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[Marty-McFly]

In my eyes, the decline since the PS3/360 generation has been staggering. Fewer games than ever and the ones we get, (Far Cry 6 the most recent example) are formulaic and by the numbers. TBH, Bethesda was one of the last publisher's that had games I was interested in. Sure, there are a few standouts like Elden Ring, but otherwise, it seems like a wastleland out there to me. You get your yearly COD, BF or Fifa, and bunch of multiplayer stuff and a title from Rockstar every 10 years, but the wheels seem to be falling of the cart.

 

[kyliethicc]

Here are all of the 3rd party games on PS5 / XBS but not on PS4 / XBO:

The Medium
Hell Let Loose
...

... um, Final Fantasy 7 Remake Intergrade. I guess.

Let me know if there's any I missed. Its been a year of cross gen.

 

[Laptop1991]

No for me, it's been getting worse for years ever since the success of GTA online, no new TES no new GTA 6 and the shift to online stores and mtx, with less and less good single player games, i don't buy many new games now and wait until they are fixed and cheaper and see if the hype the industry creates is real, and when the games release like Cyberpunk, it isn't!.

 

[kikkis]

Depends game by game just like with first parties.

 

[JLB]

Here are all of the 3rd party games on PS5 / XBS but not on PS4 / XBO:

The Medium
Hell Let Loose
...

... um, Final Fantasy 7 Remake Intergrade. I guess.

Let me know if there's any I missed. Its been a year of cross gen.

Isnt Astrobot PS5 exclusive?

edit: I know that Astrobot is not AAA, but The Medium nor HLL are either.

 

[S0ULZB0URNE]

The very best games are still 3rd party games.

 

[Xeaker]

It's horrible.

 

[RoboFu]

There use to be a time where in a rpg or adventure game you have to write down the clues, make maps of dungeons you could really get lost in, truly explore every option.

now days you don’t even get multiple choice to select from.. it’s “ just walk near object context triggers “. Not just no more mazes but a glowing trail to follow straight to what you are looking for.

gaming ( besides multiplayer bang bang ) has truly just become interactive movie experiences with participation trophies.

 

[CeeJay]

AAA games are too expensive to make these days for them to take risks and innovate so we end up with derivative titles that have high production values.

99% of third party games AAA games in a nutshell; Either a by the numbers sequel or a high budget copy of an indie game that's doing really well.

 

[martino]

my satisfaction and preferred games are by far and mostly third party game AAA or not so yes.

 

[Boss Mog]

Isnt Astrobot PS5 exclusive?

edit: I know that Astrobot is not AAA, but The Medium nor HLL are either.

Astrobot is very much AAA unless you don't consider Nintendo platformers AAA, because Astrobot is on par with them.

 

[Bernd Lauert]

It has basically entirely degraded to comfort food. It's the same with every big medium, see cinema where most movies are sequels or capeshit, see TV where the most watched stuff is mediocre comedy or crime sitcoms, see books where best sellers are some easily digestible romance or fantasy or crime novels. Everything is highly focus group tested and extremely by the numbers. AAA gaming is similar now. There are always exceptions of course.

 

[junguler]

it's fucked, even the indies are not as good as older titles, there are exceptions of course but as a whole everything is gone down in quality significantly.

 

[skit_data]

Talking about the bigger 3rd party publishers I’d say
-Ubisoft has been on a sharp decline in the last 5 years. Like, really sharp.
-EA has somehow made a slight improvement, mostly thanks to It Takes Two and Dead Space Remake. Its going in the right direction now.
-Activision/Blizzard is dead to me. The only interesting things were Toys for Bob and Vicarious Visions stuff and now they folded them into WoW development.

 

[ReBurn]

With the way these companies are buying studios pretty soon the only third party AAA publishers releasing games regularly will be Activision, EA, Take Two (minus Rockstar) and Ubisoft and all we do is complain about them. Rockstar and CDPR only release games like once every 7 or 8 years. Not really much to be excited about there.

 

[ripeavocado]

Absolutely not.

They suck and first party games are not much better these days.
The trends tell us that is going to get worse, much worse, they chase the gen z mtx money printing machine, not quality.

I will be playing less and saving money (not much but still something), until the current system collapses and we get good AAA again.

