Summary
Once niche playthings bound to the domain of arcades and college computer science wings, video games are now an industry greater than movies and music combined. As ever-changing beasts, games have evolved at a staggering rate from decade to decade thanks to an explosion of technological progress and shifting cultural tastes in design trends.
However, with fads coming in and out at such a rapid pace, many genres have been left behind. Although indie developers have heroically carried some of the slack, and perhaps one or two retro-style passion projects get the green light from major publishers once in a blue moon, they (“AAA” video game studios) clearly don’t make ‘em as frequently as they used to.
6Side Scrolling (Run-And-Gun) Shooters
Prime Examples: Metal Slug, Contra, Robocop
Running across blocks and pipes is one thing, but what if the player’s character could blow away incoming enemies with a machine gun? The side-scrolling shooter, also known as the “run-and-gun” was huge in the 16-bit era on third-generation consoles and in the darkly-lit arcades of the 80s and 90s.
Games likeContra,Robocop, andMetal Slugallowed players to experience multi-directional aiming and battling massive bosses anda screen full of enemy waves. Besides a few retro throwback indies likeBlazing ChromeandCuphead, the part of the genre that reveled in taking down swarms of enemies on a 2D plane evolved into bullet hell somewhere down the line.
5Big-Budget Stealth Games
Prime Examples: Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty, Splinter Cell: Double Agent, Tenchu: Stealth Assassins
Hide and seek is one of the primal games that humans from any time or culture will intrinsically comprehend. Stealth games take this simple childhood classic and raise the stakes with organized, well armed sentries, cool gadgets, and compelling storylines. There are still plenty of open-world games with stealth mechanics, and some recent titles thatinvolve social stealth, such asHitman: World of Assassination, but long-running stealth series, such asMetal Gear Solid,Splinter Cell, andTenchuseem to have had had their day in the sun (or the shadows).
However, the thrill of going completely unseen seems less and less compelling to big publishers, perhaps because slow-burn, systematic stealth, as thrilling as it is to play, is hard to market compared to bombastic action games (a problem considering the enormous budgets for games likeThe Phantom Pain). Although the realism and technology seen inMGS5may not make another appearance (for now) in an original stealth game entry, a few lower-profile indie stealth games are quietly finding success using the decades of lessons those big-budget stealth games afforded them.
4Rail Shooters
Prime Examples: Time Crisis, Star Fox, Pokemon Snap
Rail shooters are (arguably) come with all the thrills of sprinting through a level or flying but with a curated level design that guarantees relentless, high-octane action and remove the frustrations of getting lost along the level. These kinds of games arebest played with light guns, such asTime Crisisor with joysticks, as withStar Fox.Pokemon Snapreimagined the player’s POV as a camera instead of a weapon, leading to a slew of on-the-rail photography games.
However, perhaps because gamers began to expect more freedom in 3D spaces, this genre died off. The genre saw a return with motion-controllers in the late 2000s on consoles like the Wii, but this was short-lived. There are still a few indie developers out there making games likeEx-Zodiacwilling to fill the gap, triple-A publishers have had their hands off this genre for a long time.
3Point-And-Click Adventures
Prime Examples: Monkey Island, Grim Fandango, The Walking Dead
Before the so-called “walking simulator” genre took its first step, point-and-click adventures ruled PC gaming with their verb-based puzzles and witty dialogue. Classics likeMonkey IslandandGrim Fandangousedbrain-busting puzzlesas their central gameplay loops and dry humor to raise the bar in terms of interactive storytelling, video game dialogue, and lateral-thinking gameplay, and their legacy as games that went beyond knee-jerk action, leaning on story, is hard to overestimate.
The genre saw a brief resurgence via Telltale’sThe Walking Dead, but its emphasis on quick-time events and binary choices was a tell-tale sign that the adventure genre still, unfortunately, had one foot in the grave. Modern successors likeThimbleweed Park,Broken Age, andReturn to Monkey Islandprove the audience remains, just not at a “AAA” level.
2Plastic Instument Rhythm Games
Prime Examples: Rock Band 4, Guitar Hero 3: Legends Of Rock, DJ Hero
The plastic instrument boom, brought about by rhythm game series likeRock Band,Guitar Hero, andDJ Herotransformed dorms and living rooms across the world into stages. With fake guitars, drums, and even DJ sets, players could simulate the experience ofplaying to massive crowds with friendsand pulling off sick riffs, tasty beats, and nasty track transitions.
Guitar Hero 3: Legends of Rockwas the first video game topush the one billion dollar sale barrier, and the future looked bright. Unfortunately, in the short span between 2005 and 2010, rhythm games had completely saturated the market. The studios were being forced to fork over larger amounts of cash for song licenses, and thanks to the Great Recession hitting in 2007-2008, nobody had the spare change to buy all the new plastic controllers.
13D Mascot Platformers / Collectathons
Prime Examples: Banjo-Kazooie, Spyro The Dragon, Super Mario 64
Accessable, appealing, and instantly fun, platformer that involved gathering hundres of collectables across a diverse array of worlds were in-demand in the 90s in a big way. The transition from 2D to 3D worlds was a tremendous success, creating platformer classics likeBanjo-Kazooie,Spyro the Dragon, andSuper Mario 64. Without the legacy of these games, 3D worlds as they are known today would never have been possible.
As graphical fidelity improved and worlds sizes grew, so did gamers, and besides level designers and environmental designers clashing in rendering worlds that were not too big but not too basic, gamers and critics began demanding deeper and more mature stories, or so it is believed. When the open-world crime sandboxGrand Theft Auto 3arrived in 2001, collectathons were considered childish toys and relegated to the past. Thesuccess and popularity ofAstro Bot, a platforming collectathon on the hyper-powerful PS5, may be a hint that the genre was abaonded too soon.
