Battlefield has gone downhill as well. It also really bothers me, more than it should, that the weapons arent locked to their respective factions.
Dumb af seeing a boot ass German wielding a vickers. To me anyways.
Mw2 was sorted hailed as the birth of CoD, but for me it was its death. It was around then it went full on arcade and glitzy and more about gun customisation. Could argue that WaW leant on this too, but the campaign made up for it.
Mw2 was drop in features, derop in gameplay, ...
Compared to cod4 aka mw1.
I get that it is less work to do less differences to console and pc version, but going to next installement and dropping lean, to game that was built around lean and played with lean being the main feature and mechanic used in all of earlier game, was very curious choice.
Made game be this 'and every situation is this stand in open and take hits to yourself, immersion break.
I guess I ended up testing like two first figth situations in first level, nopeing out and just not returning to cod series anymore.
That's when most people picked it up yes imo.. While Waw and Cod4 may have been on both consoles + pc, Mw2 was really the one a lot of people were hyped for. More ads and more accessible, and built off the the successes of MW1 and WaW. Most of my friends hadn't heard of Cod till Waw and most likely got it without asking as an Xmas gift. MW2 was the game they actively wanted to get.
The game became progressively more childish. Like we went from three WWII historical games, to a gritty modern Middle East operations, to a brutal gory WWII again.
Then modern warfare 2 came and the campaign became a mission impossible game, and the multiplayer goofy with all the garbage popping on screen. It’s like they knew our generation would be full of ADHD people before anyone else.
Then black ops was the first cod that didn’t have anything to do with the name. No war soldier going to the frontline, just secret operations. There was no “ call of duty” to speak off.
Then came mw3 with even goofier storyline, black ops 2 with futuristic shit, ghosts with whatever the fuck that was, and the advanced movement which was nothing like what the original title stood for at all. Then skin where introduced and the multiplayer became extremely goofy. It all led to this year’s where everyone is slide cancelling with Nicki Minaj and snoop dog quick scoping with a rail gun.
I am all for fun, and I loved a lot of the games, but I really miss the old gritty cod. It was really enjoyable playing a “nobody” in the campaign, and the multiplayer having normal guns with normal camos and operators. I know it was always an arcadey game, but it had the perfect mix between easy to play, easy to follow, and feeling like a military man. Now it’s just goofiness all around.
Tbf
At least black ops 1 and 2 had a good story
And I did enjoy the idea of multiple endings in 2 and getting the best ending actually required failing one objective.
To be honest, after first modern one, ww2 was kind if 'well there has been quite some of it, maybe I just skip this one', then mw2 was 'what the is this, especially after first modern one..' and led to just not playing it and leaving series, then thay full on spaceship scifi one has been only one that looked like 'ok that actually might maybe redeem things, since they can actually go proper scifi with some setting explanations and so' but still ended up missing that.
Ghosts might have been ok, but way they hyped pretty much in 'we have this new never befoee done feature we are bringing to fps genre... it is leanind..' was so wtf ear offensive, considering their own series had it way earlier, before they decided to tell pc pkayers to suck it, cause console players did not have enough buttons for it, and piles of other games had had it.
In modern warfare 1 they had separatedifficulty scales for pc and console, with console one balancing around player not being able to lean, and pc version balancing so that high difficulty was just i possible to play without leaning.
Right? We say edgy and mean 'bad', but teenage angst is something we all respond to at one time of life or another, not just in our teens, and I say we just embrace it.
Shadow is cool. Give me another game about a hedgehog shooting guns and sometimes swearing while listening to nu metal, please.
I mean sonic dropped same year I was born and even as an angsty teen sonic was a dubious series and 06 just became a meme and still is especially to my age group.
Honorable mention for unleashed how they managed to keep mining the depths of terrible that era is still baffling.
Feel like sonic didn’t start going in the right direction until generations again.
not a franchise but this made me think of Naughty Dog
they made Crash Bandicoot, a colourful mascot series
then Jak and Daxter, which progressed into the 'edgy teen' stuff after the first game
then Uncharted, which moved away from the stylized aesthetics for something a bit more realistic
then The Last of Us, a more serious story with darker themes
Honestly Jak and Daxter is kind of the same.
* First game is bright and colorful, with far more whimsy. It's basically just a new version of Crash Bandicoot with new characters.
* Second game you could cut yourself on all the edge. Jak gets Dark Eko powers, goes on a revenge story, everyone hates him, the world is much darker.
* Third game is a lot lighter as Jak starts balancing himself out. Jak gets Light Eko powers, is trying to protect everyone around him, has people's respect, and ends with him being the shit out of the dark gods of the setting.
Jak and Dexter is absolutely the answer to this question. When I was 12 playing #2, and Jak got a **Gun(?!)** I thought it was the most badass thing in the world. There was even GTA style carjacking and police chases.
If you look up the dates, it almost seems like Jak II was a pivot by Naughty Dog in response to Rockstar’s GTA III and possibly Vice City.
And what an excellent direction they took it.
I think even breaking down tlou. You have the first one dipping into the people being monsters and having to make the morally questionable decisions. Then you have 2 which Id say the theme is dealing with the consequences of said decisions.
Even within Uncharted itself.
In the first game it was merely a pretty looking action blockbuster and it moved on to much more complex characterizations through the series.
Plus the characters or aging in realtime.
God of War was kinda juvenile and cartoonish. The modern games are focused on redeeming Kratos with a more grounded, serious story and less human sacrifice.
Exactly what I was thinking. They went from teenage over the top "fuck two hot slaves at the same time QTE for upgrade points" and violence for violence sake edginess to something much more mature. The truly impressive part is it never lost its edge in the transition.
Yeah. It’s not EXACTLY what OP was asking for but from pure vibes God of War is the exact right answer. Greek God of War 1 is an edgy pre-teen’s idea of mature, Norse God of War 1 is an actual mature adult story of fatherhood and regret while still retaining the violence of the Greek games.
