For me, the 6th generation was characterized by a massive variation and innovation of software in a short time, while the 7th generation is the complete opposite. The 7th gen defined regression in almost every genre, and did so over the course of 8 years. Some were hit harder than others, but I can’t think of many genres that truly improved over this time. Let us all take a moment to remember those lost:
1. R.I.P. Survival horror: Partly due to the success of Resident Evil 4 and partly due to the success of action games in general, the survival horror genre saw a swift death in the 7th gen. Starting off promising with Condemned and Dead Space, both of those series eventually devolved into the action genre much to the dismay of fans. Resident Evil has become an insult to longtime fans, and Silent Hill’s smaller budgets and the series' shift away from Japanese developers ensured it couldn't hold a candle to its predecessors either. The only series that retained the Metroid-esque design of classic survival horror with varied puzzles and creepy atmosphere were the Fatal Frame games on the Wii, the only new installment of which didn't even make it out of Japan. This mishandling allowed the genre to thrive with independent developers, but the clear lack of design expertise shows often in indie horror. The recent announcement of a big budget Silent Hill game promises arguably the first decent return to AAA survival horror since Dead Space in 2008.
2. R.I.P. Tactical shooters: The Rainbow Six series was always neutered in terms of tactical features on consoles compared to the PC versions, but it took a nosedive in depth with the Vegas series. The high stakes gameplay and thorough planning systems that made the series so intense was basically gone, and the game became a slightly more advanced run-of-the-mill FPS. These games weren’t bad by any means, but the series definitely lost its identity. The Ghost Recon series is probably the best example of the 7th gen curse of degradation. Here we have a series that started off as perhaps not the most tactical of all tactical shooters, but still shone brightly in a wave of COD copycats and Halo wanna-be’s. With the release of Future Soldier however, it became just that. Compare the quiet war of attrition that defines the multiplayer of GRAW 2 to the run-of-the-mill unlock-based Future Soldier and you see two very different games. The fact that the series has shifted to F2P bodes even worse for its future. As for SOCOM… do I even need to say more about this once great series? I can’t think of a harder fall from grace than this. It’s a series so beloved that it actually got the criticism it deserved for “streamlining” its mechanics for a wider audience. Hopefully Sony understands the complaints of fans and brings SOCOM back to its tactical origins.
3. R.I.P. Stealth: It was mainly the design decisions that permeated the 7th gen that almost killed stealth. We went from discovering inventive ways to off targets in Hitman, to having a mythical disembodied voice tell us all of our choices like children. Splinter Cell: Conviction disgraced the series with the inability to so much as hide bodies, nonetheless beat levels without killing any enemies. Thankfully the sequel, Blacklist, did an admirable job of bringing back the ability to beat most levels without killing or alerting anyone. Even then, being told in the umpteenth installment of every stealth game I play that “being seen by enemies is bad” feels like a slap in the face. For some reason, developers in the 7th gen started thinking we were stupid. Slowing down time, painting targets to kill them with superhuman suddenness or overpowered x-ray vision have all become the alternative to providing adequate lighting and sound engines. I’m not sure why this is so difficult for developers to craft, since games like Thief and Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory did better audio engines with much worse hardware years ago.
The funny thing is, a lot of these series have only suffered for turning away from what made them special. SC: Conviction ended up being the worst selling game in the series, as did Dead Space 3 and SOCOM 4. Silent Hill’s sales have been on a downward slope since the PS2 days. It’s bewildering that companies can’t realize that these games used to be bought for the unique place they once held on the market, and aren't being bought because they are easily bested outside of the genre they were made for. If I want to play Gears of War, I play Gears of War, not Dead Space 3. We can only hope that the next time game developers promise a “return to form” for some of these series, that they aren’t just spewing any PR lies.
