Nostalgia versus the present
\n
As a gamer, I increasingly ask myself whether all the truly great games weren't already made in the past. I find myself more eager to play the old Half-Life with a friend locally side by side than the latest online title purely over the internet and headphones. The same goes for StarCraft II – even in 2025, I'd rather fire up this classic, whose cinematic cut-scenes are still stunning today and comparable in quality to Pixar animations. Modern games often lure you in with online connectivity, but something of the magic of sitting together at one screen or at a LAN party has been lost. Every hour of online gaming is also an hour not spent physically with friends – and that sometimes gives me a feeling of isolation. Those unique moments where you see your friend's reaction live right next to you are something no voice chat can replace.
\n
Is originality on the retreat?
\n
Looking at today's AAA titles, I can't help feeling that many of them come across as generic and uninspired. The games industry seems afraid to take risks and prefers to bet on proven formulas. Former PlayStation boss Shawn Layden even warned of a \"creativity collapse\" in modern games, driven by the pursuit of guaranteed profit – studios, due to enormous costs, prefer to produce sequels and clones of successful hits rather than original projects. Developing a AAA game today costs hundreds of millions of dollars, so financial directors would rather point to others' successes ("if Fortnite earned that much, our version will too") and push developers to copy trends. No wonder the market keeps churning out one generic shooter or open world after another. Critics of modern gaming often argue that creativity has been replaced by corporate greed, with profit placed above the player's experience.
\n
This trend is beautifully illustrated by the evolution of Blizzard Entertainment. Once known for innovative titles, the company now reportedly resembles Pixar – a perfectly polished factory for mainstream entertainment. One fan aptly noted that Blizzard is now \"commercial and generic, betting on safe, tried-and-tested concepts for the widest possible audience, which guarantees higher sales\". Instead of boldly pushing genres forward, the company sticks to recipes that work. Unfortunately, this often means less room for ideas that might genuinely surprise. We see this in the strategy games of around 2010 – rather than developing a completely new game, releasing paid DLC with new armour or microtransactions in an existing game proved faster and more profitable. Economically it makes sense: for example, Activision Blizzard managed to earn over $1.2 billion in just three months in 2020 from microtransactions alone. Such numbers clearly entice publishers to milk an existing franchise rather than risk a new one. The cost is creative stagnation – game worlds start to resemble each other and original concepts grow scarcer.
\n
Do games still tell stories?
\n
Another aspect is storytelling and atmosphere. Older titles often managed to tell gripping stories or build unforgettable atmospheres without needing photorealistic graphics. Fallout from 1997 offered a dark, film-noir post-apocalyptic world with pitch-black humour – drawing on the pulp sci-fi aesthetics of the 1950s and the gritty tones of Mad Max. The sequel Fallout 2 (1998) continued in that vein and is remembered by fans to this day for its dense atmosphere of hopelessness and cynical humour. Yet when Fallout 3 from Bethesda Game Studios arrived a decade later, many felt that something of the original spirit had been lost. The game changed direction dramatically – visually it applied a bleached greenish-grey filter and a push for realism, which was something entirely different from the stylised colour palette of its predecessors. The dark noir undertone and subtle irony of the original Fallouts were replaced by a somewhat different tone; instead of satirical dark humour, grotesque situations sometimes took over. The creators also shifted the story timeline 200 years further into the future, which dissolved the tension of "the world shortly after the apocalypse" – in Fallout 3 so much time had passed that the original retro-futuristic 1950s aesthetic no longer made sense, yet the game clings to it awkwardly. All of this caused Fallout 3 to lose some of the atmosphere that made the first two entries so unique.
\n
There are more such examples. In the 1990s and early 2000s, narrative gems emerged such as Planescape: Torment (1999) and Half-Life (1998). The former still stands out for its writing and dialogue, the latter for its revolutionary approach to storytelling – Half-Life dispensed with traditional cutscenes and told the entire story through the eyes of the protagonist Gordon Freeman during the action itself. This meant the player lived the story alongside the character, rather than passively watching cinematics. Such elements of immersive storytelling are certainly not a given today. To be sure, modern games do have strong narratives (e.g., The Last of Us or Witcher 3), but in much of the mainstream output the plot seems to take a back seat to open worlds, looting and endless side quests. Games like Fallout 1–2 or Baldur's Gate remind us how powerful atmosphere and story can be, even without high-tech glitter.
