Shadow of the Colossus Director Says 'The Era of New Game Mechanics is Over' - News

"Thinking"... "I wonder..."

Now it is probably harder in the modern era to come up with new gameplay mechanics or hardware allowing this but that's just because gaming has developed in such a way that I do not believe there is any limitation on what you create (outside of money and time). But I do not think that means innovation is over. Nintendo just released a console with detachable gamepads that can be used as a mouse. It's then up to developers to utilise this and not just fall back on what we have.

Obviously some companies have already decided this (yearly iteration of CoD or FIFA for example) but those are the big corp just trying to milk as much money as possible while other companies try and improve our chosen hobby by adding something different or unique.

GDC Game Awards gave Balatro GotY for a reason.

Thats why indies are a Godsend. Consoles seem to play it safe these days, but there are some good examples. Returnal with the haptic controls.

Indie devs disagree.

DK Bananaz just released offering full platform destruction.. Nintendo still find ways

We’ll see new mechanics emerge alongside new technologies. For example, I can see a future where AI is used to change how we interact with NPCs in RPGs.
Instead of multiple-choice dialogue options, sometimes players may be able to type whatever they want, then the AI would generate a dynamic response in the style of the NPC you're communicating with. Personally I'd love to see this in games where you play as a boring silent protagonist, which is often supposed to be a self insert - except it's not a self insert at the moment, because you can't type your own responses.

Maybe because by the time Ueda finishes a game, two console generations and dozens of other games with those same mechanics have already released by that point.

New does not equal good necessarily, it's just new. Maybe at this point most fun mechanics or their derivatives have already been discovered, maybe not. There are different variations, stories and contexts, it's not just mechanics that make a game.

There is always innovation

"New Game Mechanics" have basically been over since the mid-PS3/360 era

New mechanics now either use peripheral hardware or combine old mechanics in a weird way

Tell me you're creatively bankrupt without telling me you're creatively bankrupt.

I think that's nonsense. If publishers allow freedom, if devs have a spin on an idea or a random one shot down during development that's why. Also what people grew up with. I play a variety of games, many people a narrow array (what was popular, what they could afford, what comes to mind, what aspects they seek of games, it all varies). Devs have ideas in many ways.

Some like the Game and Watch/Calculator or gardening to PIkmin, others from all sorts of places. Sometimes a dream they had. Or something else why watching, playing, reading, I do random ideas from other things I read, play, watch.

The video games in load screens patent is gone, Test Drive did it with pong during that era. Do we need those anymore, not really but I mean even title screen have generic images or a 3D model, forget a more moving world look, it's just an image. Wow how uninviting.

Also so many games are about realism, or menus, and trend following. Not all, but you can sometimes tell some games devs had fun making, others they were forced to adapt to, and others that just seem typical but still good. But we don't know what each staff member enjoyed making.

My perspective could be some finer details or mechanics, another might be the world they were crafting, a sound effect, a reference to something I may not care about but they may.

Battlefield 2 MC/Driver San Fransisco had shift mechanics, no one is using them since? Any others I can point to that happened, moved on, had other appeal, etc. Or were niche and didn't sell well or marketed well but they go 'oh people didn't like those' uh you maybe didn't try, another overshadowed it or something. Or didn't exhaust all potential of it. A lot of other examples or cases could be made.

The Hogwarts Legacy/Redfall types of 'push devs to compete in ways they haven't before, make this type, the sink or adapt approach.

Among other publisher demands, or creative stupidity from programmers, artists, animators, designers, and can't be bothered to make anything fictional, has to be realistic, has to be easily understandable, whatever artstyles that trend (besides those that can work things out), animations that are done to death then more creative for movesets, or reloads or whatever.

Has to have emotional impact or some nonsense. I can mix whatever nonsense ideas together. Programming/animating and designing sure, but put them together, make something strange.

I research more games mechanics or their creators then I do a box art, trailers/ads, and so on. If I can't tell what your game is by genre, by mechanics and just artstyle and themes that aren't much, then why would i play it? But I'm also the type to look on YT, wikipedia, or even with anime/manga look at random words in the titles, not the artwork or whatever is popular. I use little tricks, others have theirs or algorithms or whatever is easier or harder/specific but works for them. People that have specific ways to search for games know what they want. Come up with ideas for games, that never happen. Look at prototypes of games and wish they did happen.

I want Eyedentify that PS3 demo to be a thing. When will it?

When will other games with particular licenses/developer states gone and never remastered.

For sales sure, for publishers sure, but if devs are that blind to mixing any random ideas together that's their own fault for why creativity is dead, they don't care to look at what came before, what they can random come up with themselves, and so on. I take old games as reference to know what has been done, and how to bend it or make it unique. Also because modern games have no creativity why would I look to them? XD

I had more mode/other ideas (chemicals, foam building contest, reverse/clean up maze levels, traps, and more) for Foamstars, but it had 2 done before modes reworked slightly, how boring, if I can come up with non Splatoon related modes using form it's not hard to do so. Biomutant (animal abilities, but no we had vehicles and generic anthropomorphic animals in an apocalypse, other then the gas immunity thing different to No Man's Sky, Biomutant was pretty pathetic, decent ideas, also just like many boring Indie animal games, all about being cute and accessible but boring to play then many 5/6th gen platformers with better ideas then these modern casual audience slop animal games) I had my ideas for those.

Many animals/human characters are boring to play as too. You can do so much, yet they offer the basics, tell me movesets don't play a part yet we have the same copy paste there for generic missions, generic worlds. When Mario or Pitfall or others have more cartoony or realistic but fair movesets it says a lot of moveset creative lacking care at all to offer players to play in these worlds.

