Topic: Your thoughts on 2024 in gaming?

I know we have a GOTY thread already, but this is less about your individual GOTYs for the year, and more about what you thought about the year in gaming as a whole.

For me, it feels almost impossible to say it was truly a weak year because of how many big tent pole releases we had, but yet I still can’t help but feel somewhat cold on this year, anyway.

I feel like this year was really hurt by how games were spread out. For me, almost all of the best games of the year came out in the first three or four months, which lead to a very long Summer where it felt like almost five months went by with basically no big releases, or big releases with long stretches of nothing in between.

It left me in a strange place as I have enough distance from the games I played early in the year for my feelings to be softened on them or for some to be forgotten entirely, and most of those big releases in the last three months didn’t hit for me in the way I hoped it would, which left me feeling somewhat lukewarm on the year, despite all the big games.

How about yourselves?

@Pizzamorg

A great year for 'good' releases, Indies and technical mishaps. That is how I feel in general. Kicking myself for not trying more of this year's indie titles, though.

Next year is poised to be all out chaos in comparison. It feels like a lot more of the announced games are much more capable of being top tier, rather than just good to very good. New IP's, Highly anticipated sequels, and the sheer volume already announced and fairly certain of releasing, even if some get pushed back. And they are, for the most part, games that people definitely want, Fairgame$ aside, which seems to have kept itself quiet recently for unknown reasons 🙈🙉🙊

I haven’t played anything new this year really as I wanted to clear as much of my ps3 backlog as possible, while it’s still working fine. From purely observing 2024’s releases through news articles and reviews though, I’d say it was a pretty strong year tbh.

The massive elephant in the room from a PlayStation perspective is obviously Concord but as a predominantly single-player gamer, I’m hoping that the aftermath from that could actually be a positive course correction for Sony’s first party output moving forwards. Obviously all publishers including Sony will still be looking to get in on those GaaS lottery-wins but the sheer amount of abject failures will hopefully temper those desires a little.

2024 games that I’m looking forward to getting to include Helldivers 2, Granblue Fantasy Relink, Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, Stellar Blade, Rise of the Ronin, Black Myth Wukong, Astrobot, Silent Hill 2 Remake, Dragons Dogma 2 and I’m probably missing a fair few titles that im interested in too.

weak year , gaming needs way more variety , astrobot is nowhere near enough. i don’t want to look towards indies for my fix because it didn’t used to be this way .

Cool little vid showing the transformative effect that Astro Bot can have:

I would argue one of the strengths of 2024 was the variety of stuff on offer. If we use Opencritic as the tool for this, the top 10 highest rated games of the year are all wildly different from one another, and this was really the year where what are considered typically niche genres ruled over all. Especially the JRPG, which felt like it had its strongest year in like a decade.

Yeah Covid messing up schedules condensed a lot of big releases into pretty close proximity over the last few years creating years that were probably more jam packed than they might have been, if releases released when they were originally intended. It felt like 2024 was really us seeing the back end of that, making you wonder then what the future may hold. The endless churn of game studio layoffs mean talent drain has never felt higher, coupled with audience expectations and technological demands, surely we have to eventually hit a point of no return with this stuff when it is taking like 15 years and 500 million dollars to finish a single triple AAA game. I get that indie games are really picking up the slack in a lot of ways, but sometimes you just want the production value and gloss of a triple AAA.

It has kinda felt like it’s been ten years of the live service bubble bursting and yet never actually truly bursting for real, so I am not convinced any more these publishers can be deterred from this path. I’ve kind of lost track on what that even really means any more. Concord had one of the most disastrous launches of these sorts of games maybe ever and just when we thought maybe it really now was all over, Marvel Rivals and POE 2 both come out fairly close to each other and are massive successes. Hell, even a game like Helldivers 2, it seems to have made multiple large blunders (according to its player base) already, and that thing just keeps on trucking. It kinda feels like even if 15 fail, if one succeeds, that emboldens publishers to keep making more. I guess until literally all 16 fail spectacularly I suppose, and maybe that will never happen. Especially as more and more generations of new gamers are growing up in a world where free to play games that nickel and dime you with battle passes and extortionate MTX are just kind all they know.

What are you most looking forwards too going into next year?

@Pizzamorg I mean, KCDII, for one. That is my type of game and then some, and then some, and then some.

But also AC Shadows (curse that delay)

Ghost of Yotei, of course.

there is a clear theme of historical fiction, swords and the like, as you can see 😅 and having 3 games in a row is kind of crazy, and makes me appreciate that studios are making them.

