The instant service bubble has been bursting for some time. This is already clear. But considering how long most triple-A (or even double-AA) video games are made these days and how ridiculous the possible wins are, it’s no surprise that it’s taken some time to partially retreat from the growing model. There are risks. A few free-to-play games like First Descendant and Zenless Zone Zero have made a splash this summer, but we’re still looking at the same big issues.
For a while now, most players have been looking for instant service models and shiny MTX shenanigans in paid versions, but free games have either been happily consumed or simply ignored because we’ve become so accustomed to them. However, at the end of the day, you’re more likely to spend money over and over again on a product that provides you with tons of well-crafted entertainment for free.
This has been proven time and time again, and is one of the reasons why Strike Force was sacrificed in favor of a more streamlined “sequel” more suited to esports, which ultimately alienated the original creators of the IP majority of the player base. As the game’s recent developments have proven, this shift hasn’t really paid off for Blizzard and Activision, but a game that’s been free-to-play since the beginning has always had the same progression/unlocking model.
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Even before summer arrives, with free-to-play hits hitting all corners, things are starting to heat up with a new gacha action disguised as a proper action RPG in the form of Howling Waves, and just before that, it succeeded infiltrated the market. Hell, even Lucasfilm Games’ Star Wars: Hunters before Star Wars Outlaws pissed me off , which is even more bland than I expected from Zynga.
On the surface, these releases, like most of the games I’m about to play, are high-quality games that work well and offer what you’d expect in their respective genres. However, they are designed to try to maximize profits and player engagement, whether through traditional MTX, battle passes, or “draws” (aka loot boxes by various names).
Quite a few players manage to ignore all these details, as the game itself offers tons of fun, even cosmetics and in-game rewards, just in exchange for your hard-earned time. That said, spend a dozen hours with them and you’ll start to wonder why you didn’t simply play an “advance” version that didn’t have the carrot dangled in front of you every five minutes or so.
The quick answer here is that modern free-to-play games are designed in part to Get your brain working. The overall feel is good, and if you don’t know any better, or just haven’t built up the patience for richer games (a worrying trend among kids and teens), whether they’re single or not, the constant feedback loop is compelling of – player or online. It’s harder to criticize when the core is truly good and isn’t plagued by predatory shadows at all, like the aforementioned XDefiant or Apex Legends, where EA’s current golden goose has gone too far.
Fast forward to mid-July, and we’re currently riding a wave of hype for First Descendant and Zenless Zone Zero. While early numbers are strong (and the latter has been confirmed to be printing money), it remains to be seen whether they are another “trend of the month” or are here to stay. Aside from the horrible gacha skeleton and overall design, I don’t mind ZZZ. I played for hours. Very well put together. The animators, artists, and combat designers all did a fantastic job.
Everything else? The definition itself is expensive sewage. Every two to three minutes, a wall of text impeded the flow of the entire content, making me sit through paragraph after paragraph of animated nonsense. The signal seems worse than Genshin Impact’s Gacha Pull (I’ve never been into Honkai Impact: Star Trail). Anyway, I quickly started complaining about how such a great game was trapped in such a strict model and such immature writing.
As for First Descendant, it’s quite possibly one of the worst games I’ve played this year, not because it feels poorly made, but because – and I’m not exaggerating here – there’s not a shred of it in its body Originality. I seriously kid you not, if you need a new expensive looter shooter, you’d be better off playing Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League. Hell, it’s even free on Prime Gaming.
Even if you click through First Descendant’s soulless number-crunching loop (but it’s meaningless in a real-time game) and have generic-looking weapons sprinkled all over your big-ass robot bunny, you’ll soon be wondering Why aren’t you on Warframe, that’s not my interest, but at least there’s a creative vision.
I’ve never been one to hate free-to-play modes, purely cosmetic MTX, or legitimate battle passes. Gosh, I’m not a regular player of Fortress Heroes, but I firmly believe that Epic Games has killed it with well-paced progression and skins that are actually worth the money and blend well with the art of the entire experience. When Apex was first released, I put in dozens of hours instead studying for the February exam.
I still play Call of Duty regularly and even bought a couple of the overpriced skin packs because they got IP collaborations that I was excited about. I am not free from sin yet. But there are limitations, and this year it feels like everyone is trying to squeeze as much money as possible out of a gold rush that may or may not be ending soon. At least was dialed back to reduce development costs.
I mean, we’re probably reaching “peak status,” which will cause most gamers who play more than two games a year to wake up and realize that a lot of the gorgeous free AAA releases are just three MTX trench coats with a copy inside. It sounds like a cheesy EULA, the only thing missing is that once you install them they pull out a real gun on you.
Will Once Human be a free-to-play, procedurally generated game for 2024 that fascinates me? I sincerely hope that’s not the case as I already have a huge backlog of suitable games waiting for me to get my hands on them.
