You can reset a developer to their prime talent. Which developer would you choose?

Yes, it can be your Ubisofts, your Team Ninjas, Biowares, Rares, Bungies, Badthesdas, PlatinumGames etc. Can't name a developer that doesn't exist anymore, it has to be a dev in its current zombie state like Bioware.

Personally, its real difficult to not name Ubisoft pre 7th gen. Even tho i'd like me some quality stuff from Rare, Ubisoft has so many good ip's, and they were so good at what they were doing, i gotta go with my most hate followed studio for 15+ years - Ubisoft.

That's a good question. I had to think hard on this one. I would say Team Ninja. Ninja Gaiden Black was brilliant, while Ninja Gaiden 2 was merely 'good', not great. On the other hand, Ninja Gaiden 3 was a steaming turd. I wish they would make another Ninja Gaiden that was as good as Ninja Gaiden Black.

Playstation Studios

Used to be so good.

Now they are a mess

Bioware

Rare

Pre-Skyrim Bethesda

You can't reset 3 studios, bru. You ain't Jesus. Its one and one only.

Would be ruined by the publisher again in two seconds.

If I HAD to choose 1, it would be Bioware lol.

They have had the biggest impact on my gaming life and preferences.

I might've voted for them as well, but Larian is just like them at their prime, but superior in every way.

2014 and beyond Larian, I can kind of agree with that.

Rare on Nintendo were golden they have gone into hiding since ms signed them.

Konami back to the SNES days.

- Super Castlevania IV

- Contra III: The Alien Wars

- Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Turtles in Time

- Lethal Enforcers arcade

- Legend of the Mystical Ninja

- Sparkster

Peak Konami.

Naughty Dog

Nice trolling.

FROMSoftware.

What's all this "Souls" and "Ring" nonsense? I want my Metal Wolf Chaos 2, damnit!

Bro, this is about reviving a dev, not cursing them.

DICE. The current state of Battlefield is shameful. Same goes for the EA NHL team.

Ubisoft

Back when they made Rayman games, Splinter Cell, Street Racer, etc. Definitely a talent studio back in the mid 90's through 2006.

Definitely BioWare back when it was independent and the doctors owned it.

Once EA stepped in that was all she wrote.... Say what you want about me2 being published by EA, that was still developed under an independent BioWare until they were purchased and ea broke the developer.

There are so many companies that made incredible games in the past that are now sadly garbage. But if I had one choice for a company to be good again itt would be Rare.

If I could pick playstation as a whole (might be cheating as it's a publisher not a dev) I would. If we could have the variety, creativity and sheer gumption of the PS1/2 era right now in this day and age it would be truly overwhelmingly great. Heck even the faltering but still great ps3 era would be awesome.

If it had to be just a developer level; possibly Konami?

Post-Uncharted 2 Naughty Dog, he definitely has a point.

I mean, Uncharted 3 and after were just lack of creativity/milkage aside from TLOU 1 .

Developers are driven by other factors. Mainly consumers. The shift to what we have now is mostly consumer driven. No resetting for me.😊

Kojima Productions. Although their games still look and play amazing, I can't get behind the extremely convoluted stories and all the cringy/silly shit. I finished and loved every Kojima game except Death Stranding and MGS5. Their games don't excite me anymore. This makes me sad

Remember when The Last of Us Part 1 released on PC and it was panned due to being a horribly optimized mess?

Granted it has improved now, but they had no excuse to unleash such a poorly optimized product.

Also, 4 years in and we still havent seen a single Naughty Dog game. Their promised Factions game got cancelled.

Exactly. Naughty Dog peaked with TLOU1, and it has only gone downhill since. I want to bring Naughty Dog back to when they made TLOU1, before everyone quit.

@Maroxad: it's been almost 7 years since Rockstar released a new game. The last thing I can remember them releasing was the horrible GTA trilogy(remade by a 3rd party studio, just like tlou1 remake on PC). Based off your logic, are you willing to say Rockstar isn't great anymore as well?

None.

While it's sad to see studios fall from grace or get shuttered, that's the nature of the industry I guess and in many ways I've seen a lot of great (and dare I say better) studios fill in the void left by them.

Gaming is by far in a much better state these days than it ever has been, even with the terrible AAA business practices, and I wouldn't wish to revisit earlier times simply for the sake of nostalgia.

If I had to choose, I'd say Bioware as well.

Dragon Age, Jade Empire, Neverwinter Nights, KOTOR...even some of their "recent" games like SWTOR and yes even Mass Effect 3.

Blizzard!

@BassMan: Dice is a good one. Used to make better Battlefields, but also so much more variety. Mirror's Edge, Midtown Madness, Motorhead.

I kinda want to bring Amusement Vision back to the Super Monkey Ball/F-Zero GX era, but the remnants of that team are developing Like a Dragon these days. That's still a pretty good place to be.

