There were some great-looking games at 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Summer Game Fest this month, but few got me as pumped as 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Astro Bot. Big publishers don't tend to put their weight behind 3D platformers anymore, so it's exciting to see Sony letting its little mascot be its big fall release.
Why Did The Industry Move On From Mascot Platformers?
We still get Mario games from Nintendo (though the last original 3D Mario is seven years old at this point), Sony still puts out a 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Ratchet & Clank game every few years, and Sega is still devoted to the 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Blue Blur. But most studios moved on from their mascot platformers years or even decades ago. Sucker Punch, which released the cinematic open-world action game 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Ghost of Tsushima in 2020, first found mainstream success on the PS2 with the 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Sly Cooper trilogy. Naughty Dog, which we now associate with gritty, grounded human stories like 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:The Last of Us, got big with 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Crash Bandicoot.
But Astro Bot's Team Asobi points to a different world, one where big publishers are still investing in the kind of game that sold systems in the '90s and early '00s. Would that be a better world? Not necessarily, but it's instructive to see how these studios shifted from all making one kind of game (3D platformers) to all making another kind of game (cinematic third-person action adventures).
The industry would be better off with more variety. I don't want Naughty Dog to stop making The Last of Us or for Sucker Punch to abandon Ghost of Tsushima. But I think Insomniac — which came to prominence on the PS1 with 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Spyro the Dragon — points to a better way. Insomniac makes flashy, realistic-looking games. A lot of them. Its first Spider-Man game came out in 2018, and it's already made two more. But Insomniac also takes breaks to do different stuff. In fact, over the course of the past decade, Insomniac has put out 18 games. Here's the full list:
- Sunset Overdrive
- Slow Down, Bull
- Fruit Fusion
- Bad Dinos
- Digit & Dash
- Ratchet & Clank
- Song of the Deep
- Edge of Nowhere
- The Unspoken
- Feral Rites
- Marvel's Spider-Man
- Seedling
- Stormland
- Strangelets
- Marvel's Spider-Man: Miles Morales
- Marvel's Spider-Man Remastered
- Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart
- Marvel's Spider-Man 2
Insomniac Is Committed To Trying Things
Insomniac has shown an admirable dedication to throwing all sorts of things at the wall and seeing what sticks. Its portfolio covers the whole gamut of gaming. There's an Xbox game in there (168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Sunset Overdrive), three marquee triple-A Sony system sellers (the 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Spider-Man series), two 3D platformers (Ratchet & Clank and 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Rift Apart), a casual game (Slow Down, Bull), three mobile games, a remaster, a Metroidvania published by GameStop, and several VR and AR titles.
One of those VR games, Stormland, is one of my colleague Eric Switzer's 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:personal favorites.
I would bet that the vast majority of gamers are only aware of the Spider-Man games, the Ratchet & Clanks, and maybe Sunset Overdrive. Insomniac's reputation wasn't hurt in the least by releasing Slow Down, Bull, despite the fact that it has just nine user reviews on Steam. There's no real harm in spreading the net a little wider — as long as the net doesn't cost a couple hundred mil. Experimentation is the lifeblood of the medium.
Which is why my plea to Naughty Dog, Sucker Punch, Rare, and all the other studios that have left 3D platformers in their past is this: come on, give it a try. Make another Jak & Daxter, check in on Sly Cooper, see how those guys are doing. The industry would benefit from the variety, and I bet the developers at your studios who fell in love with games because of Mario, or Sonic, or Conker's Bad Fur Day would treasure the chance to bring those series to a new generation.
Insomni𝕴ac Is The Model For What Triple-🐷A Should Look Like
Smaller is sometimes better.
