Yes. 2023, at least from a AAA perspective, is probably the best gaming year we’ve had in at least half a decade. Many of the covid delays are finally reaching their conclusion this year.
For indies/AA it’s always hard to tell until the end of the year because so many things come out of nowhere. But with stuff like DREDGE, Darkest Dungeon II, Wildfrost, and Hifi Rush already out plus demos for future 2023 games like Jumplight Odyssey and Norland being great it seems like a pretty solid year on that front as well.
I'm gonna say it's been pretty mid so far. Lots of great games but many marred by technical issues at launch. Of the five in the image, Jedi Survivor, Hogwarts Legacy, and TOTK all suffered from pretty bad performance of varying degrees (worst case scenario for TOTK is on a 2017 Switch, to clarify). Modern Warfare II was chock-full of crashes, broken features, and bugs. Resident Evil 4 was mostly solid, but for some reason the Xbox version had an issue where the deadzones were markedly worse on controller than any other platform.
Hoping it gets better as the PS5-Xbox-PC workflow is improved and Nintendo finally launches a Switch successor that gives their developers more headroom. Game design quality isn't going down (except MWII), but games are dropping from an acceptable functionality standard with an annoying "fix it later" mentality.
Don't get me wrong, 2023 has been and can continue to be a great year for new releases. But all the massive releases so far haven't exactly lined up with my preferences. Don't get me wrong, I am very happy for everyone who is enjoying the new Zelda and Diablo 4, etc. It's just not my thing.
I was feeling very catered to in 2022. I'm still playing the crap out of Elden Ring, and Victoria 3 was my big release for the second half of the year (despite its very real shortcomings). Then there were various indie releases like Cult of the Lamb, and Dwarf Fortress finally came to steam with tons of QoL. 2023 has some stiff competition if it wants to be an even better year.
That said, 2023 still has some great potential. I'm on the fence about getting Starfield. If the release isn't a disaster, and it's as cool as the marketing makes it look to be, that could be awesome. And of course, the sequel to one of my favorite games of all time is finally coming out after ~8 years. Helldivers 2 is going to be something of a genre shift, moving to a 3rd person perspective, but I have a lot of faith in Arrowhead to deliver an amazing co-op experience. Hopefully 2023 delivers.
Zelda tears of the kingdom is probably my favorite open world game uptil now, there's just so much to do and the building mechanics make the game a lot more fun. I've spent more time building and exploring rather than doing the main story, also collecting outfits and farming is fun as i figure out new ways to kill hoards of enemies. Can't wait to see how other open world games get inspired by the new zelda.
I experienced minor fps issues in some areas but in one boss fight massive frame drops and white flashes when turning around fast but I still like that game. Fallout New Vegas was another game that gave me issues but liked the game anyway.
Add comment