Interesting take. I’m Gen X, and when online play came about it was amazing after so many years of singleplayer games, or games that your opponent had to be physically present to play on another controller next to you. So to reject online play to me seems…odd.
That said, I think online and always-online have done a lot of damage to gaming, from DRM to loss of physical ownership to loss of good singleplayer storylines in triple-A games.
The main issue for me is that the amount of time I would have to put into a game to get good enough to not get shit on in pvp kills the enjoyment. I played a ton of destiny 2 and was still solidly mediocre at pvp. My first 2 games of Squad I don't think I got a single kill. Pubg was just miserable starting out. Never gonna touch warthunder.
You’re absolutely right. If you don’t have time to invest in getting good at multiplayer, pvp can be frustrating at best. I’ve got thousands of hours invested in my preferred game and I’m pretty damn good, I’m very competitive, but even I quit a game occasionally because of other players.
Despite the gaming community's constant rhetoric that “nobody cheats, git gud kid, learn how to aim”, cheating is rampant. From players that abuse aim assist with devices like the chronos max to just good old-fashioned aimbots, they can ruin anyone’s game, even mine. And even I quit games when players are so obviously using artificial aim assists that it’s just not fun, and popular FPS shooters are the prime targets for cheaters. Even if you are good, there’s more than enough people willing to wreck your game.
Yep. The preference for online-only games like PUBG, Apex, or others where it has removed fun, deep, single player campaigns like GTAV that used to be the hallmark of a good game has definitely done serious damage to the gaming we used to know.
Best games I have played across the last few gens have been god of war, hitman, lotr shadow games, Jedi games and when I enjoy a game like fall guy all I want is to play locally with my wife.
That, and your total lack of ownership of online-only games. The constant treadmill of, "Oh, did you have fond memories of playing Game X? Want to play it again? Too bad, Microsoft/Blizzard/EA/Activision/whoever turned off the servers so now your disc is tantamount to a coaster."
An old man yelling at clouds I may be, but you know what? I stick a cartridge into my Nintendo and the fucker just plays. Every time.