What happened to modern gaming? – Most modern games seem broken

It just seems like games are getting more and more broken upon release these days.

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Gaming has been a big part of our lives for many years, and we often look back fondly and nostalgia-ridden at our favorite games growing up. Isn’t it funny how we never really remember many game-breaking issues? Sure there may have been one or two but we always look back fondly. What happened to modern gaming? it seems like everything that is released now is broken or unfinished.

I remember playing games like Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater, Destruction Derby, and Burnout, in my childhood, none of which had any issues whatsoever. They were all fully fleshed-out games with a lot to do – for the time, anyway.

It seems that every big game that is released is either broken, unfinished, or both

There have been Four major releases in the last couple of months that have prompted this little rant. Those games are Starfield, Payday 3, Forza Motorsport, and CS2. Don’t get me wrong, Payday and Starfield are good games, they just have issues.

Starfield

Starfield was released on the 6th of September, and it was released with more than a couple of performance issues on PC, the game is locked to 30 FPS on consoles which is jarring to look at, and the game is a bit of a loading screen simulator.

The story is fine, the mechanics are fine, but the fact that the menu and some reticles are locked to 30 FPS on PC is horrid. There have been mods to fix this, but it shouldn’t be up to modders to make the game okay to look at.

All of this can sort of be forgiven because Starfield is a Bethesda game after all. But we hope to see a lot of these issues fixed.

Payday 3

Less forgivable sins were committed by Starbreeze, the makers of Payday 3, which had a truly terrible launch despite a Beta test prior to the launch of the game. It took around a week to get a stable matchmaking session in Payday 3, when you do manage to play the game you’ll notice that the progression and leveling system sucks.

I’ve already dived into why I hate the leveling system for Payday 3, but to sum it up, it’s all challenge-based, and you don’t get any XP at all for completing actions like using guns or just completing heists.

The game feels very bare with only a handful of heists, although we know that Payday is a franchise that gets updated over time, with new content added. This is more forgivable because the game was released at around $40, instead of the standard $60-odd.

I like Payday 3 a lot, I sunk a lot of hours into Payday 2, we just have to wait a little for the game to be fun.

Forza Motorsport.

So many features are missing from Forza Motorsport that it feels like half of a game. There’s a lack of simple features that were available in other Forza games, and if you ask me, the variety and the customization are what made Forza as a franchise great.

There’s no Auction house or Special Dealer, no Level rewards, no lobbies, no free roam tracks, no test drive options when tuning cars, far fewer upgrades for your cars, and exhaust sounds are bad. I could go on, but do I really need to? For a game that prides itself on being one of the best car sim games, it sure is missing a lot right now.

Yes, some of these features were missing from other Forza games on launch and were added later, but then don’t charge full price for half of a game. Take a leaf out of Payday’s book.

Counter-Strike 2

CS2 is less of a sin and more of a gripe. I loved CS:GO, but I’m not a fan of CS2. If all they did was update the graphics then I’d be happy, but to do that Valve had to update the engine and all that came with that, so now the game feels familiar but not the same – which is a weird feeling.

What’s that term for when something looks almost human but isn’t? That’s what CS2 is right now. It takes its place inside the shell of the former game, but something’s not quite right. Maybe just because it’s new and it’s something I have to get used to. I know lots of people that love CS2, but something just feels … off.

There are many fun game modes currently missing from CS2, like Danger Zone, FLying Scoutsman, and of course, War Games. Not only that but there are issues with stuttering, synchronization problems, and player hitbox issues. Which can make the game very hard to play.

Modern gaming stinks

We need to send a message to developers that releasing half-baked games is not okay. We know that it’s not always the fault of the developers, sometimes servers can break, or the game can break in a really obscure way that wasn’t tested in betas.

But it is entirely on the developer when they push out an unfinished product and just decide “Eh, we’ll add stuff later” It’s unacceptable, especially when they’re charging full price for the game in the same breath.

I’m not saying these games are awful, but they have issues. It’s not only that, there are a lot more games out there that have subjected us to similar shenanigans, but these are just examples of games in the very near past.

This needs to change.