Could adventure games make a comeback?

Topic.

I'm not sure it's possible anymore for this kind of game to make a comeback. Then again, I'm not sure I'd like to play an adventure game that was made on a multi-million dollar budget. So much of what was great about those kinds of games came from your own imagination, which the primitive graphics and sound pretty much forced you to use.

But since action games and such nowadays are capable of telling complicated and interesting stories, do we really need adventure games anymore? Your thoughts?

What comeback? WHen it coems to ammount and quality they already did made a comback. "Adventure games are dead" is the silliest myths around nowadays, there are at least couple good ones released every month. THere is hardly any PC-centric genre that's doing better nowadays than adventure games to be honest. We are getting a lot of them, the upcoming scheudle is filled with promising adventure games and some of the biggest oldschool adventure legends are coming back with new titles.

So the only "comeback" you might mean is popularity I guess. Modern adventure games are very profitable, becacuse they sell nicely, not huge numbers (a good one sells 300K-500K units), but they are cheap to make. Can they make a comeback and have multimillion selling titles? Nope, I doubt they can. They already tried once and it almost killed the genre.

They have found themselves a comfortable niche nowadays where they bloom in security and stability

personally, i've never found adventure games to be my cup of tea. i remember how Grim Fandango lasted me all but 15 min when i played it years ago. i actually look forward for the genre to thrive as best as it could -- what the devs have to do, imo, is to break the conventional mould and introduce more mass-appealing gameplay elements, including effective use of first person view point, enhanced physics that enables realistic puzzles, and possibly more action/combat. if adventure games can achieve these without compromising their own selling points ( ie. plot, voice-acting, soundtrack, artistic design ), it has all the potential to compete with the other popular genres.

When were adventure games ever more popular or even as popular as other genres? Are you talking text adventures? They were in the day when you were in the minority to even own a computer.

There's always a steady supply of adventure games - some enjoy a certain level of popularity but they'll always be a nice market.

What comeback? WHen it coems to ammount and quality they already did made a comback. "Adventure games are dead" is the silliest myths around nowadays, there are at least couple good ones released every month. THere is hardly any PC-centric genre that's doing better nowadays than adventure games to be honest. We are getting a lot of them, the upcoming scheudle is filled with promising adventure games and some of the biggest oldschool adventure legends are coming back with new titles.

So the only "comeback" you might mean is popularity I guess. Modern adventure games are very profitable, becacuse they sell nicely, not huge numbers (a good one sells 300K-500K units), but they are cheap to make. Can they make a comeback and have multimillion selling titles? Nope, I doubt they can. They already tried once and it almost killed the genre.

They have found themselves a comfortable niche nowadays where they bloom in security and stability

AdrianWerner

Most of the "good" recent ones pale in comparison to older titles. I tried the new Sam and Max and it was just stupid--writing wasn't funny. A Vampyre Story, which I had been rather looking forward to ended up being pretty lame... Nonsensical/boring puzzles, crappy voice work, and a largely unfunny/uninteresting script. (I love vampires and they didn't even do that right)

When the next longest journey game coming out?

Lets pin all our hopes onto it!!!!!!!! :D

you could say oblivion was an adventure game, because the RP aspects were really loose.Jekken6

I cant see adventure games ever having the position they held in the early nineties again. PC gaming back then was a whole different animal with what I believe is a completely different consumer base.

There are still great adventure games being made occasionally but they will not rival a big budget FPS in terms of sales and popularity. I believe they do however have more chance of becomming classics that people will still remember and play 10...15 years on. Will people play Crysis then? Im not so sure.

Another Longest Journey game would be amazing ... but Mr Tornquist is busy with some weird ass stuff currently. Horror Themed MMO? If it works it will be amazing. Another Tim Schafer title would be great too, but hes also busy with something else.

More and more though good RPG's are adding elements of adventure games into their mix though which is great. The level and variety of puzzles is getting better and better and even side stories now can be very clever and witty in the same way adventure games are. All in all Im not sure the point and click formula is the way to go with adventures anymore.

Anyone play an old game called Azrael's Tear on the PC? That was an FPS game but was so much like an adventure game that it may have been better if it was! For an FPS I only remember shooting 3 times and even that was optional.

Genia

a lot of my love for adventure games is based on nostalgia and growing up with all the old sierra & lucasarts games and others like broken sword, legend of kyrandia, beneath a steel sky, flight of the amazon queen, discworld etc etc

as far as modern ones go the only one ive played is a vampyre story, and i just couldnt get into it, maybe because i no longer have the imagination i had 15-20 years ago or maybe because it was just crap. i downloaded the free sam and max episode a while ago and thought the same of that too.

as a genre its in bad need of modernisation but i imagine most devs would sooner not spend the time doing so on what would likely be a risk sales wise

with the average gamer seeking instant gratification nowadays, it is not likely they will be big, perhaps tho when this generation has run its course it may.

As it stands now most people (and yes I do blame the younger players), do not have a lot of patience, nor do they wish to train thier gray matter outside school.

They are the aim of most develepers, the movie market seems to have the same problems tbh, movies geared towards the younger audience tends to be fast paced over the top action with very little story or thought provocation.

So generally it just aint the trend to make people think anymore, a real bleeding shame... So Adventure games are great, one of my fav genres, but I simply cant see them make a breakthrough with an audience who thinks moveis like terminator or alien are too slow placed.

What undermines what I just said is that the average gamer is... ummm 27? in average tho, kind of strange since I though you outgrew the hunt for an adrenaline rush.

I hope that this change I miss good adventure games, (hopefully) with humor, that can break through on the big market, as opposed to now where they are mostly playied by a nieche audience (I suspect the Lucas arts fans of old ^^)

In a way tho Heavy rain gives me a small hope, that it may break the ice, and make adventure games a bit more sought after, altho it is not "quite" what I think of, when I say the word "adventure"

If the last games apart from Vampyre Story (which is meant to be rubbish) you played were the old lucasarts and sierra ones then please please go and play:

Grim Fandango and The Longest Journey.

They arent THAT modern but they arent of the first generation of original adventures either. But they are amazing and dont suffer from the meaningless pixel hunting puzzles that adventures started having. If you loved adventures then youll love these. And they might be dated but they are still just as enjoyable now as they were then (I played both in the last year for the first time and loved them despite old graphics etc).

make me a good sidescroller again...please, everything is first person now, someone do something differentCrocodile_Key

Uncharted:Drake's Fortune. Sure, it may not be for PC, but it is a great adventure game for PS3.Erik729