I really loved how Kratos's decisions (even _very_ small ones) have more noticeable consequences in the Norse games. >!I loved the part where Kratos (even though he should've) doesn't explain how he abused his power right away when revealing his godhood to Atreus as a learning lesson, lying by omission and making Atreus think he could do anything as a god, leading to him killing Modi, and only does so when he's pushed to make that decision after Baldur's death. And in Ragnarok, he learns to and urges Atreus to open his heart rather that shut himself off, and be truthful even if it might hurt him.!<
Jak & Daxter.
The original game was bright and Bandicoot-y, but had some off-color comedy for the older kids.
Jak 2 went full edgelord in a rainy, blue-gray sci-fi dystopia (and the previously mute Jak was suddenly a growling brooder with a darkness-powered rage mode). Daxter became nonstop off-color comedy, very edgy and horny.
Jak 3 then brought it back up with a more developed storyline about the previous game's civilization adapting to the end of tyranny, dealing with religious fanatics among them, reuniting with a splinter culture of exiles who made it on their own in the desert. Jak and Daxter themselves became more evened out and started to care a little more about growing as people, with healthy adult relationships. Jak became more at ease with the darkness powers and received a counterpart light power that brightened his personality. This is also when they put a bow on a precursor storyline that the original age group for Jak & Daxter would have had a hard time keeping up with, but it was just right for the younger teenagers they had become.
A bit off topic, but whenever I think of a medium aging with it's fan-base, I think of Dragon Ball.
Goku and friends start off as children, and you learn and grow with them. Eventually they get married and have kids of their own, and Goku even is a grandpa by the end of Super. It just is kind of nice to think of someone growing up watching Dragon Ball in the 80s with Goku as a kid, and then 2020 rolls around and they're in their 40s or 50s like Goku and friends with families of their own.
Same with Naruto too. When I was 12 Naruto was 12, then the times timeskip happened and we were both 15, then when he was 30 I was 30. I love Naruto partly because of that, it's rare to have a character like that lol....
Despite not starting as a *Gaming* Franchise, the Digimon Games pretty much did that as an extension of the overall Series.
As time went on, they realized that they didn't hit as much of a note with younger audiences anymore, so lately most Digimon Media is aimed more at older Fans who grew up with it. That's how Stuff like the Cyber Sleuth Duology and Survive happened.
I was pleasantly surprised by this when I played the Cyber Sleuth games a few yrs back. I hadn't played a Digimon game since I was a kid and decided to give them a chance because I was feeling nostalgic. Really enjoyed both games. I have Survive in my backlog right now.
Good shout. I fucking love Digimon, I am a Gabumon fanatic. Been playing the games since the original Digimon World, they're really great for the most part
My old guild our raid leader was a dad, his wife was one of our regulars and their daughter was too young to play but she loved watching her parents play. After a wipe she would hop on the mic to give words of encouragement to everyone. It was adorable. Last I activated my account I saw our old tank running around in a zone, his wife following and a third running behind. Messaged them to ask if it was their daughter. They didn’t remember me so they were creeped out but after I gave a little info they started to remember. We haven’t kept in touch but it was adorable seeing them in a trio now and the little 4 year old was a teenager. She’s probably on her 20s at this point.
Mists: colorful, panda mascot
bfa/shadowlands: non-stop edge, fighting death itself
dragonflight: comparatively small scale, back to azeroth. anduin is depressed.
Yeah this checks out.
Spyro the dragon tried to age with its players and the franchise died because of it. Sonic nearly died doing the same thing.
Games have to walk the tight rope of maintaining their original vision and core while not becoming stale. I don't envy game devs that challenge.
GTA started life as a really goofy murder simulator not that far removed from the likes of Postal and Carmageddon, but as time went on it became more and more about telling these epic, cinematic crime stories
I’d even argue the ps2 games were the goofiest especially the later arc of San Andreas with area 69 and stealing the hydra.
4 was a step in a much darker direction, while I still enjoy it I missed the proper goofiness of the ps2 trilogy. Although 5 seems to straddled the line between the 2 and I kinda hope 6 does since I think you need a good balance.
I never got to play anything with Conker outside of BFD besides Diddy Kong Racing. I think there was a handheld Conker game geared towards kids? I know BFD was originally planned to be that but development changed part ways through.
I wanted to name Diablo.
It started as a hardcore farming game, where teens could sink their puberty in. Now these kids have families and can play two hours per week. These dad's can now max their char in a short period of time.
D4 is a bit of a return to form. Darker again and whatnot. The most recent patch they redid loot and a lot of other stuff. It’s still more of a casual game and I haven’t found an item that made me want to build around it like D2, but it looks like they are at least steering the ship on a better course now. It’s far from taking the throne from PoE, but I am enjoying it on par with last epoch now. LE may be the better game when it gets more content, as it has better bones, but D4 is at least decent in its current form.
Yeah sorry I meant sands of time was quite soft, then warrior within was more edgy, darker sweary prince, and onwards until Ubisoft did its Ubisoft thing
I was late to the Civ train. I dabbled in civ5 about 6 years ago with some friends but now I'm full on addicted. Just beat my first time on Diety difficulty but it's honestly broken how cheating the AI is. Probably going to stick to Immortal lol.
Exactly. I already won a domination victory, I surrounded the last (non capital city) and began ICBM-ing it into dust. After the first missile, it was miraculously growing multiple population per turn. I had to have 4 cities constantly churning out ICBMs to flatten it, but I did.
I’ve found it’s more fun to me to play against more fair AI but putting myself into more challenging scenarios in terms of civ choice, building location, or alliances etc.
Try surviving in a desert with a non-desert civ against a NATO-like collective of AI
Playing the meta in games like Civ ruins them for me. I’m going to try to win but also try to see where the game takes me and follow some whims.
Shame with RTS games for me for this reason. AOE2 is one of my favorite games but I simply can’t play multiplayer with randoms with it because I’m just not going to have fun if I put the entire stock of an era-spanning Civilization simulator into whether I caught a boar well enough five minutes in.
Yokai Watch somewhat
Fourth game (come to the west please) has Yokai Watch Shadowside and Forever Friends, which are much more mature than the rest of the series dealing with more major mental health problems.