Then there's Death Stranding 2. GTA6. Crimson Desert. Mafia.

Interested to check out AtomFall, Avowed and The Outer Worlds 2. Fable, if it isn't delayed (it will probably be 2026) Clair Obscur.

It's crazy, and I will certainly have to backlog a fair few of them, as I can maybe handle 3 or 4 of the big games in a year with others to supplement those. And I still have a backlog, so I will have to focus on what I want to play the most out of everything 😭

How about you?

Man @Ravix seeing it laid out flat like that on paper made me realise what a crazy year in gaming we have ahead of us! Like way more so than I realised.

Even if some of the games are delayed out of the year, or even if some of those games miss the landing, what a stacked list of titles. And let me guess, they all come out like two weeks from each other rather than being properly spread out! Haha.

You didn’t even mention stuff like the potential Switch 2 release and stuff. 2024 might have felt a bit like a down year compared to the Covid / post covid years, but 2025 is right back on the crazy scale.

For me, I tend to take things one at a time, because I have such a bad attention span when it comes to actually finishing games, I always chasing the new thing, so I just try and blinker myself to a lot of stuff so I can try and focus on what I have.

I know one of the first PS5 releases in 2025 is a port of Wuthering Waves, a gacha ARPG I tried to get into on PC and didn’t love the keybinds. I am hoping the PS5 version comes with a dedicated controller mapping so I can just lose myself in that.

Assuming it doesn’t I think my first release I’ll be picking up in 2025 is that new next gen Dynasty Warriors game, which I think comes out mid January.

For me 2024 was a 20+ retro pickups to complete yeah. Most times I don't play the biggest games, I respect them but to me 2024 I didn't really care for many of them compared to prior years good big games I respected.

As themes/pacing get eh, game mechanics and movesets/level design (race tracks or physics or open worlds/linear games or odd presnetation, the flow and fun factor is just not there, they are too basic and not exciting enough of playing human/car/animal/insect, whatever because they are just too basic, too many skill trees and boring open world tasks or linear game tasks. I've never been so bored with modern gaming being so 'accessible' by that I mean good on devs for accessibility settings, but in terms of playing the games for easy for casuals to play I find most games new IPs or same IPs to open up audiences to be rather boring and losing the appeal).

Hence why only few Indies even at that interested me this year.

Its' not nostalgia, it's gameplay, and the gameplay sucks. Playing Dirt 5 even I played 3 like months earlier, 3 was a blast, 5 is the most safe cut down minimal effort in gameplay product I've played in the series.

Natural Doctrine and Empire of Sin were good Tactics games (not finished only started). Mothergunship was a fair game (hard but enjoyable still) to get on Xbox One physical as most I got for PS4.

Extinction was eh ok but the giant limps were just reappearing too quick so gave up because the game isn't that great.

Otherwise just a mix of things.

My 2022/2023 games I still haven't' finished (Valkyrie Elysium Tactics Ogre Reborn from Square but I beat Diofield Chronicle which was...... a platinum like i planned but not a great game).

I only cared to buy Gori Cuddly Carnage this year (played the demo to completion, haven't started the full game at all), Akimbot I went eh pass, Space Marine 2 was good but at the same time it was a 10+ year old game formula which I think wasn't great. Like I like the original game and 2 but it felt too safe at times. I think the operations mode classes should have been integrated into the story mode for a trial of each one, they sprinkle the weapons out like the first game but even still. Or made it more then wow 2 factions again, and a lot of cool setpieces, but still too much of the same game.

But Gravity Trickster was ok to buy as a Kula World/Roll Away clone.

Otherwise a lot of PS4/Switch games and the odd Xbox One games, that are old physical mostly, odd digital.

Even got into Clannad visual novel for most of my November. Done 4 routes so far (2 sisters, Dorm Keeper and best friend's sister routes so far, working out opening up areas for some of the other girls/the best friend arcs or a teacher arc). Ah 4 hours or so reading sessions sometimes, but enjoyable writing. Been on and off with visual novels but getting back into them again. Like sure played Tactics games with visual novel scenes and that's fine but more visual novel as in longer scenes of them for story telling or just visual novels and not as much secondary gameplay yeah been a while since. Need to get back into Utawarerumono Mask of Deception and Raging Loop really.

Steam World Heist 2 I'm waiting on a discount before buying. But not a lot of 2024 games really mostly older stuff.

Otherwise mostly it a Switch year for me. Splatoon 2 being one of my 20 old games I beat this year in January.

I got Another Code remake (I wish they separated the games but nope one after the other, really bad decision there besides the ok puzzles/3rd person walking....... can't have point and clicks these days can we....., sigh).

