The 2010s (Part 2)

This part of a two part series. Read the previous blog here.

Originally I planned on this being 3 parts! But it got hopelessly long, as I want to complete this by the new year. I do believe there are other games, but very few of them I actually played or learned about in length.

Hearthstone 2014

One of the first Blizzard newish properties to release on March 11, 2014 was the wildly successful mobile digital card game: Hearthstone. It is one of the first free to play games that comes to mind when it comes to 2010s and set the standards for many digital card games. It became a massive titan in the games industry for mobile gaming for both a hardcore and casual audience. It is also a strange game in terms of how it created an ESports scene, and also creating its first digital expansions that created a system that players have to purchase in order to stay competitive.

Hearthstone has overtime been a very strong presence until recently where it became less and less popular with a dwindling active population. Though it is incredible a free to play could hold such relevance in half a decade with such success.

I personally played Hearthstone for 4 years until I became aware of how easy it is to become out of date, free-to-play games are all about consistency. If you can keep up with the meta of the game it is very difficult to stay up to date it becomes essentially a part-time job. Sometimes it becomes a full-time job if you wish to stay in a competitive life, where have to in essence play 30 games a day in order to get 100 gold per day. That is if you don’t want to just pay money to stay up to date.

Shovel Knight 2014

Shovel Knight is on this list for several reasons from reinvigorating the 2D platformer. While also showing the power of the crowdfunding platform of Kickstarter, and bringing new life to the Metroidvania sub-genre. Shovel Knight exists because of both kickstarter backers, and the wonderful devs at Yacht Club. The mechanics and design it exhibits are all stellar and reinforce the narrative gameplay the player goes through. While also being deeply attuned with mechanics that reinforce player skill and giving them ample to learn and to build up to the final levels of the game.

Shovel Knight continued to surprise throughout its development with becoming highly popularized by youtubers, speed runners, and other media. A great game that really brought back the retro platformer.

Witcher 3 2015 - 2017

The Witcher 3 is an oddity in that it came out in a year of great games, and yet when it came out it surprised everyone, even those who had been hyped by it the game delivered on almost every level. Witcher 3 is a mechanical genius and a once in a decade type of game. From gameplay, story, even to its DLC, it was a love letter to ARPG players, and fans of Fantasy. Where other games try to tell mature, and adult stories, the witcher succeeded in telling deeply interesting tales with a Noir detective character in a fantasy series.

As an evolution of the original witcher games, Witcher 3 is a full realization of what CD Project Red wanted to do with the property and proper send off to a series. In a decade of disappointments and highs, Witcher 3 was an incredible journey from beginning to end. From its wonderful DLC Hearts of Stone which players replayed polish myths, to the high fantasy mockery that was Blood and Wine. With great DLC launched at every point to retain user interest, it became standard among companies to bring good will among players to give out free dlc. DLC for the witcher became ubiquitous with quality.

Each story, character, and narrative was always interesting in someway, Hearts of Stone stands out as DLC and expansions as something truly unique. Up there with Spec Ops : The Line in how much you can read into the narrative. Witcher 3 was such an influence that CD Project Red became a household name. People now often use Witcher 3 now as a comparison for RPGs and for good reason: the game succeeded at a deeply satisfying level for players, unique, and a new perspective (Eastern European).

The very unique part about this game was the publicity made about the game’s development process, what they did, how they did things, and by essence teaching young developers about the design process. The amount of learning that can be gained from GDC talks about the Witcher are insightful to how to build tools, and RPG games. With any game of such large caliber the Witcher 3. This game will have an effect that Warcraft 3 did on me with others, showing the tools and development process that could encourage young people to pursue video games as a career path.

Overwatch 2016

Overwatch is the first new Blizzard property in almost a decade. As a start off point it became one of the most popular multiplayer shooters of the year. When announced it caught everyone by surprise, except for those of us spoiled by early leaks, and also rumblings of project titan that had been happening for the past decade. Overwatch came out and was a huge success, introducing something that many did not think would become an industry standard… Loot Boxes.

Loot Boxes now are a very iffy subject, but from what I can remember and what I’ve read, Overwatch was the first to fully popularize it at a commercial Triple A scale audience. For those who don’t know loot boxes are a randomized box set that gives you options of cosmetics, each cosmetic has a different rarity attached to it. Each box drops four items, and you are guaranteed one ‘rare’ item. Players can get them from leveling up, completing challenges, or purchasing them with real money.

Overwatch was successful in this regard, especially with loot boxes, which increased the longevity of the support that could be provided for the game. While I could argue hearthstone was far more successful due to ease of use, Overwatch was the first mainline game that did this on the world stage.