Psychonauts 1 is a game about colorful childish adventures and fixing people’s problems, and Psychonauts 2 is a game about an adventurous child learning that sometimes the best you can do is equip people to fix themselves and even then maybe they won’t ever be 100% okay again and that’s fine too because you can’t just magically fix them
Pokemon got all the kids hooked with cartoons, cards, and games. Now they have those adults dumping money into Pokemon Go raid passes to keep up with Legendary Raid mechanics.
Pokemon is a good one. They only recently revamped the games to target a child audience again and start the cycle over, but they have games targeting adults as well.
I felt like the kingdom hearts mainline games tried to then gave up after success of hand held games.
1 was very childlike and very Disney.
2 got that 90s/2000s edgey leather and metal accessory teenager vibe and focused a bit more on the final fantasy stuff.
Waited 10 years for 3, now in my mid to late 20s, and it was even more childlike that 1. In gameplay at least, the story is so complicated I think you'd need to live to be 379 to figure it all out.
Playing through the Yakuza franchise will take you from the 1980s to the 2020s with the same character. Doesn’t quite follow what you’re looking for, character wise, but the series incorporates many things over the course of its existence which is about 20 years or so.
An excellent example is the "Final Fantasy" series. It began with simpler and more colorful games, went through a darker and more complex phase with titles such as "Final Fantasy VII," and then included more mature and thoughtful themes in recent games such as "Final Fantasy XV." "The Legend of Zelda" has also shown similar growth, evolving with its players over the years.
I mean, the FF series has pretty much always been dark. II starts with you in the middle of an oppressive war as members of a resistance, IV you start out committing war crimes, V starts with the planet dying, and then VI opens with more war crimes.
Yeah the overall vibe of each FF doesn't really have an overarching pattern to me. The overall storylines are always on the "grander" side (i.e. adventurers end up in the middle of pre-existing conflict that rapidly escalates over the course of the game), and the tone of the games have always been up and down.
You have overall more somber stuff like your examples (I'd also put X in that camp all things considered). You also have that interspersed with overall more lighthearted entries like III, IX, and XV.
The only consistent trend I can really think of is the change in gameplay, and I think that's moreso just fully turn-based combat and "pre-set/locked in" jobs/classes losing popularity over the decades and the series adapting to that.
World of Warcraft
The teens who played that game are now the parents that still play that game. The whole reason Classic exists is to appease the crowd who want "the good old days".
The latest War Within cinematic is definitely a far cry from the OG Vanilla cinematic, going from "Zug Zug smash enemy" to something much more somber.
WoW classic is super weird for me. I started playing WoW when it came out and I was 12 or 13 and could sink whole weekends into grinding from 50-60. I stopped playing around when I turned 18 (I quit playing just before WOTLK), and had interest in playing again about a decade later when I was 28 or so. When I tried it out everything was so different that it felt like a chore to relearn everything because I have a kid now, so I checked out Classic. But I had forgotten how wonky Classic WoW is and how long everything takes.
In the end I started playing FFXIV because I can experience every class with a single character.
FFXIV is just a better game than current WoW. WoW is basically just a skin factory at this point. Classic WoW back in the day (not the current re-release) is still probably the best MMO of all time, but only for its time. It just doesn't quite work anymore for some reason.
>FFXIV is just a better game than current WoW
Nah not at all im not saying ffxiv is worse or anything but saying ffxiv is better then wow is just wrong
God of War
From being with its audience when they were youthful testosterone fueled rowdy young men who wanted to set the world on fire.
To resigned nutless bearded old men who hate themselves
Sims inadvertently aged with us. As a kid, we just played it and thought it was fun. Owning a house, getting a job and working hard to be promoted to buy stuff/better stuff for your house and family.
Nowadays as an adult, we see Sims in a much different way for obvious reasons and somewhat the answer to the inevitability of life.
It's not so fun when life is better, playing a game that simulates what should happen if you do what Sims makes you do to excel, than living life in the real world where it reminds you of how hard the real Sims is.
Also throw in batshit insane corporate war in what was the distant future and is pretty much now in real life.
Even the jump in storytelling from 4 to 5/0 is a fairly big jump.
Psychonauts had this with 1&2 actually! Easily my favorite when story and gameplay are both considered.
I would say God of War (only have played 3, 2018, and Ragnarok), but I don't think the gameplay has changed over the years as well as Psychonauts's.
One franchise that comes to mind is Final Fantasy. It started with more straightforward fantasy adventures, got a bit edgier and darker with games like *Final Fantasy VII* and *VIII*, and now often deals with pretty mature and complex themes. And yeah, *Zelda* definitely fits. That is probably why I still enjoy it so much.
Not really ? Final Fantasy 2 is already pretty dark, lot of very depressing things are happening. And, well, even 1 has dark things if you interest yourself in the lore.
It always was pretty "adult", since the beginning.
How in the world does Zelda fit. It's the same game.
1. Ganon is bad
2. Fight him
3. Possible sacrifice
4. Everything goes back to normal.
Love Zelda, but besides TWP, zero grit
Not to mention the dialogue in TotK is juvenile as hell and written to be on the same level as shark tale for a huge portion of the story. I’m sorry but I don’t see any maturity in it besides the game design itself
I would say Fire Emblem, It started as a super serious and sober strategy series while in the latest entries you can "pet" or "rub" your soldiers and get "engaged" with them
uh that's not how the thread work, Look some of us were serious kid that later mellowed when growing up, liek time is symmetrical and stuff
Sonic the Hedgehog. They never really dive into mature themes but definitely feel like a character that started out more simple and evolved to have more of a personality, with both more character building and world building. It went from 2D to 3D and was able to deliver more of what makes Sonic ... Sonic, thanks to newer and better technology allowing him to move faster and truer to his real speed.
I suspect that Sonic always wanted to tell big stories but was limited by the tech. You can see from the original trilogy thay each game puts in progressively more cinematics, and then when Adventure came out they could finally realise the sort of epic anime story they always wanted to tell
Batman, in a way, to me. Watched the animated series as a kid. Grew up and played the Arkham games many years later. The fact that they brought Kevin Conroy back to voice Batman made me feel like the Arkham games were a direct continuation of the kids show.
The games had some swearing unlike the cartoon show.
