Why Every Modern Game Feels Like Déjà Vu :(

[Spike]

It might be my boomer side talking, but every time I pick up a modern game, I immediately feel like I’ve already played it. Yes, the story is new, the graphics are slightly different, and the UI is unique… but that’s about it. Each new game feels more like a reskin of an old one, with a new theme, not something built from the ground up. It feels like developers are modifying existing games and tweaking them just enough to make them look different.

This is especially noticeable in big studio games—AAA titles, or whatever you want to call them. I know there are a few people out there innovating, and I get that over time, it gets harder to do something completely different. Maybe they’re just trying to save costs? I don’t know.

Imagine if, when Super Mario Bros. came out for the NES, every other 2D platformer just copy-pasted the entire physics of the game and used it for their own. So Contra, Castlevania, DuckTales, and Ninja Gaiden would all move exactly like Mario. Sure, that’s okay, I guess. But then you’d already have mastered those games just by playing Mario. You wouldn’t need to learn anything new, and all the games would feel the same. That’s what’s happening now, and I don’t think it’s a good thing. It used to be fine to not be great at a game the first time you played it, but now it feels like you’ve already played it before you even start.

 

[Baron]

I'd say it's a combination of performance and engine stagnation - between Unreal Engine, Godot and Unity, which were documented to hell and back, there's no incentive to new developers or smaller studios to take risks in developing new tech to "adapt" their vision to the media.

As for performance, the impression I have is that a lot of progress and innovation in video-games were driven by hardware limitations too. The last big leap I noticed was 7th gen with the PS3 weird Cell Processor. The use of motion controllers "pioneered" (as in mainstream spread) by the Wii, followed by the Kinect and PSMove pulled the creativity of developers further than the recent usage of VR, for example.

With the rising costs of game development and lack of creative challenges, it ends up homogenizing the industry and we end up with all this bland scene.

 

[TheWanderer]

It might be my boomer side talking, but every time I pick up a modern game, I immediately feel like I’ve already played it. Yes, the story is new, the graphics are slightly different, and the UI is unique… but that’s about it. Each new game feels more like a reskin of an old one, with a new theme, not something built from the ground up. It feels like developers are modifying existing games and tweaking them just enough to make them look different.

This is especially noticeable in big studio games—AAA titles, or whatever you want to call them. I know there are a few people out there innovating, and I get that over time, it gets harder to do something completely different. Maybe they’re just trying to save costs? I don’t know.

Imagine if, when Super Mario Bros. came out for the NES, every other 2D platformer just copy-pasted the entire physics of the game and used it for their own. So Contra, Castlevania, DuckTales, and Ninja Gaiden would all move exactly like Mario. Sure, that’s okay, I guess. But then you’d already have mastered those games just by playing Mario. You wouldn’t need to learn anything new, and all the games would feel the same. That’s what’s happening now, and I don’t think it’s a good thing. It used to be fine to not be great at a game the first time you played it, but now it feels like you’ve already played it before you even start.

Yeah most games always use the same formula most of the time,heck they even relatively have the "same" story
But there is still those unique games that Comes out every now and then
Nier replicant really blew me away with the story for example
Caligula effect 2 has a very unique and entertaining battle system that you don't see in most jrpgs
Neo Twewy is also something
I think most unique stuff comes from AA games tbh

 

[Octopus]

I think it's a bunch of different factors coming together. It's definitely a bit of engine stagnation like Baron said, when everything is made with the same three or four engines it's all going to sort of blend together. I miss the days of custom engines, it used to be the norm which is how you got innovation and companies making a name for themselves.

I think the biggest thing though is just the culture has changed. I don't mean like 'videogames are woke now, it's bad' to clarify- I couldn't care less about politics either way. I mean from the business and dev culture; at least in AAA's, it's all about safe decisions, and since the business side of it has inflated into the multi billion territory safe decisions are things that have previously sold well because no one wants a Concord on their hands (sorry Sony). But that's the other issue is average dev times are also ballooned into the 5,6,7 year territory so you're always behind on trends which is why Concord came like 5 years too late into the hero shooter market.

Basically no one takes risk anymore and games are being made with far too much money due to inflation of the sector.

 

[Octopus]

In my opinion, games need to be made uglier and shorter and for far less money and by less people.

