2018, What Happened To The Triple-A Gaming Industry.

The first article on this blog, and yes typically it’s a ranting one from me, I’m great at that.

At the end of 2018 many big titles were due for release, Just Cause 4, Red Dead Redemption 2, Fallout 76, Battlefield 5, Call of Duty Black Ops 4 and many more. I had saved up quite a bit of money so I could get the sequels to titles I know and love but I was severely disappointed with most and angry at the business practices and state of many of the titles. On a positive note, Red Dead Redemption 2 was unbelievable, how did Rockstar again get us attached that much to one of their characters? Indie titles were also a hit during the 2018 period with such games as GRIP Combat Racing, Death Trash, Tetris Effect and many more.

Bethesda, what happened? Fallout 76, while there were mixed reactions to the reveal, sounded like a pretty good premise. Explore the huge open wastes of West Virginia with your friends, take on new enemies, join new factions and gain the power to launch nukes, what’s not to like about that? Well, actually a lot. NPC’s were gone, their defence was that the players replace the NPC’s and robots that give quests which just didn’t feel the same, especially when the limit of players was 24 per server so actually coming across players is pretty hard. The story behind why humans were mostly gone is interesting, the Scorched beats releasing a plague that turns the humans into there slaves, but sadly the Scorched reacted like normal raiders so there was nothing new brought to the table. Among the negatives, you can talk about in the gameplay the number of bugs and issues at launch were horrific. I think it’s safe to say if Fallout 76 wasn’t a rushed job and had an extra year, we may have seen something much better. I can’t help but think Bethesda wanted a cash cow. It feels like they went the games with live services route to keep money coming in rather than actually giving the players what they want. It’s definitely an issue today where the big companies seem to be delivering these games rushed and unfinished, labelling them games with live services and then completing the game later if it does alright. Battlefield 5, a former shell of its once titanic rule in First Person Shooters, and no I’m not ranting about the frankly stupid women weren’t on the Frontline debate, women fought in the war, Battlefield 5 displays that wonderfully. No my problem with Battlefield 5 is that it was released with a very basic amount of maps, reskinned guns from Battlefield One and it was missing several modes at launch and still is. I don’t blame the developers, I feel for them I do, the stick they have to put up with I can imagine is hard. The triple-A publishers like EA, Activision, Bethesda, they need to seriously look at what they’re doing, I understand the shareholders need pleasing but at what point do you start alienating your fan base? It seems we’re already there.

Most games I bought were just unfinished messes, I shouldn’t have pre-ordered them, in fact perhaps I’m part of the problem. I pre-order the game at full price and with no knowledge of how the final product is going turn out. Then I act hard done by when I realise, “oh this game is bad and when they price drop the game because sales are down, again I get angry because I paid full price. I now know in 2019 I have to be careful, I have to wait and see how they will pan out in the end. In 2019 the triple-A gaming industry needs to change and take a step back because if we keep having releases like this, I don’t see these big-time publishers lasting.