made a lil joke in the title there
The genre is almost ten years old now and I've been doing some SERIOUS HEAVY THINKING on where it's at presently and where it's gonna go. I expect GTA's popularity to dwindle over time - no future entry in the series will outsell San Andreas, for sure - but it will remain massively profitable on the condition that Rockstar doesn't completely shit itself when it comes to extravagant budgets and employee treatment, which isn't a given. Beyond GTA there's a bunch of stuff, but not nearly as much as the popularity of the daddy franchise would suggest. Mafia, Saint's Row, Red Faction, Bully, Just Cause, Infamous, Prototype, Assassin's Creed, Red Dead, Crackdown, question mark, question mark. The future of some of these series seems to be in peril. Red Faction already went in a lamentably different direction. Mafia II underperformed. Crackdown 2 was, by most accounts, a mess.
Where are the new franchises? This is an issue with most genres but I seriously can't think of a single new upcoming open world action IP. I might be missing something, but the whole thing seems pretty barren. LA Noire did well, but didn't it cost approx. seven billion Australian dollars to make? I don't expect many publishers to throw money at a similarly costly experiment.
Saint's Row 3 is on its way, as is Prototype 2. After that, GTAV?
This generation has seen a great deal of evolution/maturation of open world action games, to the point where they're no longer simple GTA clones. Whether emphasis is placed on mobility gameplay, rigorous simulation, slow exploration, big dumb explosions, or just plain glorified mini game collections (love you Bully), I'll lap it all up. There are still so many unexplored settings and different styles of gameplay to be incorporated. Even at their worst they still offer the player to inhabit a detailed, sprawling, desolate, fantastical, realistic world, which is what drew me to games in the first place.
I'd love to see more RPG mechanics that would allow for more worthwhile interaction and exploration. I want dialogue trees hell yes. I want perspectives beyond the third person. I want 2D and first person. Far Cry 2 was a noble failure. Prey 2 is looking like a wet dream. I'm sure people can come up with all kinds of things. Where to go from here?
The genre is almost ten years old now and I've been doing some SERIOUS HEAVY THINKING on where it's at presently and where it's gonna go. I expect GTA's popularity to dwindle over time - no future entry in the series will outsell San Andreas, for sure - but it will remain massively profitable on the condition that Rockstar doesn't completely shit itself when it comes to extravagant budgets and employee treatment, which isn't a given. Beyond GTA there's a bunch of stuff, but not nearly as much as the popularity of the daddy franchise would suggest. Mafia, Saint's Row, Red Faction, Bully, Just Cause, Infamous, Prototype, Assassin's Creed, Red Dead, Crackdown, question mark, question mark. The future of some of these series seems to be in peril. Red Faction already went in a lamentably different direction. Mafia II underperformed. Crackdown 2 was, by most accounts, a mess.
Where are the new franchises? This is an issue with most genres but I seriously can't think of a single new upcoming open world action IP. I might be missing something, but the whole thing seems pretty barren. LA Noire did well, but didn't it cost approx. seven billion Australian dollars to make? I don't expect many publishers to throw money at a similarly costly experiment.
Saint's Row 3 is on its way, as is Prototype 2. After that, GTAV?
This generation has seen a great deal of evolution/maturation of open world action games, to the point where they're no longer simple GTA clones. Whether emphasis is placed on mobility gameplay, rigorous simulation, slow exploration, big dumb explosions, or just plain glorified mini game collections (love you Bully), I'll lap it all up. There are still so many unexplored settings and different styles of gameplay to be incorporated. Even at their worst they still offer the player to inhabit a detailed, sprawling, desolate, fantastical, realistic world, which is what drew me to games in the first place.
I'd love to see more RPG mechanics that would allow for more worthwhile interaction and exploration. I want dialogue trees hell yes. I want perspectives beyond the third person. I want 2D and first person. Far Cry 2 was a noble failure. Prey 2 is looking like a wet dream. I'm sure people can come up with all kinds of things. Where to go from here?
