New Game VS Old Games

 Question : What do you think new video games lack that older games had? [Another question from Qoura Digest].

[Note : Before we begin, the old games here means anything that came out before 2001].

This is a complex question. For one thing, it is easier to answer what the older game lacks when compared to the new games. The older games (games which in my opinion existed before the year 2000s) lacks of DLCs or Downloadable Contents and Micro-transaction. In the old days, every game which came out in earlier consoles were standalone games which are complete. There were no downloadable contents (largely due to the fact that the Internet were not widely available in most parts of Asia at that time) and any sequels which came out, could came out with its own package, probably at least a year after the initial release. Rarely did a game produced a sequel less than a year, unless it was in pre-production during the first game production and marketing. 

As for micro-transaction, which can be defined as buying extra contents after the initial purchase (of the game), that too were largely unheard of due to the lack of Internet being widely available in Asia. At best, you can buy accessories and things like GameShark codes (that's cheat codes for those who do not know or familiar with it) or buy walkthroughs through popular game magazines at that time. I still remember going to bookstores in various places with a gamer friend of mine and look through various game books, hoping to find games which we were playing, already brought or were planning to buy. 

Now back to the topic at hand. What are the things which today's games seems to be lacking (when compared to the older games)?

The first thing I can see is the (lack of) plot or strong story-lines. The stories are short, probably just a page or two long if you actually write it down.  The story seems to revolve around getting from Point A to Point B, then Point C and then to Point D and onward. Just enough story-line is given, like spice and salt added for the taste along the way to season up the story but nothing serious along the way. Some popular games like Fortnite, Destiny, Battlefield etc seems to revolve around playing the game for the sake of fun and nothing more. Plots are not required and if there exist any plot, it could be there to season the game, making it swallow-able and nothing more.

Another thing that I find lacking is the Individuality of the characters. The characters in current games seems to be "watered down", with no background to look forward to learn, no ideology, individuality or any other traits which we could define the character as someone "special". When a person plays something like Metal Gear Solid or Resident Evil games, the players have some idea what sort of character they are controlling, and therefore, it makes some characteristics to the plot of the overall game. 

The worst character design I have ever seen in a video game must be Henry from Kingdom Come Deliverance. Henry supposed to be a 14th (or was it 15th) years old boy from 15th Century Europe (region of Bohemia) who was the son of a blacksmith, lives in a rural area and spend most of his growing years helping his father at the blacksmith station OR in and around their village. And yet, you have a boy who has zero knowledge in blacksmith, swinging a sword or handling any sort of weapon or armour. The story tries to put the "blame" on the father who doesn't want his boy to learn to defend himself but I find it odd considering the trade the father trying to teach the boy (which is blacksmithing) requires a certain understanding on how weapons and armour works.

One of the best character design I have seen could likely be Aloy from Horizon Zero Dawn. The best thing about the way they (Guerilla Studios) shaped her character is that they provided us with dimensions. They shown us when she was a child and how she was vulnerable to everything. Then they show us growing up into teenager through her hard practice and combat skills. So when you were given control of the teenage Aloy, it made perfect sense that she could do the various things she was able to do in the game (like shoot bows and arrows and use other weapons, heal herself, make potions or even strip a kill). The game also did not abandon the character Rost who were her father and mentor growing up. Later in the game, you can get glimpse of how well he had trained and experienced the real World prior of becoming Aloy's father. This in my opinion, is a very good way of writing a character up.

Another good game which had both a good storyline and a good character design could be Days Gone by SIE Bend Studios and published by SONY Interactive Entertainment for PS4. The name (SIE Bend) sounded familiar to me, until I went online to check them out and found out that they were responsible for Siphon Filter series (from 1999 to 2007). I guess now I know where they get the experience and knowledge in creating a believable characters like those which I had seen in Days Gone. Bravo! I could not help but to wonder whether they have any plans to do a new Siphon Filter game for the new console since the last one was in 2007 (Logan's Shadows for Playstation 2, which officially ended the series).

I also notice that the games nowadays seems to be lacking in complexity when comes to skills, weapons and armour. This may have something to do with micro-transaction. Games nowadays attend to supply the regular players with common weaponry and armour, while deliberately withholding the more complex, powerful and effective weapons and armour for loot boxes, treasure boxes and for "special" deals (which the players must buy off the Net). 

In the old days, we had around a dozen weapon per category (such as sword, spears, daggers, shield etc) and then, we could be allowed to dismantle these weapons, take the parts and put together (with other materials) to create better weapons. I still remember playing Vagrant Story (PlayStation 1) which I believe had the most number of combinations in any game I had played since (for more detail, see the links below). And that is just weapons. They also had abilities to customize and strengthen your armour and shields.

So in summary, I believe that new games nowadays had limited a lot of cool features which existed in the previous (game) generations, especially to support the micro-transaction and to hide their own incapability to write more complex plots. Perhaps this is a sign that the new generation nowadays do not have as much creativity as the older generations had OR perhaps the newer generation placed a self-restricting limits on their own creativity process, thus forcing themselves to operate within a smaller creativity gap. 

Source :

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Days_Gone

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syphon_Filter

https://vagrantstory.fandom.com/wiki/Vagrant_Story_Weapons

https://vagrantstory.fandom.com/wiki/Weapon_Combinations