The morning after the presentation of the PlayStation 5 we are at StopGame.ru recorded a podcast with impressions (yes, I’m there too!). I wanted to touch on one of the topics that hurt me, but it didn’t come up during the conversation, and I didn’t remember about it (after all, writing down such things separately so as not to forget about them is for suckers).

Therefore, let’s consider this blog a bonus to the podcast, a layer with an unincluded, but, in my opinion, very important thought.

The big problem with exclusives Sony – very poor variety of genres and topics.

Let’s say the magic words: "Top PlayStation exclusive". What game came to your mind? I have an answer: it’s probably a third-person story-driven action game with a (more or less) dramatic main character.

This template fits ALL latest big hits Sony: The Last of Us, Uncharted 4 And Lost Legacy, God of War, Marvel’s Spider-Man, Horizon: Zero Dawn And Days Gone. To a slightly lesser extent – Death Stranding, Shadow of the Colossus, The Last Guardian, Until Dawn, Detroit: Become Human, Bloodborne, inFamous Second Son And First Light.

Yes, deviations happen (Dreams), but overall the PlayStation’s striking force is frustratingly monotonous. The PlayStation 5 presentation only cemented this template: continuation Horizon, sequel to "Spider", remake Demon’s Souls. It’s a little off Sackboy: A Big Adventure, but not too much – 3D platformers are also a plowed furrow for Sony, a kind of safe bet that is guaranteed to work.

Now let’s look at the line Microsoft:

Moreover, I can tell you what is different Forza Horizon 3 from Forza Horizon 4, and what is the difference between Gran Turismo 6, Gran Turismo Sport And Gran Turismo 7? Me, as an outsider, from the trailers of the series Gran Turismo I don’t see a single unique feature that would allow me to say: “Yeah, this is the seventh part, and this Sport».

Ori and the Blind Forest / Will of the Wisps – a purely 2D platformer with Metroidvania elements. Insanely beautiful and in some ways the last of its kind.

Halo Wars 2 / Age of Empires IV. Strategies in real fucking time – games in a genre that is considered almost dead. A Age of Empires IV is not even going to be released on consoles – that is, this is a big-budget exclusive for PC from a reputable company. Coupled with an unpopular genre – a very rare occurrence!

Gears Tactics – turn-based tactics. Another genre that is completely out of favor with major publishers, with the exception of XCOM.

Microsoft Flight Simulator – a wildly beautiful and ambitious game. I can’t even tell you when was the last time an advanced flight simulator came out that not only targets a narrow stratum of hardcore virpils, but is also not going to turn away from the casual audience.

Sea of ​​Thieves – yes, it had a very slow start, but the gameplay core itself worked from the very beginning and was not like its AAA competitors.

Its own third-person action games with gloomy protagonists Microsoft there is also: for example, Gears of War And Senua’s Saga: Hellblade II (of course, we know almost nothing about her, but I have no doubt that under the “exclusive template Sony"she will hit).

However, the games Microsoft simply incomparably more diverse and bolder than PlayStation. I agree that the quality is exclusive Sony extremely high and better than Microsoft, but over the years of owning the PlayStation 4, I’m tired: as a main gaming device it doesn’t suit me, because on a big screen I want a higher resolution and more fps, and as a machine for exclusives, it tries to feed the same emotions – gloomy stories with tightly assembled gameplay that doesn’t go beyond the usual framework (seriously, damn, why did people gobble up the mediocre open world with such gusto? Zero Dawn?).

One of the most important emotions that you want to experience in games is the emotion of surprise, anticipation of surprises. By the end of the PS4 generation, I caught myself thinking that I didn’t feel any surprise from Sony exclusives. What God of War, What Spider-Man, What Uncharted 4 I completed it with pleasure – these are well-built games from masters of their craft. But there was no surprise in them: I knew in advance the whole range of emotions that I would receive. I walked into them like I was going to work. I’m tired of them.

