The live services bubble has been bursting for a while now. That much is obvious. But given how long it takes to make most AAA (and even AAA) video games these days, and how much money is likely to be made, it’s not surprising that it’s taken some time to partially exit the increasingly risky model of the past three years or so. This summer, a few free-to-play games like The First Descendant and Zenless Zone Zero made a splash, but we’re still looking at the same big problem.
For a while, it seemed like most gamers were fussing over the paid live service model and cool MTX shenanigans, but free-to-play games were either happily played or ignored because we were so used to them. Ultimately, though, you’re more likely to spend money repeatedly on a product that gives you so many hours of well-crafted entertainment for free.
This has been proven time and again, and it’s why Overwatch was sacrificed in favor of a more esports-friendly, streamlined “sequel” that ended up alienating much of the player base the IP originally attracted. As the game’s recent developments have proven, this shift hasn’t really paid off for Blizzard and Activision, but games that were free-to-play from the start always use the same progression/unlock model.
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Even before summer arrived, the free-to-play wave was sweeping the industry, but it started to heat up with the emergence of a new gacha game disguised as a proper action RPG, Howling Tides. It managed to enter the market before HoYoverse’s Zenless Zone Zero, and Ubisoft’s XDefiant, which was long delayed and rigorously tested, was actually a surprisingly modern Call of Duty alternative. Hell, even Lucasfilm’s Star Wars Hunters, which was released before Star Wars Desperadoes, annoyed me and was even more lackluster than I expected from Zynga.
On the surface, these games, like most of the ones I’m about to critique, are high-quality games that run well and do what you’d expect from a game in their respective genres. However, they are designed to maximize profits and player engagement through traditional MTX, battle passes, or “gacha pulls” (which is just loot boxes by another name).
A fair number of players can overlook all of these issues because the games themselves offer a ton of fun, even cosmetic items and in-game rewards, all for no extra cost. That being said, spend a dozen hours playing these games and you’ll start to wonder why you didn’t just play an “upfront” version that doesn’t have bait and switch thrown at you every five minutes or so.
The short answer is that modern free-to-play games are designed in part to Make your brain go brrrThe overall feel is good, and if you’re uninformed, or just don’t have the patience to play more interesting games (a worrying trend among children and teens), the constant feedback loop is fascinating, both single-player and online. It’s harder to criticize when the core is truly good and not marred by a predatory shadow, as was the case with the aforementioned XDefiant or Apex Legends, where EA’s current cash cow has gone too far.
Fast forward to mid-July and we’re in the middle of the hype wave for The First Descendant and Zenless Zone Zero. While early numbers are strong (the latter has been confirmed to be making a killing) it remains to be seen whether they’re another “hit of the month” game or something that will stick around. Aside from the horrible gacha skeleton and overall design, I didn’t mind ZZZ. I played it for hours. It’s very well put together. The animators and artists did a great job as well as the combat designers.
Everything else? Expensive garbageEvery two or three minutes, long paragraphs of text would hinder the flow of the entire game, forcing me to sit through paragraph after paragraph of anime nonsense. Signal seemed to be even worse than similar games like Genshin Impact (I have never played Honkai Impact 3). All in all, I quickly became frustrated that such a beautiful game was trapped in such a strict model and such immature writing.
As for The First Descendant, it’s easily one of the worst games I’ve played this year, not because it feels poorly made, but because – and I’m not exaggerating – it’s completely unoriginal. I’m not kidding, if you need a new expensive looter-shooter, you’re better off playing Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League. Hell, Prime Gaming even made it free for a while.
Even if you accept The First Descendant’s soulless by-the-numbers loop (but meaningless in real-time gameplay), and generic weapons shooting at your big-assed robot bunny wife, you’ll quickly wonder why you didn’t choose Warframe, which, while not my cup of tea, at least has a creative vision.
I’ve never been one to hate free-to-play models, purely cosmetic MTX, or legitimate battle passes. Hell, I’m not a regular Fortnite player, but I firmly believe that Epic Games has been on to something there with well-paced progression and skins that are truly worth the money and mesh well with the artistry of the entire experience. When Apex first launched, I spent dozens of hours playing it instead of studying for my February exams.
I still play Call of Duty regularly, and even bought a few high-priced skin packs because they coincided with my favorite IP partnerships. I’m not without sin. But there’s a limit to everything, and this year it feels like everyone is trying to squeeze as much profit as possible out of a gold rush that may be coming to an end, or At least was dialed back to reduce development costs.
What I mean is that we may be entering a “peak tilt state” that will cause most gamers who play more than two games a year to wake up and realize that many flashy free versions of AAA games are nothing more than three MTX plus a suspicious-looking EULA in a trench coat, and the only thing missing is that they will hold you at gunpoint after you install them.
Will Once Human be some procedurally generated free-to-play game released in 2024 that somehow gets me hooked? I really hope not, because I have a ton of serious games lined up for me.