Doom 2016

Rocking back from the 90s ID Software brings back arcade shooters to 2016, surprising everyone with a quality FPS experience that sends shivers down people's spines. No one expected a new doom game, especially one as viscerally violent, and fun. While I use the word ‘fun’ to actually mean entertaining. It is a gore soaked thrill ride that no doubt has inspired many developers to go back to making arcade games, but this is one of the first Triple A shooters that went back to formula.

Doom 3 which was the Predecessor to Doom 2016 was a horror cart ride action shooter. Which many players did not enjoy to its fullest. It is very controversial in terms of design decisions and just how it was played. It was seen as gimmicky and a sidetrack to what came before. A trouble development cycle that saw the game go into ‘development hell’ until finally it released in 2016.

Doom released to much fanfare and is one of the few development hell games that succeeded. If there was a game to list as to what returned the formula of arcade shooters, it would be Doom 2016….

Inside 2016

An experimental horror game, from the developers of LIMBO, Play Dead studios created an experience that no one thought would come out. It is an interesting horror game that came out and wowed audiences. While also creeping them out entirely, I don’t think any developer or player could really agree on how to pin down the meaning of Inside to really thoughtful experience. Yet it was enthralling to players, and one that I don’t think anyone will forget anytime soon.

Inside's success came from its visual story telling and its thematic design. It also from the designer's approach to environmental puzzles. In that the puzzles used very different mechanics that complimented the visual design and enforced the narrative story telling.

Inside is haunting and harrowing experience, when I played it was surprising how much detail was put into this world and its internal mechanics. The game is a puzzle game like the previous title and played up on weird and violent intrigue. Such was the interesting aspects of this game, that you can read a lot from it in a metaphors and in theme representation.

PUBG 2017

PUBG is one of the first Arena shooters in the decade. Barring a few exceptions, this was the first solely focused Arena PVP. Which pitted a hundred players against one another in a ‘survival games’ where the last player standing wins. PUBG started a new trend and a new genre that every Triple A and Game Company wanted a piece of. Similar in vein to the popularity of DOTA style maps the popularized new genre was quickly adopted by many companies. It is a PVP Survival games, with loot boxes, and player cosmetics. It was such a popular game that it created its own competition : Fortenite and Apex Legends.

While I could discuss PUBG and what it did different these are one of few games I did not play extensively its cousin Apex Legends I did play far more than PUBG. PUBG, Fortenite, and Apex Legends are a similar games, reminding me of the time when we had the big 3 fps competition, between Battlefield, Call of Duty, and Medal of Honor. This is the new trio that is now competing for the same audience and creating their own rabid fanbases.

I could discuss it further, but the games influence hasn’t been felt yet fully in terms of mechanics, it has been felt in terms of trends but trends are often short lived. It was just released and it continues to be a major part of culture. Fortenite, Apex, and PUBG are now apart of normal culture for kids, teenagers, and adults. There are entire new leagues of people who compete in competition! It has inspired celebrities and Popular Franchises (Star Wars and Marvel) to use it as an advertisement platform.

Whether this will become a regular part of games, where it uses other forms of media to not only advertise a new product, but whether it is successful and becomes a regular thing! I am deeply interested in this development and to see where it leads to the next!

Nier Automata 2017

A game very few people saw coming is a deeply philosophical Roleplaying game where you control an Android. Either in response to Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? Nier Automata questions consciousness, society, and a variety of values. Players experience this through deeply emotional cinematic and gameplay. With exciting mechanics that can change mechanics and story routes that reward player exploration. There are several endings. a few true 'endings', and a few joke endings. This is meant to reward players with an experience that for that year was not seen.

Nier Automata was also considered by many of my peers to be exceptional in terms of music matching the tone and exciting for them to continue. The music was complimentary and unique to each zone that you explored. It is impossible to not hear the music for players and subtract it from their experience.

The story specifically is about 2B and her companion 9S, their mission to protect humanity, and destroy all robots. Earth which the setting takes place has seen better days, as it has fallen to a dystopain future where robots and androids fight one another. Humanity still lives on the moon, and directs their creations (the androids) to destroy the robots. With this set on the stage, the world becomes very much a go at your own pace, facing enemies, and new threats that shake the balance of the world.

Nier Automata I would compare to my own experiences with Spec Ops The Line. Where Spec Ops was a satire of much of the games industry at the time, Nier was a deep introspection of humanity and philosophy. It was successful in its progress of story development and gameplay that intertwine to help tell the narrative. Not too dissimilar to how Spec Ops: The Line combined Mechanical Foreshadowing and Mechanics as Metaphor to help tell a narrative.

Nier will be remembered from this decade for its strong narrative, gameplay, aesthetic, and its character design. I think anyone who wants to learn about games should always play those that are the most unique. Nier is such a unique experience it needs to be experienced.