The gap in hardware between the 7th gen consoles and their predecessors represented the largest gap in gaming history. Both of these consoles were sold for enormous losses, and the slow recuperation of these losses is what led to the generation being so long. Over time, the development cost for these consoles became astronomically high. Developers held on to the success of the comparably cheaper cycles of the PS2 and Wii as long as they could, but eventually the 360 and PS3 were the only consoles where sufficient money could be made. The diminishing returns of big budget development led to a number of tactics to increase revenue. Capcom started locking content already on the disk and basically making you pay for a key. Micro-transactions for in-game currency or trivial additions to games has become abundant, and doesn’t look to be leaving. The trend of rushing a game to market to meet holiday demand has also become standard practice. Patching these games is often secondary to producing more DLC, and so the cycle continues. The general consensus on these practices is negative, but passive. Most of the games that are the biggest criminals of these practices are also the biggest in the industry. The increased popularity of the internet and events like E3 since the 6th gen has also led developers to put way too much focus on the visual fidelity of their games rather than the framerate or load times. In the 6th gen only ambitious titles like Shadow of the Colossus were excused for having poor framerates, whereas now it’s practically accepted. These are all unfortunate trends that have continued into the 8th gen, and are seemingly getting worse.
The industry has become bloated with astronomical budgets, long development cycles, and poor business practices. These trends of the 7th gen have led to the 8th starting off ridiculously slow. People have been arguing that every generation starts off this slow, but in truth none have been so devoid of quantity or quality. Look at some of the titles the PS2 had in its first 17 months on the market: Metal Gear Solid 2, Silent Hill 2, Final Fantasy X, Devil May Cry, Gran Turismo 3, Grand Theft Auto 3, Ico, and Jak and Daxter. These games are often held as some of the best of all time, with GTA 3 and Devil May Cry representing practically the birth of whole new genres. Ico and Silent Hill 2 opened debates about games as art and elicited genuine emotion from players. The new tech was used to create massive worlds with no loading times in Jak and Daxter, and interesting new mechanics to enhance gameplay with the seamless first person mode in MGS 2. Even the “no gaemz” PS3 had an incredible first year line-up next to its successor, check the first part of this series for some examples. Meanwhile, the PS4 and the 8th gen in general have been a myriad of HD re-releases and unambitious games that could’ve just as well been on the previous system. This would be easier to accept if this wasn’t the case for the foreseeable future.
I don’t want to end on a bad note, because my faith isn't lost. Whereas the 7th gen represented all that’s wrong with gaming today, I’m hopeful that in the end the 8th gen will represent the resurgence of some of what was lost, as well as the birth of new things. The demand is there, we just need to let these companies understand what we want. It isn't to be told "Push LS to go forward" or "Mash X to _____", it isn't for staples of niche genres to be unwillingly thrust into mainstream genres, and it isn't for the constant reliance on the same design tropes, settings and gameplay. It's for something new, something innovative, and something that can only be done on these consoles. Thanks for reading.
"The Montréal-based (Québec, Canada) indie games developer Raccoon Logic have today announced with great joy and thrill, that their satirical sci-fi adventure "Revenge of the Savage Planet", is coming to PC (via Steam) and consoles (PS5 and Xbox Series X) on May 8th (2025)." - Jonas Ek, TGG.
"The Kosice-based (Slovakia) indie games publisher Grindstone and Bratislava-based (Slovakia) indie games developer Bitmap Galaxy,, are today very delighted and proud to announce that the full version (v1.0) of their cozy puzzle nature-building game “Preserve“, is coming to PC (via Steam) and consoles (PS5, PS4, Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One, and the Nintendo Switch via digital stores on May 15th, 2025." - Jonas Ek, TGG.
Neil writes "Don’t arrive at the gates of Bee Flowers: Royal Garden expecting anything near a test of your puzzling mind."
I don't think that it'd be fair to say that the last generation killed stealth when it had the great Dishonored in it.
And where some older franchises like Resident Evil and Silent Hill stumbled, there were many new entrants that made the last generation if not the most innovative then offering the most variety of new and old styles of games in a genuinely confident, up to date, way.
