this post was submitted on 16 Nov 2023
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This was something I started wondering about when I was reading a thread about Star Citizen, and about how space combat flight games were much less-common than they had been at one point, how fans of the genre were hungry for new entrants.

Looking at this list:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_space_flight_simulation_games#Space_combat_games

...there really were far more games in the genre being released in the late 1990s and early 2000s than there have been recently.

A similar sort of phenomenon occurred for World War II first-person shooters.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_World_War_II_video_games

Back around the same time period, there was a glut of games in the genre, and they really have fallen off quite a bit.

Whether it's a genre like these two, that hasn't seen many new entrants recently, or a genre that just never grew as much as you'd like, what genre would you like to see more of?

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[–] some_guy@lemmy.dbzer0.com 12 points 1 year ago (6 children)

I miss vehicle deathmatch games. Interstate 76, Twisted Metal, Vigitlante 8, probably a few more I don’t remember too.

They all kinda vanished.

[–] tal@lemmy.today 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I remember enjoying the original Carmageddon quite a bit.

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[–] bermuda 11 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (5 children)

Open-ended, sandbox sports games. SSX, Skate 3, Steep, are a few off the top of my head. I remember the Steep devs made a BMX game that was similar a few years ago. I tried it but I just didn't find it nearly as fun as Steep was. They don't have to be extreme sports either, I think more traditional sports would be fun too. I like it when they're unrealistic and over-the-top too. I love playing Skate 3 and just listening to music and doing inhuman tricks. I've never played it but I've heard the NBA Jam series is like this.

edit: Wreckfest is also sort of in that realm. I'd love to play more racing games that aren't constantly trying to be simulators. Trackmania is the only one I can think of that's entirely divorced from being a simulator.

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[–] Domiku 11 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I think that if we're doing real-history FPS games, I would like to see other conflicts. Give me a War of 1812 game or let me play as a Chinese soldier during Japan's mid-1900s occupation or something.

[–] ampersandrew@kbin.social 8 points 1 year ago (2 children)

People brought this up at the time, and the go-to problem with it is if you go too far back, like your 1812 example, you have to deal with reloading a gun being one of the most time-consuming actions you can perform. WWI was taboo for a while due to chemical and trench warfare, and for the most part, devs still shy away from it.

[–] Claidheamh@slrpnk.net 3 points 1 year ago

And yet Verdun, Tannenberg, and Isonzo are some of the most fun multiplayer FPS games around.

[–] tal@lemmy.today 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

If you're going non-fantasy (in which case you can put in whatever), I think that one factor is also that in, say, the Napoleonic era, using soldiers in formation in warfare was an important multiplier, and that's not super-friendly to FPSes. I mean, a lot of the game would be following orders to move into a formation or move in formation.

As for weapons, you could do archery, I suppose. There have been a number of games (Thief, Skyrim, etc), that have an archer running around on their lonesome, though that probably wasn't historically all that accurate. Well, not that having a solo character going Rambo on a World War II-and-post battlefield was necessarily all that common. If it did, it was pretty unusual:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Hooper_(Medal_of_Honor)

