r/XboxSeriesX • u/Asleep-Sprinkles-760 • Apr 20 '24

This generation has been underwhelming Discussion

I bought a Series X at launch, and can’t think of a single game that has impressed me this gen. I’m a big Halo fan, and Halo Infinite felt like a letdown. I’m a Forza fan, and Forza Motorsport felt like a massive disappointment. I was exited for Starfield, but was underwhelmed after playing it.

It just feels like we’ve had no heavy hitters this gen, even 3rd party AAA games have been average at best. I guess the only hope I have left is with Gears 6, but aside from that, Microsoft needs to get their act together and start releasing some new games. It feels like games are taking way too long to make these days, we used to get bangers every year in the 360 gen. Even the Xbox One had more compelling games than what we have now

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u/illkwill Apr 21 '24 edited Apr 21 '24

It's the remake/remaster and copy/paste generation. It feels like nothing innovating is coming out anymore.

269

u/tonyedit Apr 21 '24

My most played games this year? XCom 2 on xbox, Stellaris and Escape from Tarkov on PC. All ancient at this stage. Next up... Fallout 4.

55

u/Colonel-Turtle Apr 21 '24

Hey now, Stellaris is constantly becoming a new game lol

12

u/tonyedit Apr 21 '24

This is true. And I play it cos I love it, have all the DLC, will get further DLC. But it's 8 years old!

2

u/Dapper_Energy777 Apr 21 '24

Their dlc method is a fucking disgusting scam

1

u/Visualmindfuck Apr 21 '24

Honestly with all the game changing stuff I’m okay buying a $30 3 pack dlc u buy one dlc and u have a whole new way to play the game and it’s super old so they need money to one day put out stellaris 2

1

u/tonyedit Apr 21 '24

Individually it is. But I spent maybe two years picking the bits up on sale. Was kinda fun actually, gathering the whole collection over time.

0

u/hashinshin Apr 21 '24

Gaming is weird because they just reinvent old games. Stellaris would probably be the fourth game in the 90-2000s. We’d have people saying stellaris 3 was better than 4.

13

u/Louie_Cousy-onXBOX Apr 21 '24

Xcom 2 is top tier. Xcom 3 release is the only game that’s on the same level of excitement GTA6 is for me. Hope they go deeper into the base system and let us personalize our ship/base/quarters. It’d be much sadder when a troop dies after you just visited them in their barracks room, followed by some poor recruit moving into that room hoping they don’t see the same fate under my command.

6

u/tonyedit Apr 21 '24

We all dream of X-Com 3. They'd have their work cut out for them after War of the Chosen, but the foundation of the game is AAA+++++. There's a post almost daily about the possibility over on r/xcom

3

u/Mr_Mees_Moldy_Minge Apr 21 '24

There is some reasonable concern one could have, after the middling to bad spin off they launched a while back.

1

u/SpritesOfDoom Apr 21 '24

Original 1994 X-COM is way better than modern remakes. It was both much simpler to understand, for example to do research, you needed scientists and a lab. Scientists needed salary and a place to live. You had to build a living quarters for your employees.

Yet it had much more depth, because you could organically specialize your bases. For example if one of your bases was R&D focused without military, there was almost no chance that aliens would attack it. They would not search for a base in a region when their ships aren't attacked. So you didn't need a hangar or defense facilities in base, leaving more space for labs and similar facilities.

You could intercept every alien activity. For example they sent huge ships for terror missions. If you were able to stop them, there was no terror, but these ships were too tough in early game you most likely didn't had radar coverage.

Tactical combat was different and worse in some ways, but it also had no typical RNG. Each bullet had a chance to be fired with some error from desired trajectory. If you aimed up to 3 tiles, it was irrelevant. Firing at half of the map, only 95%+ shots had a slight chance of hitting the target.

There was a friendly fire and you could use weapons to destroy walls, door etc. making your own entry way into the UFOs for example.

X-COM remakes simplified a lot of things, but in the same time they introduced weird mechanics that weren't as natural as in the original.

X-COM remakes felt more like a board game, than a economy-tactics strategy the original was.

