Talent in western game studios just can't shake the startup mode. Try get a hit, try to get bought, cash out, run away.
Blizzard seemed to defy the stereotype but it died a long time ago, it's just a husk.
The contrast with japanese game studios is impressive.
*US game studios. Continental Europe has been continuing to put out masterpieces. (Many countries: Poland, Croatia, Czechia, France, etc)
BioWare is a Canadian studio
(But purchased by EA obviously)
Where does Ubisoft slot into this equation?
Why do you think that is? What would you consider a European masterpiece? And what would you consider something that falls short from outside Europe?
European masterpieces, recentish:
This is subject to taste, but the games I've been personally enjoying the most are almost all European. US games are comparatively mediocre. I don't have an explanation; only this observation. I was startled when noticing it.Most recently, I'm loving Order of the Sinking Star, and that's from a US team. There's hope!
You're forgetting a few major ones:
- Baldur's Gate 3 (German)
- Disco Elysium (Estonian)
- Divinity: Original Sin 1 and 2 (same studio as BG3)
BG3 is notable for its gigantic success. And Disco Elysium is one of the best written games ever made, and it showed that you can have a fantastic RPG with no combat system whatsoever, while still having meaningful progression.
> - Baldur's Gate 3 (German)
Bruh, Larian is in Belgium
> Order of the Sinking Star
I was going to mention this game as a counter point but then realised that if I am doing that it's kind of the exception that proves the rule.
I do wonder why this is, perhaps there's more money in the US to build bigger games with bigger teams and you just get the 'too many cooks in the kitchen' syndrome.
I must admit most AAA games from the US over the last decade have been underwhelming for me.
To be fair Order of the Sinking Star is by Jhonthon Blow + (who ever he employed). So if we rephraze it from US to US AAA studios, it still works.
To add to this list, Remedy Entertainment. They don't miss.
- Alan Wake 1 & 2 - Control & Control Resonant (came out last month) - Quantum Break
They are a small studio but release fantastic works of art every time. If you haven't heard of them, you might've heard of Max Payne. It was developed by these guys.
Baldurs Gate 3 was made in Europe!
> Anything by CDPR
They're lucky they were able to No Man's Sky CP2077 alongside Edgerunners being well received.
Edgerunners saved CP2077 the way the Pokemon anime built the franchise in the US: it took a game that could be quite esoteric in its appeal and sold everybody on the world and the stories that could be told in it. Oh, and built a richer and more focused musical identity.
I always wonder why other games get this aspect of the marketing so wrong. Controversial take, but I think if they'd had a handful of cinematics out before release (and they hadn't gone with the atrocious sales model), Concord might have had a fighting chance. There was a lot wrong with that game, but its biggest failure was that no one loved it enough to defend it when the hatedom descended. Compare to, say, Marathon: it still may fail, in the end, but it's hung on for as long as it has because, in part, it genuinely charmed; it made an earnest attempt to get people to people to buy into the qualia of the vision of its world.
The US gaming industry has serious Hollywood envy. There's a constant push to make games "cinematic" and put big name actors in leading roles. This not only bloats budgets but results in barely-interactive monstrosities where gameplay is just a bridge between long, non-interactive cutscenes.
It's ironic because Hollywood is not doing too well at the moment.
I like "cinematic" games, and have never had a problem with long cutscenes as long as they told a good story. Games are a great medium for storytelling and cutscenes are better than delivering plot strictly by having players hunt for thousands of short snippets of text.
I'm far less impressed with big name actors and that seems like a massive waste of money. As long as the acting is good, and the voices aren't obnoxious, I don't care who the actor is. People might see a movie just because it has an actor they like in it, but I don't think that carries over too well to games.
It's definitely a balancing act. There are some great cinematic games (Last of Us), but it's also easy to put all the focus on the cinematic aspects and have a bunch of mediocre gameplay as filler in between. I don't understand why more games didn't go the Half Life 2 route and have the conversation/cinematic play out around you without taking control away completely.
That really is a good way to handle it, although it does open the door to miss certain things if players don't do what's expected. For example, in the opening chapter for the last of us you can miss the news report on the TV and the stuff going on outside through the windows before Joel comes in. More than once in games I've only been clued into the fact that I missed a jump scare by a sudden musical sting.
In one sense, that's perfectly fair. In life if you're looking at your feet or spending your time examining the walls you'd be oblivious to what's going on around you, and for non-critical things having a bunch of little moments that you can only catch if you're in (or looking at) the right place at the right time can improve replay value, but games would have to be careful to make sure that the important stuff can't be missed.
Last of US I replayed about 5 years ago on the PS4, and it isn't a good game. I recently revisited Uncharted (Last of Us is just Uncharted with a more serious tone), and they are not good games. I think casual audiences like them because of the heavy story element, but they are quite tiresome to play. Naughty Dog excels at presentation, but the gameplay is just not there.