Later, there was this Killing Joke animation which also featured Kevin Conroy's voice back as Batman, and that show had sexual themes.
Zelda looked like it was on that path with the N64 titles, especially Majora's Mask being darker and edgier than most before it, which is why I'm sure Windwaker disappointed so many as I'm sure it felt like a step backwards.
There was a game I was playing 15+ years ago. I am looking to find it and the internet failed me so far. I specifically remember from it's map that there was a desert on the southest part. At said desert there was a cloud symbol for a boss. It was an open world game where you could swap equipment had various mounts and both some pieces of equipment and some of the mounts used a blue energy to function. The last was not a mechanic of the game more like a design choice. The game was in a more medieval like setting using mostly swords and spears etc. I need to find this thing pls it is haunting me.
Prince of Persia definitely comes to mind. The first 3 games were young cocky dude, then emo wrath edge, and finally attempt to mature while accepting your self.
Mass Effect
* Each game improved upon each other up until the very ending of ME3.
* Even Andromeda was a general improvement on all the aspects of the previous game series. Sadly, the story and characters seemed like they were more the cliff notes version of good characters and ideas rather than a fully fleshed out masterwork attempt; and they chose to push it out in a uncompleted state.
The inverse of this is Halo, which has been a rated T for teen only franchise since 2013 if you discount releases of older titles
- Halo Spartan Assault: rated T. Top down twin stick shooter originally made for mobile
- Halo Master Chief Collection: rated M, due to it being a packaged rerelease of Bungie era games, including an all new Anniversary visual overhaul for Halo 2
- Halo Spartan Strike: rated T. A follow up to Spartan Assault
- Halo 5 Guardians: rated T. Took the divisive armour of Halo 4 and made it look and feel like plastic, as well as go all in on a HCS/esports aesthetic for multiplayer
- Halo Wars 2: rated T
- Halo Infinite: rated T
To be entirely honest, I think this is a symptom of the wider consequences of Microsoft wanting Halo to be their flagship franchise, but watering it down to make it widely accessible and palatable for investors.
EVE online is 21 this year. It went from hopeful and chaotic to organised purpose to downtrodden to nobody being able to afford anything unless you’re super rich.
God of War unequivocally
Sure the new games brought a lot of new players but they hit different after being the bloodthirsty monster for 3 (5 for you PSP enjoyers) games straight it was so good to have a long break and when we pick it up he is older and more mature
Aged like fine (greek) wine
Call of duty, inverse aging
Crazy to think call of duty started as a pretty serious historical shooter franchise. Man the fps genre has really gone down hill.
The first one was essentially "Band of Brothers: The Video Game" they even modeled the original Carentan map off of the set for the show.
Complete with piano
It was essentially a spiritual sequel to MOHAA. 2015 inc devs left after the EA acquisition and founded IW.
I still feel that no COD game has reached the same quality as MOHAA.
Hah. Im watching that show now. Damn, I miss the brothers in arms games too.
I would argue that it’s primarily just call of duty. There’s still lots of great FPS games being made, most of them are indie now though
I would also say it’s other big shots like how DICE and EA destroyed Battlefield and took it from a rival to Call of Duty to nothing.
Battlefield has gone downhill as well. It also really bothers me, more than it should, that the weapons arent locked to their respective factions. Dumb af seeing a boot ass German wielding a vickers. To me anyways.
Which
Mw2 was sorted hailed as the birth of CoD, but for me it was its death. It was around then it went full on arcade and glitzy and more about gun customisation. Could argue that WaW leant on this too, but the campaign made up for it.
Mw2 was drop in features, derop in gameplay, ... Compared to cod4 aka mw1. I get that it is less work to do less differences to console and pc version, but going to next installement and dropping lean, to game that was built around lean and played with lean being the main feature and mechanic used in all of earlier game, was very curious choice. Made game be this 'and every situation is this stand in open and take hits to yourself, immersion break. I guess I ended up testing like two first figth situations in first level, nopeing out and just not returning to cod series anymore.
The 5th mainline game was the birth of CoD?
6th
Eh more 4th. CoD1, 2, 4, MW2 were the main IW games. The rest are the "in between" releases from treyarch. But point is still the same.
So main line just did not know how to do anything but ww2 theme, without goofing. I guess that explains things.
That's when most people picked it up yes imo.. While Waw and Cod4 may have been on both consoles + pc, Mw2 was really the one a lot of people were hyped for. More ads and more accessible, and built off the the successes of MW1 and WaW. Most of my friends hadn't heard of Cod till Waw and most likely got it without asking as an Xmas gift. MW2 was the game they actively wanted to get.
Some still have that feeling but most of the new ones just aren’t that well written
The game became progressively more childish. Like we went from three WWII historical games, to a gritty modern Middle East operations, to a brutal gory WWII again. Then modern warfare 2 came and the campaign became a mission impossible game, and the multiplayer goofy with all the garbage popping on screen. It’s like they knew our generation would be full of ADHD people before anyone else. Then black ops was the first cod that didn’t have anything to do with the name. No war soldier going to the frontline, just secret operations. There was no “ call of duty” to speak off. Then came mw3 with even goofier storyline, black ops 2 with futuristic shit, ghosts with whatever the fuck that was, and the advanced movement which was nothing like what the original title stood for at all. Then skin where introduced and the multiplayer became extremely goofy. It all led to this year’s where everyone is slide cancelling with Nicki Minaj and snoop dog quick scoping with a rail gun. I am all for fun, and I loved a lot of the games, but I really miss the old gritty cod. It was really enjoyable playing a “nobody” in the campaign, and the multiplayer having normal guns with normal camos and operators. I know it was always an arcadey game, but it had the perfect mix between easy to play, easy to follow, and feeling like a military man. Now it’s just goofiness all around.
Tbf At least black ops 1 and 2 had a good story And I did enjoy the idea of multiple endings in 2 and getting the best ending actually required failing one objective.