X-COM remake and X-COM 2 are still good games, but original games were something truly special. People were playing them many years after they were released.

1

u/Louie_Cousy-onXBOX Apr 21 '24

I see what you’re saying but Xcom 2 with WOTC is probably the best top down strategy game, or game in general, of all time.

2

u/[deleted] Apr 21 '24

Fallout 4 is over Ten yrs old at this point...

2

u/tonyedit Apr 21 '24

All the games I named came out around 2015-2017

1

u/Zanzan567 Apr 21 '24

Ancient? Tarkov is still in beta

1

u/tonyedit Apr 21 '24

Yep, but even Nikita, the head of Battlestate Games, acknowledges that they're battling old code in the game now. It's also been in beta for 9 years so compared to the average game cycle, it's very old. Not to take away from Escape From Tarkov at all, it's an incredible game and in my top three of all time (Elite 1984 keeps number 1).

1

u/DiscussionLoose8390 Apr 21 '24

Elden Ring was great, so was Lies of P. I am playing Phantasy Star IV on Sega Genesis collection until Hundred Heroes comes out Tuesday.

1

u/CyberKiller40 Apr 21 '24

Say what? I had loads of fun with Doom 1&2 and Chasm the Rift and Quake 1&2 and Turok and Powerslave... Best gen ever!

New games? Afterimage is awesome.

0

u/CptZigouille Apr 21 '24

I bought a steam deck and I haven't touched my Xbox since

89

u/Dtwerky Apr 21 '24 edited Apr 22 '24

All the innovation is happening from indie devs and it’s all only releasing on Steam. It’s what is pushing my crew to PC. We want to play these new games like Content Warning, Enshrouded, Lethal Company, Gray Zone Warfare, Tarkov, BattleBit Remastered, Ready Or Not, Squad. 

So many good PC games from smaller studios that we will never see. 

19

u/darkphalanxset Apr 21 '24

I made the switch. And the best part? I can plug my pc hdmi into my TV and play on my couch with an xbox controller all I want

5

u/Sea-Housing-3435 Apr 21 '24

You can also use steam link app on android or apple tv and play on tv from the pc in the same network. Its amazing how easy it is nowadays

1

u/joe17857 Apr 21 '24

Is it laggy? Whenever I project to the TV it has lag. Haven't tried the steam link app tho

1

u/Sea-Housing-3435 Apr 21 '24

Works good for me. If its laggy try adjusting bitrate in steam and turn on the gaming mode in TV. Some TVs buffer frames to make them look better but it feels laggy for games

1

u/randy_mcronald Apr 21 '24

This is how I play on PC. I used to be all about the KB/M but as I spend most of my time at a desk for work, PC gaming on the couch is my preferred choice. Steam's controller config tools are insanely good as well, so even for strategy games that don't support controllers out of the box you can set up controller support yourself and get creative with how you assign hotkeys.

2

u/d0m1n4t0r Apr 21 '24

Yep, indies on PC have been amazing for a few years now.

1

u/GODAfroSaitama Apr 21 '24

That’s exactly why Xbox wants steam on it

1

u/jayfactor Apr 24 '24

Same here, plus older games, I’ve been obsessed with octopath traveler 2 and redownloaded skyrim, having a great time

1

u/ocean55627 Apr 25 '24

Pc games are doing great right now, but PC hardware prices are absolutely dreadful. So I got myself a steam deck instead, pretty good companion to the series x

0

u/Passncatch Apr 22 '24

What I just said. Just get a pc or wait a bit longer for VR to actually happen.

-1

u/Major-Front Apr 21 '24

Yeah I was about to say the same thing. There’s so many amazing games on PC. OP just on the wrong platform lol

3

u/Darth_Carnage Apr 21 '24

There's just as many amazing games on console. Most are unwilling to look past the newest AAA title.

-1

u/Dtwerky Apr 21 '24

I don’t disagree that there are lots of indie titles on Xbox. However, they aren’t like the indie titles I described/listed above. Most of the ones we get are like truly small games like 2D platformers or top-down games. I’m not bashing more old-school styles of games, but I’m talking about full-fledged large scale video games that look like they were made by big-budget studios but are made by indie devs on Steam. Especially shooters. 

