Games of the Generation

We usually have this conversation in the dying days of a console generation, I don't think we are there yet but Switch 2 getting Cyberpunk and Elden Ring got me thinking about it.

I feel like it's been a long console cycle without as many essential plays as before. Could just be I haven't been paying attention though. Looking at the release dates PS5 and Xbox Series X/S have been around four for and a half years. Maybe I feel like it's been a long cycle because this generation and the previous one kind of blur together in my mind.

Anyway, tell me about your high points and essentials.

Maybe I feel like it's been a long cycle because this generation and the previous one kind of blur together in my mind.

That's definitely the case for me, I've been trying to think of games to mention and what leaps to mind immediately is almost all tail-end PS4 rather than PS5 (The Last of Us Part II, Horizon Forbidden West); very few of Sony's own PS5 Essentials list, even, are un-remastered.

Astro Bot has to get a mention here; I've completed most of the game 2-3 times, as I was handed the controller repeatedly on behalf of the kids, but rarely minded. It's a great game, and has had I think 10-15 levels added for free since launch. It also doesn't trade on the PlayStation nostalgia half as much as people claim - yes, there are a lot of costumed bots, but the platforming is really solid, inventive, and it's a lovely-looking thing to boot. Definitely recommended.

Tunic has lodged itself in my brain like nothing since Journey, and I can barely articulate why; I think it's mostly that the way Tunic pieces out its story is so, so good (I played with infinite HP/Energy and just treated it as a puzzle/exploration game, and I even went as far as to learn the lettering system - never quite got the hang of the vowels, though…). There's a jaw-dropping amount of stuff that's there in the open right from the start, but with the context obscured until just the right moment later on. That it's all the work of one person (plus two composers) is astonishing. Speaking of the composers, the score is also great.

Beyond that… maybe Spider-Man 2? It's a great game, and a heck of a technical showcase, but it's really just an evolution of the first game, and didn't really stick with me after I finished it. I'd be hard pressed now to remember much that happens in it, outside a few big set-pieces. God of War: Ragnarök would probably be on here, too, if I'd played more than about three hours of it - even in that short time, it's clearly very good, but I'd need to finish it, really, before I could feel certain.

To be clear, there are a lot of games I've enjoyed - it's just that I don't know if Star Wars Outlaws, Dragon Age: The Veilguard, Helldivers II, or Marvel Rivals quite reach the "of the generation" heights.

The thing about any games of the generation conversation about the PS5/SeriesS/X generation is that a lot of the games released had PS4/Xbone versions too, especially on the PS5 side.

For me, Elden Ring is the best game released during this time period, but can a game with a perfectly fine PS4 version be the best game of the PS5/SXS generation?

I've only recently joined this generation on the console side of things, so I'm not really the right person to judge, probably. I also tend to play things years after everyone else and often prefer indie games to the AAA blockbusters. Astro Bot, Balatro, and Forza Horizon 5 would be up there. Vampire Survivors also. There are a lot of games that look like they're probably amazing but I haven't got round to yet or played enough to judge - Tears of the Kingdom (where do Nintendo games fit into all this anyway?) Indiana Jones, Cyberpunk 2077 (I only played this before they "fixed" it) Spiderman 2, and Baldur's Gate 3.

A console generation tends to be around seven years, so we're probably still a few years away from the next machines being announced. There probably won't even be another Xbox home console. The next few years will be weird anyway. The price of graphics cards and components have gone through the roof, so unless that changes the next generation of consoles might be prohibitively expensive. We've seen a trend in this direction with the eye-watering price of the PS5 Pro, and a truly next-gen console could easily cost £1000 if Sony or Microsoft don't want to make it a crippling loss-leader. The move away from cutting-edge living room consoles towards handheld machines that Xbox seems to be making makes a lot of sense. We've seen how much of a Game-changer a high-spec handheld can be from the likes of the Steam Deck, ROG Ally, and of course the Switch. I think this is where we're heading. Asus have teased another version of the ROG Ally already, which got lost in the Switch 2 news hurricane.

I wonder if the (relatively) small improvement in technology is responsible, to some extent, for the blurring of lines between the Xbox One/PS4 and Series/PS5 generations. There was a clear leap from Xbox to 360, PS3 to PS4; cross-gen games and remasters were (to my memory, anyway) much less common. Digital delivery and backwards compatibility probably added to the fuzziness, to some extent, with older games getting "free" upgrades on the new hardware. Home consoles are basically just PCs nowadays, and that's a platform that hasn't really had a similar distinction since the DOS/Windows switchover.

