Where are the news? His sentiment on AAA is the standard in the industry. There are still AAA game developers who take risks and succeed. But there’s a reason why we talk about a Ubisoft formula.

He was at the helm of two of Sony's biggest series, yes, but also the very games that led them into the mold they are in today. So you can't blame for him for being complicit in making the kinds of games today we he couldn't have known what he was making, that was new and fresh at the time, would become so blasé and old fashioned later when it's been milked like an ancient cow.

What he says is true. These companies found their cash cows, and refuse to deviate. But part of that is also their own faults, telling gamers it's prettier as an easy way to sell the next box, which means the audience is now trained to expect "it must be prettier" which means it costs more money, all because there weren't many meaningful gameplay strides between PS3 and PS4: They didn't opt to try new ideas...just the same ones but sexier.

Now it's a catch 22. The market they made wants pretty, but that's too expensive.

There's still some top quality triple A releases resident evil requiem was anything but boring!

A bit of a blanket statment really, some people may agree with him others won't, it's simply down to people's likes and dislikes. I think the biggest issue with AAAs is the go after trends way too late.

When these games cost literal 100's of millions to make i can't blame them for not taking risks. What matters is what sells and well if people are happy with games like Wolverine and Laufey then it makes sense to keep making them.

If you want new ideas and such the AA and Indie space are going very strong right now.

Sony need to greenlight another BB but trying to come up with a story to let alone equal that games lore would be tough for Miyazaki. I’d buy it over any other Sony published game bar a new uncharted.

@Mr-Cage Something tells me he's referring exclusively to the 'Sony Template.'

Modern gaming isn’t for gamers

@AdamNovice The problem is we've been playing games like these since 2018 and for some--I think many--it's getting stale. What was shown in Laufey's trailer is the bulk of the combat contents, along with wall climbing, off-path chest discovering, etc. It's uninspired.

The Hate on God of War Laufey when we've only seen 20mins of it is crazy lol. The game will probably be a 9 or 10/10 easy and have crazy moments in like in the 20mins. No reason to think Santa Monica won't knock it out of the park and setup the next Kratos game. People just need to be patient and wait for Santa Monica to actually talk about how how Fay's journey and mechanics are different than Kratos. I thought the combat looked badass and with her magic it might even be a bit cooler than Kratos.

I think AAA games do sometime swing for the fences but they have to be careful because of how much the games cost nowadays. When what you usually do can make you a lot of money it's hard to want to take a big change when it can affect that.

Well...somewhat, they'll come at you when you single certain games out for being shiny with no substance. That's why open worlds, RPGs usually have a ton of other fun mechanics to keep things interesting. Laufey though, will be spectacular I believe.

The gameplay actually looked pretty good to me. I think people just underestimate the level of novelty that can exist in gameplay mechanics. You cant expect every game to come up with fresh gameplay mechanics. It’s like with movies, the same old stories get retold, but if you can do it slightly different thats already a win. Not every game can reinvent itself, especially for AAA games with budgets in the $100M’s. That’s why we have AA’s and indies

The Sony movie-game formula has been around since Uncharted and has remained basically the same since being refined in the PS4 era. It was awesome when it first came on the scene but it's been two entire generations now so it's understandable that it grew stale and repetitive.

Sony can continue to make these types of games but they also need to find another bankable recipe. Easier said than done of course.

@glennthefrog Bankability is probably the key issue as I'm sure there are plenty of creative minds and teams out there who are yearning to break free of their corporate constraints.

Agreed, which is why I don't play that many. Tend to enjoy smaller titles more.

Well yeah, western AAA industry is pretty much dead at this point and they need GTA6 to be a hit in order to survive.

Nothing new on the horizon.

I have a theory that western AAA games are designed by marketing team and written by HR.

@Dalamar I have a theory that you have no clue what you're talking about.

@DennisReynolds Then tone it down a bit, none of us, or most players dont care about the super production of a game, just make it good, dont force politics in it, dont preach and lecture us and i bet you the game will be a hit.

So the game with a talking cube looks boring. Right....

Yes it's true that a lot of current AAA games including from Sony are playing safe. But, when some devs brave enough to took risk with $100+ million budget under their belt to do an experimental game like Kojima did with Death Stranding for example, there's a lot of resistance from gamers themself who just wants to play games that fits with their comfort zone.

And it's not like AA / indies doesn't playing safe either. There's tons of metroidvania, a copy cat / inspired of classic JRPG, 2D shmup, or roguelike in the last decade. But when there's some indies who took risk like Katamari Damacy creator did with To a T, his game ended up as a flop and forced him close to retire.