Those types of games are not on console. And if they ever make it to console, they feel horrible (Hunt Showdown, Insurgency, PUBG). 

2

u/Darth_Carnage Apr 22 '24

We're not gonna agree. There are more games available on console than is possible to count, in more genres than I can name. Are there games available on Steam that aren't on console? Sure. But to claim that there are no "full-fledged large scale video games that look like they were made by big-budget studios but are made by indie devs" on console is absurd. Ori and the Blind Forest and it's sequel comes to mind (yes, I know they are 2d platformers, but I fail to see how that makes them any less "good" games)

And your comment about some games "feeling horrible" on console? You've gotta know that's a subjective preference, right? For example, I love PuBG, but I'm just not a pc gamer with shooters. There's no possible way I can compete with anyone on mouse and keyboard. Therefore, any modern shooter feels "horrible" to me on PC.

I'm not trying to convince you to drop PC gaming and pick up a console. Nor am I trying to say one is better than the other. I'm just saying don't be so short-sighted about how other people game just because you happen to have a preference.

-2

u/Dtwerky Apr 22 '24

It’s not subjective at all to say that those shooters I listed feel horrible on console. They are objectively poorly optimized for console and for controller. If you try to play good console shooters that are very well tuned for a controller (CoD, BF, Apex, Fortnite) then try and play Hunt Showdown, there is nothing subjective about how horrible it feels. 

That is the problem with console shooters in general, there is zero consistency from title-to-title. The state of how good aiming and movement feels is 100% on the developers to get it right. No amount of adjusting settings can fix a poorly optimized shooter on console. The devs have to get it right, and very few do. And I am not bashing the devs, because I know it’s way harder to program a aiming feel good on controller than it is on KB+M. You have to worry about response curve, aim acceleration, multiple deadzones, etc. 

However, on PC there is literally zero of this guesswork because it’s just an intrinsic part of the platform and intrinsic to the M+KB input. You can’t screw up the aiming on PC as a developer because it’s just a mouse. You have to work hard to mess it up. Every single shooter I can get feeling the exact same on my mouse as long as I adjust settings so that a swipe from the far left to the far right of my pad is the same rotation in every game. Then bam, it’s literally all the same. 

That consistency is so amazing and completely unattainable on controller because of the nature of development for the analog sticks. 

Its why CoD feels amazing (cause the devs have perfected aiming on controller) and why so many other shooters are just unplayable on console if the devs don’t get it right. 

14

u/[deleted] Apr 21 '24

[removed] — view removed comment

35

u/fish_in_a_barrels Apr 21 '24

The 360 was the pinnacle of xbox. I was part of the group on xbox-scene.com that hacked the optical drives. We hacked a samsung pc drive so you could burn games on your pc instead of the console. It was awesome.

6

u/danktonium Apr 21 '24

Why would you need to hack a PC drive to burn anything?

15

u/fish_in_a_barrels Apr 21 '24

We didn't need to but it was a pain in the ass to do it on the xbox at the time. You had to insert an enable disc that would enable the firmware hack, burn the game then unable the firmware with a disc afterwards. Years later better methods evolved but the pc drive was fast and easy to use.

1

u/Internal_Ad_2285 Apr 21 '24

The scene is making a revival

1

u/fish_in_a_barrels Apr 21 '24

Where?

1

u/Internal_Ad_2285 Apr 21 '24

It started rising from the dead around the pandemic

14

u/fish_in_a_barrels Apr 21 '24

A regular pc drive won't burn a xbox game. It had to be the same firmware that was on the 360.

5

u/GameJerk Apr 21 '24

If it's RGH'd just get a hard drive. Going to destroy your DVD drive in no time w/discs.

1

u/speed721 Apr 21 '24

I'm just copying them over. Left that out. Lol

2

u/digestedbrain Apr 21 '24

You have Aurora dashboard, right? Have you tried the Xbox Unity online component? It's like Xlink Kai/Xbox Connect which will allow you to play system link games online with others and it's built right into the dashboard. I used to play Halo Reach with tons of Brazilians every night.

http://phoenix.xboxunity.net/#/news

1

u/gillgrissom Apr 21 '24

Dont need to burn games at all, a plug in usb hd will do the trick, you can even transfer to internal if you want.