 

[demo]

there are definitely a lot of factors. I don't want to play the 'game are woke now' game either, but especially in the AAA space it really does feel like a lot of these developers hate games and 'gamers' and want to purposely stick it to old school gamers who got the industry to the massive place it is today. I'm not sure why they do this, but it is pretty aggressive and obvious imo.

there are no new experiences anymore in AAA, at least compared to how it used to be, where every major release was this brand new creative experience. it felt like games used to be made by people who loved games and wanted to come up with new and interesting ways to tell stories through the way the story was told and through the actual gameplay.

now there is only a handful of ways a game is played and the way the story in those games is told. every game that comes out now can be compared to games that came before it. hell they are even calling games 'souls-like', 'zelda-like', 'feels like a mix of overwatch and tf2'. it's like every game review and every conversation about how the game plays or feels is referencing other games.

I think back to some of my favorite games and you absolutely couldn't have that kind of conversation about them.

killer 7 plays like... uh, well, nothing else

Shadow of the colossus takes all the best parts of... um, nothing else

silent Hill 2 reminds me of... nothing really, it did it's own thing even tho it's a sequel

I guess it just used to feel like these people used to care about games and cared about the medium. now it feels like they care about making some kind of point or sticking it to chuds or something. whatever is happening it is terrible and it is killing the industry and you can see it in all these massive flops this year.

it's sad to see. it feels like this medium still has so much potential to innovate and change the way you can tell stories and play games, yet they are happy to just shit out '-like' games and 'this game plays just like-'.

 

[Octopus]

there are definitely a lot of factors. I don't want to play the 'game are woke now' game either, but especially in the AAA space it really does feel like a lot of these developers hate games and 'gamers' and want to purposely stick it to old school gamers who got the industry to the massive place it is today. I'm not sure why they do this, but it is pretty aggressive and obvious imo.

there are no new experiences anymore in AAA, at least compared to how it used to be, where every major release was this brand new creative experience. it felt like games used to be made by people who loved games and wanted to come up with new and interesting ways to tell stories through the way the story was told and through the actual gameplay.

now there is only a handful of ways a game is played and the way the story in those games is told. every game that comes out now can be compared to games that came before it. hell they are even calling games 'souls-like', 'zelda-like', 'feels like a mix of overwatch and tf2'. it's like every game review and every conversation about how the game plays or feels is referencing other games.

I think back to some of my favorite games and you absolutely couldn't have that kind of conversation about them.

killer 7 plays like... uh, well, nothing else

Shadow of the colossus takes all the best parts of... um, nothing else

silent Hill 2 reminds me of... nothing really, it did it's own thing even tho it's a sequel

I guess it just used to feel like these people used to care about games and cared about the medium. now it feels like they care about making some kind of point or sticking it to chuds or something. whatever is happening it is terrible and it is killing the industry and you can see it in all these massive flops this year.

it's sad to see. it feels like this medium still has so much potential to innovate and change the way you can tell stories and play games, yet they are happy to just shit out '-like' games and 'this game plays just like-'.

You're definitely right about old games being unique in the descriptive sense, but I feel that's more or less caused by the money that needs to be thrown around to make a AAA game meaning they can't really take risks, I can't even blame them when it takes $400Mil to make something nowadays between engine licensing fees, employment costs across 6+ years for over a hundred employees and marketing. They always say money and time are the antithesis of creativity and innovation, after all- there comes a certain point where having both those can be detrimental to a creative process which we're obviously seeing with the whole 'blank-like' saturation.

I think the whole 'they hate you' thing is true in some instances. I've noticed a trend lately in a lot of modern writing across a bunch of different formats of being 'meta' and 'subversive' because they're above such things as established tropes and they're trying to be edgy or something. Look at the Last of Us Part 2 for a gaming example; a direct quote from Naughty Dog was "we don't use the term fun around here" which to me is an immediate failure since you're making a video game. Obviously it's not a 'fun' game in vibe, but it should still be fun to play and experience and I don't think they pulled that off. The concept of 'subversion' can be a good thing if used correctly, but in a lot of instances I've seen lately it hasn't been. It really only works if you subvert the audience's expectations with something equal to if not better than the bait and switch.

Corporation's have always excited in video games obviously, but at least back in the day they still felt like they made by people who wanted to make video games and were dealing with sane, non-hollywood tier amounts of resources. Less necessary investment equals less risk which means they were more likely to take some risks and try new things out.

