In this new generation of consoles, it’s easy to overlook the amazing games that have graced us in the years passed. Games that have shaped the gaming industry forever could get forgotten in the rush to be acquainted with next generation hardware. These are the 5 best games that cannot be overlooked.
The story in part 3 of Sony Interactive Entertainment and Naughty Dog's The Last of Us series may explore a "congregation of immune people."
Former Naughty Dog artist Gabriel Betancourt explains why the "sweet spot" for game teams is under 200 people and how AAA "factories" kill creativity.
There’s definitely some truth to this. When teams get too large, coordination starts to outweigh creativity—layers of approval, risk aversion, and tight deadlines can turn bold ideas into “safe” ones. Keeping a team under ~200 people sounds ideal for maintaining clear communication and a shared vision. That said, massive AAA projects also come with huge technical demands and expectations, so scaling up isn’t always avoidable. The real challenge is figuring out how to keep that small-team creativity alive inside big studio structures.
More than that, it's logistically untenable. Inevitably, when teams get too large, how do you keep tabs on accountability? I suspect this massive team size is a consequence of the perfectionism streak Naughty Dog has.
I wish we could have so many people working on something and it turns out great because I'm all for collaboration in spirit - the problem is too many people as part of the larger team and smaller units. Suppose for example that you have too many people in the art department; you will very often come up against fiercely competing visions for how things should look. That competitive vision will cause friction between team members, team doesn't work as a unit, the back and forth can further delay parts that the other departments are waiting for, etc etc.
A 200-person team says, to me, that we need to scale back game development. Even if it means we go back to PS2 era costs and scale, why not? Those games are still great fun, the budgets were in check, and you could literally break the 200-man team into like 10 20-man teams working on different projects.
Take-Two Interactive revealed it is pausing development on its Nintendo Switch 2 edition of "Borderlands 4" in its latest quarterly earnings.
I like how 3/5 of these games released in the past year or so...
Anyway, I would say BioShock was more defining / had greater impact than BioShock Infinite. I would also say Uncharted 2, Demon's Souls, Mass Effect, Gears of War and LittleBigPlanet had a bigger impact than Assassin's Creed 2, but I digress.
Defined as in what? I think if you're asking what games defined innovation then that to me is Gears of War- completely created the cover third person shooter genre. Uncharted- Completely invented the cinematic third person shooter. Bioshock- Completely redefined what story based games could do. Mass Effect- innovated the scifi TPS RPG story. And like the games or not Quantic Dream has to be on there cause they pioneered the QTE story based games. I don't like it but they did do it.
Halo 3?
Call of Duty Modern Warfare?
Both revolutionized mass online FPS on consoles
g1 jockey and gallop racer loved it
While it wasn't my #1 game of last gen, no title "defined" the previous generation more than COD4.