\n
The golden era 1997–2010
\n
The period roughly from the late 1990s to the end of the first decade of the 21st century is today widely considered the golden age of games. That era produced a host of legends that defined entire genres: from the revolutionary Half-Life (1998) through the strategy phenomenon StarCraft (1998) to the masterful RPG Fallout 2 (1998) or Deus Ex (2000). These games brought new ideas, refined game mechanics and often technical innovations that pushed the boundaries. Half-Life 2 (2004) showed how advanced physics could be used in game design while maintaining the gripping action pace of the original. StarCraft proved that even on the limited technology of the time it was possible to create a balanced and deep strategy that is still played professionally today – and StarCraft II (2010) built on that with a more modern treatment. Believe it or not, even 15 years after release StarCraft II still has tens of thousands of active players and remains one of the best RTS games ever made. The same is true of many other hits from that era: multiplayer classics Quake 3 Arena (1999) and Unreal Tournament (1999) or the complex strategy Civilization IV (2005) are still enjoyed by enthusiasts today. This wave of games roughly between 1997 and 2010 was characterised by creators who had the courage to experiment, because costs were not astronomical and the risk of failure did not constrain them as much.
\n
Moreover, all these great titles share one advantage: old hardware is enough to run them. What was cutting-edge back then will run today even on an average laptop. There's no need to buy the latest graphics cards and processors – to enjoy legends like Half-Life 2, StarCraft or Baldur's Gate, a machine 10+ years old will often suffice. The selection of older gems playable on "potato" setups is enormous; from Half-Life to Freelancer, there are plenty of old games you can easily play on your ancient rig. It's a bit of a paradox: while modern games often require powerful hardware for their cutting-edge graphics, gaming fun is sometimes better served by a few megabytes of old code.
\n
Conclusion: Has it all been done before?
\n
Let's revisit the original question: Have the good games already been made? In a sense, yes – just look back and you'll find a whole array of outstanding games from past decades that still entertain today and often surpass much of contemporary output. That doesn't mean no quality games are being made today, but the truly exceptional ones tend to emerge despite mainstream trends rather than thanks to them. In an era where gaming companies primarily watch financial reports, old games feel like a fresh reminder of a time when ideas, gameplay and story reigned supreme. Whether it's an intense LAN shooter or an epic RPG on an outdated computer, one realises that genuine entertainment often requires nothing more than what has long been around. The great games really were made long ago – all you need to do is dust them off and dive back in.
\n
Author: PLF
\n
Citation sources:
\n
- \n
- \n
Game Developer – Socializing with Games: Why Local Multiplayer is still important (2014) – A personal reflection on the difference between online and local multiplayer; the author describes the sense of isolation in online gaming and the significance of physical gatherings.
\n
\n
- \n
GameSpot – Shawn Layden talks about the \"creativity collapse\" in the games industry (2024) – The former Sony boss warns that rising costs are forcing studios to reduce risk, leading them to favour sequels and imitating successful games over originality.
\n
\n
- \n
Medium – Is the Gaming Industry Really Worse, or Are We Just Nostalgic? (2024) – An article analysing the role of nostalgia in our perception of games; mentions the criticism that creativity in modern games has in many places been replaced by a chase for profit and models such as microtransactions and incomplete game releases.
\n
\n
- \n
Speedsolving (forum) – Comment taken from DiabloFans (2008) – A fan compares modern Blizzard to Pixar: the company is bigger, commercial, generic, chooses a \"safe\" style for the masses, thereby losing its original edgy identity.
\n
\n
- \n
Game Informer – Activision Blizzard Microtransactions Netted Over $1.2 Billion Last Quarter (2020) – A report on financial results: in a single quarter of 2020, microtransactions accounted for over $1.2 billion of Activision Blizzard's revenues, illustrating the economic incentive to keep games alive with paid content rather than risk new IP.
\n
\n
- \n
Twenty Sided (Shamus Young) – The Blistering Stupidity of Fallout 3, Part 1 (2015) – An analysis of the narrative and stylistic differences between the original Fallouts and Fallout 3; recalls the pulp/noir atmosphere of the early titles with dark humour and examines how Fallout 3 shifted the tone to a more \"diluted\" version (washed-out colours, grotesque humour), failing to fully understand the spirit of the series.
\n
\n
- \n
Gearburn – 15+ excellent old games for your low-end computer (2017) – Highlights Half-Life (1998) for its revolutionary approach to storytelling (zero cutscenes, everything from the player's perspective) and confirms the low hardware requirements of this and other classics.
\n
\n
- \n
ActivePlayer – StarCraft 2 Player Count & Stats (2025) – Active player statistics for StarCraft II; even 15 years after release the game maintains a stable player base (~21,000 average concurrent players), demonstrating its enduring popularity.
\n
\n
- \n
Gearburn – 15+ excellent old games for your low-end computer (2017) – A note from the article that there are plenty of older games (from Half-Life to Freelancer) that still run without issue on very weak or old PCs – meaning you don't need the latest hardware to play them.
\n
\n