For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity in action at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty. Staff Sergeant (then Sgt.) Hooper, U.S. Army, distinguished himself while serving as squad leader with Company D. Company D was assaulting a heavily defended enemy position along a river bank when it encountered a withering hail of fire from rockets, machine guns and automatic weapons. S/Sgt. Hooper rallied several men and stormed across the river, overrunning several bunkers on the opposite shore. Thus inspired, the rest of the company moved to the attack. With utter disregard for his own safety, he moved out under the intense fire again and pulled back the wounded, moving them to safety. During this act S/Sgt. Hooper was seriously wounded, but he refused medical aid and returned to his men. With the relentless enemy fire disrupting the attack, he single-handedly stormed 3 enemy bunkers, destroying them with hand grenade and rifle fire, and shot 2 enemy soldiers who had attacked and wounded the Chaplain. Leading his men forward in a sweep of the area, S/Sgt. Hooper destroyed 3 buildings housing enemy riflemen. At this point he was attacked by a North Vietnamese officer whom he fatally wounded with his bayonet. Finding his men under heavy fire from a house to the front, he proceeded alone to the building, killing its occupants with rifle fire and grenades. By now his initial body wound had been compounded by grenade fragments, yet despite the multiple wounds and loss of blood, he continued to lead his men against the intense enemy fire. As his squad reached the final line of enemy resistance, it received devastating fire from 4 bunkers in line on its left flank. S/Sgt. Hooper gathered several hand grenades and raced down a small trench which ran the length of the bunker line, tossing grenades into each bunker as he passed by, killing all but 2 of the occupants. With these positions destroyed, he concentrated on the last bunkers facing his men, destroying the first with an incendiary grenade and neutralizing 2 more by rifle fire. He then raced across an open field, still under enemy fire, to rescue a wounded man who was trapped in a trench. Upon reaching the man, he was faced by an armed enemy soldier whom he killed with a pistol. Moving his comrade to safety and returning to his men, he neutralized the final pocket of enemy resistance by fatally wounding 3 North Vietnamese officers with rifle fire. S/Sgt. Hooper then established a final line and reorganized his men, not accepting treatment until this was accomplished and not consenting to evacuation until the following morning. His supreme valor, inspiring leadership and heroic self-sacrifice were directly responsible for the company's success and provided a lasting example in personal courage for every man on the field. S/Sgt. Hooper's actions were in keeping with the highest traditions of the military service and reflect great credit upon himself and the U.S. Army.[4]

That's a pretty unusual MoH citation out of Vietnam, and that'd probably be about par for the course for a single -- maybe part of -- a WW2 FPS level. I mean, if you want realistic World Wars fighting, the largest chunk of characters would probably just be killed by random artillery fire, not pulling off 100:1+ kill ratios in infantry combat, which...isn't all that much fun as a first-person game.

But, as to archery:

https://www.tastesofhistory.co.uk/post/dispelling-some-myths-archers-shooting-twelve-arrows-a-minute

A skilled longbowman could shoot about 12 shots per minute. This rate of fire was far superior to competing weapons like the crossbow or early gunpowder weapons...

So, as to the hail of arrows, archers shooting heavy warbows confirm that releasing twelve arrows in one minute is possible, but that such a rate cannot be maintained subsequently. Practical experience argues for a shooting rate of about 5 to 6 arrows per minute being feasible over a period up to 10 minutes.

That's definitely a lot slower-paced than a modern FPS, but it's still a lot faster than nearly all 18th century firearms.

Skyrim kind of ignored fatigue and let you lug around a huge store of arrows and blast them without regard for your arms getting tired, so it's not hard realism, but I think that people enjoyed the archery aspect.

[–] drgnfckr@lemmy.ca 11 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Single player card games. I just want a good card game where the PvP mode is optional. Curse you games as a service.

[–] sculd 6 points 1 year ago (2 children)
[–] ranandtoldthat 3 points 1 year ago

Cultist simulator, even

[–] drgnfckr@lemmy.ca 2 points 1 year ago

Yeah I got it, exactly what I wanted.

[–] tal@lemmy.today 5 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

If you haven't looked recently, you might take another look.

I felt the same way when Slay the Spire came out in 2019 -- not a lot of similar games at the time, and I couldn't figure out why more developers hadn't made similar games, as it seemed like a very good match for indie studios. But there have been a whole lot of games that came out since then.

Searching Steam for games tagged as single-player and deckbuilder, and sorting by user review

I get over 600 hits, almost all of which came out in the past three years. I'd say that single-player deckbuilders -- and note that I'm assuming that you're talking about deckbuilder games, not, say, solitaire implementations or similar, as I think that there are pretty good entrants there -- are actually doing pretty well.