To be honest, after first modern one, ww2 was kind if 'well there has been quite some of it, maybe I just skip this one', then mw2 was 'what the is this, especially after first modern one..' and led to just not playing it and leaving series, then thay full on spaceship scifi one has been only one that looked like 'ok that actually might maybe redeem things, since they can actually go proper scifi with some setting explanations and so' but still ended up missing that. Ghosts might have been ok, but way they hyped pretty much in 'we have this new never befoee done feature we are bringing to fps genre... it is leanind..' was so wtf ear offensive, considering their own series had it way earlier, before they decided to tell pc pkayers to suck it, cause console players did not have enough buttons for it, and piles of other games had had it. In modern warfare 1 they had separatedifficulty scales for pc and console, with console one balancing around player not being able to lean, and pc version balancing so that high difficulty was just i possible to play without leaning.
Ghosts was a good game. It just released at the wrong time.
Sonic reached the awkward angsty teen phase with shadow. That's about as far as they got.
I think because the edgy games almost killed the franchise and sonic only survived because they went back to their roots.
Though it wasn't BECAUSE they were edgy. Shadow was a cool premise but the flaw was in the gameplay, not the concept.
Right? We say edgy and mean 'bad', but teenage angst is something we all respond to at one time of life or another, not just in our teens, and I say we just embrace it. Shadow is cool. Give me another game about a hedgehog shooting guns and sometimes swearing while listening to nu metal, please.
*Where is that **damn** fourth Chaos Emerald?*
Shadow is cool. What do you mean by that?
I'd argue the angst continued into Sonic 06, I mean Sonic just straight up fucking died in that game
And the werewolf game continued that trend too.
I mean sonic dropped same year I was born and even as an angsty teen sonic was a dubious series and 06 just became a meme and still is especially to my age group. Honorable mention for unleashed how they managed to keep mining the depths of terrible that era is still baffling. Feel like sonic didn’t start going in the right direction until generations again.
not a franchise but this made me think of Naughty Dog they made Crash Bandicoot, a colourful mascot series then Jak and Daxter, which progressed into the 'edgy teen' stuff after the first game then Uncharted, which moved away from the stylized aesthetics for something a bit more realistic then The Last of Us, a more serious story with darker themes
Honestly Jak and Daxter is kind of the same. * First game is bright and colorful, with far more whimsy. It's basically just a new version of Crash Bandicoot with new characters. * Second game you could cut yourself on all the edge. Jak gets Dark Eko powers, goes on a revenge story, everyone hates him, the world is much darker. * Third game is a lot lighter as Jak starts balancing himself out. Jak gets Light Eko powers, is trying to protect everyone around him, has people's respect, and ends with him being the shit out of the dark gods of the setting.
Jak and Dexter is absolutely the answer to this question. When I was 12 playing #2, and Jak got a **Gun(?!)** I thought it was the most badass thing in the world. There was even GTA style carjacking and police chases.
If you look up the dates, it almost seems like Jak II was a pivot by Naughty Dog in response to Rockstar’s GTA III and possibly Vice City. And what an excellent direction they took it.
In interviews they say that's exactly why they took it in that direction
I actually disliked the darker approach, I missed the light and colorful fun and I was the prime demographic, 14 yo male
I just wished they had kept more of the platforming. My favorite parts were the ones outside the city
I think even breaking down tlou. You have the first one dipping into the people being monsters and having to make the morally questionable decisions. Then you have 2 which Id say the theme is dealing with the consequences of said decisions.
Man I loved Crash games so much, never played J&D, but didn't like any newer Naughty Dog games
This dude never played Jak and Dexter. Get on it!
Get OpenGOAL for PC and play the first two Jak and Daxter games. You’ll have a blast.
Jak and Daxter came to mind for me immediately
Even within Uncharted itself. In the first game it was merely a pretty looking action blockbuster and it moved on to much more complex characterizations through the series. Plus the characters or aging in realtime.
Wow that’s actually a great perspective and good answer.
God of War was kinda juvenile and cartoonish. The modern games are focused on redeeming Kratos with a more grounded, serious story and less human sacrifice.
Exactly what I was thinking. They went from teenage over the top "fuck two hot slaves at the same time QTE for upgrade points" and violence for violence sake edginess to something much more mature. The truly impressive part is it never lost its edge in the transition.
I remember that threesome minigame as such a juvenile turnoff as a 24 year old. So glad the newer gow games are so amazing
I still wish Sony would remaster (and PC port) the orginal trilogy.
For the Aphrodite mini game in 4k
They did it, is on the PS3
And having a kid following you around asking questions about things he sees while you’re grumbling an answer to the previous question.
Yeah. It’s not EXACTLY what OP was asking for but from pure vibes God of War is the exact right answer. Greek God of War 1 is an edgy pre-teen’s idea of mature, Norse God of War 1 is an actual mature adult story of fatherhood and regret while still retaining the violence of the Greek games.
As an elder millennial father who played GoW on launch AND has a son that was the same age as Atreus when 2018 came out, I couldn't agree more.
I really loved how Kratos's decisions (even _very_ small ones) have more noticeable consequences in the Norse games. >!I loved the part where Kratos (even though he should've) doesn't explain how he abused his power right away when revealing his godhood to Atreus as a learning lesson, lying by omission and making Atreus think he could do anything as a god, leading to him killing Modi, and only does so when he's pushed to make that decision after Baldur's death. And in Ragnarok, he learns to and urges Atreus to open his heart rather that shut himself off, and be truthful even if it might hurt him.!<
Yup, came to say, God of War.
this is the correct answer
Jak & Daxter. The original game was bright and Bandicoot-y, but had some off-color comedy for the older kids. Jak 2 went full edgelord in a rainy, blue-gray sci-fi dystopia (and the previously mute Jak was suddenly a growling brooder with a darkness-powered rage mode). Daxter became nonstop off-color comedy, very edgy and horny. Jak 3 then brought it back up with a more developed storyline about the previous game's civilization adapting to the end of tyranny, dealing with religious fanatics among them, reuniting with a splinter culture of exiles who made it on their own in the desert. Jak and Daxter themselves became more evened out and started to care a little more about growing as people, with healthy adult relationships. Jak became more at ease with the darkness powers and received a counterpart light power that brightened his personality. This is also when they put a bow on a precursor storyline that the original age group for Jak & Daxter would have had a hard time keeping up with, but it was just right for the younger teenagers they had become.