On the other side of the game Microsoft the quality is not up to par Sony, however, they more than compensate for this with the same genre diversity – if I only play exclusives Microsoft, then my gaming experiences will definitely not be repeated. Because RTS, flight sim and pirate adventures with friends are directions infinitely far from each other that give different emotions. Thanks to different genres Microsoft maintains the illusion of mystery: what the corporation’s next big game will be? I have no idea – and that only makes it more interesting!

Sony it cannot boast of this: it continues to announce emotionally monotonous games – both in gameplay and plot. And this is its big problem: in the case when the market is fed up with dramatic third-person action games, Sony it just can’t do anything against its competitor – it’s as if it doesn’t want or doesn’t know how to make other games.

It doesn’t mean that I’m saying "Sony we urgently need to stop making story-based third-person action games” – this means that Sony we need to do more of something other than them. This doesn’t mean I’ll buy the Xbox Series X – it means I have no reason to prefer the PlayStation 5 in the next-generation war. For now I can only imagine one ace up my sleeve Sony, which might make me shell out for a PS5 is the new Silent Hill. But if it is made according to a proprietary “template” Sony"(and in my opinion, the probability is high), then I’ll probably abstain anyway.

Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End

Horizon: Zero Dawn

Days Gone

God of War (2018)

Marvel’s Spider-Man

The Last of Us: Part II

Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales

Sackboy: A Big Adventure

Best comments

Blogs never change. As soon as a new blog appears, negative comments immediately begin to fly in its direction, regardless of its content. I’m wondering who these two users are who have been downvoting every topic that comes out for over two years now (maybe they have done this before, you only notice this pattern when blogging frequently)? However, let’s not talk about sad things. Thanks for the article. It’s nice to see SG employees on blogs.

It’s good that at https://admiralbetcasino.co.uk/ least someone from the editors noticed this trend. Although someone from your guild, I don’t remember exactly who, expressed the opinion that even Uncharted had moved away from the rollicking adventure into deep emotional experiences and he supposedly liked the 2nd part with N more. Drake. In general, now many game makers are obsessed with dramas, although Sonya still has the fun Ratchet & Clank and Sackboy, a big adventure. Probably the Japanese are just afraid to take risks. But as a person who does not have a PlayStation-4, I am glad that its exclusives are few, although I respect their quality. The reasons described above by Gennady Vorobyov put me off buying. But “Ghost of Tsushima” really caught my attention.

Sony exes, of course, have their own tricks in third-person action games, but in general they don’t make a difference – all these games have a very similar emotional coloring. There are two main sources of emotion in games: gameplay and story. Both the plot and the gameplay in the Sony copies are for the most part the same, because they strum the same three chords: a focus on a serious plot, a gloomy main character, a third-person view.
Of course, you remembered Gravity Rush well, but Sony tried to forget about the second part after how long? A year after release? And went back to strumming three chords.
If a musician, no matter how talented he is, plays the same three chords for many years in a row, his music begins to become boring.

After I watched how in Gear 5, a group of professional military men, in the middle of a battle, in a city captured by the enemy, behave like emotionally unstable teenage girls and quarrel among themselves over some bullshit, I laughed.

And you can’t argue. In the first games, only Cole and Beard were sarcastic bastards who acted like crazy, but at the same time managed to lay down locusts in batches.
In new games, well, what kind of games are the heroes?.

Not “blockbusters”, but “third-person story-driven action games with a gloomy main character”. These are intonationally different concepts: “blockbusters” leave room for emotional diversity, but “story-driven third-person action games with a gloomy main character” no longer do.

All this is available on other platforms – why you need to choose PlayStation? Yes, the serialized Persona remains on PS for some reason, but I don’t believe it’s a matter of intentional exclusivity for Sony and not Atlus’ laziness/poor awareness of how much their game is wanted on other platforms.

VR on PlayStation is the most primitive form of stationary VR. This should change on PS5, but nothing has been announced yet, we’ll go with what we know.

At least genre. So that 80% of Sony exclusives stop being the same game in the same genre.

