Favorite modern development studios

As the one here who probably keeps up with modern gaming the most, your history is pretty spot on toei . I could probably go through my top favorite lists back to 2011 or something and rank things here when I'm not too tired. I won't deny I have my biased tastes but I really do believe Japanese devs had a nice comeback around the start of the PS4 era and have been pretty top tier since. This isn't to say the early to mid 2000's were lacking at all, but yeah. I think there was both an identity crisis with them going on in the PS3/360 era (almost looked like Capcom was going to crumble honestly) and Japan certainly doesn't chase money/AAA tech as much as the West does, they seem like they'd rather perfect older hardware before moving on too quickly, and not spread themselves too thin with publishers doing monopolistic moves.

So I think when the PS4 dropped, game development for modern gaming was just simply getting easier for them to handle again. Just kind of a random theory though. Now in recent years, they're even finding monstrous success on PC. Elden Ring has become the 6th highest most concurrently played game (last I checked) in Steam's entire 20 some year history, so it wouldn't surprise me at all if sales for the game are highest on PC. It seems like Namco, Sega, and Capcom have been doing it well. I mean this both in terms of success and them generally putting out reliable PC versions. Contrast to Square of all people, shockingly... their PC ports still don't have the best track record, even with some of their modern FF games. Nier Automata got a patch after like three years of silence, simply because a lot of fans were pissed the Xbox Series X version came with new quality of life features and improvements, so the janitor or someone at Square I guess cared enough to get the PC version updated. That game has done way better than even some modern FF's... but I guess we've seen dozens of cases of publishers not liking money for whatever reason sometimes. I was surprised to hear even the FF7R port on Epic Games Store sounded pretty bare bones, since it's Unreal Engine and all. Square's still weird. I think Falcom have been doing well on PC for a long time now.

Another thing is, that I think anime and subtitles have gained mass appeal over the last decade or so. It's such a relief. Growing up I'm sure most of us here would read reviews of people trashing a game or just outright tell people to avoid something because it might not be dubbed. Now some games won't even get dubbed and I don't see any goofy outcries like in the past. I'm glad a lot of RPG's come with dual audio options nowadays. It was hilarious how Square and some others tried to monetize that early on, like you have to BUY the Japanese audio track via DLC for the FF13 games and stuff. Ridiculous. lol

But yeah Yakuza's pretty much the ultimate case in point there. Yakuza 0 seemed like the breaking point for the series in the West finally after all these years and they don't bother dubbing those anymore, nor does anyone care. But I guess the Judgement games and Yakuza 7 got dubs that seem decent.

It's true Team Ninja have kind of slipped back into the shadows somewhat. I'm glad they're still cooking though, because the Nioh games were excellent for my tastes. I'm pretty fast to correct people who think Other M's problems were all Team Ninja (to be fair Samus' design there looks like a DOA girl, that doesn't help the confusion haha)... but yeah that games bad aspects were all Nintendo/Sakimoto. Team Ninja still made a solid game underneath that sludge. Nioh sold over a million copies and Nioh 2 did 2.5 million, they announced that in February during the series' 5 year anniversary I think. Hard to gauge how good a million is in the modern era with AA/AAA gaming, but yeah I always followed some staff articles over the series when I could, and Team Ninja seem like they've been pretty happy with how Nioh turned out. I think we'll see another sequel someday. But I'm pretty stoked at the thought of another Ninja Gaiden reboot someday. I wager they can manage without Itagaki, considering how great the Nioh's are gameplay wise.

Capcom had the trophy for best remake ever with, drum roll, REmake. And they somehow did it again with REmake 2, easily one of my top favorite games of the last gen and current era. Then RE8 blew me away and fixed any nitpicks I had with RE7. I loved Monster Hunter World, the first one to really click with me. Mega Man 11 was cool. I skipped DmC as that looked like another "identity crisis" Capcom era product... and DMC5 was godly, if you're into DMC3/DMC4. I've been wanting to play Dragon's Dogma, which was also directed by DMC3-DMC5's Itsuno, so that makes it sound promising to me. I feel like my love for Capcom is as strong as it used to be in the 8/16bit eras again. But the mileage will vary for some, depending on how much you like the key franchises they've doubled down on again. Less is more for Capcom though. I can't stress enough, a lot of us seriously thought they were going to go out of business.