Quantic Dream - Heavy Rain and Beyond Two Souls. The latter might have been a regression in terms of the true danger that the player was in but it was like a 'point and click adventure' for a new generation.
Yet also the original point and click era - the 16 bit era- was spiritually resurrected in the last generation.
With a platformer from Ron Gilbert The Cave.
Plus The Unfinished Swan, Papo and Yo, Rain, Contrast, Life is strange, many of these also available on PS4 now.
The indie, or indie-like, games were exceptionally good.
Bioshock was like a link to an earlier age of genuine mystery in games, coupled with current technology and fierce gameplay.
Last generation was arguably most interesting because of what Sony had to do to catch up with the Xbox360s's sales. Which was allowing free online play and a line up of exclusive games that was superb, including the Uncharted series and The Last of Us. Plus I had great fun with Motorstorm Apocalpyse.
The last generation was something of a golden age if you had a PS3. It just wasn't necessarily a golden age in terms of what Microsoft and Nintendo were doing.
So far this new generation is just like a slicker version of last generation, calculated to make even more profit from old games and with less risk on the whole. Last generation, experimenting with motion capture and storytelling, was a step in to the unknown compared to this generation.
I believe that specific video game genres are pretty much dead. Alot of genres have become one game like Assassins Creed combining stealth with platforming,and action. But the whole DLC, microtransanctions, short online gaming (3-6 months tops except PC) it just reeks. The new and innovative games are exclusive to PC like This War of Mine, Consortium, The Banner Saga,etc. ......
The 7th generation also saw very little great jrpgs, which were abundant in the 6th and 5th generations. I wish we could go back to those times
Good read . I want to talk about your opening paragraph . As a person who loves to play first person shooter campaigns , i have to agree that most of the campaigns i played during 7th gen.did feel like they went backwards . The reason is because of the fact that PS3 and Xbox360 made online competitive play very very very popular on those 7th gen consoles . And i will admit, between COD MF2 and Black Ops 1 and 2 , i must have played well over a thousand hours online with those games . But i thought the campaigns of those game were below average . Heck ,i still think the first two Medal of Honor games had the best 2 military campaigns i ever i played . I believe the 2nd MoH game was developed by Infinity Ward who were the creators of Callof Duty. I also believe because their were so many people really getting into video games during the 7th gen, that they made FPS campaigns more easy , which really got me mad . They held your hand , pointed into the right direction and gave you re-gen health . But developers are learning from their mistakes . That is why i liked what Machine Games did with Wolfenstein New Order. At least they brought back health packs . Looking forward too the Wolfenstein Old Blood DLC coming out in a couple weeks .
I have to say for me, some of my best memories from 7th gen is playing NHL 12, 13 and 14 online with my friends, who i grew up with and played a ton of street hockey outside, back in the late 70's and early 80's.
Hopefully, developers are reading these postive and not so postive feedback from us gamers , so they can learn from their mistakes , to make gaming fun in the 8th gen.
I wouldn't say 7th gen was so bad. We got a some innovative games like Portal, Demon's/Dark Souls, and Minecraft. Lots of very good games, too. Maybe not as much as PS2/Xbox, but when I look back on my catalog of PS3/360 games on my shelf, it's a pretty satisfying sight. I guess I'm a glass half-full person, and there have been bright spots this generation.
One thing I want to mention is that a genre got a big revival this generation: 2D Fighters. We've got Street Fighter IV to thank for this and I'm loving all the new competitive Fighters coming out like Blazblue, Skullgirls, Mortal Kombat, and Killer Instinct. The online features of 7th gen have made that revival even better. Granted, this genre is particularly plagued by micro-transactions/DLC, but I'm still glad it came back.
But yeah, questionable new practices and trends have come up, game development has gotten bloated, and some genres have almost been no-shows. I 100% agree with those.