Mario has so many jumps you don't even need yet can use. Tell me you aren't lazy or lacking creativity, without just not bothering at all.

Sure many shooters have used a lot of mechanics and that's why I am buy them for 6/7th gen. Sure others have gone multiplayer and the rest that have tried story driven singleplayer flop because their recontextualising wasn't great or their graphics or whatever else of appeal.

If even fan service games have weird ideas, but aren't allowed to, then well that removes that world building, dialogue and mechanic potential too. For that niche audience.

Even looking over old games especially platformers, shooters, racing and getting into hack n slashes/tactics I would say it's more devs copy each other besides make it suit their universes, or whatever they can think of to tweak things due to their lack of ideas, their focus on appeal of enough sales and publisher demands.

I care more about level design in platformers, hack n slashes or tactics games, not generic action RPGs with corridors, enemies and whatever combat only focus for hours, tell me they aren't lacking. There is a reason I played Killzone Liberation or Darksiders Genesis and not action RPGs that are boring to play. Their pacing and also based on games with their other formats to isometric cameras.

Indies are hit and miss for me. Some are really creative in artstyles or game design, it's why I don't mind many adventure or puzzle games, but many platformers, shooters and racing games are so focused on their particular focus of audiences for nostalgia, or don't have skills, and make empty modern games, the mechanics just don't happen because they don't have the skill or are too lazy to try.

Ride 4/Project Motor Racing are literally doing what Forza Motorsport 1 and 2 did 20 years ago but tweaking the region system use, others do what the Forza Motorsport 8/2023 thing that MX vs ATV games have done for years of position selection just without the credits benefit.

I literally have looked at Milestone's Alfa Romeo Racing Italiano/Evoltuion GT compared to Grid 2008/Forza Motorsport 3. you can't tell me a game with RPG systems and more depth as well as introducing the rewind mechanic called tiger effect and Grid 2008/FM3 simplify it, and now that RPG direction is gone for the easier, scale the rewind and make it infinite approach when the other had RPG depth, and RPG systems are big these days that no one thought about it. It's that no one did, no one looked back as people care more about car licensing deals then they do racing game mechanics or fictional worlds to use any unlicensed or licensed cars in, is because devs are lazy and audiences can be too focused on brands or other things of real life reference then have an imagination so we end up with slop and the genre is embarrassing itself.

Same with others, people care more for whatever is easily recognisable then having a creative brain.

Games that are niche many don't always borrow from, at least not anymore. It's all about what is successful not what was niche and failed but could be done differently.

Or the Nintendo/other Indies approach.

If I can randomly come up with ideas based on a core element, or just random have an imagination of putting isntruments as weapons or cleaning equipment. Or in the air fighting I thought was cool in Atlas Fallen. Or how RPG element combining works, not just oh it's fire and oh we may have particles I mean a more solid/physical presence in the game worlds.

I can have any random ideas and think, others don't have that imagination focus, they are limiting things to reality or other ideas get pushed more. Or publisher demands. That's why I find modern development so boring.

Even Indies, just go 'go for nostaglia with this platformer/racing game' and that's why I hate them. Is they are just so focused on references, reality, motorsport, or whatever is cute animal characters or sandboxes in platformers but their movesets, mechanics, lack of racing game event rules are just gone. Racing games don't need to be realistic, we have plenty of past games sim or arcade with real or fictional cars yet we get so much licensing focuses of cars/tracks and even when it's fictional like Wrecfkest it's still a physics focus, racing/derbies, and barely many event types, where did bowling, gates with times or points or other things, many drift event types not just 1? All of them just went.

It's like shooters went eh deatmatch, team/capture the flag and battle royales, forget territories, search and destory, etc. now when it comes to easy matches I get why people just pick deathmatch but in terms of playing things it's boring to just get the easy match options, forget all these others. They just dropped off making them.

I like seeing at least 4 event types. Not 4 like in V Rally 4 that is 2 reskinned but different vehicles or locations and 2 another type and 1 that's a bit different but doesn't really change much. That's pathetic and why I found that game disappointing (not played the other V Rally games to compare either).

Even Ghost of Yotei, the young/adult idea is not new, but using it with the SSD is what I wanted to see while Rift Apart was just PS3 era game design on a HDD again but on an SSD, so I wasn't that excited for it.

Bit related so put at end:

Even coming across a book with a less attractive character I was like this is interesting what ugly duckling or judge a book by it's cover or any other messages it may have had (not a woke book either, an ugly Cinderellakind of character), the problem is many people are so shallow you can't make a message with a book it has to be attractive character.

It's like having a cool game cover, no one cares about mechanics, trying to sell that is tough too. But yet I do more research on mechanics or who developed/published the game on wikipedia or YT videos, then I do look at video game covers. But I'm not the norm either. I know enough about games to go for odd tricks, casuals don't. Any every other gamer or collector has their way of doing things too or algorithms doing it for them too.

Face value/whatever social nonsense is already pushed into people's minds is already set. Forget skill or creativity of writing or game mechanics, it's all about artstyles or realism and other nonsense for people with no brain to easily understand. I wouldn't alter a piece of work to be for people who are shallow just to make it sell better and devalue the point of it.

So forget messages or creativity, we have to appeal to whatever emotions, easily understood things in people's daily lives or the same family, and other overplayed messages I'm sick of seeing in media repeat in kids/teens/adult media, and other social norms nonsense then to have maybe good piece of art or messages or game mechanics.