1

u/speed721 Apr 21 '24

Can you direct me to the best way or information you have in order to do this?

I see a few different things. Thank you so much.

0

u/XboxSeriesX-ModTeam default Apr 21 '24

Thank you for you submission, unfortunately it has been removed for the following reason.

Rule #10 No piracy, jailbreaking, account (game) sharing, region switching, or other similar topics are allowed.

Please see our entire ruleset for further details.

12

u/occio Apr 21 '24

Basically missed the games of the previous gen due to work so getting them all in 4K and/or 60 fps ist great. Even still playing some 360 titles and loving it. Quick resume rules.

35

u/Twitch_FireWTV Apr 21 '24

120hz has left the chat

57

u/greeder41 Apr 21 '24

It seems 60 has too lol. Sad

2

u/Chrispin3666 Apr 21 '24

30 fps has entered the chat

1

u/Hind_Deequestionmrk Apr 22 '24

It seems 60 has not lol. Sad

-9

u/Twitch_FireWTV Apr 21 '24

How is that sad?

16

u/WannabeIntelectual Apr 21 '24

They’re saying that this generation was touted as the 120 Hz generation, but they can barely handle 60 with newer games.

3

u/Twitch_FireWTV Apr 21 '24

Ohhhhh ok sorry i got confused

8

u/ITrCool Apr 21 '24

This is 100% true. Innovation has stopped widely (a few exceptions) in the tech world, especially in the gaming sector.

11

u/segagamer Apr 21 '24

That was last gen too lol

26

u/Shnikez Apr 21 '24

Elden Ring is great tho. Surprised by how many hours I’ve put into it. Def feels like a new gen game to me

3

u/[deleted] Apr 21 '24

This game is great, but its 3rd party...

8

u/spoonard Apr 21 '24

Because Xbox 1st party games "are still coming" says Phil.

1

u/Queasy_Employment141 Apr 21 '24

apart from the laggy dragon fights (outside rannis rise)

5

u/thebandit_077 Apr 21 '24

I feel this way also, but I think it's just the times. Movies are kind of in the same situation. At least with games our remakes have a chance of being great. Sure it's old stuff that we've done before but I can say some of those remasters look and play amazing. I'd rather play a good remastered classic with updated graphics than some quickly made shit just cause it's new. Also I don't think the current market is interested in new quality content. They're happy with mw3 as long as they can buy skins.

4

u/ElDeguello66 Apr 21 '24

This and Games as a Service. Racing games don't need drip feed content, but there's not enough profit in putting out a finished product so here we are.

10

u/thefookinpookinpo Apr 21 '24

*on Xbox

1

u/DJ-VariousArtists Apr 21 '24

Idk I asked the other day and someone there’s been like 5-6 AAA games that have been current gen only and not cross platform with 10+ year old consoles.

3

u/[deleted] Apr 21 '24

We are hitting that level with tech where advancements are going to be expensive and tiny.

2

u/KRONGOR Apr 22 '24

Elden Ring and BG3 are the only AAA games I can think of that feel truly inspired and pushing the boundaries this gen. Everything else is just safe sequel or remasters

1

u/jayfactor Apr 24 '24

The problem is that those games didn’t even “push the boundaries” they simply made a fun game without thinking about how to criminally profit from it, and took care of their devs - it seems inspiring now compared to all the shit that comes out but back in the day this was the standard

2

u/sonicfan10102 Apr 22 '24

It's that and souslike clone no. 5068 coming out every 5 minutes

1

u/DofusExpert69 Apr 21 '24

and because people buy it this is all we'll be getting until the current thing to do is say "ok, we want something new".

1

u/[deleted] Apr 21 '24

Im heading over to Nintendo atleast their is software...

1

u/According_Estate6772 Apr 21 '24

Are you talking about the OP post that's been posted on multiple reddit subs ?

