Is there a lack of child friendly AAA titles in gaming nowadays? If I completely ignore Nintendo and look at what is already available on current and last-gen consoles, as well as looking at what is to be released, then the answer is a flat-out yes, no argument necessary.
Gaming's move into the more adult and more realistic isn't bad by all means - many gamers, myself included, love a good game which explores adult themes and story and is realistically portrayed. As long as most gamers nowadays are middle-aged adults, gaming will continue to be dominated by adult titles.
What caught my attention wasn't the new Call of Duty nor was it the latest installment of the Assassin's Creed franchise - it was Insomniac Games' Sunset Overdrive, Hello Games' No Man's Sky and basically the entirety of Nintendo's roster that got me excited and all of these games have something in common.
Then there's Nintendo. They unveiled the likes of Yoshi's Woolly World and Splatoon at this year's E3 and I talk about Nintendo separately because in a sense, with regards to this subject anyway, they are a slightly different kettle of fish.
All of these games, even though primarily aimed at children, still have a strong resonance with adults. With their strong emphasis on world building (having a strong aesthetic that carries through both the environment and character style), ease of gameplay and easy-to-understand stories, I think Nintendo can be seen as an inspiration for other developers that want to make games with a visually distinct and more artistic aesthetic. If you ask someone on the street to name a video game character, who will they name? Mario? Or "what's-his-face" from "wait what Call of Duty is this again"?
Having a more "creatively led" design will not result in more constraints, like I argued in my piece about why having more LGBTQ characters in gaming was important, having a greater diversity of styles and creative drives on offer within the gaming industry will not lead to lesser games, if anything it will only lead to more diverse games being released.
I do love what gaming is managing to achieve in terms of realism but what I have problem with is what seems to be the lack of difference between most of today's AAA titles. On one hand, I love more realistic games, but on the other hand, these types of games are starting to bore me - when most of the games were announced at this year's E3, I wasn't going "yeah look at this!", I was saying "oh another x title" - they've become commonplace and are starting to make me feel less excited about gaming.
Gaming can still be colourful, can still contain elements of fun and still be aimed towards adults and I think more developers need to be aware of this; to move away from having the artistic and colourful be restricted to child and Indie titles, I want to see more AAA titles soaked in colours and have a strong creative style.
There is a child in all of us...
So what do you think?
Wouldn't you rather play the same types of game we loved in our youth?
Let us know in the comments below!