The best time was the PS2 era, early X360/PS3 was also great.
Wii & Kinect & Move were the first symptom of a deeper problem.
PS4 did fairly decent on the first party side for the first 5 years, the rest was awful

 

[GreatnessRD]

Wii & Kinect & Move were the first symptom of a deeper problem.

A LOT of people overlook this part. This was 100% the beginning of the end. So sad that gaming has come so far, but fell so low all at the same time. I will hold the PS2 Era and everything before it so near to my heart forever.

 

[Guilty_AI]

so-so, depends on what we're calling third party AAA here.

 

[JimmyRustler]

3rd party are all about GaaS there days - and to make it worse I think that once Laydens legacy games have been released Sony will also jump on that bandwagon.

As a single player gamer I look forward to a few years more of playing remasters and remakes of the games I already know. Until the whole GaaS market collapses because there are too many players. But I do not see that happening until around 2025 or so.

 

[Guilty_AI]

As a single player gamer I look forward to a few years more of playing remasters and remakes of the games I already know.

OR you could just play all the new single player cool stuff that keeps coming out regardless

 

[Guileless]

No. Open world games should have more points on interest on maps where you fetch something for an NPC.

 

[ZywyPL]

Hard to tell, I just don't care about AAA games that much anymore, so I guess you can count that as the games being bad. Nowadays I spend most of the time on AA/indie games, that can offer the same visual fidelity (UE4 is killing it lately), much better playtime/pacing, quite often a much better overall gameplay experience, and all that for about half the price. Sometimes there's an AAA I'm interested in from one of the usual big 3rd party publishers, but that happens once every couple of years. Because really, it's hard to be interested if you just keep re-releasing the same old formula every single year with just different setting.

 

[Africa's Toto]

Depends game by game just like with first parties.

I'm going to have to agree with this guy overall.
(not counting Ubisoft games like Far Cry or Assasins Creed,
nor multiplayer stuff like Apex, Fortnite or PUBG
nor crpgs like Disco Elysium, Wasteland 3, Divinity OS II or Pathfinder WOTR
nor Hades, Dead Cells, Celeste or Spelunky 2 since I don't think that's what you would term AAA
nor fighting games like Guilty Gear Strive or Tekken)

Here are a few of the AAA 3rd party games relased on consoles In the past 3 years:

Resident Evil Remakes and Village
Prey
Sekiro
Nioh 2
DMC 5
Borderlands 3
Monster Hunter World/Rise
Hitman 1, 2, and 3
Red Dead Redemption 2
Metro Exodus
Control
Yakuza series
DOOM Eternal
Nier Automata
Death Stranding
Jedi Fallen Order

Yeah, not a lot . The Dead risings, GTA SAs, Bioshocks, Skyrims, Dragon Ages, Portals and Half-Lifes of the past are basically gone, but there is still really good stuff out there, even if there's less of it.

I think what you're noticing is a symptom of gaming in general though, including first-party stuff.

 

[kyliethicc]

Isnt Astrobot PS5 exclusive?

edit: I know that Astrobot is not AAA, but The Medium nor HLL are either.

3rd party

 

[Black_Stride]

3rd party AAA titles the current state?
While also complaining about things being formulaic?

SO you expect third party studios to spend all that money on unknowns?

Forget third party AAA games coming out with new stuff often.
They will experiment relatively early in the generation like with the new Avatar game but realistically only first and second party titles can really do completely new ideas at AAA levels knowing they have the backing of their platform holder.

Look to AA and III games if you want interesting third party support.

Tales of Arise, The Medium, The Ascent, Hades, Tony Hawk, It Takes two etc etc etc.

 

[Deerock71]

The very best games are still 3rd party games.

Certainly that's debatable. I was about to throw a flip response about only if you worship at the feet of Sony or Microsoft, but they're putting out quality, too. Definitely not true if you ever play Nintendo games.

 

[Nezzeroth]

It's like eating the same food over and over again. I stopped playing AAA third party games a long time ago, I think the only exceptions are Square Enix and Rockstar.

These days I prefer Sony's and Nintendo's first party games and indies.

 

[Vaelka]

Lack of originality and variety.
It feels like every AAA game ever is designed to be safe both in terms of trying to appeal to what's trendy and '' everyone '' and also to not upset game journalists.