Well… that’s it. Are all the stories in third person from Sony? identical? You yourself mentioned games that don’t fit into this mold, like Bloodborne, Demons Souls or David Cage’s interactive cinema. I also remember Gravity Rush, 2 parts of which were completely Sony copies and the gameplay and style were, at least, unusual. The same God of War is undoubtedly a plot-driven, but slasher, Uncharted is an action-adventure with puzzles (even if there aren’t that many of them in the last part), and Tlou is a cross between stealth and survival, where deep drama coexists with both action and horror. Every Sony game in general has its own a feature, albeit occasionally seen in other games, but brought to mind and differing in details, and all third-person story games that I have listed, according to differently are played.

Reading this text, I involuntarily caught myself thinking that simply because many Sony games have a third-person view and a normal, well-developed plot, it means they are all the same, but it’s the same as saying Doom, Codename, Fear Wulf and Half-life are the same, because they have a plot (I’m talking about the last Doom and their attempts) and they are in the first person. While the Mikes have one tactical game (Geers Tactic is a major project, seriously?), strategy and a good series of races (one good one).

And then, do we have problems with story games??) There suddenly became many on the market? Or is it that game services are now ruling, increasingly aiming at long-term online so that the game brings money for more than one year??

Strange collision. Very strange.

Interesting topic you raised. But this whole blog looks like fuel for the fire of console wars.
Objectively, yes – Sony makes graphics, movies, adventures and dramas. Mikey – experimenting with genres, giving the green light to different studios with interesting projects.

But there is another important category of games for which people buy a PS – these are series such as Yakuza, Persona, Final Fantasy XV and many others. Yes, these are not copies, but this is the Japanese gaming industry that I want to support. These are the games of our childhood. Not to mention the different services.

I don’t want to say that the PS is a niche console, but it is obvious that it will always have fans willing to play without much criticism. Yes, and RTS on a gamepad – seriously?)))

Gennady, well, here again it all comes down to our tastes and preferences. For example, the listed games with a curling iron are closer to me. But none of the boxing games have interested me yet.

Yes, writing is a strong point, I don’t deny that. But the character of this scenario is too similar – serious talk about everyday problems wherever you spit. The script seems to be written by one person who has brilliantly learned to work in only one subgenre.

You’re asking the question incorrectly) It’s clear that there’s no point in Boxing if you have a gaming PC built. But otherwise, you have a choice: build a gaming PC for a conditional 1000-2000 dollars or buy a Box for 500 bucks. And in Boxing you are sure: it will not become outdated in 7 years and everything that comes out on it will work for you. With a computer, even at that price, in 5 years there will be no more confidence) By the way, this also applies to PS, only the range of games will differ. And on Box, based on the blog text, the games are more diverse.

In the West, for example, as far as I know, boxing is popular because a computer is needed exclusively for work and gatherings on the Internet. You can buy a Mac and a Box and play and work comfortably.

By the way, a large segment of people will not care about the elaboration of Sony exclusives. They want to come and relax after work, poke some fifa or get together with friends to have fun in MK and that’s it) Collecting for such a PC is a dubious idea.

Sorry to intrude again, but “sells well” does not equal “brings in money”. If the cost of a product is 1K bucks, and they sell it for ten, it’s clear that it will sell well, but it won’t bring in any money)

and the emotions you have from exes are 80% the same, and it is not specified which ones, positive or negative

The point is that they are the same. A person gets used to everything, good or bad. And when he gets used to it, he doesn’t care, which is what I’m talking about in the blog. Gene just got it that most of Sonya’s exes evoke the same emotions in him, and as a result, it becomes boring. And when you get bored, you start looking with a straight face and you don’t care, because.e. the game ceases to evoke at least some emotions. Actually, a quote from the author:

One of the most important emotions that you want to experience in games is the emotion of surprise, anticipation of surprises. By the end of the PS4 generation, I caught myself thinking that I didn’t feel any surprise from Sony exclusives. I completed God of War, Spider-Man, and Uncharted 4 with pleasure – these are well-built games from masters of their craft. But there was no surprise in them: I knew in advance the whole range of emotions that I would receive. I walked into them like I was going to work. I’m tired of them.

