2d ago

Are AAA Games too bloated?

Games in the AAA space tend to be "forever games." Almost demanding all of your free time to enjoy it. Even single-player ones, like Elden Ring and the new God of War(s), they have a story, but they want you to be in their worlds for as long as possible.

Don't get me wrong, I love a good story, but can we get shorter games? Like, concise experiences that are free of bloat?

I find myself ignoring AAA announcements because I "know" they will be games that take forever.

13 comments

I am of the mind that the most important part of a game, is the game. Having fun playing a game. A good game does not need a story. It doesn't need to do everything. It doesn't need to have something new happening or being given to you every 10 seconds.
Look at all the top most played games/games with consistently high player counts. They're almost all some kind of competitive game that doesn't change too much no matter how long you play. They don't have hundreds of hours of content, dialogue, voice acting, etc. They're just fun.
- I agree, a game can just be a "game". It doesn't need a story to be fun. My issue with the current trend isn't that games "need" a story, it's the bloat added to fun games to keep you in them artificially.
  From battle passes and special currencies for multiplayer games to thousands of tiny, pointless collectables in single-player games that are there just to keep you busy.
  Hell, Tetris is the most played game in the world (or close to it), and it has no story and no bloat.
  
  I play a few free to play games that I'm ok with battle passes and stuff in to help keep the game going. Also gives me something new to get or do every now and then.
  But for the most part I agree the bloat of AAA games are just horrible and try to make the game do everything.
  For story a lot of my fav games the past few years have been smaller games with stories that take about 6 to 12 hours to finish, like Stray. A good story that does not drag on for padding and does not over stay it's welcome.
- Yup, look at things like Tetris. No story, no dialogue, no cut-scenes. Just a solid Core Gameplay Loop. Sure, I like a lot of the additional stuff, but if you make the Core Gameplay Loop fun, everything else is just window-dressing

i personally think its because games are so expensive, it seems most studios want to make players feel that they get their monies worth out of the experience.
AAA games that are huge and sprawling are that way for a reason. they're AAA so they have the budget, time, artists, developers to make those worlds massive. whereas indie titles seem to hit the mark more for the kind of game you want.
a short focused experience. but there's like... tens of thousands of the kind of games you're looking for. just not many from AAA studios.

Yes. They also put in way too much grinding.

I love long games as long as its easy to pick up and put down. Like with elden ring it took a bit for me to realize I can exit almost at any point outside of a boss fight and anything defeated would stay defeated and such. Only real downside is if you have injured something then it will be full health when you come back. So it was very easy to play for 15 mins and stop and an hour later play for 15 and such. cyberpunk and harry potter did that well enough for me as well.

I have some good news for you about the last couple of Pokemon games.

It's not so much that the games are bloated (they are), it's that many are incredibly gated as well. There's always been super grindy and bloated games, but the degree it's done today is just different. You can't just spend two weeks putting in 100+ hours into a modern game and complete everything. It's no longer kill a million mobs to get this achievement, it's kill 100 mobs max a day until you kill a million. It's do this phase and wait a month for the next phase.
Diablo 2 is honest and open about it's grinding, modern day games aren't.

They might be, but most AAA games for many years just haven't been worth playing at all, much less forever.
Like 95% of my gaming is pre-pandemic.

13 comments