Ok, I pick SNK. They have turned things around in recent years, but I would have them go back to making games with sprites in KoF XIII engine. Start with The Last Blade 3, then go from there.

I agree with @BassMan that Dice truly needs to come back hard...and they need to make Bad Company 3! It's the only way to bring back Dice.

Valve dude what the F!

Company of Heroes 1 era Relic would be awesome

I can't think of a single point I would ever consider Rockstar great... let alone decent.

RDR2 has good writing I guess but I never played it nor do I care to.

@Maroxad: lol ok. You're just full of terrible takes.

"I'll never consider a Ferrari great or fun cars, even though I've never owned or driven one."

I played several of their games. How the hell did you misinterpret what I said so badly?

They were always mediocre-poor in every area. Their last good game that I played from them was Vice City. San Andreas was quantity over quality, GTA4 had some of the most repetitive mission structure I have seen in a game, and RDR1 I barely played before I lost interest. After 3 bad games in a row, there is no reason to continue. Wasting my money on their mediocrity.

Naughty Dog used to push the Playstation hardware with the PS3 and PS2. Their games were superb too. Since TLOU1 we havent seen a single new IP from them in 2 console g enerations, they made 1 sequel to uncharted and TLOU. And besides a much lower output, the quality of their output has declined massively too.

Vice City had some good mission design, but that was the last time I played anything of them that was even remotely competent in a single area.

@Maroxad: to each their own I suppose, even though I think youre objectively wrong.

Every time Rockstar releases a new GTA or even Red Dead game, it shakes the whole game industry. Naughty dog has a similar effect, though their games don't sell nearly as much. How you see them as mediocre is insane to me

I was going to say Fromsoft, but then I realised they never had any prime talent to begin with 🤷‍♂️

Sony Japan Studio, Namco, Sunsoft, Treasure, Square, Natsume, Konami, Electronic Arts, Ubisoft, Psygnosis, Rare, Sierra, Westwood, Maxis, Epic, LucasGames, Exact, Interplay, Titus, THQ, Silicon Knights, Working Designs, Hudson, id, Gremlin, GameTek, Bullfrog, Apogee, 3D Realms, Cave, Eidos, Tecnosoft, Novalogic, Game Arts, Interplay, Core, Technos, Taito, SNK, Software Toolworks, Data East, Hi-Tech Expressions, Accolade, Activision, Ken Silverman

Agree, but...

"Can't name a developer that doesn't exist anymore"

@warm_gun: I'm a rebel, I don't care about rules

The last time Naughty Dog had a significant impact on the gaming scene was TLOU1.

Since then they have been significantly less productive. Not a single new IP in 2 console generations. 2 releases in 2 console gens, constantly porting over old games as opposed to new video games. And TLOU2 was nowhere near as relevant as TLOU1 was.

As for Rockstar. GTA's gunplay is complete rubbish, it lacks weight, the sound design is terrible, the aiming controls are woefully out of date, movement feels horrible, there is absolutely no satisfaction and that is just the gunplay. Don't even get me started on the Melee combat.

Probably Team Ninja. Wo long and stranger in paradise..... aren't great. Rise of the Ronin is almost certainly mediocre. The Nioh games were really good but...

Ninja gaiden Black still has a case for best game in it's genre almost 20 years years later, and while NG2 is worse overall, it's combat is better then 99% of games. Unfortunately combat in 3rd person games has mostly regressed since (thanks From Software)

Squaresoft

Zipper Interactive. Socom was ahead of it's time

Blizzard

I’d bring back Koei In prime. PTO II is my second favourite game of all time and I have the disk and no Sega Saturn.

PTO V sucked and was a far cry from the greatness of the earlier ones. Supposedly a new PTO is not being made because China does not approve of the topic, grrrr politics.

lol, objectively? Because they're popular?
They're not good. Naughty Dog are even worse.

As I've said before, McDonald's does not make the best burgers in the world.

Fromsoft, Naughty Dog, Polyphony to name a few. lol :P

McDonalds is a very apt comparison for Rockstar. Supposedly RDR2 had a good story. But we play games for gameplay, not for cinematics.

Rockstar games are popular but their games are spread too thin and do nothing well. A ferrari is a bad comparison, a better comparison would be an all you can eat buffet, where the entire table is filled with nothing but expired, undercooked or otherwise poor quality food.

I would say Blizzard just cause I was a huge d1 and d2 fan back in the day. D3 was okay but it definitely lacked the oomph d2 had. D4 is just something I dont care anymore.

As for the other games, starcraft and warcraft could need more work. Even wow has fallen off its grace, but its probably due to people not liking the mmo genre as much anymore. Actually, bring back the snes classics too. Blackthorne is too badass to be ignored.