Even TLOU2 was really safe ultimately, it was basically an interactive movie.

And where the fuck is the Western equivelant of Bayonetta?
I am still waiting?
Imagine a Bayonetta game with a AAA budget.

 

[Impotaku]

The problem with AAA is they are like blockbuster films they all rarely dare to try something unique they just do thing by the numbers playing it super safe for the casual audience because with huge budgets they daren't take the risk and potentially have a huge flop on their hands, while they may look stunning i find them pretty shallow. As the years are going on i find myself caring less & less about them, moved onto more onto AA and indie games to be honest as games with smaller budgets can take the risk of still doing something totally wild & quirky and after 35+ years of playing games i enjoy the weird & wonderful more which is why i don't give a fuck about keeping up with cutting edge gaming as it's mostly same shit with nicer graphics.

Give me something that's clearly been made with passion & care over some shoddily made AAA bugfest churned out by one of the mega dev sweatshops like ea/activision/ubisoft.

 

[Punished Miku]

I feel like I'm swimming in games, but very little of it is genuinely AAA. I tend to find that stuff boring.

I'd have to look, but the last western AAA third party title I purchased may have been Arkham Knight. I liked it, but didn't finish it. Maybe Mirror's Edge Catalyst (wow that was a trash game).

Ultimately it's not that different from what it always was for me. I buy the big stuff from Capcom, SQEX, and a Namco or Tecmo game occasionally. I haven't purchased a game from Activision, EA, Take Two in probably 10 years. I have gotten the Assassin Creed games digitally when they hit like $10 on PSN. I put in about 20 hours into those to see the general setting then usually dip out.

 

[Umbasaborne]

While we dont have the variety that we had during the xbox 360 era, we have more and more mid-small size publishers putting out interesting lower budget stuff. Thq nordic immediately comes to mind. Then there is also stuff like hell let loose, no mans sky, control, ect… we are getting to a better place wirh third party variety. I mean hell ea only managed to publish one NEW non sports game this year, its actually pretty wild. It seems the big third parties outside of ubisoft are struggling with output as the time and budget required to make the gargantuan games continues to balloon, but publishers like 505 and thq nordic are continuously releasing low risk, interesting budget titles. Thats not to mention the indie market, which has seriously been carrying the rest of the industry for the last ten years. I mean, most trade shows, like nintendo directs or xbox events, or the game awards now are 80% indie game reveals, thats saying something.

 

[Topher]

Certainly that's debatable. I was about to throw a flip response about only if you worship at the feet of Sony or Microsoft, but they're putting out quality, too. Definitely not true if you ever play Nintendo games.

It is all debatable, even Nintendo games, cuz folks have different likes and dislikes. Personally I've always been partial to Sony's first party over the other two (although Xbox games are growing on me), but truth is I play more third party than anything else primarily because most of the games come from third party. As far as the "very best games" coming from third party as @SOULZBOURNE believes.........not really sure about that, but one could also argue that the very worst games come from third party as well. A bit overgeneralized for my tastes either way.

 

[Basil King]

If I wasn’t I wouldn’t own these consoles. I’m more so not impressed by first party offerings. Third party has always been my thing. They make more interesting games.
Sony had Spider-Man and Ratchet
Xbox has Halo and Forza (some smaller titles as well) but those don’t interest me.

I’ll be Destiny and COD the rest of the year it looks like.

 

[R6Rider]

Depends on the game.

Also, Battlefield titles aren't yearly.

 

[Fbh]

I've been staying away from new releases until I get a Ps5.
But of the stuff that has released so far it's mostly the japanese games that interest me: Tales of Arise, Lost Judgement, RE Village, Elden Ring. I'm also cautiously optimistic about Forspoken and FFXVI.

The western third party AAA market has been pretty underwhelming so far. At this point MS and Sony own almost every big western studio worth noting.

 

[ripeavocado]

A LOT of people overlook this part. This was 100% the beginning of the end. So sad that gaming has come so far, but fell so low all at the same time. I will hold the PS2 Era and everything before it so near to my heart forever.

