It feels related.Genres are so hard to track.
But there's been a general tendency, especially this last gen I would say for genres to get more mixed up.
Action adventure games with more RPG features. Stuff like that.
There's been a lot more blending of genres, it feels like.
Take for example immersive sims. The genre pretty much only exists because the same groups of developers kept making games with similar concepts. If Dishonored and Prey released without such an easy to track legacy, they'd just be bundled up in the generic action adventure genre.
Same goes for soulsborne. The games have a ton of similar features but without the clear legacy, they're very traditional combat focused games. Will the genre even survive if Fromsoft doesn't make another game in it? Or will more and more games experiment with the genre until just a core element remains, like exploration with non common checkpoints?
Eh game genres are so weird nowadays. I thought we were still just talking about big open world games. I was saying for a big open world game you get more freedom if its going for more of an adventure style game than RPG. And yes I was thinking of games like BOTW as more of an example where there's no skill trees or levels or anything to gate progress really, you just do what you want. Ghost of Tsushima recently is part way there although you unlock the map progressively. When you have a part of the map unlocked you have total freedom to do whatever you want there in whatever order.Skyrim and the rest of the elder scrolls are pretty similar in that regard. Whole map unlocks after the initial tutorial and quests can be done in whatever order. Skill trees and levels do not gate progress for the most part.
Ghost of Tsushima fakes some of its freedom. I'm still super early but one thing I noticed is that forts will be "too strong" to be attacked yet, but that actually means that invisible archers will kill you if you stay in the area. It's not like botw where you can accomplish anything at any time as long as you have the skill. Also my brother had a lighthouse delight itself since the game wanted him to do it during a mission.
Yeah definitely as games get more complex they're involving a mix of elements from lots of different classic genres. Most of the time its a good thing but so often games do get dragged down by adding RPG stuff when its not needed (imo obviously).Fully agree with that. RPG leveling just sucks in near everything. It either breaks things because it replaces freedom with grinding or it's paired with level scaling and makes progression feel bad.
