Fatigue is something we witness quite regularly in the video game industry, and naturally so. Although there are always a handful of studios that manage to push the boundaries in a meaningful way, many are seen to be rehashing the same mix of content and mechanics used the year before, albeit with a new title.
Such stagnation is arguably inevitable and not always a bad thing. There are only so many new ideas a developer can float without having to do a complete overhaul of its stable or create a brand new series. Not only that, there are great many of us who openly enjoy incremental improvements on existing genre and series templates. As Dave rightly points out, it’s a Catch-22 for companies who want to be seen as innovators while still making a mint from established game series.
There are plenty of examples to choose from, but Call of Duty is the most immediate stand-out in this respect. For Activision – and the industry as a whole – Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare was an indisputable game changer. So refreshing was its fast and easy online multiplayer that Infinity Ward and Treyarch managed to get away with an annual reskin year after year. It caught up to them eventually, however, and although Call of Duty: Ghosts still kept the tills ringing for Activision, it felt desperately tired, no longer being able to keep up with fan expectations. Of course, since then Activision has employed a different tack, passing the franchise between three developers as opposed to the same two. Neither are as acclaimed as Call of Duty 4, yet Advanced Warfare and Black Ops III have genuinely started to fight back against fatigue with new movement systems last year, and now a campaign built around 4 player co-op.
Teflon, though sympathetic, has continued to sense fatigue while also identifying ways big publishers have at tried to mix things up a bit.
“This is the eternal problem for major publishers, to keep their games feeling fresh and appealing to prospective buyers, while still clinging onto the brand and the gameplay that made them so popular in the first place.
“Without a similar injection of new game series at the start of the generation and a tendency to continue to forge ahead with hugely popular series like Assassin’s Creed and Call of Duty on a yearly basis, Ubisoft, Activision and EA have tried to mix things up. Need for Speed got to take a year off, AC Syndicate was developed by Ubisoft Quebec instead of Montreal, Call of Duty has moved to a three year development cycle and added a more mobile and fluid movement style, while Battlefield’s name was used for the cops & robbers of Hardline.
“They’re still immensely popular with the general populace, but it does feel as though they are in a gradual decline. Instead, newer, fresher feeling games are coming to fore, whether it’s Destiny’s blockbusting MMO-like shooter, the return of Star Wars Battlefront this week, and even Watch Dogs, which though lambasted as ‘Yet Another Ubisoft Game’, did a lot to create a new world for familiar gameplay elements to live in.”
It’s funny that Tef mentions Ubisoft. Despite some cracking games over the past several years, it seems as though some of us have begun to develop Ubisoft fatigue. This is due to the proliferation of its many open world game systems. It doesn’t matter if you’re playing Watch Dogs, Far Cry, Assassin’s Creed, or even games like The Crew, they all come tagged with the similar features and gameplay beats. Need to make full use of an environment in-game? Chances are, you’ll need to climb or knock down some sort of tower.
Although this was an idea that originated within Assassin’s Creed, it’s now become fairly widespread and has no doubt come back to bite the historical shank ‘em up series in its behind. Both Aran and Dave stressed that the franchise has been patchy of late, something I’m quite happy to agree with. If reiterating on the same formula each year was enough, Ubisoft went all-out in 2014 when it launched Assassin’s Creed Unity and Assassin’s Creed Rogue.
Going back to the original argument, publishers are the only ones who can dispel fatigue but they’re probably unwilling to let a successful series rest as long as there’s money in the pot. In other words, the only way to force their hand and reinvigorate their IP is to speak with our wallets. Nothing screams ageing formula as much as a sharp decline in sales. That said, we’re at this stage now where many of us are conditioned into buying annual sequels without batting an eyelid.
And now we hand the discussion over to you, our lovely readers. Which series are beginning to show their age after years of minor tweaking? Do you even mind? What can developers do to shake up their existing roster of games without pressing reset and potentially angering fans?
JR.
YES. But at least we should see less remasters next gen as there are very few new franchises this gen that are worth the effort.
No where near the level of new games we got in the previous console generations. They all want a quick cash injection to please investors which is why we’ve had sequel after sequel.
There’s no room for risk in this market apparently (even though 24 million PS4’s have been sold to date and iphones sell by the millions within the first weekend on sale).
The Lone Steven
As somone that is still in the last gen, I am not feeling the case of “oh for ****’s sake, another sequel” but i am experiencing “Oh, you BLEEP! I was looking forward to that feature that you only put in the current gen version.” The only game that happened was WWE2K16 and they cut out Career Mode, the biggest feature of the game.
But in general, i am always up for sequels unless the previous game left no room for one without having to retcon the hell out of it or the series entire story is over or it’s just time to let it go. Whilst Assassain’s Creed suffers from being stale due to no improvements to it’s gameplay apart from every few games, it is still a franchise that i have paid for. During the last gen, this generation? Er…
I may just skip certain AC games due to the fact that well, some are just crap. E.g. Unity went backwards from Rogue and Black Flag to one giant city, which is said to be rather boring.
As a roleplaying fan, it is a mixed bag when sequels are made for RPGs. I usually expect the quality to beat the previous game but Fallout 4 seems to be a game that i would be disappointed due to it not matching up to New Vegas and fails to use several things that Obsidian introduced. I use New Vegas as my standard for Fallout. Whereas, Skyrim, it was the most wanted game by me to the point where i was threatened with a ban for…..
sending rude pictures to everyone that owned the game and i did not. I am of course kidding but Skyrim was one of my most eager sequels. To this day, no game has come close to fufilling my expectations after the hype. DA:I, disappointing. MGSV pissed me off with it’s ending.
But there are franchises that i would like to see “Sequels” for. By that, i mean, just games that are part of the franchise but only contains bits and bobs to line the setting. For example, i would love to see more Arkham games but Rocksteady has confirmed it’s over for them and i feel that whilst B-man’s story may be over, the entire Batfamily is not. It does piss me off when a game ends on a cliff hanger, is fantastic and the studio is either forced to not follow up with it, goes broke, gets shut down etc.. I know it’s not their fault if they are shut down or go broke but sometimes, i just wonder what could have been.
Bulletstorm, a fantastic over the top FPS would thrive on current gen consoles. Just up the sheer amount of enemies, take a lot of steroids, inject it to the game, forcefeed it speed andd get Nolan North to voice Troy Baker as Steve Blum whilst Steve Blum voices Nolan North as zombie North.
However, sequels that are rushed out can die. No seriously, i hate it when a sequel is forced out when the damn game is not completed or it is worse then the original.
I would also like to see more new IPs this generation though. :)