Sadly, the current gaming industry / market doesn't allowed a lot of space for devs to do experimental games especially with AAA budget. One wrong move and you're done.

You can tell he is salty. We haven't seen enough gameplay yet to say that. I'm pretty sure Santa Monica will deliver a great experience. Can't wait...

One thing I hope all developers and publishers keep at the forefront of their minds is that you can’t please all of the people all of the time. Sony make different games like Saros and Astrobot and people moan that they don’t sell, Sony return to their big budget narrative focus and people want something different… this time. But they didn’t want that when something different was produced.

For me, its not even the safe gameplay that is boring, its the franchises. I cant believe we're getting another God of War game. Its enough already

@GilaMonster surely you haven’t just realised that?

@get2sammyb lol yeah Resident Evil is the exact problem he is talking about

@DanX666 a lot of people do like the super-production though. Why else would have people invested in a PS5 Pro or high end TVs with HDMI 2.1?

It's because they want to get the most out of it, and if they paid a pretty penny for it, then let them enjoy it.

And if games do any preaching these days it's about how not be a total POS. And if people don't like to be reminded to not be a total @$$wipe then it's safe to say what kind of person they are.

Zzzz
What a hot take

AAA (of which there are not even 5 in a year) are not more or less boring than 99% of non AAA games

I think a lot of AAA games play it very safe, the recent Wolverine looks to be a prime example but there are others coming up with new ideas, ironically Insomniac with Rift Apart, Capcom with Pragmata etc. I do feel that often storytelling is taking precedent over gameplay in many AAA games these days.

I think the biggest issue is simply, of you are of a certain age, then you grew up with very frequent and dramatic changes in video games in general. Where as today, they've basically been the same since the end of the PS3 era

@RomanRiz Resident Evil hasn't been innovative since Resident Evil 7. Resident Evil Village was more of 7. The remakes did nothing for gameplay that we haven't seen other IP do and 9 was just a mix of Village and the remakes in terms of gameplay. I loved Requiem but it gave us nothing new.

Capcom may be eastern, but Resident Evil definitely feels western in terms of gameplay and story telling.

@get2sammyb whilst I agree to a certain extent, I do feel the first half of Requiem was innovative with it's new take on zombies and it does change how you play the game

Reading this has very strangely made me hungry at seeing some proper gameplay of Intergalactic to see how different or not in comparison to their lastofus uncharteds. Hoping it plays completely different or if it doesn't play differently then hopefully it's NaughtyDogs first open world

@Artois2 about what? Little weeb having no clue? Knew it all along.

@RomanRiz I feel the same with GTA6

@AdamNovice you say people dont buy games that innovate but indie games innovate all the time and the best ones sell millions of copies like balatro, slay the spire and vanpire surviours and many more but those are the ones that come to mind.

It is true! Thats why i waiting with hope for gta vi, fable and The Blood of Dawnwalker

@AdamNovice This is conflating innovation with inventing something that has literally never been done before. Nobody is expecting developers to reinvent 3D combat from scratch. There are still plenty of ways to experiment with how existing mechanics interact, encounter design, defence, movement, abilities, environments, etc.

And “people ask for innovation but don't buy it” is a massive generalisation. Which games are you talking about? There are innovative games that sell well and incredibly safe, derivative games that don't.

The fact that 3D action games have existed for 30 years doesn't mean we've exhausted the design space either. Shooters and fighting games have existed for decades and somehow developers still find ways to do interesting things with them.

And “these things take time and money” isn't really an argument against criticism. Obviously they take time and money, it doesn't mean players have to pretend the end result is more innovative than it actually is.

@GilaMonster Requiem did change how zombies behaved (for Grace) and how you can manipulate them either out of your way or even to take out one another, so I wouldn't say it gave us nothing new

@Max_the_German i can't think of too many AAA games that take "risks" from a creative or mechanics point of view... the ones that come to mind are the two death stranding games, but sony clearly doesn't like the "creative" side of its business any longer so things are going to continue to get worse on that front.

@carlos82 hardly an innovation. At the end of the day it felt like another Resident Evil game. Nothing groundbreaking but still a ton of fun.

@KeenAerondight “What was shown in Laufey's trailer is the bulk of the combat contents.”

