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I originally pirated this game on release, but my PC back then couldn't run it reliably. I played it a couple hours and for some reason I can't remember, I just dropped it and never came back.

Picked it up for really cheap recently on Steam because I wanted to give it a second chance with better hardware, and holy fucking shit, how is this game six years old?

Playing in 2025 a game originally released in 2019 really shows me that there's a certain degree of diminishing returns in the games industry, not necessarily in a bad way, but in the sense that I think we've pretty much reached kind of a peak in game development, in terms of tech. As long as you can provide a solid experience, games will still feel great for much longer than they used to.

I might be mistaken and I don't have any handy examples to back this argument, but I feel like ten years ago, a six-year-old game would definitely feel much more dated than this does. Does that make sense? I don't think games used to age this gracefully 10+ years ago.

I can't think of any modern game that just feels this good. Everything is incredibly responsive, the graphics and art style are stunning, the sound design is top notch, the lore is really captivating and it just overall feels like an incredibly polished experience that's leagues ahead of most recent games.

If it were not for the Hiss and all the nightmarish SCP shit going on in The Oldest House, I'd want to live there. I want to touch these gorgeous brutalist slabs of concrete.

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[-] dastanktal@hexbear.net 17 points 5 days ago

I think there are quite a few games that end up holding up really really well because the gameplay is so good.

Fallout New Vegas comes to mind. I really like The Outer Worlds and I think it was released in, like, 2019.

God of War was released in 2018 and that game holds up beautifully.

I've also been playing through Wolfenstein 2 and that was released in 2014.

Dishonored is still amazing, and I think that game was released in like 2012. The art style has a lot to do with the timelessness of that game.

Good games last forever I think.

[-] fox@hexbear.net 23 points 4 days ago

Stylized games don't age, really. Team Fortress 2 is old enough to vote and still looks and plays great.

[-] Mardoniush@hexbear.net 7 points 4 days ago

I'd even say HL2 holds up well. Alyx just had to upscale the textures and models, really.

[-] 7bicycles@hexbear.net 6 points 4 days ago

There's a VR Mod for HL2 and while it is very well made as per vr-ifying the controls, the game itself also just adapts to VR fairly effortlessly since it was mostly physics puzzle based

[-] joaomarrom@hexbear.net 5 points 4 days ago

The art style has a lot to do with the timelessness of that game.

Absolutely. Mirror's Edge is IMO the greatest example of this. It came out nearly 20 years ago and aside from some gameplay clunkiness, it would absolutely not feel out of place if it were released in 2025.

this post was submitted on 26 Jul 2025
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