 4 is coming out again

right give us a chainsaw controller man

and but the thing that I think people

are actually nostalgic for is rock band

those are amazing games even if

Activision managed to run Guitar Hero

into the ground some kind of Revival of

that would probably do pretty well I

mean look at the Clone hero Community

there’s so many people out there just

want to play these games again that fans

went and made a new one themselves and

it’s actually a pretty popular and

active game but like make the

peripherals a little less junky instead

of cheap plastic crap makes some quality

plastic crap I don’t know how many

people are gonna be on board for that

but like I want to play rock band again

I can’t possibly be the only one and

that’s all for today leave us a comment

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very much for watching this video I’m

Falcon you can follow me on Twitter at

Falcon the hero and we’ll see you next

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