Remember the middle of the nineties? First person shooter or FPS really wasn't a term, only thing that existed was... "Doom clones". The reason was simple, Doom absolutely changed the way to play action games, both tech-wise and game design-wise with its level design, its weapon balance, its fast-paced gameplay, and most importantly, its innovative tech that allowed devs to fake complex 3D worls by using very complex algorithms to display projections of 2D elements to give the impression of 3D, but with an incredibly smooth and fast rendition, unlike those older turn-based dungeon crawlers.
The result was that everyone wanted a piece of that Doom cake. Brilliant games like Heretic, Blood, Shadow Warrior, Dark Forces, Rise Of The Triad, Marathon, Duke Nukem 3D. In a fairly short amount of time, a lot of "Doom clones" appeared, with many devs who were merely doing side-scroller or top view games suddenly realizing the insane potential of the first person view, starting to develop there and effectively make themselves a name there. Now historic devs like Bungie, 3D Realms and Raven Software made themselves a name thanks to what they could do with the Doom's revolutionary tech.
Fast-forward to 2018. PlayerUnknown's BattleGrounds, or PUBG, is a game that sold close to 40 million copies in 12 months (not counting mobile versions) between PC and Xbox. There are millions of players playing every day on PC alone. What is arguably the biggest non-mobile game on the planet right now, Fortnite Battle Royale, was put together quickly to answer to that success story. Since then we also had all kinds of games copy that formula, one that wasn't that new per se but that PUBG popularized beyond imagination: games like GTA V, Dying Light, and soon behemoths like Call Of Duty, Battlefield and even The Division probably offering something of the sorts, not to mention the specific BR-games like Radical Heights.
PUBG has been out for less than 13 months, and yet, its legacy created what is the biggest non-mobile game out there right now, it inspired games already cashing in BILLIONS like Call Of Duty and GTA to make a gamemode based on it, there are tons of clones, unrelated games throwing in Battle Royale experiments. Fans of all games are talking about the potential of Battle Royale in their games. A Battle Royale game like Fortnite is the new rage among kids and actual news channels got used to mentioning it per name like Minecraft.
If I think about it, there isn't much else I can think after Doom that had a similar impact. Perhaps Super Mario 64, but that only really pushed games that were already platformers to try the 3D route, you didn't suddenly have, say, RTS games going for that Super Mario clone. Gears pushed the cover-based shooters, but it didn't have such an insane impact. GTA and Assassin's Creed, to mention two, had a great impact on adventure games since a lot of them moved to open world, but in many cases it was a lot more gradual change - Zelda, Tomb Raider, etc. all went that route over a decade after GTA 3. Some zombie games like Call Of Duty's own mode and Left 4 Dead pushed the zombie craze, and games like ARK subsequently pushed survival elements which surprisingly impacted even games like Tomb Raider, but I don't feel that any of those games got such an insane recognition and deep inspiration on all game developers.
So... is PUBG the most influential game in the past 25 years, given the kind of legacy it's giving to Battle Royale games and how it's impacting totally unrelated triple-A games like GTA, Call Of Duty and Dying Light on such a short notice? Was there anything more influential in these 25 years in such a short amount of time? If so, what?
QUICK EDIT: Let's try and not turn this thread into how good or bad is Battle Royale or how original are other games. Let's try and think about what games could have had a bigger and faster influence than PUBG in the past 25 years.
The result was that everyone wanted a piece of that Doom cake. Brilliant games like Heretic, Blood, Shadow Warrior, Dark Forces, Rise Of The Triad, Marathon, Duke Nukem 3D. In a fairly short amount of time, a lot of "Doom clones" appeared, with many devs who were merely doing side-scroller or top view games suddenly realizing the insane potential of the first person view, starting to develop there and effectively make themselves a name there. Now historic devs like Bungie, 3D Realms and Raven Software made themselves a name thanks to what they could do with the Doom's revolutionary tech.
Fast-forward to 2018. PlayerUnknown's BattleGrounds, or PUBG, is a game that sold close to 40 million copies in 12 months (not counting mobile versions) between PC and Xbox. There are millions of players playing every day on PC alone. What is arguably the biggest non-mobile game on the planet right now, Fortnite Battle Royale, was put together quickly to answer to that success story. Since then we also had all kinds of games copy that formula, one that wasn't that new per se but that PUBG popularized beyond imagination: games like GTA V, Dying Light, and soon behemoths like Call Of Duty, Battlefield and even The Division probably offering something of the sorts, not to mention the specific BR-games like Radical Heights.
PUBG has been out for less than 13 months, and yet, its legacy created what is the biggest non-mobile game out there right now, it inspired games already cashing in BILLIONS like Call Of Duty and GTA to make a gamemode based on it, there are tons of clones, unrelated games throwing in Battle Royale experiments. Fans of all games are talking about the potential of Battle Royale in their games. A Battle Royale game like Fortnite is the new rage among kids and actual news channels got used to mentioning it per name like Minecraft.
If I think about it, there isn't much else I can think after Doom that had a similar impact. Perhaps Super Mario 64, but that only really pushed games that were already platformers to try the 3D route, you didn't suddenly have, say, RTS games going for that Super Mario clone. Gears pushed the cover-based shooters, but it didn't have such an insane impact. GTA and Assassin's Creed, to mention two, had a great impact on adventure games since a lot of them moved to open world, but in many cases it was a lot more gradual change - Zelda, Tomb Raider, etc. all went that route over a decade after GTA 3. Some zombie games like Call Of Duty's own mode and Left 4 Dead pushed the zombie craze, and games like ARK subsequently pushed survival elements which surprisingly impacted even games like Tomb Raider, but I don't feel that any of those games got such an insane recognition and deep inspiration on all game developers.
So... is PUBG the most influential game in the past 25 years, given the kind of legacy it's giving to Battle Royale games and how it's impacting totally unrelated triple-A games like GTA, Call Of Duty and Dying Light on such a short notice? Was there anything more influential in these 25 years in such a short amount of time? If so, what?
QUICK EDIT: Let's try and not turn this thread into how good or bad is Battle Royale or how original are other games. Let's try and think about what games could have had a bigger and faster influence than PUBG in the past 25 years.