There are also a bunch of "action/adventure" mechanics that seem to be identical in a bunch of mainstream games. You have an upgrade system, so the actual gameplay of the game is bad at the start because you don't have any of the fun abilities at the start, open world mechanics, a very bland open world and the stories are very PG-13, and the characters are kind of bland in the main story. I was playing Ghosts of Tshushima, and many of the mechanics come straight from Farcry 3. I think I am not going to bother completing it. I feel like I've played this game many times before because it's so similar to other games. I would have probably got bored with it before now if it wasn't for the setting.
Generally, a lot of people are still replaying some of the greats from the late 2000s to the mid-2010s because the games weren't nearly as bland.
> Last of US I replayed about 5 years ago on the PS4, and it isn't a good game. I recently revisited Uncharted (Last of Us is just Uncharted with a more serious tone), and they are not good games.
Most gamers would disagree with you. That's alright, art is subjective and different people are allowed to like different things. Maybe you just don't like games with a lot of story? If so there are plenty of genres that aren't story heavy like arcade games, tile-matching/match 3 games, fighting, FPS, sports, etc. Or maybe action/adventure might just not be the genre for you?
As for original mechanics there's very little out there, but that was true even in the 2000s to the mid-2010s (which would include both uncharted, and the last of us). Most games are just building off of what's been done before. You can find clever twists on old mechanics or rare combinations of them, but it's very hard to find something really different. When you do, it's hit or miss on them being worthwhile, but sometimes the novelty helps make up for the shortcomings.
> You have an upgrade system, so the actual gameplay of the game is bad at the start because you don't have any of the fun abilities at the start
Upgrade systems are supposed to provide progression. It rewards you for your progress in the game with fun abilities. It also helps keep gameplay fresh over the 25/40/60/120+ hours you play by giving you a steady stream of exciting new abilities/weapons to try out. There's often a new game+ option that lets you play the game again with all the best abilities from the start. Upgrade systems are generally a good thing! Sometimes things can go wrong though, for example one of the many problems with Marvel's Spider-Man 2 was starting your character out far too weak compared to how he was at end of the first game and the upgrades you eventually got weren't great either.
Speaking as a somewhat older gamer, if you really want variety in gameplay I'd recommend trying to branch out to new genres, indie titles, and lower budget PC games. The AAA games with huge budgets can tell a great story with amazing visuals and satisfying gameplay but they aren't going to take a lot of risks because of the amount of money on the line. That might also be why they can come off as PG-13, they want a wide audience.
I think many of these games you've listed are a 7/10. A lot of games I am playing are either years old now or I am going back to older consoles (via emulation normally) and the classic games on them.
also people shouldn't sleep on Housemarque. Both Returnal and Saros were fantastic. Don't want to spoil Returnal but the narrative and symbolism that tie the game together if you go through everything after you've finished it and have a grasp of the story is incredible. And the gameplay is extremely fun.
If we are sticking to the CRPG theme. Then the Witcher 3 and Divinity: OG 2, BG3 and Disco Elysium would be the obvious choices. If you told me in beginning of 2010s all of the future hits in this genre will come out outside of US and Bioware/Obsidian will fade away, I would be quite surprised (but maybe shouldn't have, considering their owners and financial situations)
As many have mentioned, BG3, CDPR's Witcher and Cyberpunk 2077 franchise, Remedy's Control / Alan Wake franchise (both original IPs) to name just a few. DICE (within EA) comes from Sweden and it's responsible for EA's core Frostbite engine alongside its Battlefield franchise.
I cannot point to the reasons as to why. Many of these teams are global teams - so a lot of the same problems apply: marketing costs/timelines, release-time crunch etc. The one difference I can point to is that perhaps executive payouts are not overly dependent on total shareholder returns.
The Kingdom Come: Deliverance games from Warhorse Studios and the Witcher franchise from CD Projekt Red (both Polish) are excellent and have won a ton of awards
Lots of non EU games fall short, including several mentioned in this thread, e.g. Anthem
> The Kingdom Come: Deliverance games from Warhorse Studios and the Witcher franchise from CD Projekt Red (both Polish)
Warhorse Studios is Czech; Slavs are not all alike.
My mistake, I misremembered. Unfortunately can’t edit.
The Witcher 3, Any GTA game
CDPR is probably the flagship studio in Europe. Interestingly, they are probably the modern studio that most resembles Bioware in the 2000's.
Unfortunately CDPR is showing some signs of Bioware-ing. As much as I liked Cyberpunk 2077, it was visibly "less than" Witcher 3 in too many ways. This is a sign of decline.
