If you hadn't noticed, this is Forum 2.0
Yeah i'm getting very sick of the AAA space thinking that games need to be these monstrosities with 100 hours of content. And that in itself is lowering the quality bar because everyone is trying to do the same old open world crud. Give me $50 - $60 singleplayer games that are fairly linear with minimal to no side content and that would be awesome.100% agree about Banishers. I thought I would be done by 25 hours but I have 35 hours of content but not finished. The combat and world doesn't have enough depth to be this big. I would much rather a tighter and shorter experience. Surely it would shorten the development time and reduce the cost and improve quality. Pubs fixation on length is becoming grating but I get it as people want their money worth £70.
I think ND struck a good balance with TLOU part 2 with giving a bit more freedom, but the entire story still bing a very strict linear story.
I don't know if I would consider Banishers a AAA game, but it felt like it got trapped in the need to have more open worlds and a lot of unnecessary content. It made it a real slog to get through. Even though you could just run through the story a lot of the side stuff felt necessary to get the full experience.
It's a void I desperately would like to fill or help fill.Yup that's what I'm doing with Hapax. It's a massive open world but unlike these AAA slogfests, there's nothing to do in it! Game is 10 hours long because that's how long it takes to run to the ship's exit
People on Era were giving Banishers as an example of AA.Yeah its most likely AA in terms of budget, but it tried to feel like a AAA game with how many of those type of games are built now with the focus on content, content, content.
I feel like this is a big part of my issue. I feel like a lot of AA games are just less polished AAA games. A lot of them aren't pushing an Uncharted 2 in 2024.
There's so many older experiences like Batman AA, Skyrim, Uncharted that were made by smaller teams by today's standards that are still well regarded. Some of them are being played by more people than the newer games. Starfield is being outplayed by Skyrim.
Why does it feel like there aren't many AA studios trying to make games like those?
I don't know if I would consider Banishers a AAA game, but it felt like it got trapped in the need to have more open worlds and a lot of unnecessary content. It made it a real slog to get through. Even though you could just run through the story a lot of the side stuff felt necessary to get the full experience.People on Era were giving Banishers as an example of AA.