 

[demo]

You're definitely right about old games being unique in the descriptive sense, but I feel that's more or less caused by the money that needs to be thrown around to make a AAA game meaning they can't really take risks, I can't even blame them when it takes $400Mil to make something nowadays between engine licensing fees, employment costs across 6+ years for over a hundred employees and marketing. They always say money and time are the antithesis of creativity and innovation, after all- there comes a certain point where having both those can be detrimental to a creative process which we're obviously seeing with the whole 'blank-like' saturation.

I think the whole 'they hate you' thing is true in some instances. I've noticed a trend lately in a lot of modern writing across a bunch of different formats of being 'meta' and 'subversive' because they're above such things as established tropes and they're trying to be edgy or something. Look at the Last of Us Part 2 for a gaming example; a direct quote from Naughty Dog was "we don't use the term fun around here" which to me is an immediate failure since you're making a video game. Obviously it's not a 'fun' game in vibe, but it should still be fun to play and experience and I don't think they pulled that off. The concept of 'subversion' can be a good thing if used correctly, but in a lot of instances I've seen lately it hasn't been. It really only works if you subvert the audience's expectations with something equal to if not better than the bait and switch.

Corporation's have always excited in video games obviously, but at least back in the day they still felt like they made by people who wanted to make video games and were dealing with sane, non-hollywood tier amounts of resources. Less necessary investment equals less risk which means they were more likely to take some risks and try new things out.

I agree. back in the day games still needed to make money, but it felt like mostly the publishers and devs cared about games. it was better when there wasn't an absurd amount of money in the industry because then the only people doing it were doing it because they love the medium.

I wish publishers saw more value in smaller cheaper games. I think it's obvious once a team gets to a certain size or if you have different teams all over the world working on different aspects of the game if becomes a stitched together mess. look at something like starfield. you can practically tell the different teams that worked on the different systems and then just stitched it all together with menus.

i just wish there was still room in the industry for a healthy amount of smaller games that had good backing from a publisher and was willing to take chances on new experiences. I think games like Star wars outlaws and Concord and probably the new assassin's creed are really showing that even the most casual gamers who don't follow the industry are sick of this shit. I hate to see games fail simply because I love the medium and want there to be games for everyone even if they aren't for me, but it is oddly satisfying to see the rejection of this stuff. I hope it leads to better things.

 

[Octopus]

I agree. back in the day games still needed to make money, but it felt like mostly the publishers and devs cared about games. it was better when there wasn't an absurd amount of money in the industry because then the only people doing it were doing it because they love the medium.

I wish publishers saw more value in smaller cheaper games. I think it's obvious once a team gets to a certain size or if you have different teams all over the world working on different aspects of the game if becomes a stitched together mess. look at something like starfield. you can practically tell the different teams that worked on the different systems and then just stitched it all together with menus.

i just wish there was still room in the industry for a healthy amount of smaller games that had good backing from a publisher and was willing to take chances on new experiences. I think games like Star wars outlaws and Concord and probably the new assassin's creed are really showing that even the most casual gamers who don't follow the industry are sick of this shit. I hate to see games fail simply because I love the medium and want there to be games for everyone even if they aren't for me, but it is oddly satisfying to see the rejection of this stuff. I hope it leads to better things.

I think there's been a decent return of the almost forgotten single and double A budget titles lately, hopefully it continues. If you look at some of the success stories in the last year or so:
Helldivers 2, which was practically an indie title.
Space Marine 2 which had more money than Helldivers behind it but I would still say it was a AA title.
Vampire Saviours, which literally was an indie title.
Palworld, once again practically an indie title.

That's all I got off the top of my head right now at least. It helps that all of those other than Space Marine 2 were budget priced titles, but I think my point still stands. I think the underlying reason they were all successful is the people behind them were passionate and they are all just fun to play and relatively simple with strong gameplay.

 

[Octopus]

Even Baldur's Gate 3 took some risks considering it was a dead franchise and a usually niche genre of turn-based fantasy rpg, and it had only a decent-ish amount of money behind it. I think in that case it was also helped by D&D being in vogue right now, but still.

 

[It's Thinking 2]

Because almost every AAA game is a cinematic over the shoulder 3rd person walking sim. Indie games are the opposite of that and are super creative and fun! Same with a bunch of Nintendo games. Sega does some wild stuff with Yakuza. It ain't all bad, but there is a lot of crap out there that clogs up the TGS and other showcases every year. They need quality over quantity and it takes way too long and way too much money to make for that to be viable. The answer? Make smaller games from outside developers that cater to different audiences. Get some of those indies on that console and give them a bigger budget. Bring back mascot platformers, kart racers, shmups, RPGs, ect. It can be 2D or 3D. They need to stop being so embarrassed by their past and give all those older franchises the respect and love they deserve. Bringing back an IP for one game and half assing it or having expectations that are way too high and ignore fan input on what to fix is going to ruin any chance of that IP having a future and selling more consoles. Sony and Microsoft need to understand this.

