Can you name 5 "exclusives" that released this gen worthy of being called "original" ?

I've been thinking about this gen a lot today (due to some other threads) and it's really got me down. The thing that bugs me the most is the lack of innovation in games. It feels more like a continuation of this past gen, rather than a brand new gen. This was something I've never felt in any previous gen (I've been gaming since gen 3).

Even highly praised exclusives (don't get me wrong, some of them are amazing all time greats) don't do a ton of new things- rather just better than it's been done before. Here are some examples:

While Bloodborne has great style, it's just more Souls.

Breath of the Wild did new things for the Zelda franchise, but not much to innovate the open world genre.

God of War is a spin on The Last of Us.

Ori and the Blind Forest is beautiful, but it's just another Metroidvania.

Cuphead is a shoot em up game with stylized graphics and a memorable cast of characters.

Sunset Overdrive is just a mash up of Spiderman, Jet Set Radio, Saints Row, etc.

See my point? I'm open to arguments otherwise on any of those points btw. I am not saying a lack of originality makes a game worse.

Before you call me negative nancy (I'm really not!), just flash back to last gen. Uncharted and The Last of Us were unique. Dead Rising was unique. Demon's Souls was unique. Gears of War was unique. Viva Pinata was unique. Banjo Kazooie Nuts and Bolts was unique. Wii Sports was unique.

Why is it so easy to think of those games, but hard to think of ones from this gen?

Can you name 5 current-gen exclusives worthy of being called original; games that would be very hard for someone to argue are not original?

The one and only goat: Knack

That snip game on the Switch and Arms.

And Rocket League.

Why do they have to be exclusives?

@speedfreak48t5p:You mean ratchet and clank by his standard.

@drummerdave9099: Uncharted isn't original either by your standard its tomb raider. Gears is just a cover shooter with a not so original story line. Last of Us is resident evil. Pretty much no games are original anymore.

Original games are overrated. Just because a game is unique, doesn’t make it good.

What I don't get is why people who say "There's nothing new/original" are the first ones to laugh at VR. Honest to god, I really don't get that. New and wonderful is happening right now and most here give it an about face. Of course you are going to get fed a steady diet of the same stuff. It's not just the studios and publishers being conservative, it's a lot of gamers too.

Sunset Overdrive is more of a mix of Ratchet And Clank and Jet Set Radio than Spiderman and Saints Row.

Well if you oversimplify games in the manner you did then no game would be original.

Most original games suck anyway.

Innovation for the sake of it is meaningless, which is a lesson I learned last gen. If you're solely looking at finding something ''new," not only are you setting yourself up for disappointment, but you're going to overlook and devalue the many high quality games staring at you in the face.

VR is still very crude and makes some people (me for one) motion sick. Lots of work to be done. I do think it's the future but right now it's the equivalent of Power Glove level motion controls.

This is more likely to be a personal problem from an individual view point. But due to the increases costs and production expense of making "AAA" games you see most studio's taking less risks (Sony and Microsoft being especially guilty this gen).

Kickstarters and Indie rise helped.

MOBAS and Battle Royale have come along and dominated the industry, yet if you listen to half the people in this forum you would believe these things are lesser "fads" because they havn't been scripted SP games of similar style for over 30 years....

The rare occasion where a studio with enough money to make something TRULY ambitious/Risky like Star Citizen gets mocked for the ammount of time it is taking and that people are funding it (God forbid people invest in new ideas).

Making a game like Star Citizen (Nothing comes close in terms of scale, detail especially in an MMO enviroment) compared to something like Uncharted/Gears of War is night and day apart. the latter games have been designed decades ago and slightly improved each time.

AAA Action games sell well and are easy to make and that is why MS and Sony are getting more limited.

@drummerdave9099: I think you are being overly simplistic and nostalgic. One of the games you mention as unique, Gears on X360, was an evolution of Resi 4 + Killswitch cover system, both PS2 games. Resi 4 was itself an evolution of Resi 1, 2 and 3, PS1 games. Those games were themselves evolutions of the crude earlier horror games on earlier systems.

Truly unique games are rare. I agree that stuff like Wii Sports, Guitar Hero or Minecraft comes along every so often to completely invent a new genre. But it's not the norm. 99.9% of games are evolutionary incremental improvements. Not "bolts from heaven".

Also, artificially limiting it to exclusives is weird. Are we gonna pretend that PUBG didn't innovate this gen?

