While waiting for a year 2025 which promises to be historic, the world of video games has had a fairly calm 2024. Highlights are rare and we have even experienced some fairly resounding flops.
The year 2023 had been historic in many ways. 2025 could be in even greater proportions, with the arrival of GTA 6 (normally) and the launch of the future Nintendo console. These two events alone already make 2025 a big year.
But we must first complete 2024, a more transitional year, with fewer significant releases, which allowed us to take a deep breath. There were still some highlights to highlight, as well as phenomena that we would never like to see again. The outcome is now.
The tops of the year 2024 for video games
Astro bot, the love letter
Astro Bot won the GOTY at The Game Awards and we challenge you to find even one protester. This PS5 exclusive exudes the love of video games with a capital A. Its accessible gameplay means that it can easily be shared with the family. Its different levels benefit from polished production and are teeming with ideas. It’s simple: if Astro Bot His name was Mario and he was wearing overalls, so you wouldn’t mind. Such a comparison underlines the excellence demonstrated by the 3D platform game, which also pays tribute to the rich history of PlayStation.
Helldivers 2, the good student
You will read below that we must put an end to the diktat of games-services, which massacre licenses and studios out of a desire to be part of an illusory economic trend. Helldivers 2 is a bit of an exception that proves the rule, even if it has experienced a bit of everything since its launch. From suffering servers to updates that break everything, the developers have fumbled. They have experienced successes and failures, always with this desire to support storytelling articulated around a lasting success story. Helldivers 2 animated 2024 with his science of storytelling and his media mastery. Will it survive to 2025? That’s all the bad we wish him.
The Asian wave
Stellar Blade
Black Myth Wukong
We are witnessing the emergence of a wave from Asian countries (read: games that do not come from Japan, a specialist country since the dawn of time). Although imperfect, Stellar Blade et Black Myth Wukongrespectively Korean and Chinese, left their mark. Today, we can no longer look at these productions with distrust, calling them a pale copy, but with seriousness. In 2025, titles like Phantom Blade Zero or Crimson Desert will finally convince us: Asia is coming in force, and that’s all the better for bringing a new lease of life.
The PlayStation Portal, after a beneficial update
The PlayStation Portal is one of the huge flops of 2023. Released at the end of the year, the remote play device was too limited to be recommended. This was without counting an update which completely changed the perception we could have of the product. The PlayStation Portal is no longer a simple accessory dependent on the PS5, but a full-fledged portable console thanks to cloud gaming (a PlayStation Premium subscription is required). While waiting for an even more ambitious PSP 2 or PSVita 2?
The PS5 Pro, or the bet on the future of Sony
We have heard everything and its opposite about the PlayStation 5 Pro, a console condemned before its release due to its high price – and historic, even, on the home console market. But it must be seen as a luxury product, coupled with a bet on the future. Thus, the PS5 Pro is equipped with AI image scaling technology (PSSR), which will be able to be trained as required by the launch of the PS6. In the right hands, it already performs miracles (Final Fantasy VII Rebirth or even Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 are there to prove it).
The flops of the year 2024 for video games
Service games that are all wrong
And Helldivers 2 is the symbol of deserved success, others have burned their fingers wanting to interfere in the service game genre. This is the case of Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice Leaguea huge mess from Rocksteady – the studio to which we owe the Batman: Arkham trilogy. Warner Bros. was wrong all along and it is costing him dearly today. Same story regarding Concordwhich cost the future of his studio and was quickly pulled.
30 years of PlayStation
We devoted an entire article to how PlayStation somewhat missed the point during the brand’s 30th anniversary. In short, fans deserved better than a line of products that were hard to find due to rarity (thanks scalpers). We would also have liked a conference with great announcements, so that we could be amazed. As for the rare initiatives based on nostalgia (the themes for the PS5), they are only temporary.
Nintendo playing with our nerves with the Switch 2
What is Nintendo playing with the announcement of its future console, which should therefore be the Switch 2? This is an open secret which ridicules the strange communication of the Japanese firm, in the process of being outplayed by the prop makers. If the goal is to sell a few more Switches for Christmas, then it’s probably legitimate (and a little petty). But it’s time for Nintendo to stop announcing useless products (the alarm clock is much too expensive) and agree to pass the torch. The Switch 2 has been confirmed for far too long for a product “which will not be announced today” every Nintendo Direct.
The piling up layoffs
In 2024, we have seen a cascade of layoffs in the video game industry, with more than 10,000 people laid off since January. A very sad record, which highlights a sick and self-destructive system. We hope that lessons will be learned from these decisions that are difficult to understand from a human point of view, with a toll that we hope will be less heavy in 2025.
Controversies over wokism and heroines
If you like to hang out on social networks, then you have not been able to miss the many controversies concerning video games and “wokism”. It is enough for a hero or heroine, rather a heroine in the majority of cases, to not please a fringe of sexist and/or reactionary individuals for a video game to be openly targeted. The most recent example concerns Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophetwith a heroine who would not be beautiful enough with her shaved head. Ciri, future main character of The Witcher 4was not spared either… As if the sex appeal of the casting conditioned the entire quality of a work.
Source: www.numerama.com