 

[Waiting For The Rain]

now there is only a handful of ways a game is played and the way the story in those games is told.

I remember looking through the screenshots in magazines and wondering how the game actually played. Most glimpses at games had me interested in finding out what I would be doing in them. Now, I see a screenshot or even just the promo art for something and I can tell exactly how it plays.

Over these past couple of decades, most things have been successfully standardized. It's been good in some instances, like cameras in 3D games, but in most others it's become so boring to me. There's no reason to reinvent the wheel, of course, but I can't remember the last new game that felt like a brand new experience to me. At this point, the "last new game" I played must be at least a few years old, though. What I see in this thread and in game discussions the internet over it doesn't seem like anything miraculously changed in those years anyway.

 

[Baron]

Even Baldur's Gate 3 took some risks considering it was a dead franchise and a usually niche genre of turn-based fantasy rpg, and it had only a decent-ish amount of money behind it. I think in that case it was also helped by D&D being in vogue right now, but still.

But let's be honest: BG3 didn't get so big because of the genre or D&D, but because Larian has always written their games in the millennial style "lol so random" - I couldn't get past two hours into Divinity: Original Sin for this exact reason, and BG3 is a chore for me to play.

Don't get me wrong, it's a success of a game and I hope it drives a new era of CRPGs, as long as developers and publishers understand that gameplay makes a game way more than the writing.

 

[moonbits]

I often think about this. It feels like gaming went through a standardization and it's been struggling with it for over a decade.

From the machines we use to develop/play games, the interfaces/controllers, menus, game design, etc. It makes this medium increasingly predictable in every genre and attempt.

 

[Mopeybloke]

In my opinion, games need to be made uglier and shorter and for far less money and by less people.

I love that line, but considering how much people bitch about perceived graphical shortcomings, I don't think that's happening soon unless you don't give gamers a choice [which I'm fine with].

On the note of thread's topic, I think your perception is correct, and the factors at hand are:

1. Games are often made in the same engines and share physics systems
2. Because of ballooning budgets, games will tend to stick to safest options for many elements, including controls
3. People expect all games to control the same, and there are consequences for breaking those expectations.

 

[DunkeyKong]

Maybe because most of us have grown up and have seen or felt that the games that we played doesn't changed, even the newer ones. It can went from graphics, controls, gameplay, story, layout, settings, buildings, etc.

For example...characters, there can be a lot of characters with different hairstyles, personalities, mindset, goals and anything that can make a character unique. But despite all of that, most of us still got a glimpse of what these characters is, where is it inspired from and even as far as knowing the backstories of those characters without ANY plot or lore from the author of those characters

This is just an example of why games nowadays doesn't feel like it's something new, but rather just better visuals. And this is why I prefer to play Retro games because the developers actually tried to create something new, sometimes even when it's weird...it is still fun. That's another reason why some Retro games are just so unique instead of relying it on next gen graphics this, next gen that, and what I'm trying to say is...they actually make a game fun and feel different, even with limitations

 

[Lee__Kanker]

It might be my boomer side talking, but every time I pick up a modern game, I immediately feel like I’ve already played it. Yes, the story is new, the graphics are slightly different, and the UI is unique… but that’s about it. Each new game feels more like a reskin of an old one, with a new theme, not something built from the ground up. It feels like developers are modifying existing games and tweaking them just enough to make them look different.

This is especially noticeable in big studio games—AAA titles, or whatever you want to call them. I know there are a few people out there innovating, and I get that over time, it gets harder to do something completely different. Maybe they’re just trying to save costs? I don’t know.

Imagine if, when Super Mario Bros. came out for the NES, every other 2D platformer just copy-pasted the entire physics of the game and used it for their own. So Contra, Castlevania, DuckTales, and Ninja Gaiden would all move exactly like Mario. Sure, that’s okay, I guess. But then you’d already have mastered those games just by playing Mario. You wouldn’t need to learn anything new, and all the games would feel the same. That’s what’s happening now, and I don’t think it’s a good thing. It used to be fine to not be great at a game the first time you played it, but now it feels like you’ve already played it before you even start.

