It's not just NMS.. the "10,000 bowls of oatmeal" is a plight of all AAA games these days.
Ubisfot is a perfect example, look at their "Watch Dogs: Legion" for example. They decided to get creative and give you random characters generated by AI.. it turned out to be a disaster.
Another one is their Far cry games, where they copy and paste the same events but slightly different, all over the map and call it a day.
I think these efforts more have to do with bean counters taking over the industry than game designers being lazy. I'm sure there are plenty of talented people working at these studios, but they are held back by MBAs.
The quote "vastness of an ocean with the depth of a puddle" describes what the AAA-hollywood games complex aspire to be.
Fallout 4's endgame with the autogenerated "quests" of defending settlements get boring extremely fast.
I really hated the fact that Fallout 4 doesn't communicate to you what missions are procedural and which ones are actually handcrafted. This is the most frustrating part of that game. The procedural missions lack narrative closure, so you keep playing for a payoff that never comes
This was awful in Fallout 4, but a lot of fun with friends in Fallout 76
I personally really enjoyed Watch Dogs: Legion. It wasn't so much that each individual was very unique. Moreso the concept of being able to become anyone.
Far cry 3 and its consequences have been a disaster for the gaming industry.
FC3 is generally quite favorably reviewed. NMS could have been far more interesting if about 25% of the planets had relatively peaceful weather, wildlife, and sentinels, and had palatable color schemes, but near every single planet is either +200C, -200C, or radioactive, and the calm ones are lunar landscapes or barren.
Let's see if GTA 6 breaks away from this
The GTA franchise already broke away from this in the currently existing titles, but that's not a fair comparison given that GTA worlds are mostly handcrafted.
Isn’t it a fair comparison?
That purposefully designed settings and properly gated procedures can make procedurally generated realities…better? More fun?
The far cry games should be good but just aren't because of the repetitive bullshit.
Clutch Nixon is the only thing good thing about the last few games.
Idunno man I thought Far Cry 5 was brilliant. Sure there was a fair amount of copy pasting but it was such a blast that I didn't care and the game was over before I was ready for it. The whole psychedelic religious cult critique was a really interesting premise and I really liked the main antagonist and his sister. I just wish they had some way of concluding the story that allowed you to continue to get into all the ridiculous chaos it offers. Once everything is settled its just too peaceful.