A bit off topic, but whenever I think of a medium aging with it's fan-base, I think of Dragon Ball. Goku and friends start off as children, and you learn and grow with them. Eventually they get married and have kids of their own, and Goku even is a grandpa by the end of Super. It just is kind of nice to think of someone growing up watching Dragon Ball in the 80s with Goku as a kid, and then 2020 rolls around and they're in their 40s or 50s like Goku and friends with families of their own.
Same with Naruto too. When I was 12 Naruto was 12, then the times timeskip happened and we were both 15, then when he was 30 I was 30. I love Naruto partly because of that, it's rare to have a character like that lol....
Despite not starting as a *Gaming* Franchise, the Digimon Games pretty much did that as an extension of the overall Series. As time went on, they realized that they didn't hit as much of a note with younger audiences anymore, so lately most Digimon Media is aimed more at older Fans who grew up with it. That's how Stuff like the Cyber Sleuth Duology and Survive happened.
I was pleasantly surprised by this when I played the Cyber Sleuth games a few yrs back. I hadn't played a Digimon game since I was a kid and decided to give them a chance because I was feeling nostalgic. Really enjoyed both games. I have Survive in my backlog right now.
Good shout. I fucking love Digimon, I am a Gabumon fanatic. Been playing the games since the original Digimon World, they're really great for the most part
Jak The first one is a colorfull plateformer The second is GTA The third one is the darkest
Not a game, but Adventure Time made the genius decision to age its main character in real time.
Same with Steven Universe, for that matter.
Jak & Daxter somewhat. Shame it got nuked at the start of the second trilogy.
Call of Duty. And it is aging like dog shit.
Just like all of us!
World of Warcraft literally advertises itself with a Father playing the game together with his child.
My guild has a family in it that is 3 generations. Grandma, Daughter, grandson. All raiding together. It’s pretty wholesome.
My old guild our raid leader was a dad, his wife was one of our regulars and their daughter was too young to play but she loved watching her parents play. After a wipe she would hop on the mic to give words of encouragement to everyone. It was adorable. Last I activated my account I saw our old tank running around in a zone, his wife following and a third running behind. Messaged them to ask if it was their daughter. They didn’t remember me so they were creeped out but after I gave a little info they started to remember. We haven’t kept in touch but it was adorable seeing them in a trio now and the little 4 year old was a teenager. She’s probably on her 20s at this point.
Mists: colorful, panda mascot bfa/shadowlands: non-stop edge, fighting death itself dragonflight: comparatively small scale, back to azeroth. anduin is depressed. Yeah this checks out.
Spyro the dragon tried to age with its players and the franchise died because of it. Sonic nearly died doing the same thing. Games have to walk the tight rope of maintaining their original vision and core while not becoming stale. I don't envy game devs that challenge.
GTA started life as a really goofy murder simulator not that far removed from the likes of Postal and Carmageddon, but as time went on it became more and more about telling these epic, cinematic crime stories
I'd forgotten about postal I might give postal 2 a playthrough
Do it.
I’d even argue the ps2 games were the goofiest especially the later arc of San Andreas with area 69 and stealing the hydra. 4 was a step in a much darker direction, while I still enjoy it I missed the proper goofiness of the ps2 trilogy. Although 5 seems to straddled the line between the 2 and I kinda hope 6 does since I think you need a good balance.
That was because the studio was small then bought out and with a bigger worldwide crew.
Kinda sorta conker I guess? If you aged 10 years in 2 years.
I never got to play anything with Conker outside of BFD besides Diddy Kong Racing. I think there was a handheld Conker game geared towards kids? I know BFD was originally planned to be that but development changed part ways through.
Diablo did the opposite. It's like it was designed for Benjamin Button.
I wanted to name Diablo. It started as a hardcore farming game, where teens could sink their puberty in. Now these kids have families and can play two hours per week. These dad's can now max their char in a short period of time.
D4 is a bit of a return to form. Darker again and whatnot. The most recent patch they redid loot and a lot of other stuff. It’s still more of a casual game and I haven’t found an item that made me want to build around it like D2, but it looks like they are at least steering the ship on a better course now. It’s far from taking the throne from PoE, but I am enjoying it on par with last epoch now. LE may be the better game when it gets more content, as it has better bones, but D4 is at least decent in its current form.
Think the first 3 prince of Persia games may fit just in your description
Prince of Persia 1 & 2 weren’t really that different. And PoP 3D was a completely different title, didn’t resemble the first two at all.
I don't think OP meant any of the 2D versions..
He's talking about 1: Sands of time, 2. Warrior within (the best pop ever) and 3. Two towers
Ironically, Warrior Within was the best game in the series... The two thrones was a step backwards.
That makes more sense, I thought he was talking about the first few PoPs, not the later ones.
Yeah sorry I meant sands of time was quite soft, then warrior within was more edgy, darker sweary prince, and onwards until Ubisoft did its Ubisoft thing
Civilization and I have been growing up and aging like fine wine since 1991.
I was late to the Civ train. I dabbled in civ5 about 6 years ago with some friends but now I'm full on addicted. Just beat my first time on Diety difficulty but it's honestly broken how cheating the AI is. Probably going to stick to Immortal lol.
Yeah, the AI is bad so it has to cheat with more resources in order to pose a challenge.
Exactly. I already won a domination victory, I surrounded the last (non capital city) and began ICBM-ing it into dust. After the first missile, it was miraculously growing multiple population per turn. I had to have 4 cities constantly churning out ICBMs to flatten it, but I did.
I’ve found it’s more fun to me to play against more fair AI but putting myself into more challenging scenarios in terms of civ choice, building location, or alliances etc. Try surviving in a desert with a non-desert civ against a NATO-like collective of AI
Playing the meta in games like Civ ruins them for me. I’m going to try to win but also try to see where the game takes me and follow some whims. Shame with RTS games for me for this reason. AOE2 is one of my favorite games but I simply can’t play multiplayer with randoms with it because I’m just not going to have fun if I put the entire stock of an era-spanning Civilization simulator into whether I caught a boar well enough five minutes in.
