Amazingly, the current generation of PlayStation and Xbox consoles has been around for more than half a decade already, with the consoles turning six years old later this year. That means that we’re closer to the start of the next generation of consoles than to the beginning of this current one, so it’s time to wonder what the future has in store for gamers.
What will the next generation of sports video games look like, and what do they need to do to be as enjoyable for gamers as possible? We’ve looked at our expectations and hopes for the next generation, highlighting the areas that seem most critical toward having a successful generation of sports video games.
What We’d Love To See From The Next Generation Of Sports Video Games
The sports video game industry is a broad one, with the specific in-game needs of each franchise often being so unique. Still, there are broader trends that extend across the industry and which we can look at to identify areas where games could excel in the next generation. Here’s what we’d love to see if they’re going to turn that good promise into great gaming experiences:
The Most Visually Stunning Games Ever
One thing we can say with near absolute certainty is that the next generation of games will go down as the best-looking games we have seen to date. The processing power of modern gaming PCs and gaming consoles is the strongest it’s ever been, and a new generation will only lead to further increases in what the systems we play on are capable of.
Developers need to remember that visuals are an important component, but not one that should be focused on to the detriment of other areas, though if they keep that in mind, there is still plenty of room to make games that look amazing without sacrificing quality. A good-looking set of visuals can’t make a bad game good, but it is capable of making a good game feel truly incredible.
Giving the benefit of the doubt that leaps forward won’t come at the cost of other developmental areas, then this can create the most engaging set of sports games yet. The closer what you see on your screen when playing gets to what you see when turning on a real game, the easier it becomes to escape into your sports video games.
Continued Development On In-Game AI
The way your games look may be the easiest way to see the enhanced processing power of modern gaming systems, but it’s far from the only area where games can benefit from playing on a PC or console with more under the hood. Everything that is going on while you play a game of Madden or 2K requires a whole lot of processing power to run it.
Getting the artificial intelligence right for sports games can be among the hardest jobs in video game development. Not only are most modern sports extremely complex, with multiple players on each team often filling multiple roles each with their own responsibilities at all times, but they’re also very familiar. Most sports video game players also watch the sports in real life. While we think we know how things in an action game should look, we know what things should look like in sports games.
Enhanced processing power means that developers can ask more of the systems powering their games. Maintaining smooth gameplay and high framerates is critical for a sports game, as the sports stop feeling right when they get jagged. Stronger systems will be capable of handling more processing tasks, which means developers can work on more complex AI systems to better recreate the experience of real sports played by real elite athletes.
Gameplay That Reacts Dynamically
Continuing on the theme of finding areas to put the abstract “more power” into tangible effects gamers will experience in their everyday gameplay, sports games have the potential to take on a new level of dynamic behavior. With proper application, developers may be able to create a generation of sports games that feel more realistic than ever because of how effectively they respond to what is going on.
There have been many breakthroughs in sports video games that have made what you see on your screen look better. Motion capture began allowing developers to capture realistic-looking athlete behaviors and interactions, and over time, it has evolved to include capturing stars for their unique looks. Later systems have been developed to provide engines with more ability to pull smaller animations and blend them for more unique moves.
Continuing to get the most out of modern systems provides an opportunity for further exploration and innovation in animation. Combining more hard-recorded actions with an engine that allows for more responsive application and modification of those animations is something you won’t always notice right away, but which can really make the difference as your hour count begins to climb.
More Space For Alternative Takes
A common complaint about the major sports franchises is a lack of innovation from year to year. With so much invested financially into these games, it has led to studios where it is often considered safer to make incremental changes to the games each edition. This can lead to a safer developmental curve, as a studio is less likely to cause major harm to the quality of their games when making smaller swings, but it can also restrict creativity.
The best solution for this actually comes from outside of the major studios. While games like NBA Jam and NFL Blitz came with major licenses and big-name players all crammed into over-the-top arcade gameplay, modern sports indie hits have found room for success without major names attached.
As the major annual games get more and more of a lockdown on the world of premium, big-budget sports games, the opportunity is there for more indie explorations of sports that take bigger risks. Hopefully, with the increased access to the market that the video game marketplaces like Steam now offer, we can see continued development among the indie scene to produce fun sports games that the big-budget studios could never dream of attempting. They don’t all land, but the ones that do bring us games like Rocket League to provide many years of enjoyment.
A Willingness To Take Risks
Just because the indie developers can take up the slack — and we’ve discussed some of the ways, understandably, major studios can get risk-averse — doesn’t mean that it fully lets the big guys off the hook. Developers will be working with fewer technical restrictions in place than ever before, and there is still the need for some shots to be taken.
Not every game mechanism is going to be a hit, and some can even potentially be great ideas done in less by their own unworthiness and more by circumstances or execution, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t still worth trying from time to time.
The opportunities for innovation by sports video game developers can’t be fully predicted. Game development is a highly collaborative one, and sometimes that leads to ideas that can be developed into winning innovations for a series or genre. Just because we can’t know for sure what those innovations will be doesn’t mean we can’t still be excited to see what they are and to hope that some incredible breakthroughs are in our collective future.
What are your thoughts on the next generation of sports games? Will we see the start of a new golden age, or are you expecting more of the same, just shinier in the next few years?
