The problem with God of War Ragnarok and Sony first-party PS5 games

Playing the best PS5 games is starting to feel like a bad case of deja vu

[jambola]

Open world, narrative driven and third person, are not genres

[sparky77]

And yet they all play the same, just like Soulsbourne/Metroidvania aren't genres PS games all play exactly the same.

[shinoff2183]

Beats racing around a track and playing the newest broken halo. Sony games crush what Xbox has. Easily.

[mkis007]

But they dont? God of war plays nothing like days gone plays nothing like ratchet and clank plays nothing like horizon, plays nothing like ghost of tushima, plays nothing like returnal, plays nothing like spiderman. Seriously even if you were to try to compare ghost of tushima to god of war the combat is completely different.

[jambola]

You think God of war plays exactly the same as spiderman?....

Also, Metroidvania is a genre
Open worlds is not
Souldsbourne is a genre
Narrative driven is not

[z2g]

I love these games but bro, you can’t tell me they don’t all feel similar. I own on my ps5 and have played for the last year on ps5: uncharted 4 next gen update, forbidden west, miles morales, both god of wars and the re-release of TLOU and yes, they all feel very similar and all are fresh in my memory. They’re great games and I love them but they are in fact starting to feel formulaic.

[darthv72]

They feel formulaic because that was the intention. The PS4 gen was meant to be different than PS3. Which means all the big Sony owned games follow the same core design for big budget, over the shoulder, 3rd person, semi / open world, action / adventure story driven narrative. Each one just takes place in its own environment, feudal japan, post apocalyptic future, norse mythology... you get the idea?

[isarai]

Ill give you tlou and gow, but horizon and Spider-Man? They feel absolutely nothing like any other game, same for R&C and GoT. They all look and feel very distinctly different to me. You're stretching way too hard to try and make this false narrative a thing

[shinoff2183]

Yea I think yall crazy. Each of those games are nowhere near each other. If you want to compare all those games and say they are similar you must just be tired of gaming because almost all games have similar things about them. I think sonys games offer Hella variety

Also I enjoy third person. I'd prefer it over fps anyday

[mkis007]

How do any two games not feel formulaic? Im not sure what forbidden west and spiderman have in common.

[jambola]

No
In your opinion they're feeling formulaic
If you think God of war, ratchet and clank and spiderman feel tbe same
That's insane

[MrNinosan]

Nope

[RpgSama]

What a sad excuse of a clickbait article.

[PS_HCT]

With God of War: Ragnarok being the fastest selling first-party game launch in PlayStation history selling 5.1 million copies, I don't think there is much of a problem.

[Snookies12]

I mean, I do agree with you to a certain extent. But sales really don't mean much when it comes to quality. Granted, GoW Ragnarok is definitely a quality title. Yet, on the other hand. We have the hot mess that Pokemon just released. And from what I hear, it's selling more than any previous Pokemon game. Which always bring in millions, every iteration.

[Shane Kim]

I don't really understand the whining. Yes they might play kind of similarly (I don't think so, but to each their own) but Sony's exclusives are like 1% of the gaming library. Would you rather they play just like every third party game out there?

[HollowIchigo25]

Spider-Man, God of War, Uncharted and Ghost of Tsushima are very different experiences! saying they all feel similar is rather silly. Now having said this, I don't mind if sony revived some of their forgotten IPs, like Legend of Dragoon, Motorstorm, Twisted Metal etc.

[dmonee]

I can agree with this take. Even though the aforementioned games had great sequels, I didn’t enjoy the sequels nearly as much as the first entries. Part of this might be the time between sequels. I get pumped up and exited for them because they are years apart. They feel familiar and in most cases, the sequels are bigger and more polished. What I don’t agree with, is that the article focuses solely on Sony’s first party AAA titles. Other developers titles also suffer from this. I thought Far Cry 6 was repetitive and just bloated with too much side stuff, as well as Assassins creed Valhalla. I’ll toss they yearly Call of Duty in there as well. I know there’s tons of other examples but this isn’t my article. There are occasional, sleeper games that break the trend of safe, familiarity. Those games usually take on a life of their own, but like other forms of media, get overplayed I guess. Souls games for instance are great for what they are, but I suspect even that formula will get tiring after awhile. Yada yada yada, my point is, that it’s not just Sony 1st party titles that suffer from this.

[z2g]

I love the game but the author isn’t wrong. I even had a feeling that the whole climbing and jumping around on some scaffolding during the side mission of shutting down rigs (favor for Asgard side quest) and thinking how remarkably close it felt to playing uncharted or Horizon zero dawn. There are even little markings on all these games to show you where you can climb.

[jambola]

He's trying to compare games based on them being 3rd person and narrative driven
He's very wrong

[gangsta_red]

Going to agree with this author, I'm playing Ragnarok right now and it is seriously not holding my attention as the 2018 one did. And this is a problem I have for a lot of Sony's first party games like Ghosts and TLoU2, while graphically stunning, you're pretty much doing the same things as before in each game.