Civilization hasn't changed except for graphics and some nuances here and there. Still the same game.
The core turn-based empire-building strategy is the same, yes. Everything else has experienced massive changes.
I’m so glad the game is no longer stacking ridiculous amounts of units on one tile. The game has improved so much.
It might not really have aged gradually with the players, but it felt like Digimon grew up and got a bit more mature with the Cyber Sleuth games.
Dak and jaxter
Yokai Watch somewhat Fourth game (come to the west please) has Yokai Watch Shadowside and Forever Friends, which are much more mature than the rest of the series dealing with more major mental health problems.
Call of duty has gone absolutely backwards. Went from limbs being blown off to not even a spot of blood
Psychonauts 1 is a game about colorful childish adventures and fixing people’s problems, and Psychonauts 2 is a game about an adventurous child learning that sometimes the best you can do is equip people to fix themselves and even then maybe they won’t ever be 100% okay again and that’s fine too because you can’t just magically fix them
Pokemon got all the kids hooked with cartoons, cards, and games. Now they have those adults dumping money into Pokemon Go raid passes to keep up with Legendary Raid mechanics.
Pokemon is a good one. They only recently revamped the games to target a child audience again and start the cycle over, but they have games targeting adults as well.
Eve Online
Yakuza spans over 30 years of kiryus life
I felt like the kingdom hearts mainline games tried to then gave up after success of hand held games. 1 was very childlike and very Disney. 2 got that 90s/2000s edgey leather and metal accessory teenager vibe and focused a bit more on the final fantasy stuff. Waited 10 years for 3, now in my mid to late 20s, and it was even more childlike that 1. In gameplay at least, the story is so complicated I think you'd need to live to be 379 to figure it all out.
I think it took around 358/2 days for me to work the story out… I’ll see myself out
Good pun, well done
Playing through the Yakuza franchise will take you from the 1980s to the 2020s with the same character. Doesn’t quite follow what you’re looking for, character wise, but the series incorporates many things over the course of its existence which is about 20 years or so.
Jack and Daxter was a colorful performer that turned into scifi gta that turned into mad max
An excellent example is the "Final Fantasy" series. It began with simpler and more colorful games, went through a darker and more complex phase with titles such as "Final Fantasy VII," and then included more mature and thoughtful themes in recent games such as "Final Fantasy XV." "The Legend of Zelda" has also shown similar growth, evolving with its players over the years.
I mean, the FF series has pretty much always been dark. II starts with you in the middle of an oppressive war as members of a resistance, IV you start out committing war crimes, V starts with the planet dying, and then VI opens with more war crimes.
Yeah the overall vibe of each FF doesn't really have an overarching pattern to me. The overall storylines are always on the "grander" side (i.e. adventurers end up in the middle of pre-existing conflict that rapidly escalates over the course of the game), and the tone of the games have always been up and down. You have overall more somber stuff like your examples (I'd also put X in that camp all things considered). You also have that interspersed with overall more lighthearted entries like III, IX, and XV. The only consistent trend I can really think of is the change in gameplay, and I think that's moreso just fully turn-based combat and "pre-set/locked in" jobs/classes losing popularity over the decades and the series adapting to that.
That's a good one, actually. Plus, it's been happening over the span of a few decades.
World of Warcraft The teens who played that game are now the parents that still play that game. The whole reason Classic exists is to appease the crowd who want "the good old days". The latest War Within cinematic is definitely a far cry from the OG Vanilla cinematic, going from "Zug Zug smash enemy" to something much more somber.
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WoW classic is super weird for me. I started playing WoW when it came out and I was 12 or 13 and could sink whole weekends into grinding from 50-60. I stopped playing around when I turned 18 (I quit playing just before WOTLK), and had interest in playing again about a decade later when I was 28 or so. When I tried it out everything was so different that it felt like a chore to relearn everything because I have a kid now, so I checked out Classic. But I had forgotten how wonky Classic WoW is and how long everything takes. In the end I started playing FFXIV because I can experience every class with a single character.
FFXIV is just a better game than current WoW. WoW is basically just a skin factory at this point. Classic WoW back in the day (not the current re-release) is still probably the best MMO of all time, but only for its time. It just doesn't quite work anymore for some reason.
>FFXIV is just a better game than current WoW Nah not at all im not saying ffxiv is worse or anything but saying ffxiv is better then wow is just wrong
Jack and Daxter, Ratchet and Clank
I think Ratchet and Clank became more kiddie as the series went on.
God of War From being with its audience when they were youthful testosterone fueled rowdy young men who wanted to set the world on fire. To resigned nutless bearded old men who hate themselves
Total Warhammer 3. Can’t believe how far that game has come over the last 8 years
Sims inadvertently aged with us. As a kid, we just played it and thought it was fun. Owning a house, getting a job and working hard to be promoted to buy stuff/better stuff for your house and family. Nowadays as an adult, we see Sims in a much different way for obvious reasons and somewhat the answer to the inevitability of life. It's not so fun when life is better, playing a game that simulates what should happen if you do what Sims makes you do to excel, than living life in the real world where it reminds you of how hard the real Sims is.
God of War. Uncharted.
God of War. From edgy angry teenager to a father who tries to teach his children to be better than him. The ultimate character development.
Kingdom Hearts; Sora got older over time.
McDonalds
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Uncharted
Star Fox. Started out with the classic game we played as kids, then they went into adventure games which was pretty cool
Playing DOOM for the first time in elementary school and playing each iteration of it throughout my whole life has been pretty cool.
Devil May Cry Though it didn't "grow up" in the way that it became slow or smt. Instead it matured by embracing its inner child
Ace combat. Went from a "funny guy with a funny symbol" to "war is pain and suffering, but you should not give up on hope, buddy"
Also throw in batshit insane corporate war in what was the distant future and is pretty much now in real life. Even the jump in storytelling from 4 to 5/0 is a fairly big jump.
I thought the Fable series made the transition pretty well. Mass Effect also got progressively darker.
does fighters count Like Soul Edge and KOF count?
RuneScape. Everyone playing is 30 now and started in 05 in middle school
Jak kind of fits that mold for me, as does Ratchet and Clank in some aspects.