I honestly think that this generation have had more variety than any past one.

We still have the same AAA genres we had in 6th and 7th gens, but thanks to indies we also have old genres (2d platformers, point and click adventures, top down shooters, etc) and the experimentation of the early days added to the mix. Oh, and VR, which is probably the most game changing think we had since the transition from 2d to 3d.

As for unique games, The Witness, Moss, Superhot, Talos Principle,

I don't think the devs or the actual game Star Citizen gets mocked so much as the arrogant threads you sometimes see declaring it "best game ever". I mean, lets see when it's done :P

So what you're asking for is a new genre of games?

I pose another question to you, exclusive or not, what was the last 'original' game to be made? If you can't answer that then you should not be asking this. We need an example of an original game made recently.

I think the thread is a little too broad. There is innovation to be found even within tried and true games and genres. Nioh, for example has the flux and ki-pulse system which is a really new and interesting way to encourage offensive behavior in the context of a game about managing a finite resource. But for the sake of playing to the generalization, here are some exclusive games that I feel are really unique in no particular order.

1. Lone Echo

2. ARMS

3. Gravity Rush

4. Splatoon 2

5. Star Citizen

@drummerdave9099: demon souls was a sword action game so with lem logic its unoriginal

With lem logic every game after the 1st 3d game

If you ask me tho there's, rocket luegue , mgs 5 had originality

Shadow if mordor a little

How can we forget pubg and fortnite ?

Splantoon , i think god of wars seemless cutscences are orginal

Your just getting old probably

Lol, according to your criteria, everything was borrowed from something. There isn't any true innovation.

Cuphead was original. What do you mean just a shooter ? Was THE shooter and far more original than 99% of other shooters out there in many fronts.

Because if we go deep enough to the term original, then we dont have any original game for decades now....

No, that's only coming from your lack of understanding and the fact that you haven't really tried it in any reasonable quantity. VR Motion Controls today are seriously really good. Very precise, great haptics, ability to sense fingers to some degree, gives a good sense of hand presence.

Literally take one look at this and tell me that this isn't better than you thought the state VR was in? https://youtu.be/yzsFgDxzWIk?t=93

Lastly, VR hardware is not really the cause of motion sickness anymore. At least if you get a consistent 90 FPS. It occurs through developer choices. A bunch of games have significantly reduced this anyway, even without teleporting.

People see it as a threat to their gaming setup. They don't want it to take off because they believe they'll just be forced to play VR games in the future. That's why they'll make up all sorts of excuses and believe anything they hear about VR, as long as it's something bad. (and often false)

Either that or they can't afford it, or simply don't understand it. Those who do understand VR through and through are going to be supportive of the medium.

I agree though, VR is currently a goldmine of innovation and originality.

@locopatho: he's trying to create a narrative that Exclusives aren't original, thus not good, I mean, the whole "exclusives games don't matter".

I would say sunset overdrive is a very original exclusive.

Superhot

I prob sound like a broken record always bringing it up, but Splatoon 1+ 2. They're really original and fun games imo.

This is like demanding that people who like Toyotas convince you that their good cars are 100% unique. I've got bad news for you: the wheel's already been invented. You aren't going to change anyone's mind about PS exclusives by pointing it out. Better stop playing games if that's the bar you want to set

Other than the jump from 16 to 32 bit there wasn't really any revolution since then. It's not just this gen. And it's OK, this applies to pretty much everything in life. From time to time there's this kind of thread claiming that nothing is inovative but, again, that tends to be how things work. It's always more about evolution than revolution.

Even VR, as it was claimed here before, it's not exactly new. More like an evolution on past concepts.

Eh? VR is literally the biggest jump period. Far bigger than the 16 bit to 32 bit jump. It's not only an evolution, because it allows for all sorts of new gameplay genres, ways to tell stories, and for the first time deeply affects our subconscious.

Love that in VR.

I haven't used VR I've had chances but they have been cheap set up's and I don't want to ruin the experience. I want it, I can see the potential for it. Not just gaming I have a serve fear of heights and have heard you can get over the fear with them and the medical field is blowing up with the use of them from treating autism to training. VR is the future there's no doubt about it.I cant wait till its more affordable around $300 aud.

If you want new, original experiences, buy a Vive. The games that are currently being built from the ground up around room-scale VR are definitely original experiences unlike anything that you would have ever experienced before.

