Indie games >>> AAA games

27.02.2023

Few months ago, after I finished building my gaming PC I was so excited to play all the newest great looking AAA titles. First game I finished was Uncharted 4, which had been on my list for a long time. It was okay, I finished it but... honestly it was pretty damn boring. During the first few hours I had a blast and was admiring how great the graphics looked. After that, well, the gameplay just got boring. I've played so many casual shooters that to me there's nothing interesting about that anymore. Run n' shoot, run n' shoot, cutscene, run n' shoot. And not gonna lie, I kinda had to force myself to play the last quarter of the game.

After that I tried playing couple of AAA titles I had on my list, but quickly dropped almost all of them for the same reason. They were boring. Just couldn't keep my interest after the first hour or two.

Then I played some indie games and realized that I almost always enjoy them more than I enjoy AAA games. Indie games, made by one person or a small team and a lot smaller budget just have a different feel to them.

My guess it that since indie teams have far less restrictions, they're freely available to express their creativity and do things however they want. Smaller teams also mean easier communication and better shared vision of the project.

Gaming industry is really big nowadays and AAA games just don't seem to take many risks. They're all the same. Making the same game with slightly better graphics to ensure they sell well. They play it safe. That's fine, I'm just not interested in that.

Some points on why I love indie games:

Made with ❤️
They're experimental
They're more unique and creative
Cool art
Gameplay mechanics are perfected (unlike Rockstar's controls, lol)
They're short, I don't have time to play a 100 hour game
Costs less $$$
Better pacing, as they usually don't have voice actors but you read the dialogue yourself
Usually less deadlines, which allows the game to be honed to perfection

(Obviously not all points above relate to every indie game. Also it's important to note that for each great indie game there are 10 bad ones.)