Otherwise Emio not played but bought as will never see that again easily, and will get the 1st 2 digital later or physical if Emio does well.

Advance Wars reboot camp, Hot Lap Racing (was as safe of a modern racing game as you can get sigh, but I wanted to support the devs even if it's a safe average game at best, sigh better mechanics nah just decent content, whatever licenses/fake ones which is fine I like no licenses or licenses doesn't bother me and fine enough track designs/modes, it was average though, mechanically pretty safe and boring) and a few others.

So a fair Switch year I think.

Otherwise mostly PS2, Wii, PS3, 360, for shooters (Bodycount PS3, Soldier of Fortune Payback PS3, Turning Point PS3, Blackside Area 51 PS3, Splintercell Conviction 360, Battlefield 360 both I did Xbox One X back compat for those 360 games.

But I got a few others on PS3/360 but not finished),

Platformers (Malice PS2), racing (Need for Speed Hot Pursuit I bought Switch remaster, the 360, then Wii and loved the Wii version I binged it to last few events now but will get though the others later, replayed Gran Turismo 3 again as a casual playthrough then challenges last time), hack n slashes I think what like Crash Mind over Mutant or some others, movie tie in games (Chicken Little, Up movie game on Wii).

Just the ones that stuck out to me from the 20-22-23 or so I remember. Need to re-count them.

For old games was great, for modern games besides some Indies or Space Marine 2 (not playing Astro Bot refuse to). It was a eh year for modern gaming to me personally.

@Pizzamorg oh yes, there's games I've mentioned I'd have to play in a more dedicated way, one at a time. I might have to buy a few as they come out in support of them being made as the industry is so volatile right now, but I must try my hardest to just play just the one at a time.

Ideally they'd all release 2 or 3 months apart, yes 😅 time to play one, let it breathe and then move on. But it's unlikely. I can cope with putting off something like AC Shadows while I play KCD2, though (if it works on consoles 😛)

But say I'm pootling along on something like Avowed and Crimson Desert comes out to a rapturous reception (we shall see how that goes) I'd probably have to just jump on to that right away as it is the new thing everyone is playing. And then if Mafia came out and it was lauded as a true crime drama worthy of any cinema lovers' time, then I'd have to get on that ASAP.

What it most striking about 2025 is the variety in the AAA space: fantasy, Sci-fi Fi, historical, batsh** crazy art house walking sims (you do you, Kojima 🫡) eastern and western devs putting out a lot of varied stuff overall that I think will captivate many more people's tastes.

I would definitely agree with a lot of what’s been said. 2024 was a strange year for gaming, with a lot of ups and downs. It’s a year that was defined more by console exclusive second party releases as far as PlayStation is concerned. Then to see the year finish with a bang with a single player first party release, that has gone on to win game of the year, just underscores the void that we’ve had the last couple years. Still, it takes nothing away from the good second and third party output. Nevertheless there’s a secret sauce to the single player first party that’s been lacking.

This year I believe the industry felt the backlash of over expansion and consolation. Record setting layoffs, cutbacks, cancellations, and failed projects. I question some of the business decisions by many of the big companies. I know ‘hindsight is 20/20’ but the executives in the boardrooms do seem out of touch with what gamers want. They have been too prone to chase trends and fads (live service, licenses in decline, saturated genres and settings, etc) Many of those poor decisions came to a head this year.

Speaking of trends. Over the years we’ve had the zombie craze, the Greek mythology craze, the medieval fantasy craze, the Pirate ship adventure craze, the Norse mythology craze, the superhero craze, and now the current zeitgeist is samurai / historical Asia and it will carry into 2025 (I think we still have like what 3 or 4 more big releases next year of samurai-like sword play?) but then I think it’ll start leveling off. We’ll still get samurai swords and feudal Japan, but just not at clip we’ve been getting in recent years, just like we still get zombie games but not nearly as many as late PS3/early PS4. Trying to predict the next hot gaming setting… I’m wondering if it’s going to be Sci-Fi, space adventures. With Naughty Dog’s new game and Judas paving the way?

I think the year also was overshadowed by a really strong close to 2023 which made the year feel like we had fewer good games, but in retrospect the quantity of high quality games was probably about the same as last year

"2024 had great games but felt uneven — some amazing releases early on, then a long dry spell. Still, indie titles really kept things interesting. I’ve been trying to balance gaming with healthier habits lately, and using fasting tracker app https://wellness-app.com/ actually helped me manage screen time better. Hoping 2025 brings more consistent quality across the year."