For those of us left out in the cold, 2021 was a rough year. I bought exactly one game that was completely new in 2021 (not counting remasters or add on content for old games), and that was Biomutant.
I also bought AC Valhalla, which came out in 2020, but the base PS4 version is clearly inferior to the ones for the PS4 Pro and PS5, and while I enjoyed the game, it was a bit frustrating because of that.
And that's it. Nothing else that was completely new for this year. For me, the most barren year in my history as a Sony gamer, easily. Nothing else is close, as I typically buy 5-8 new games a year. And for now, since I'm not going to settle for base PS4 versions of PS5 games that I want to eventually have, 2022 doesn't look much better.
@Unlucky13 At the end of the day, PS4 is last gen now. We’re into year 2 of PS5 and while circumstances are extraordinary, it’s to be expected that PS4 support will be winding down. Just a wholly bad situation all round.
Nope.
Year 2021 was still too early to say lack of PS5 game choices.
Some PS5 games i can wait for next year when i have a right time to get those games.
Currently, i'm content with Planet Coaster, R&C Rift Apart, Bibi & Tina at the Horse Darm, Park Beyond, Spirit of the North for PS5 games i can pick.
If you limit yourself to original PS4 games released in 2021 that didn’t come to PS5 then you’re going to have slim pickings. The only other example I can think of is Ys9. The same is true for PS5 games that didn’t come to PS4. Cross gen is where most of the action is right now when it comes to original games.
The PS4 still has a vast library games . Many of which are still worth playing. Even if they’re starting to feel a little retro at this point.
Until about a month ago, I had only purchased about 3 or 4 games this year, 2 of which were PS5 exclusives (Returnal, Rift Apart). Then I have gone on a buying binge once the prices have started dropping and the big end of the year sales hit. So I’ve added 5 more in just the last month or so, and they are mostly games released within 2020 and 2021. So even with my buying spree, 8 games purchased this year is probably lower than a typical year. It’s probably been since 2016 that I’ve had purchase numbers in this range. I think I usually am in the 10-12 games/year range, but I honestly haven’t always kept a perfect accounting.
Good news is that I’ve completed 20 games this year, so mg backlog has been trimmed by a good amount, so I’m grateful for that! 😄
“We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.”
Didn't buy any new PS4 games this year, since it's not my primary console, but it's not like the system had a lack of games I was interested in. Nocturne HD, Ys IX, Tales of Arise, NieR Replicant, P5 Strikers, RE Village, Kena, Lost Judgment, etc. Also, that Ghost of Tsushima expansion also released for PS4, right?
It was a pretty decent year on PS4.
From the sound of it, the "emptiness" of the year was caused almost entirely by your unwillingness to play these games on the last-gen console you already own. Which is fine, but also entirely self-imposed.
It's definitely been quite the opposite for me. I've bought so many games on PS4 that came out this year: NieR: Replicant, Ys IX, Shin Megami Tensei III Remaster, Tales of Arise, Lost Judgment, Scarlet Nexus, to name a couple. Not to mention games that came out on both PS4 and Switch but that I bought on Switch, e.g. Persona 5 Strikers, NEO: The World Ends With You and so on. I probably would've bought even more if I hadn't bought so much already lol. I still want to buy games like Guardians of the Galaxy, Far Cry 6, Resident Evil 8, Disco Elysium and more.
But yeah, looking at these aforementioned games, there's a clear trend of mostly Japanese games having come out this year. That might be why there are some people who haven't bought many PS4 games this year as Japanese titles aren't their thing. But if you're a fan of Japanese games, then this year has been absolutely exceptional!
@LtSarge I used to be a big fan of Japanese games. From the NES, to the SNES, to the PS1 to the PS2. But starting in the PS3 era, the games from over there that appealed to me started to slow a lot. Largely because Square and other JRPG studios didn't seem to have a good handle on how to evolve their games as technology improved, and took FOREVER to put new titles out.
For me, Final Fantasy 12, right at the very end of the PS2 era, is the pinnacle of Japanese gaming from my end, and everything has been downhill since. I would be absolutely thrilled to play a game like that with today's graphics and increased memory capacity, ect, but I don't think anything like that is in the pipes.
I own a PS4 Pro and I’ve been more than happy to play all the cross gen games on it. Sure games like Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy, Tales of Arise, Resident Evil Village, Kena: Bridge of Spirits, Lost Judgement and Far Cry 6 are obviously better on PS5, but I think the PS4 versions hold up extremely well. Doesn’t hurt that I swapped my stock hardrive for an SSD!
@Bentleyma- I believe you. As someone who just has a base model PS4 from 2014, I think I'm just asking for a disappointing experience should I try any of these games.
@Unlucky13 I haven't heard that many bad things about most of the games from this year. Guardians of the Galaxy apparently doesn't run well on base PS4, but I also saw that they released a patch for it so maybe the performance is better now. But games such as Resident Evil 8 and Far Cry 6 run at 60 and 30 FPS respectively on base PS4, so there are still plenty of new games worth playing on base PS4. I highly recommend looking up analysis videos (such as the ones by Digital Foundry) in order to find out which games are still worth getting if you only have base PS4.
@LtSarge My experience has been pretty rough with lighting and shadows, in particular, over the last few years. Games often either look "flat" and basic, or else are far too dark to the point of being difficult to see. Its gotten progressively worse since about 2018, and in the past year since the PS5 came out, you can clearly see it in comparrison videos that show the three versions all side by side.
Its one thing for a PS4 game to look worse than a PS5 version, which is expected. Its another to look signinfigantly worse than a previous PS4 game in the same series, which is now commonly the case.
I mostly play RPG (mostly Western these days) , action RPG and sports games, and this has been the case with nearly everything that I've been interested in/own.
@Unlucky13 Seems to be the general situation whenever a mid-gen refresh or successor happens. XB1 game performance was poor from 2018 onwards due to XB1X and then was worse again in 2020 due to Series X|S, 3DS game performance was poor from 2015 onwards due to New 3DS, etc.
It's why some see Switch not having a successor or mid-gen refresh at this point as a big positive.
I haven’t gotten my hands on a PS5 yet, but I’ve been having fun with the PS4. I rarely buy games at full price when they first come out because they become discounted quickly, so I’ve been scooping up gobs of PS4 games as they go on sale, and I’ve been playing those.
@Grumblevolcano Xbone performance wasn't great to begin with, though. Xbone X just gave Xbox owners a better option.
Same with Switch. Not having a mid-gen revision isn't leading to more well-optimized games, it just means we're stuck with a model that's having trouble running modern games.
It's certainly frustrating. In all previous PS generations, games got progressively better towards the end of the lifecycle. And while they may not have been as good as the new games on the next console, they were almost always better than the ones from a few years earlier. Many times, this was a point where the devs put everything into maximizing what they could do with the current hardware before moving on, and we got some really great games out of it.
The fact that many are now actually WORSE than games from the same publisher on the same console from several years back feels like a slap in the face. Its just not right.
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Topic: Was 2021 the most empty year in PS history if you couldn't get a PS5?
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