I was contacted by one of our readers the other day about the new Assassin’s Creed game. AC: Mirage is going back to a similar setup as the older AC games. There are some in the AC community who feel the game being a fifth the length of AC Valhalla is why they say they’re not buying it.

It’s sad that this is where we are in gaming. This explains why games as a service is picking up. Games with open worlds with nothing in them are the norm. Today’s gamer doesn’t respect his time, and now companies don’t either.

Today’s gamer wants style over substance. He wants these games to where no skill or fetch quests are involved. That way he can turn his brain off and be happy. Plus, they want microtransactions for cosmetics and time savers. It’s strange to want a 100-hour grind, but you use time savers and premium account tiers for faster progression. It’s even stranger because, typically these types get their entertainment from shorts on Facebook, Youtube, or TikTok.

Graphics have ramped up the last two generations. Gameplay has gotten dumbed down. The ideas that were seen as meh 10-15 years ago are the rage today and hard games today are just bad design rather than being hard.

I’ve never been a fan of the AC games. But I know the last two games were thought of as rpg grinds. 20 hours for a main story is a great length. The length of a games story isn’t an issue, as long as it respects your time and tells a good well paced story.

An example of a short game is The Order:1886. It had a lot of cutscenes, but the graphics, gameplay, lore, setting and story made a good game. It had some issues, but it was a solid 7.5. Should it had been $60? $50 would’ve made the game a steal, I ‘d argue the insane fidelity and uniqueness justified it being $60.

I find it more ridiculous to pay $60 for a roguelike, that has one of those mystery stories. The mystery stories that by the end, there’s no answers. So, all the one life per run and difficultly was for you to draw a conclusion. Returnal had good gameplay and dualsense features, but it was guilty of this, and it was $70 and not next gen.