Respectfully, how could you possibly know this? The only people who can actually say this with confidence are the devs who’ve worked on this game. That demonstration came across as barebones and introductory rather than an all-encompassing combat demonstration.

laufey has an uphill battle ahead of it. if wolverine, one of the more popular characters in the comic world, can't get a break, i don't think laufey has much of a chance at winning over the critics and subverting expectations. lower than "ideal" sales seems like a given. and straley is 100% correct in his observation — it looks boring and predictible in the worst ways possible from a gameplay standpoint. again, this is a problem across the entire industry and isn't merely a sony problem.

Most of the money in Sony AAA in particular is being wasted on things that don't actually make the game better or more fun. Using the likeness of Hollywood actors is a huge one. I actually hate this. Let's go back to coming up with characters and using normal voice actors. Holywood doesn't need videogames for it's actors, and we don't need them in our games. It was still novel when Kojima did it and that's kinda his thing now so I'll give him the exception, but the rest of these studios absolutely didn't need to follow suit.

The premise of Laufey is battling your way out of the afterlife ruled by gods of various mythologies. Your companions include a cosmic cube and a sentient ribbon. Oh and the gameplay looks incredibly cool. Imagine calling that boring with a straight face. Couldn't be me.

I think the points he made are valid. I have no interest in the new GoW game. But look at PRAGMATA which introduced some fun new ideas and started a new IP, and I enjoyed it quite a bit.

I think Dragon Quest may be the only series in existence that is expected to be mostly the same every time.

@LivewireCLS I can't tell if you're being facetious or not

@get2sammyb Sometimes if it's not broken don't fix it!
Requiem for me was brilliant start to finish if he can't or didn't enjoy it I feel sorry for him!
Most games boil down to shooting or stabbing someone in different ways anyway when you think about it haha

It’s always an issue nowadays, I’ve been gaming for decades and still love the hobby, but of course I’ve seen it done it and read the book.
So more recently gaming has become very generic for me.

The main probably I have lived through the Atari to sega master system to N64 days when new a console meant massive changes to graphics and gameplay etc.
since the PS3 to PS5 Pro era it’s just been an uptick, there is no 2d to 3d revolution. No next big thing just a better image and developers will struggle to innovate if the technology is basically the same just a bit more fancy.

@GamingGod Sony won't touch Bloodborne without From or From's blessing.

@DanX666 Art without politics isn't art, art is biased it has to be. You want politics you just want your politics in games that you agree with. Do you dislike Metal Gear Solid btw?

You can honestly point to the first Last of Us as ground zero for a lot of the issues with modern AAA gaming.

I feel he knew his tweet would get used for clickbait and should either: not said anything at all or worded it better so it couldn't be used out of context.

@AI-Generation PS3 was the last era of massive variety and innovation, imo. Games are stale and by the books now.

@nomither6 The PS3 era is what started the AAA, DLC, season passes and live service boom.

Also quite frankly the AA and Indie space of today s**ts over the PS3 scene. Also its fun seeing people gas up that era when people of that era really resented it compared to the PS2 era.

@RomanRiz lol I wasn't trying to be. More trying to illustrate how Laufey looks awesome so far, atleast to me

@DennisReynolds well if Sony own the franchise they just go to FS and say can you make me another BB right

@DennisReynolds Taken to an arbitrary degree, art cannot be art without bias; but there's nuance inane statements like that ignore. A creators life experience and views implicitly shaping holistic worldbuilding is quite different to injecting didactic drivel unrelated to or at odds with it.

In my experience, many people asking for apolitical games just don't want that - to have escapism undermined or immersion ripped out from underneath them because of some forced characterisation, world-building or plot beat that serves only to validate real-world ideology external to the fiction. It's grating, even when it's your own politics.

After the mediocre snooze fest that was Wolverine, AAA devs should be more scrutinized than ever. Especially when they charge a premium price point.

@Ricketyrascal87 Hacking, slashing, jump-attacking, blocking, parrying, juggling, throwing, deflecting, and special abilities of varying styles--which is what we saw in the gameplay trailer--will be the bulk of the combat. Respectfully, how could you think otherwise? Sure, there are abilities we haven't seen, but again, we've witnessed the core gameplay. I'm absolutely sure they've left surprises for release, but that's the bulk of it.

He ain't wrong. Most exciting thing about Laufey is apparently a talking cube... 🤢

(And a jump button)

Oh well. Corridor simulators can be fun if that's your thing. There are people who unironically enjoyed Mixtape.

People who say Sony plays it too safe, please look at all the failed GaaS attempts and tell me again that Sony didn't try to break away from the cinematic story games as their bread and butter. Not disagreeing with the fact all of it was a disaster, but very clearly they did try.