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[–] Berttheduck@lemmy.ml 3 points 1 year ago

Slay the spire? It's a deck builder rouge like. Excellent game. Dunno if it's what your looking for but I highly recommend it.

[–] DoucheBagMcSwag@lemmy.dbzer0.com 10 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (3 children)

Immersive sims.

Give me more games like Deus Ex, system Shock, prey 2017 and bioshock please

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[–] ECB@feddit.de 9 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (6 children)

I'd like multiplayer shooters that put emphasis on clean visuals designed to transmit information as well as more emphasis on movement.

Even with all the hats, visibility in TF2 is a masterpiece compared to 90% of games. One team always bright red, one team is always bright blue. The maps aren't full of noisy scenery and still look great.

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[–] ampersandrew@kbin.social 8 points 1 year ago (4 children)

I'd like to see more first-person shooter campaigns in general. They've mostly disappeared. And what I don't mean are the likes of Dusk or HROT that harken back to the Quake era. I'm looking for the era just beyond that, like Halo, BioShock, Half-Life, F.E.A.R., Crysis, 007 games and so on. A Cyberpunk expansion and, to a lesser extent, a remake of System Shock are all I have to scratch that itch this year. Someday the indie scene will cycle around to getting nostalgic for that type of game, and I'll get more of it again. With Free Radical facing near-certain death on that TimeSplitters revival, so do my hopes for getting more of that type of FPS again. With LAN and split-screen co-op and deathmatch with friends while we're at it too. Trying to make a game into a live service that inevitably dies is just telling me not to buy the few promising games that come around, like Friends vs. Friends.

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[–] tal@lemmy.today 7 points 1 year ago (2 children)

A couple that I'd like to see:

  • Realistic naval fleet combat sims. There's not a lot out there. I assume that there's probably limited demand -- flying fighter planes seems to be a lot more popular when it comes to military sims. Rule the Waves does keep seeing releases, but it's not a genre with many decent entrants.

  • Kenshi-style games. I'm not sure that there is a name for the genre, but sandbox, open-world, squad-based combat with a base-building and economic side.

[–] bionicjoey@lemmy.ca 2 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Would you consider Mount& Blade to be a Kenshi-style game? I view the two as quite similar

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[–] lenguen 7 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Lovecraftian horror games. There have been some games in recent years but I think there's definitely a larger design space for this kind of thing. This could mix with other genres as well like survival and potentially rogue-like stuff.

[–] tal@lemmy.today 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Searching Steam for games tagged as lovecraft and horror and sorting by user review gives me about 500 entries.

I think that Lovecraft's setting is actually virtually the only fictional setting where you're spoiled for choice, because Lovecraft permitted other people to use his setting. Like, you only get to do a Star Wars game if Lucasarts licenses it, because they leverage their copyright on the setting. Most people and companies who create a setting don't allow other people to freely use it, and copyright law permits them to make that restriction. But Lovecraft was unusual in that he specifically encouraged other people to build on his world.

Maybe Robin Hood or a small handful of others from history, like Greek or Norse mythology, that developed before copyright law had really become the norm.

I dunno. Maybe there should be some kind of Creative Commons license that permits use of setting and maybe characters, while still keeping an individual work copyrighted, to encourage creation of collaboratively-developed settings like that.

This could mix with other genres as well like survival and potentially rogue-like stuff.

One of the top entries I see on Steam -- though I've never played it -- is an Overwhelmingly Positive-rated game, Disfigure, that appears to be a Lovecraftian action roguelike that just came out a couple of months ago.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2083160/Disfigure/

EDIT: Well, hmm. Someone tagged it as Lovecraftian, but the author doesn't really describe it that way. Just creepy.

[–] uninvitedguest@lemmy.ca 7 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

When I saw your title, space combat games are immediately what came to mind.

I adored the space operas that were FreeSpace and FreeSpace 2 (VIP Volition). I would love for something along those lines. Add in a little bit more management, some rpg/progression elements, even pilot/FPS sections, and it's dream game for me. It's one of the reasons I was so excited (and let down by) Star Citizen.