Yeah, VR is being used to treat various phobias. Fear of heights is one of them, others are PTSD and social anxiety, etc. There are lots of people who have social anxiety that are improving themselves in their own home without even needing to see anyone; they just hop into a VR social app and get accustomed to talking to people without all the judgement that comes from a real life conversation.

Lol get fucked, you don't get to tell me I wasn't motion sick. I was.

More work to be done. As I already said, I do think it's the future, so you don't need the creepy "VR IS GOD" posts. It's just not that good right now.

system

wars

get wih the program

Based on your comment, I'm certain that you must have never tried a quality VR device. There are many cheap VR devices that are going to provide a very crude experience like you said which is why I think that devices like the Android VR devices and Playstation VR are bad for the industry because they give people a poor first impression of what VR is really capable of right now.

If you ever try room-scale VR on a Vive, you would see how amazing quality VR is right now. The motion controls and tracking on the Vive are incredibly accurate. You can walk all around your room, crouch, crawl, punch, duck, spin around, etc. in the real world and have all of those movements accurately reflected in the VR world.

And as far motion sickness, room-scale VR solves that problem as well. The motion sickness is caused when your brain gets confused by you making movements in the VR world that you are not also physically making in the real world. I get the motion sickness too in VR games that have to be played without room-scale, but I never get it in a room-scale VR game. The cheaper VR devices cannot accurately translate your real world movements into the VR world, so motion sickness is a big problem for many people with those devices. But a quality VR device like the Vive offers true room-scale capabilities and excellent tracking, so as long as you are playing a game that is designed to take advantage of room-scale VR, you don't have to worry about motion sickness since the movements that you make in the game will be the same ones that you are making in real life and therefore your brain won't get confused and cause any motion sickness feeling.

You're putting words into my mouth. I never said you didn't get motion sickness; I said that the hardware is not going to be the cause of that with a good setup. The cause is software.

Many people would disagree with your last statement there. Is it everything we ever hoped for? No. But is it good? Certainly.

@locopatho: Youre basically what Im talking about and what OP is worried about. You want something polished and "finalized" which is fine, but anything new is going to come in rough. Trial and error leads to improvement. I think its okay to want the end product as I certainly enjoy the big budget AAA games as much as the next guy. I would challenge gamers such as yourself to encourage the experimentation, the experimentational, and the participants more. We will get it there. We are the process.

Arms, Snipper Clips, Labo, Sunset Overdrvie, and Splatoon. 5 games easy.

Sweetie, last time we got originality was on the NES... Everything after that was evolution of what was already there. You're just complaining for the sake of complaining, go play games or do something else.

I mean, Uncharted? We had Tomb Raider. Tomb Raider? We had Pitfall.

The Last of Us? Resident Evil exists. Resident Evil? Well, meet Alone in the Dark.

Gears of War? Meet dozens of cover based shooters from the 8 bits era.

Zelda Breath of the Wild? Meet the very first Zelda itself, as it had open world basically in the 80s/90s.

Forza Horizon? Meet my buddy Top Gear. Too Gear? Please, it exists since Enduro.

The list goes on and on and on.

Even pong was a rip off of analogue bat and ball games, nothing is original.

This. Every game can be oversimplified like the OP did, especially now that we are getting close to nearly 50 years of video games being a thing.

Nothing is original with this gen.

Yes there is, for instance Sony charging for BC, Sony charging for MP while not producing many games with MP and closing some that do. Sony is original this gen dammit.

The only real worthy game this genration is the ios marvel contest of champions. Maybe GW2 but i dont know what gen that really started. This generation has been fairly disappointing in all things considered. Unless you are grey matter challenged, but that's not a subject we should really get into here.

@i_p_daily: PS now streams what is compatible elsewhere.

PS now is not bc.

Well made and not just resolution/fps wise remakes are not bc either

Is there a secrect sony place where you can pay to make your ps3 disc suddenly play on a ps4 ?

Maybe sony should've got ppl to run and make monthly emulater hybrids instead of dedicating five years to god of war

Werd.. maybe give it online semi cheap 1000 hour progression legs

It would of been done in 3 years that way. Sorta like the semi cheap halo 5 and gears of war 4s of the world

Sony has a few semi cheaps too ( killzone shadow fall). But atleast its not basiclly all they have AAA game wise. It doesnt represent the forefront of their current gen exclusives at all

You have a good point.

On PS4, the most original exclusives would be...

Well, No Man's Sky was the most original. But its gonna be on Xbone soon too, so that was that.