Not really sure if they're comparable to a Bioware since CD Projekt Red the studio is basically the one and the same as CD Projekt the publisher. They also own GOG.com. They're probably more comparable to a Valve, with game development, game publishing and game distribution under a single roof.
CDPR has looong been separated from the publisher arm, and recently from the GOG one. Probably for the best for CDPR.
Warhorse studios as well. Rebel Wolves. Machine Games. IO interactive.
The list is rather long.
Valheim, Enshrouded. Each sit at the peak of the genre, IMO.
Bioware had a string of hits before EA bought them.
They lost their way when the doctors left.
Probably one of the best game studios ever, IMO.
(In no certain order)
- Baldur's Gate
- Baldur's Gate II: Shadows of Amn
- Neverwinter Nights
- Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic
- Star Wars: The Old Republic
- Jade Empire
- Mass Effect
- Mass Effect 2
- Mass Effect 3
- MDK2
- Dragon Age Origins
- Dragon Age II
- Dragon Age: Inquisition
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BioWare
I really enjoyed Neverwinter Knights 2.
Neverwinter Nights 2 was made by Obsidian, not Bioware.
And I would argue Obsidian was the better studio anyway. Besides NWN2, and moreso its fantastic expansion, Mask of the Betrayer, they also made the excellent Knights of the Old Republic 2, Fallout: New Vegas, and their own original franchises, Pillars of Eternity 1 and 2, and Tyranny.
Bioware sent engineers to provide help to Obsidian (SW KOTOR2, I think).
Obsidian and Bioware both had a working relationship with Black Isle Studios.
Love them all, they did some great stuff.
That was Obsidian.
... and then EA purchased them and forced the frostbyte engine and release cadence expectations and mechanics that worked for FIFA Ultimate Team.
Blizzard is owned by MSFT now, so it did get bought out (back in 2022). So it fits the 'startup mode' model that I _think_ you're trying to say?
There's other studios that similar to Blizzard didn't get bought out early and published multiple hit games, like Insomniac Games.
Blizzard has not been independent since 1994, but people on the internet love picking some arbitrary point in time when "Blizzard died" when in reality the timeline and quality of their releases has almost zero correlation with who they were owned by at the time.
I like Jason Schreier's take that the end of Blizzard began as soon as WoW blew up in popularity.
"Imagine a Blizzard that never made or never found the success they did with WoW and continued on the path of boxed releases every couple years."
I did find myself rather salty back then that it felt like Blizzard abandoned anything outside of WoW until 2010. WoW wasn't something I ever grew an interest in, yet I played an absurd amount of SC and WC3. Then SC2 was a huge miss for me, as well as every game after it.
There seems to be a bit of a symmetry between what WoW did to Blizzard and what WH40K did to Games Workshop.
> the end of Blizzard
extremely exaggerated. Recent reports said they are the top game studio at microsoft.
Yes, of course there's the financial performance of a studio and then the identity of a studio that people get attached to.
I didn't get into Blizzard games because they were a financial powerhouse, I got into them because they were fun as hell and the identity of Blizzard at the time gave me faith that their next release would be just as fun. That faith started deteriorating around 2005/6 for me, and was gone within a month or so of SC2 releasing. The identity of Blizzard of the 90s and early 2000s that I fell in love with was gone by 2010.
I can go into more detail about the shortcomings of all of the games from 2010 on (IMO, obviously), but the overall point is that they are fundamentally different than their older games and might as well have been from a different studio.
Similar with Westwood (part of Virgin interactive) and Bioware (parceled up with Pandemic studios, owned by Elevation partners, who sold it to EA)
Blizzard effectively got bought out when they merged with Activision. It wasn't technically a buyout, but Blizzard quality was never the same after that.
Yep, and all these years later, we have lost so much. It may seem like such a small thing, but losing real GMs in WoW makes me really sad.
Blizzard has not been independent since 1994, but people on the internet love picking some arbitrary point in time when "Blizzard died" when in reality the timeline and quality of their releases has almost zero correlation with who they were owned by at the time.
WoW Forever seems like they're at least attempting to try for the brass ring again. But it has such a "been there, done that" feel that I suspect its more to capture revenue from a new generation.
> But it has such a "been there, done that" feel that I suspect its more to capture revenue from a new generation.
The "been there, done that" vibe is their pitch to the older generation who no longer cares as much about technically or ladder climbing and just wants something to do when it's cold outside
There's probably a bit of a lottery winners effect.
So consider backing there. There may have been 20 companies trying to make 20 games, All in startup mode.
Now two or three of those succeed ed.. which means the management and team chemistry and creativity all worked really well. And the team members will have them mistaken impression that it's that easy.
But then some people leave some people ad in the next games, sure, they may have a better foundation than some other team situations at others, but it's going to gradually regress to the mean