Platinum is pretty good for the most part looking back, but the jokes of them having like an obvious B and C team for some of their licensed games, seems pretty true. Their good stuff is pretty obvious to pickout though, or you can trace back when they had a lot of ex-Capcom staff helping them out in the early days. I really dug Vanquish, Metal Gear Rising, etc. Bayonetta is fine, I liked 2 more. Astral Chain was alright. Nier Automata is incredible and I give them a lot of credit, but as a fan of the original it's still pretty clear to me that Yoko Taro's single influence and DNA weighs HEAVY on that entire game. It is 100% a Yoko Taro game, just finally with the backing of a good studio haha. I hope he makes another big game again. Instead of wasting their time on Babylon's Fall which looks like a flop for Square/Platinum, they should have just made another Nier perhaps.

You guys are probably bored of how much I praise modern From Software. It's just comical I guess it took me this long to finally say, alright alright, yeah they're my #1 now for the current generation or few. Demon's Souls, Dark Souls 1, Dark Souls 2, Bloodborne, Dark Souls 3, Sekiro, and Elden Ring, are all 10's in my book. They have achieved that perfect balance of both quantity and quality. I've already replayed many of these games several times, 100%'d them all, etc, they are timeless gems for me. And now that I played King's Field 1-3, Shadow Tower 1-2, my love for them just grows stronger in general. If they really do make another Armnored Core game, I think that would be admirable of them. Because no matter how on top of the world they are right now, I think Armored Core would remain very niche' and not sell much haha. I'd buy it though.

I'm glad Monolith Soft are still alive and have somehow found some success with the Nintendo partnership. The Xenoblade's are some of my favorite modern games. But I don't know anyone online or offline personally who cares for them, but eh, that's been Xeno in a nutshell for me. At least Gears has a few more fans.

Well that's a lot. I'll try to go through my lists sometime.

Ex : Funny you mention Arkane, since you still haven't played the Dishonored's or Arkane Prey (which had some OG Deux Ex level designers and staff onboard). As a huge Thief fan, I hope and expect Dishonored will be the successor you've probably been wanting. Definitely up there with Souls, FF7R, Automata, etc for me and some of my top favorite games of the last decade or so. Unfortunately, I don't have much interest in Deathloop or their other game they're making that looks like the same thing. The sad reality is that "immersive sim" FPS's are still pretty niche' and don't seem to sell well, even though I think the first Dishonored did very well. So to me, it looks like Arkane is trying to slide away a chase roguelike/live service game ideas hoping that something catches on I guess. The "loop" of Deathloop and its inherent lack of a real story/exploration from the outside is a turn off for me. I hope they get back to Dishonored or Prey again someday, but I'm not sure what to expect with them right now. I'm hoping Cyberpunk will give me the Deus Ex / Bioshock styled fix I crave.

For you toei , unlike the average modern gamer, I'd recommend starting with the first Nier. I think it's got better characters. It's more depressing too though. Automata has more flare with better combat and higher production, but it also leans more into sci-fi / existential dread which I'm always joyfully into as well. In ways, it actually kind of made me think of Xenogears a lot. Mainly with the music but a lot of its storytelling and topical themes, felt like if Tetsuya Takahashi got to make an M rated RPG or something more serious like Xenogears again. As I said, I love the Xenoblade's a ton... but yeah, stuff like Xenogears and the Nier's are more adult in a good way. So yeah, main plot wise I probably favor Automata, but character wise I like the first more. I love both.

I had a friend who had Enchanted Arms and I think we kind of just laughed at it a lot when he showed me some of it. It's interesting how From seemed like they were early adopters of just about every console generation. They got a lot of early releases for the PS1, PS2, and PS3 eras.

Pretty wild that nobody cared to publish Demon's Souls, until Atlus saw something in it. Dark Souls was the big hit eventually, but if it weren't for Atlus... that's a dark timeline I don't want to imagine.

Yeah, but I was into Arkane way before those games released. I very much enjoyed Arx Fatalis and Dark Messiah of Might and Magic. The latter especially was undeservedly panned by most "professional" critics, the fools.


I have not played it yet, but I do own a legit copy of it.

toei I think when it comes to modern games, you will most likely be enamored with the Yakuza and Souls series. Well, I'm not entirely sure about the Souls stuff for you, but the modern Yakuza games seem like a slam dunk. So does Sekiro. I don't really consider Sekiro a "Souls" game, it's considerably different than DeS, DS, or ER in some meaningful ways.

Maybe that's something to do with Win7. I played it on XP without any issues, though I'm sure I had it patched to the final revision. This was long before GOG existed, I wasn't using the GOG version.