11 gaming trends the industry can lose or embrace in 2018
By Martin Benn
Embrace: In-Game Perspective and Gameplay Switches
Nex Machina, Nier: Automata, Doki Doki Literature Club, and Super Mario Odyssey, what do these games have in common? Each one took classic gameplay styles and flipped them on their head with dizzying combinations of different perspectives and gameplay sections.
Nex Machina takes the arcade genre to its zenith with perspective changes seeing both top-down and third person views seen in each world. The game itself pushes you to think beyond a few challenges by giving you multiple ways to approach and challenge yourself in each world.
Nier: Automata features long sections of side-scrolling combat, twin-stick shooter top-down play, as well as its general open world format you use to explore. It is a wonderful reason to keep going because you never know what section you will find yourself in next. On top of that, they threw in a “This time, on NieR: Automata” when you restart the game. It’s crazy time all throughout that game.
Super Mario Odyssey features segments that you play like classic Mario in addition to its open world style. Doki Doki Literature Club is literally the embodiment of games doing crazy things to shake up the styles they are confined to.
All of these games are just a few examples outside of the norm of what we’ve seen in games over the years in their elected genres, but it does not have to stop in 2018. I hope we get plenty of interesting perspective switches, gameplay changes, and quirky styles to keep us all too busy to worry about: