The thing about linear games...they aren't falling out of relevance so to speak. Hell Open World games take way more money to make and often barely break even for smaller devs.
Open World games give the feeling of adventure and exploration, something the average gamer doesn't do a whole lot of in the mundane day-to-day life. In other words, Open World games are a trendy thing, but that doesn't necessarily mean that Linear games are falling out of style or anything like that. Linear games are often some of the easiest to make and are easy to play(just look at Undertale for example)
It's the feeling of choice in these later years that gets me hyped up; being able to pick and choose, rather than being dominated by one or the other, is the best thing to happen these past few years.
It certainly doesn’t feel that way to me. When one of your favorite franchises basically abandons it’s old style to pursue the open world/soulsborne trend, it starts to feel pretty hopeless. Hack n slashes, linear platformers, it feels like to get the kinds of games I love I need to have thousands of dollars to pay for a high end pc so I can play these indie games that only release on steam. And even then, they’re more concerned with making metroidvanias and rpgs. With games like Yooka, Hat, and Lucky being the far flung exceptions for ONE of those genres. PlatinumGames is still the only company that reliably and regularly puts out hack n slash games, and even they are falling prey to rpg mechanics and bland “self insert” main characters. Because it always pays to be trendy and exploit the market rather then appeal to specific fanbases who don’t like what’s currently popular.
I’m sorry. This probably sounds way to pessimistic and rant-y. I don’t blame you if you decide to ignore this one.
I just want to point out that BOTW is basically post-apocalyptic sci-fi. Like, yeah, you have swords and shields, magic, kingdoms and tribes, but you also have technology, robots, science, etc.
Good to know I guess. Even though.... I’ll stop myself because apparently I have an excuse for everything and I don’t want to be annoying. Just know that that only marginally fixes my issues.
Like, there are plenty of reasons I’m not excited for Cyberpunk despite its setting and tropes.