I mad a thread about it just half an hour ago XD

YEP

I've been feeling very very strongly like this for a long time

You dont even need tomgo as far back as the famicom, to me games stopped feeling unique around the ps3 days

Let's take

• Silent Hill 3​
• Siren​
• Haunting Ground​
• Biohazard Remake​
• Devil May Cry​
• Shinobi​
• Metal Gear Solid 2​
• Devil May Cry​
• GTA San Andreas​
• God of War 2​
• Yakuza​
• Ico​
• Urban Reigns​
• God Hand​

They will all play completely different, each game with its own control scheme and feel and mechanics to learn and master with their own little idiosyncracies and techniques, different ways of rendering people, different degrees of realism and stylization, different way stuff moves around, different music feel, different atmosphere and lighting and the ways characters act

Now if it's big budget, unless its continuing an old series, its gonna feel EXACTLY the same; a mish mash of uncharted and the last of us with that same darn camera, walk and talk segments, hollywood style acting and pacing, photorealistic graphics and faces, maybe very basic stealth and crafting

Thats because games cost so obscenely much they're terrified a player may encounter the first zombie and ragequit because they keep dying and dont want to learn the controls
So it must be as accessible as possible

If everything is accessible everything feels the same

You have no idea how disheartened I was when I saw the silent hill remake and its yet another tlou clone
It doesnt matter the genre or setting
A horror game will control the same as an action game or open world, you can be kratos slaying ogres but it's roughly the same as joel killing randos or remake leon surviving the g virus leak or the guy from evil within or arthur morgan

Spiderman will control the same way as Batman in fights, same for a random hong kong cop from sleeping dogs

The witcher Ezio Auditore and Batman aall have the same way of finding stuff even if its 3 completely different characters and settings

I love that line, but considering how much people bitch about perceived graphical shortcomings, I don't think that's happening soon unless you don't give gamers a choice [which I'm fine with].

On the note of thread's topic, I think your perception is correct, and the factors at hand are:

1. Games are often made in the same engines and share physics systems
2. Because of ballooning budgets, games will tend to stick to safest options for many elements, including controls
3. People expect all games to control the same, and there are consequences for breaking those expectations.

Theres also the fact that...most modern gamers just dont play for the mechanics

 

[Skeetos]

I think this console generation just got screwed. They adopted raytracing too early and the new consoles got video cards that can't handle it for the most part and most games today are made with graphics in mind. And none of them ever do anything interesting with the visuals to justify it. Alan Wake 2 is the only game of late that I could say justified that tech. That game is cold as hell. But a lot of devs are also using the same tech. Unreal Engine being the big one. Everyone uses that engine because of it's vast capabilities, but if you don't know how to use it right then every game just looks the same. My favorite new titles lately has been the Yakuza games. And the stuff Capcom does when they aren't outsourcing stuff like RE3make and Dead Rising Deluxe Turdburger. I've also been getting into Warhammer. Haven't gone so far as to play the tabletop game or get minis but I like the video games. Space Marine, Darktide, and Dawn of War are really cool. I think it's just the big studios. They play it too safe these days and don't try to push any new tech or such that actually is interesting. And a lot of tech that devs played with in the PSWii60 and Xbox One/PS4 eras they don't push anymore to leave render power for crap implementations of raytracing and such that just kill frames and don't look that much better. I miss physics engines that actually popped. Like how they set up Euphoria for GTAIV up to Max Payne 3 and the Force Unleashed games. Or Battlefield with it's dynamic Destruction physics. I think a lot of devs are gonna get more used to how to allocate resources once the next generation of consoles comes through. I think that's when we'll see drastically different stuff again.

 

[RageBurner]

It's probably a combination of market stagnation, experience and perception.
As it goes, by living we trade innocence and youth for wisdom and knowledge: the more one lives, the more one will have seen and experienced.

As such, we are instinctively seeking that sense of discovery, wonder and a thrill for the unknown; we want to re-live, re-learn, re-experience. Of course, that's a great folly; that wonder will not return, but we keep seeking it.

With knowledge comes a dose of cynicism, perhaps, so we decompose game aspects looking for that glint of gold that isn't even there, and as we fail to find it, it becomes a cycle.
"I've seen this before", "been there, done that", "<blank> did this better", "<blank 2> is nowhere as good as <blank 1>".

So yes, we'll keep seeing that same black cat on the sidewalk, no matter how hard we try.