Battlefront 2 2017

Releasing on November 17th 2017, EAs Dice Studio released to the original controversial game Battlefront with its sequel, Battlefront 2. It is impossible to talk about the game without its extreme controversial decision that is loot boxes or as EA puts it…. “Surprise Mechanics”. To say anything it caused so many issues that the game itself might even cause lawmakers to classify the mechanic as gambling. Ever since the games release there has been a bit of a scale back.

Battlefront 2 in terms of gameplay was fine, it was a sequel, it improved upon the last games mechanics and had a story narrative which was different from the first game which didn’t. What it did was surprise people and force games to go into the limelight. Its a very interesting case of the game not being revolutionary but what it did shook the industry at large. It was one of the first cases of actual pay to win mechanics that the studio learned they pushed too far on.

Its not to say the game was not loose with problems in other departments but it pushed it into an extremely negative light that the developers probably wished want nothing to deal with.

Subnautica 2018 - 202?

A few years ago I had a discussion with some designers on the merits of Steam Greenlight. While the service is now admittedly dead, the crux of the argument was that the service provided ample opportunity of the idea of iterative design. A normal tactic in app development where you consistently update your app to meet consumer demand, and to build it to be further updated later. The argument was that there had been no game that had been released (up to that point) that proved that good games can come out of Steam Greenlight. Then came a game two years later called Subnautica.

Which I would say is proof of steam’s greenlight system and one of the few to leave steam’s early access program. Then to fully release with high marketability, raving reviews, critical success, and one of the most satisfying experiences I’ve had with a survival game in years. Subnautica is an exceptional creation of hard work, and shows the power of frequent updates, community responsiveness, and concepting.

This game is a work of art to any who struggle to work with iterative design. It is one of the few games to deliver upon most of its promises from the onset and with key iterations that turned and twisted the game into something . Subnautica is proof of those concepts that given ample amount of time a great game can turn out! This goes double for its experience which it continued to nail with responsive design, and world building which continue to thrill and excite audiences.

Subnautica will go down as one of the best examples of the now defunct steam greenlight. While also retaining a massive audience and a fanbase hungry for the next game.

Fallout 76 2018

Fallout 76….. follows the traditional Bethesda title, RPG, and first person shooter. Where in the previous title of Fallout 4 the game was built with scavenging mechanics and RPG systems that reward players with finding new items. It is a grindy game which focused on as the Gather-Combat-Explore loop as coined by Joesph Anderson which is a catch all loop for all RPGs made by Bethesda. Fallout 76 was not developed by the main studio but by a second studio. Sort of like another game that came out the year before that bit off more than it could chew.

It is a game that everyone recognizes for its failure, and an interesting chapter for a Triple A studio that has had massive successes. It is almost impossible to talk about the game without mentioning its failure. A game with a lot of promise with a company with little experience in creating massive multiplayer experience. For those unaware it is hard enough to create a peer to peer or a player system at a small scale, but one that is used by potentially millions of people with not even a true beta or alpha like that used for World of Warcraft and Destiny might’ve been a mistake… The list goes on what they failed at, rushed production, too many promises.

Such was the experience of its release, that it undoubtedly delayed DOOM : Eternal from its intended release in 2019 to 2020. While it is sad to see such a promising title fall flat so publicly I have to admit it is pretty fascinating how much failed when it released. It is probably a haunting experience to the game developers who created Fallout 76 to create such a hated product. If anyone would know the problems with their own game it would be the developers who created it.

While I played it briefly my experience was naught fraught without problems, with game breaking bugs, my own inventory being deleted, somehow. Then somehow glitching through the floor and losing my prized power armor. To say I enjoyed the game, is an adventure in cognitive dissonance I am not comfortable with recounting. Every single failure for this game will continue to be publicized and mocked, and while I find some of the mockery unfair. It makes me hope that Bethesda has learned from its experience and will come out with a new experience that will shake the industry.

Sekiro Shadow Die Twice 2019

I would say that Sekiro Shadows Die Twice is a game that exemplified the best qualities of the Soulsborne series. Created by FromSoftware, Sekiro is a Japanese inspired story about a lone shinobi fighting for his master to sever the bonds of immortality. Sekiro is an action thrilling adventure game, featuring timed combat, and visually stunning design.

Sekiro is one of the most beautiful games to come out this decade, while also being something that hadn’t really been done before, cinematic combat. It is a wonderful game, that i think is best experienced with a controller at hand, a deeply satisfying experience from beginning to end. With highs and lows that fill the player with rage and full of accomplishment. Where Dark Souls was slow and methodical combat, Sekiro was design from beginning to end to be a cinematic experience.

Though many games came out in 2019, Sekiro was the only I could afford to play, one that I just picked up on a dare. I had very little excitement for the game, and yet I enjoyed it thoroughly. I believe many players had different experiences to me, some developers even see it as a perfectionism that FromSoftware has approached. This has left many players hungry for the next experience FromSoftware can deliver.