This entry really feels like a chore and so far this game is following a pretty standard and yet tiring formula, fight, climb rocks, puzzle, fight, climb rocks, puzzle...I especially knew that this was a very problematic formula when the developers of this game switched it up by doing something in games that I really hate, playing as another character, but still going through the same formulaic game progression.

I can now see why Santa Monica wanted this game to be the last in this particular series and it's actually a commendable that they made that decision.

[Inverno]

It's a problem with the AAA industry, these games are following a template. They feel like more of the same because they literally are just more of the same. You just can't seem to point that out because fanboys lose their frickin minds when they see criticism towards a recently released game. They bring up sales number, and say "if it's bad then why did it review so well?" Because reviews are less about critiquing a game and more about selling it to the mainstream crowd.

You can already see above the reasoning I just pointed out! It's hilarious!

[gangsta_red]

"It's a problem with the AAA industry, these games are following a template."

Agreed, while there are still some games I enjoyed using a same/same formula such as Elden Ring, these games though are becoming few and far between. The monotony of a lot of these games are becoming glaring and hard to put aside, especially coming into this supposed new gen.

[goldwyncq]

We definitely need more AAA exclusives like Dreams and Returnal going forward. It's about time developers get creative with the gameplay again.

[P_Bomb]

Problem is both those games exist, but didn’t sell as well. There’s still that disconnect between consumers and forums.

I get the deja vu angle though. It’s why I passed on Elden Ring. I’d just finished my Demons Souls platinum. Wasn’t itching for another Soulsborne yet. Doesn’t make it a bad game. But that’s definitely become another formula.

[gold_drake]

while yes, they are narrative driven third person open world games, they couldnt be more different.
to say that GoW, Horizen and Spiderman feel the same .. i mean, i had very very different experiences with those games. wildly different experiences.

i get where the author is getting at, but its the same thing if i said, all final fantasy and dragon quest games feel the same, because they have had the same battle system. that also, couldnt be more from the truth of the matter.

[outsider1624]

I wonder what this writer thinks of Fifa and Cod then. They've always been the same,play the same but still breaking sales records. You know there's a saying..if it ain't broke..why fix it.

[jambola]

With fifa I think it's more like
"If it's broke but people still buy it, why bother fixing it"

[jznrpg]

99.9% of games follow a formula of the past . They update it to some degree but just about nobody is inventing anything new

[sweendog]

It's why I bought an Xbox first this time around. I've owned every Playstation console including the handhelds but by the end of the PS4 I was burnt out with over the shoulder action games with RPG and stealth elements. glad I'm not the only one that was getting bored of the same games. Right now I'm enjoying vampire survivors more than I would GOW. I'll get a PS5 at some point as well as whatever Nintendo bring out next, I always do. Last gen GOW and breath of the wild were my top games, I don't hate the genre, I just need a break. For now I'm having a blast and finding new genres on the Xbox.

[darkrider]

Dude, sony got all the Xbox games and much more... Look at this year... Zero. Your arguments don't make any sense. If you say pc, then ok. But Xbox is the platform with less choice...

[sweendog]

I haven't stopped playing games all year. I've been having a blast with Indies. I'm not hating on Sony I just knew what to expect from their first party line up and fancied a change. I've owned every mainstream console since the 8 bit era apart from the Xbox one and that isn't going to change. I also game on PC. I couldn't care less about fanboy crap

[derek]

Cool story sweendog, lol.

[REDGUM]

You come to playstation to play the large open world story driven games, that's what they/we're great at.
You can go to the competition for the fast, action paced games & MP games (which alot, dare I say it, most are available on the playstation network too)
There are clear choices.

I won't lie though, the acquisition of COD & DOOM in particular are concerning for me being a PS player. But hey, we'll all move along together and what will be will be.

[darkrider]

Omg, what a moron. Nobody cares about your opinion...

The main problem today is the lack of quality, polished, performance issues, being held back by the potato console, bad story, no story, milked beyond belief...

[derek]

Yes lets just make stuff up: returnals plays exactly like gt7 which plays exactly like astrobot rescue mission which plays like Ragnarok which plays like demons souls.if the dope who wrote this article is having trouble finding enough variety then the problem is his as sony first party and a whole host of 3rd party offer variety. If you dont like sony games, dont buy them, its that simple. Guys big claim is that he's been gaming since the ps1, big deal, some of us have been gaming longer than not.

[DrRobotnik]

None

[Good-Smurf]

Better than playing Halo that's looks subpar and can't do a co-op yet its a demanding game to run on PC or a Forza that gives you a supercar 10 minutes into the game with shallow empty open world while being over 100 GB.