[–] Helix@feddit.de 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

What do you think about No Man's Sky after its redemption arc and Everspace 1+2?

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[–] VinesNFluff@pawb.social 6 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Real-time Strategy. Specifically single-player campaign oriented RTS.

Genre peaked at, like, Red Alert 3 or Starcraft II, either-or. And the only notable title in the past (N) years has been like... Age of Empires 4. Which is good but also... It's AoE. It'll always be more of a multiplayer oriented game yanno? Give me my cheesy campaign stories with cool hero units and/or cheesy FMV uwu

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[–] LoamImprovement 6 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I really want to see more games like Might & Magic 6-8 or Wizardry 8, in that vein of open world dungeon crawler, but not locked to a grid like M&M 1-5 or Dungeon Master 1&2 (although I do like those games, they're more well represented in the contemporary space with titles like M&M 10 or Legend of Grimrock.

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[–] 108@kbin.social 5 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Mech sim like the old Mechwarrior games. Not the new ones they are gatcha pay to win

[–] Helix@feddit.de 6 points 1 year ago
[–] ampersandrew@kbin.social 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)
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[–] Paradachshund@lemmy.today 5 points 1 year ago (3 children)

I don't really know what to call it, but to my knowledge there has never been another game like guild wars 1 (yes, including 2). I think that undefined genre is actually quite fun and unique and I would love to see more attempts at it.

[–] Helix@feddit.de 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

GW2 has gotten way better throughout the years.

You probably mean the party based instanciated MMORPG? Not many around of those, that's right.

I never finished all GW1 addons.

[–] Paradachshund@lemmy.today 4 points 1 year ago

Oh don't worry, I've played a shit ton of gw2. I just don't think it's a direct sequel mechanically.

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[–] shrugal@lemm.ee 5 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Medieval economy/politics/life sims like The Guild (aka Europa 1400).

[–] FarceOfWill@infosec.pub 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

It's sad the closest recent other entry is like CK3 a totally different genre really

I miss the patrician series

[–] Lemonyoda@feddit.de 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Patricia more plays Like a refocussed ANNO entry. Its one of my All Time favorites and i wish for another entry..

I dont think its Line the guild though :)

[–] FarceOfWill@infosec.pub 2 points 1 year ago

You marry people based on how ugly they are and the size of their dowry. That's solid the guild gameplay

[–] mrh@mander.xyz 5 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Metroidvanias of knowledge a la Outer Wilds

[–] Mummelpuffin 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Hmm... While it's nothing like Outer Wilds and infamous for probably being the most obtuse video game ever created, I wonder if you'd like La Mulana? Metroidvania about being an archeologist where you sort of need to actually peice together the culture and history of the civilization you're studying to move forward sometimes. It's style of storytelling is closer to FromSoft (hence the obtuseness) but still.

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[–] Kolanaki@yiffit.net 4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Cartoon logic point and click adventure games like Sam & Max or Monkey Island. There are still a lot of adventure games similar to that style being made, but they're all fairly realistic in the puzzles. I want the stupid, non-sense logic used in cartoons to make the puzzles harder but also funnier.

[–] Helix@feddit.de 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Arcade racers like NFSU2 and arcade flying games like Ace Combat and Starfox 64.

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[–] Helix@feddit.de 4 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Supernatural hi-fi semi-action adventure shooters like Control, Alan Wake or Death Stranding.

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[–] averyminya 3 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I've been thinking this one over for a couple days now and it just occurred to me, but independent character driven mechanics wrapped in a silly story. Spyro, Crash, Sly, Ty the Tasmanian Tiger, Okami - the games they inspired are good and interesting and have many unique elements but I feel like it's been a long time since I've come across one of these kinds of games which really push a boundary and focus in on each aspect of that character.

Also, I want Goofy's Skateboarding again. Give it to me.

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