Always Head Right
Gaming is an interesting spot right now. One one hand, we have the peak of flashy e-sports like DotA and Fortnite, commanding 8-figure prize pools and more viewership than most global sports broadcasts combined. We have major strides in AR and VR that are breaking the limitations into truly immersive gaming experiences. We have consoles that are more powerful than most computing devices and can place you into a world more believable than your own.
And then we have side-scrollers.
For some reason or other, we’re seeing more and more acclaimed new side-scrollers coming out each day. As a brief description for the less fluent gamers, side-scrollers hark back to the golden years when games were 2D and composed of pixels and flat sprites. You wold control a character than would literally move from side to side, up and down, trying to reach an eventual end goal, the most famous being classics like Castlevania, Metroid, Megaman, and even the old Marios.
But we’re talking the 80s and 90s. With later-gen consoles like Xbox and PS1, they had enough graphical power to escape that flat medium and bring in more dimensional experiences and exploration. Those aforementioned classics would be renewed every so often but how could they compete in a world with WoW and Minecraft?
Interestingly though, we’ve seen dozens of highly praised scrollers come out in the past few years. Here are some examples -
Cuphead
Child of Light
Hollow Knight
Little Nightmares
Inside
And of course, the one from this post’s cover and the latest in crazily high-reviewed Dead Cells -
I’m typically not interested in these types of games (though the explained mechanics of Dead Cells and the incorporation of Souls-like elements are very very attractive) due to their linearity and typically very high skill ceiling. I have enjoyed “Let’s Play” videos of some of the above, most notably Little Nightmares. But I was interested in the rise in popularity for both consumers and game developers, and here are some of my findings/thoughts one why this is happening -
Low cost-barrier for indie developers. A high number of side-scrollers are funded through crowd-funding, allowing even single-digit employee studios to create something bootstrapped. Today, it’s easier than ever to both make a game and market it through platforms like Steam. This particular medium is a great way for young studios to get their name into the limelight with relatively less investment.
Quality over Quantity. Because of that already restricting nature of side-scrollers, developers can put more of a focus on precision gameplay and aesthetics rather than open-world immersion. Games like Little Nightmares and Cuphead have incredible designs, unmarred by the graphical weight of 3D games.
Higher Restriction = Higher Potential Innovation. As with nearly all art forms, too big of a canvas can dilute an experience and fail to deliver a punchline. With the technical limitations of side-scrollers, it’s easier to take successful qualities of precedents and tweak them endlessly into a whole new winner.
A Market for more Straightforward Experiences. Even a few years ago, the market was dominated by gargantuan open-world games like The Witcher, Fallout, The Elder Scrolls, Assassin’s Creed, and so on, all boasting 200+ hours of gameplay and endless experiences. General consensus has swung the pendulum back, looking for more packaged gameplay that is shorter but sweeter.
What do you think? Why do you believe there are so many side-scrollers these days? Is the market and/or public sentiment shifting? Let me know below!
Nowadays gaming industry developing Tremendously I read about 'CryptoCarz. Racing Blockchain Game With Virtual Reality'... And of course, if the public found something new in-game public sentiment will definitely shift...
You hit the nail on the head! "Side-scrollers" (or even "2D games " for that matter) aren't going anywhere. They capture a very pure/simplistic form of gaming that's difficult to come by anywhere else. You can't underestimate the power of "pick up and play" that these games provide. -That being said, I believe that any videogame genre (if done right) can be successful. As long as there's VARIETY in the gaming market then the industry will thrive for sure.