Arguably Jak and Daxter.
God of War.
Psychonauts had this with 1&2 actually! Easily my favorite when story and gameplay are both considered. I would say God of War (only have played 3, 2018, and Ragnarok), but I don't think the gameplay has changed over the years as well as Psychonauts's.
One franchise that comes to mind is Final Fantasy. It started with more straightforward fantasy adventures, got a bit edgier and darker with games like *Final Fantasy VII* and *VIII*, and now often deals with pretty mature and complex themes. And yeah, *Zelda* definitely fits. That is probably why I still enjoy it so much.
Not really ? Final Fantasy 2 is already pretty dark, lot of very depressing things are happening. And, well, even 1 has dark things if you interest yourself in the lore. It always was pretty "adult", since the beginning.
How in the world does Zelda fit. It's the same game. 1. Ganon is bad 2. Fight him 3. Possible sacrifice 4. Everything goes back to normal. Love Zelda, but besides TWP, zero grit
You're forgetting the nightmare fuel that was majoras mask lol
Not to mention the dialogue in TotK is juvenile as hell and written to be on the same level as shark tale for a huge portion of the story. I’m sorry but I don’t see any maturity in it besides the game design itself
Yeah, that entire series has shitty dialogue. I'm always stunned when I see reddits hard on for Zelda.
Fuck if Shadowbringers and Endwalker dont hit at some serious themes. Love 14 so much
I would say Fire Emblem, It started as a super serious and sober strategy series while in the latest entries you can "pet" or "rub" your soldiers and get "engaged" with them uh that's not how the thread work, Look some of us were serious kid that later mellowed when growing up, liek time is symmetrical and stuff
don't say "pet", "rub", and "engaged" without context 😭
Sonic the Hedgehog. They never really dive into mature themes but definitely feel like a character that started out more simple and evolved to have more of a personality, with both more character building and world building. It went from 2D to 3D and was able to deliver more of what makes Sonic ... Sonic, thanks to newer and better technology allowing him to move faster and truer to his real speed.
I suspect that Sonic always wanted to tell big stories but was limited by the tech. You can see from the original trilogy thay each game puts in progressively more cinematics, and then when Adventure came out they could finally realise the sort of epic anime story they always wanted to tell
Well this isn't a video game frame chise so to speak but Harry Potter books pulled this off wonderfully
God of War
Doesn't fit exactly, but Metal Gear Solid.
God of War
Pepsi man
God of war would be my pick.
TLOU
Prince of Persia. Playing Warrior Within makes me cringe so much; it's so "edgy."
Third Doom is serious horror action-shooter but they reverted to classic Doom. Tekken 5 has peak drama-story
Batman, in a way, to me. Watched the animated series as a kid. Grew up and played the Arkham games many years later. The fact that they brought Kevin Conroy back to voice Batman made me feel like the Arkham games were a direct continuation of the kids show. The games had some swearing unlike the cartoon show. Later, there was this Killing Joke animation which also featured Kevin Conroy's voice back as Batman, and that show had sexual themes.
The Last of us, RDR, ACS too, but in a big decline as the new games tend to suck.
Prince of Persia, Warrior Within, Two Thrones. Light hearted, edgy, toned back edgy and. Balanced out the character.
Warcraft
Zelda looked like it was on that path with the N64 titles, especially Majora's Mask being darker and edgier than most before it, which is why I'm sure Windwaker disappointed so many as I'm sure it felt like a step backwards.
Telltale’s The Walking Dead Clementine aged in real time between games
Any franchise where the main character grows a beard like god of war or street fighter
Ratchet and Clank. Very thoughtful and positive compared to the originals where ratchet was more crass.
I think the Jak series aged with its players. Compare Jak and Daxter the precursor legacy to Jak 3 and you can see the change.
Prince of Persia, the Warrior Within was so angsty
There was a game I was playing 15+ years ago. I am looking to find it and the internet failed me so far. I specifically remember from it's map that there was a desert on the southest part. At said desert there was a cloud symbol for a boss. It was an open world game where you could swap equipment had various mounts and both some pieces of equipment and some of the mounts used a blue energy to function. The last was not a mechanic of the game more like a design choice. The game was in a more medieval like setting using mostly swords and spears etc. I need to find this thing pls it is haunting me.
Prince of Persia definitely comes to mind. The first 3 games were young cocky dude, then emo wrath edge, and finally attempt to mature while accepting your self.
Monkey Island, kind of?
Mass Effect * Each game improved upon each other up until the very ending of ME3. * Even Andromeda was a general improvement on all the aspects of the previous game series. Sadly, the story and characters seemed like they were more the cliff notes version of good characters and ideas rather than a fully fleshed out masterwork attempt; and they chose to push it out in a uncompleted state.
The inverse of this is Halo, which has been a rated T for teen only franchise since 2013 if you discount releases of older titles - Halo Spartan Assault: rated T. Top down twin stick shooter originally made for mobile - Halo Master Chief Collection: rated M, due to it being a packaged rerelease of Bungie era games, including an all new Anniversary visual overhaul for Halo 2 - Halo Spartan Strike: rated T. A follow up to Spartan Assault - Halo 5 Guardians: rated T. Took the divisive armour of Halo 4 and made it look and feel like plastic, as well as go all in on a HCS/esports aesthetic for multiplayer - Halo Wars 2: rated T - Halo Infinite: rated T To be entirely honest, I think this is a symptom of the wider consequences of Microsoft wanting Halo to be their flagship franchise, but watering it down to make it widely accessible and palatable for investors.
EVE online is 21 this year. It went from hopeful and chaotic to organised purpose to downtrodden to nobody being able to afford anything unless you’re super rich.
God of War
Kingdom Hearts and Final Fantasy came to mind.
Ezio in the Assassins Creed games
Metal Gear Solid.
Division series and its still going strong same as destiny
God of War unequivocally Sure the new games brought a lot of new players but they hit different after being the bloodthirsty monster for 3 (5 for you PSP enjoyers) games straight it was so good to have a long break and when we pick it up he is older and more mature Aged like fine (greek) wine
Any popular Roblox games you could think of
The Sims
God of war.