Re: Hot New Games Aren't

On Fri, 27 Dec 2024 13:13:11 +0200, Anssi Saari
<anssi.saari@usenet.mail.kapsi.fi> wrote:

Spalls Hurgenson <spallshurgenson@gmail.com> writes:
>

But this year I spent a good amount of time (and money!) on games
released in 2024; 7 games to be exact (or 9 if you include the
truck-sim expansion DLC), all of which I played to completion. That
number goes higher if you include games "less than a year old when I
bought and played them" (such as the "System Shock Remaster", which
released in May 2023 but I played in January 2024). If you include all
of those, my total of "brand new" games goes up to almost a quarter of
_all_ the games I played in 2024.

>
Damn, I thought the "System Shock Remaster" was a 2024 game. So that
would've been at least one game released this year I've played. Oh well,
it feels like they kinda did it to themselves. As I recall, they
announced a big patch in August of 2023 and then didn't release it until
2024. I had started the game, then waited for that patch and when it
didn't come out I just started playing in late 2023 or early 2024.
>

There was an interesting article.... lemme see if I can find it... oh,
here on PC Gamer of all places...
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/2024-has-been-one-of-the-most-fragmented-years-for-videogames-and-in-hindsight-i-actually-really-liked-that/

Anyway, it pointed out that unlike many previous years, 2024 didn't
really have a 'big game' that defined it. For instance, 2023 everyone
was talking and playing Baldurs Gate 3", and "Elden Ring" was the
thing in 2022. But 2024 felt sort of empty in terms of big-ring games;
it wasn't that they weren't any good games released, or big-name
games, but nothing really that EVERYONE seemed to be playing and
talking about. Which (and I can't believe I'm agreeing with PC Gamer
on this) I don't really think is a bad thing. If anything, it may mark
the end of the triple-A publisher's stranglehold on the industry. But
it does make 2024 feel less memorable than other years.

What's the stance on big mods though? Thinking of Fallout: London here,
it definitely came out this year but Fallout 4 is almost a decade old
now.

Yeah, that's another issue. Because so many games are now designed
with multi-year life-cycles, supported by a slow trickle of DLC and
'seasonal expansions' it's hard to assign a date to a game. I played a
lot of "American Truck Simulator" this year, a game released in
2016... but most of that was exploring new content added in expansions
released in 2024. Throw in the gradual release of games through early
access, and things get even messier. Was "Baldurs Gate 3" really a
2023 game? People were already playing it in 2020!

I sort of miss the days when a game came out on Day X, and we all
moved onto something new when the next game came out three months
later. ;-)