That said…

• Metaphor: ReFantazio is a phenomenal refinement of the Persona formula, transplanted into a fantasy world that allows its melodrama and themes to resonate together in a way that contemporary urban Japan can't. I loved the world, the characters, the music, the art design, and replayed it more times than is probably sensible.
• Cyberpunk 2077 suprises even me by making this list. Despite its embarassingly juvenile prologue, its maybe-too-complicated city map (unnavigable without the GPS) and Keanu Reeves' why-won't-you-just-fuck-off Johnny Silverhand, I find myself thinking about its quieter moments and side characters a lot.
• Avowed is another one of these "refinement of a formula" games that came along at just the right time for me. I'd never clicked with Elder Scrolls games, assuming that first-person melee combat was an insurmountable hurdle. Then along comes Avowed and I'm hacking-and-slashing my way through the Living Lands with reckless abandon. Is this the first western RPG where the first party member you get isn't a tedious dullard?
• I've played a handful of visual novel-type games before, but Citizen Sleeper is the first one I really fell in love with. Its sequel streamlines and expands on the mechanics, but the focus of the original – the claustrophobia of the Eye, slowly lessening (but never disappearing) as locations open up and new characters are introduced, with an ever-present awareness of your character's inexorable mortality – beats the bigger scope.
• I wish I could erase my memory and re-experience Unicorn Overlord for the first time. Miraculously, given the scope of its plot and breadth of its (excellent) cast, it doesn't outstay its welcome. Looks gorgeous, too.

I don't know how you'd even begin to define this gen. It's only really in the last year or so we've really started to see a steady stream of current-gen-only games and even then that often just means "ray traced lighting". And there's plenty of stuff still straddling the divide. The last full price game I bought was Yakuza Pirates, and I'm 99% sure that's got a PS4 version too.

In terms of stuff that stands out over the last few years (and I don't know what gen most of this even is), I'd go for:

PowerWash Simulator - I love this beyond reason and I can't even explain why. I can feel myself physically relaxing when I play.

Star Wars Jedi: Survivor - absolutely pitch-perfect sequel to the original Fallen Order. I enjoyed this more than Outlaws (which was in itself pretty good).

Immortality - does things I've never seen a game even try to do before.

Monster Train - one of the rare occasions where cav and I agree on something, this is brilliant and the sequel's out in a matter of weeks.

Lonely Mountains: Downhill - "just" a time trial game but with a beautifully relaxing atmosphere and some surprisingly tricky bits too. I much prefer this to the more recent sequel.

Hitman 3 - a bit of a cheat as it's really just the final third of a game that's spanned two whole gens, but I played it first on the Series X and the overall package genuinely is one of the finest games ever made.

Not played on a PS5 other than for about 5 minutes, but the best thing about this gen has been loading times. Going into Fallout 4 when my kid has gone for a bath and being playing it within like 12 seconds is the best thing on offer for me, means you can "micro game".

Jedi Survivor is a great shout. Hitman too, although considering the first part came out four years before the PS5 and Series S/X launched, I dunno if it counts. You're squeezing it in on a technicality. 😁

It's Baldur's Gate 3.

Or Breath of the Wild if we're counting Switch.

How about we just expand the remit to include PS4, Xbone?

It's Baldur's Gate 3.

Or Breath of the Wild if we're counting Switch.

MPH, are you of the opinion that TOTK is better but BOTW did it first and should be the one put forward for these things or do you prefer BOTW? Either way I'm definitely putting my vote in for one of them and I'll second this for BG3.

Also, despite what I said in the other thread about not going back to BOTW after TOTK…the terror of those Guardians being out in the field was a cool element of that game tbh.

EDIT - When we were taling about the last generation I think I said my GOTG was Witcher 3

How about we just expand the remit to include PS4, Xbone?

Madness. Sheer madness.

Lets do it.

Okay, expanding the remit!

It's Baldur's Gate 3. Or Breath of the Wild if we're counting Switch.

MPH, are you of the opinion that TOTK is better but BOTW did it first and should be the one put forward for these things or do you prefer BOTW

I reckon I preferred Breath of the Wild. On reflection there was a bit too much going on with Tears of the Kingdom, as good as it was.

There were definitely times I thought the underground was a bit much, then I'd spend hours under there anyway @_@