Discussion What do you miss from older games?

[Ferdinand]

The truth is that there have been a couple of changes between games made in the past 2 to 3 decades and games that we play today.

For example, the number of microtransactions that we see in games nowadays don't used to exist in the past. Are there other things that you missed from games that you've played in the past?

 

[Brad P]

Microtransactions kill the vibe sometimes. I also miss those old-school games where you could just sit down and play without worrying about cash or updates.

 

[Ferdinand]

Microtransactions kill the vibe sometimes. I also miss those old-school games where you could just sit down and play without worrying about cash or updates.

The greed by most of these studios was what led to what we are experiencing nowadays. I can count just a few games that I can enjoy now without spending on in-game resources, which wasn't the case in the past. Is there any recent game that reminds you of the good old days.

 

[Jake]

Split-screen co-op is the big one for me. Used to play split-screen on everything with my brother growing up. Nowadays most games don't even bother.

Also game demos. You could actually try a game before buying it. Now everything is trailers and hype cycles and you don't know what you're getting until you've already paid.

And games shipping as a finished product. Not saying every modern game is broken at launch, but it was a lot more common to just buy something and have it work.

 

[Tyler]

Campaign co-op. That is what I miss most. Halo 3, Gears, Army of Two -- you could just sit down and run the whole thing with someone. Jordan and I have been trying to find games we can actually play through together start to finish and the list is embarrassingly short. It is a dead feature for no good reason.

 

[Oliver]

Jake's point about demos is a good one. There was a real accountability to them -- the developer had to show you something worth playing before asking for your money. That model has been entirely replaced by refund windows and early access, neither of which is quite the same thing.

What I miss most, though, is games that simply ended. A complete experience with a final chapter, credits, done. The pressure to keep players "engaged" indefinitely has produced some very bloated design decisions that I don't think have been good for the medium.

 

[Corey]

Couch co-op is the one for me. Damo and I used to do split-screen for hours -- Halo, old Call of Duty, whatever was around. Can't really do that now, we're on opposite ends of the city and everything's just online sessions. Which works fine, but it's not the same as sitting in the same room with a pizza and nowhere to be. I don't think studios are ever bringing it back properly.

 

[Corey]

Couch co-op is the one for me. Damo and I used to do split-screen for hours -- Halo, old Call of Duty, whatever was around. Can't really do that now, we're on opposite ends of the city and everything's just online sessions. Which works fine, but it's not the same as sitting in the same room with a pizza and nowhere to be. I don't think studios are ever bringing it back properly.

 

[Ryan]

The thing I miss most is just rental stores honestly. Saturday afternoon you'd grab whatever looked interesting off the shelf, and some of those random picks ended up being the games you remember most. Discovery felt genuinely accidental. Storefronts now are so algorithm-driven that you mostly just see stuff you already like. That's fine but you don't find surprises that way.

 

[Lukas]

The manual. It sounds trivial but a well-written manual told you how the developers thought about their own game. Morrowind's manual had lore, faction descriptions, stat explanations -- reading it on the bus home from the shop was half the experience. No modern release ships with anything equivalent, and I think that says something about how much trust publishers have in their players.

 

[Ferdinand]

The thing I miss most is just rental stores honestly. Saturday afternoon you'd grab whatever looked interesting off the shelf, and some of those random picks ended up being the games you remember most. Discovery felt genuinely accidental. Storefronts now are so algorithm-driven that you mostly just see stuff you already like. That's fine but you don't find surprises that way.

Discovering some of the games that you end up enjoying from the game shops was one of those things in the past. You more like going into those stores hoping that you will see a game that you like. Truly, a lot has changed these days with how we get to pick the games that we like.