1

u/According_Estate6772 Apr 21 '24

If you are talking about this or the Ops post then I agree, it has be reposted on multiple reddit subs.

1

u/Deathlysouls Apr 21 '24

That’s been happening for three generations. It’s not anything new at all

1

u/HedgehogInTuxedo Apr 21 '24

Glad it's not just me... I haven't really heard much of note from ANY console, or triple-A publishers as a whole lately. There have been some big AAA releases, don't get me wrong -- Helldivers comes to mind, as does BG3... although that's kinda AA? Spider-Man 2, although that one isn't exactly INNOVATIVE-- but it feels like a lot of the actual heavy hitters are indie PC titles and shit

1

u/USA_A-OK Apr 21 '24

That plus the fact that cross gen releases continued on for longer this gen. Not a lot of reasons for most people to upgrade imo

1

u/Im_Not_Evans Apr 21 '24

It’s still better than the trend of Hollywood, prequel everything.

1

u/shifty_shafter159 Apr 21 '24

Youtube and streaming have killed FPS.

1

u/Herban_Myth Apr 21 '24

….yet

Economy is still volatile

1

u/FootballTeddyBear Apr 21 '24

The fact the Series X had the exact same UI and everything makes it feel like the same fucking console all over again. Obviously the tech update is good, but Microsoft hasnt made any games that I feel take advantage of it

1

u/MeasurementOk3007 Apr 21 '24

There has been. Just not coming out for Xbox which sucks because Xbox used to have banger after banger

1

u/[deleted] Apr 21 '24

Except Helldivers, oh wait lol

1

u/Yorksjim Apr 21 '24

This and most of my favourite games have been indie games, it's where the most innovation is.

1

u/Shot_Berry_5435 Apr 21 '24

most games are in development hell rn lol the best ones will be out by december to next year

1

u/VITOCHAN Founder Apr 21 '24

Im just happy quick resume and the hardware have rendered load times pretty much obsolete.

1

u/[deleted] Apr 21 '24

It’s our age. My dad said in his late 30s/early 40s that the reason he stopped going to movies is because it’s the same thing over and over. We’ve hit the point that no one knows what else to try or they are too scared to try nothing new because they have a formula that works good enough.

1

u/gusmahler Apr 21 '24

The best game I played last year was … Super Mario Odyssey on the Switch.

1

u/Panda_Mon Apr 21 '24

And any good games that do come out, like Jedi Survivor, are marred by terrible perf at launch.

1

u/DeJuanBallard Apr 21 '24

None of the people with good ideas have access to bring them to fruition, none of the people with access , have good ideas.

1

u/[deleted] Apr 22 '24

There are innovative games coming out all the time

1

u/MIKKOMOOSE99 Apr 21 '24

Idec I've been loving the Dead Space remake and also The Last of Us 1 remake lol however I do agree a new groundbreaking IP would be nice

1

u/secrethitman-shhhh Apr 21 '24

If you think that about this generation that's your taste in games. Also it's pretty fucking hard to innovate when damn near everything you could imagine has been created to some extent. I have played plenty of fun and entertaining games in the last 4 years. However have you actually considered playing classics as well?

1

u/redmenace007 Apr 21 '24

I just want a game with Baldurs Gate 3 level of dialogue and branching paths but gameplay like Witcher 3. A recipe for a truly next gen game.

0

u/zzz802 Apr 22 '24

Xbox Series X is just a remake of Xbox One X.

-2

u/[deleted] Apr 21 '24

Helldivers 2 oh wait....

0

u/Reach_Reclaimer Apr 21 '24

There's a lot of new stuff coming out though

Just not on Xbox

0

u/VVaterTrooper Apr 21 '24

Yeah, but they would never copy a copy. Right?

-1

u/McQuibbly Apr 21 '24

I dont mind that we are in the middle of a remake/remaster era. For the most part the remakes have been well deserved for those games while being well done on top of that. I dont see this era ever really repeating again at this size considering we've reached a point where anything made in the past 10 years looks good already

-1

u/Darth_Carnage Apr 21 '24

Then you're not looking hard enough.