Actually I forgot about the Nintendo DS, but Nintendo has its own parallel history and its decline began with its casualization after the failure of the GC

 

[TheThreadsThatBindUs]

Outside of the juggernauts like Rockstar, third party AAA games are going to disappoint many on this forum, especially based on AAA next-gen gameplay and visuals expectations.

That said, those of us who are happy enough with first parties pushing the envelope and third parties just making great games will be pretty satisfied.

I personally sit in the latter category. I'm pretty ok with 3rd parties not pushing the boundaries as long as they just make great and compelling games. As long as Sony FP keeps on delivering the goods, I won't have any concerns about this gen.

 

[S0ULZB0URNE]

Certainly that's debatable. I was about to throw a flip response about only if you worship at the feet of Sony or Microsoft, but they're putting out quality, too. Definitely not true if you ever play Nintendo games.

I see a lopsided victory for 3rd party games.
As 3rd party games offer way more.

Nintendo's best in recent years is BOTW.
They don't even have enough to compete with Sony.

Since the 360/PS3 era like the OP mentioned...

 

[Marty-McFly]

I see a lopsided victory for 3rd party games.
As 3rd party games offer way more.

Nintendo's best in recent years is BOTW.
They don't even have enough to compete with Sony.

Since the 360/PS3 era like the OP mentioned...

What even is this? That's not what I said at all. I said the western third party have declined since the 360/PS3 era. Please stop console warring.

 

[S0ULZB0URNE]

What even is this? That's not what I said at all. I said the western third party have declined since the 360/PS3 era. Please stop console warring.

In my eyes, the decline since the PS3/360 generation has been staggering. Fewer games than ever and the ones we get, (Far Cry 6 the most recent example) are formulaic and by the numbers. TBH, Bethesda was one of the last publisher's that had games I was interested in. Sure, there are a few standouts like Elden Ring, but otherwise, it seems like a wastleland out there to me. You get your yearly COD, BF or Fifa, and bunch of multiplayer stuff and a title from Rockstar every 10 years, but the wheels seem to be falling of the cart.

That is not what you said.... I see no mention of western.

Also Namco/From are not western.

 

[Pejo]

It's the worst its ever been. Everything is focus tested and safe because of the astronomical increase in budgets and complexity of modern development. Then you have AAA pubs chasing trends that are completely uninteresting by the time the games come out due to 5-8 year dev cycles for these games. I'm only talking AAA space, to be clear. Indies have a little for everybody, but most lack the budget, skills, and management to compete at the higher level. I'd love to see pubs step back from AAA with notable exceptions, make a bigger variety of new IPs and AA games that can be completed in a realistic amount of time (2-4 years).

 

[MrS]

It's at an all-time low. Save us Miyazaki.

 

[Danjin44]

For me when it comes to AAA western games, I’m almost completely lost interest in them.

 

[Trogdor1123]

I think third parties games are trying to do too much and have lost focus. We don't need 300 hour games imo.

 

[Belthazar]

It's okay, I mostly play índies and AAs.... But I do play like 3 to 4 AAAs per year and there are plenty of good ones to fit in those slots

 

[Ezquimacore]

There are some good games here and there, but tbh my pc has been a retro/indie/emulator machine lately. I played tales of arise and the game was cool but at the end I felt like I wasted 70 hours, I don't have 70 hours to waste and sadly that's my feeling with 80% of the big games.

 

[THEAP99]

It's fucking depressing at this point how badly the AAA industry is struggling.
We are consistently paying MORE for LESS DETAILED, POLISHED, AND COMPLETE GAMES. It's fucking disgusting how it gets a pass as well and everyone acts like it is ok. The moment rockstar fell off was the beginning of the end.

Might as well switch over to indie or start branching out over to Nintendo as jaffe has recommended.

 

[Ezquimacore]

Im

Nintendo's best in recent years is BOTW.
They don't even have enough to compete with Sony.

Then Im the hater and i get banned when I respond to these "opinions"

 

[Guilty_AI]

Might as well switch over to indie or start branching out over to Nintendo as jaffe has recommended.

 

[TwiztidElf]

Trash. And it has been for a long time.
This is why platforms, platform exclusives and loss leaders are so important to quality. They are the only ones who are motivated to properly fund and manage quality releases.

Having said that the 3rd party diamonds in the rough usually come from Japan (Yakuza Like a Dragon) or indies (Hades).