Comic: https://www.deathbulge.com/comics/441
Alt text: Yeah yeah, there's always exceptions, I mean look no further than the game in the 2nd panel, not the most thrilling gameplay, is it?
Comic: https://www.deathbulge.com/comics/441
Alt text: Yeah yeah, there's always exceptions, I mean look no further than the game in the 2nd panel, not the most thrilling gameplay, is it?
to play devil’s advocate: if i want 1990-2005 era graphics i’d rather just play games from that era because they were better.
i want GOOD AAA games in 2026, just like i want good hollywood blockbusters in 2026, just like i want good pop music in 2026.
i don’t want to spend 5485080485 hours sorting through garbage to find a $2 gem. anyone over 40 knows this pain; zoomers are in denial and make memes like this to justify their pathetic lives and smugly look down on everyone who isn’t willing to go the distance for a fleeting experience that’s lacking in comparison to some crappy dos game from 35 years ago, like martian memorandum.
You’re thinking of a different time; there’s a deluge of indie and “AA” games with graphical fidelity that puts most AAAs to shame; and that’s if you set aside their art direction.
This isn’t 2005. Devs have access to some fantastic off-the-shelf engines. And honestly many AAAs footgun themselves trying to wrangle in-house engines.
Now, the sheer scale of something like RDR2 or an AssCreed; that’s still in the realm of AAAs. But that’s getting cheaper too, and I would cite Kingdom Come Deliverance 2/BG3 as prime examples: those are big studios, but they’re absolutely microscropic compared to (say) Ubisoft or BGS. Yet they made stupendously large, dense, refined worlds.
AAA studios bring the polish. That’s the only thing I really miss from big games, because as they lost the weirdo genius games designers, they lost the only edge they had over indie games. At least for me. Obviously they still have ad budgets, but… Ad block ftw!
It is trivially easy on steam or gog to simply filter for indie games and just click through each ones that are well reviewed. Especially on steam it’s brain-dead simple browse these. If you’re having too much a problem with it just tell me your taste and I’ll give you a game that’s objectively good.
Cyberpunk 2077, Fallout 2, Fallout NV, Civilisation, Rimworld, Privateer, Minecraft.
What’s my current indie goodness?
Noita, Verho or Lunacid, Path of Achra, Gloomwood, and maybe Fear and Hunger if you like the atmosphere and pain, idk if this one is Indie but check out Cataclismo
Excellent, I haven’t heard of any of these! I will check them out. Tyvm.
As if all indie-games look like 1990s. I’m over 50 and went more and more indie over the years as AAA just does the same grey-washed boring pc-crap over and over again. Also sloppy, shitty and buggy. Rare exceptions may apply.
Name 3 really(!) Good AAA since January? Not good by sales, but good. And then try to find ONE that was also creative and dared to bring something fresh. Yeah exactly. Fresh doesn’t appease investors.
It’s not just the graphics that improved in the last 20 years. Modern game engines created a floor of quality where input just works, basic configuration just works, autosave just works. All these little conveniences around the game itself that you barely think about, until you play a shooter from 20 years ago and the buttons are mapped weirdly and there’s no way to remap.
Yeah, right. I think the place for being useless and unproductive is not here. At least I hope it is.