No, it’s just that the topic of family is being touched upon again, when will they show the other side?.
The thing is that when you know that the boy Atreus will become a man, it becomes not so interesting. He is just a character who plays the role of a “developing” character.

That is, in the West, as you criticize him, they find fault because the character does not change. But if the character is an interesting personality, why should he change?? What kind of understandards are these that should oblige everyone to make characters change, although this should happen in a non-intrusive way?. In order not to lose the value of the story.

Also Kratos, he is not mad as before, but he only plays a function in the narrative – to be a stern father who will make a real man out of his child.

That is, the plot is like everything else, and I mean expressionless enemies, bosses, characters that are needed for jokes in a serious work. And the jokes are the same as in marael – pause, look, I’m joking. And the plot that is essentially a conjuncture is not art in the sense when the creator is trying to comprehend something, approach it from different angles, or not approach it, but simply make his own approach.

This is the dry work of a group of people who wrote stories for the same majority, who do not understand art, have a basic imagination, and evaluate the work according to stereotyped and superficial parameters. The guys coped with it, now they are on Olympus.

So to say that according to the scenario of this game you need to teach people is very strange
Since art requires an unusual approach, ingenuity, and not dry printing as for a newspaper issue.

And yes, judging by how you were muted (and I see the disadvantages while I’m writing all this), Stopgame is slowly turning into the worst version of DTF when everyone starts to dislike everything. Although maybe I already came up with something for myself.

From what immediately came to mind:

Night in the Woods is the first game in my memory that so successfully reveals the theme “now you seem to be not a teenager, but an adult, but what to do now in life?»
What Remains of Edith Finch is a story about accepting death, where you experience this death over and over again from the perspective of different characters.
Return of the Obra Dinn is an 18th-century adventure novel wrapped in the coolest detective mechanics ever seen in gaming.
Papers, Please is a simulator of a bureaucrat who, it turns out, needs to make very difficult decisions.

All four are very different from the usual story forms that Sony operates.

I myself have been coming to this conclusion for many years now: Not all Microsoft exclusives are ideal, but they are very diverse, and Sony has more excellent games, but they are all… the same (open/semi-open world, third party, family theme, pure Action or Action RPG genre).

No, as if RTS and strategy games were released on consoles in their golden years and were even very popular. And now city planning sims and other things are also found there. It’s just more convenient and it’s true that they can be used on the computer, as for me. And what are we even talking about, if many people find it uncomfortable to play even first-person jokers on a gamepad?. And maybe that’s why the course was chosen for third-person stories. At least judging by sales, this is what works best for people who play on consoles.

So they write all the plots as if they were in a textbook. They explore the hackneyed. literature plots and themes. There is nothing unusual or new in them or any other fresh look at old topics. This is just a high-quality script, written according to a long-established scheme. And no, it’s not bad. Yes, many people can’t even do that now. But they’re not the best. They’re just done right. Just like they taught me at university. They don’t know how to experiment or bring something new to these ideas.

and the side dialogue between Kratos and Artreus, when he teaches him that anger and revenge will not achieve anything

God of war may have great dialogue and interesting characters, but this does not change the fact that the story itself is another variation on the theme of “fathers and sons” with a dash of “revenge is not the answer”. Moreover, the second idea permeates the previous three parts so that it is not new even within the framework of this series. When they chew on something in the fourth part that was clearly shown during the previous three, it’s difficult to accept it as some kind of special revelation.

Again, I’m not throwing shit at the Sony screenwriters. They are professionals and do very high quality work. Their scripts deserve praise. But you shouldn’t extol them above the heavens just because everyone around you is falling into the abyss, and they just stand still. Albeit high.

Well, in general, thanks to the development of indie, I never really have the problem of “what kind of story-driven game should I play?”. Moreover, indies are experimenting brighter and bolder with plot forms.