Nobody talks about or expects Half Life 3 anymore, but for a while other games took its place. Tuning into The Game Awards or other gaming advertising showcases, comments have been flooded with various memes over the years. Sora in Smash, Elden Ring, GTA 6, and Silksong have all had their moment in the sun. But this seems to be fading, so what does that mean?
All The Games We Were Waiting For Are Here
Sora in Smash eventually materialised, and it will be a while before we get a new Smash (and longer still before new characters begin being added). Meanwhile, I wrote in praise of the Elden Ring fanbase ahead of its release for the camaraderie in the community, but a new IP of that scope with equal parts momentum and mystery is unlikely to be repeated.
GTA 6 was next to be meme-spammed in every useless comment section, but that's since had a reveal and release window that feels so close we can taste it. There's also a little more entitlement from GTA 6 fans, as well as an impending culture war of wokeness, that stops it from attaining the charm of Elden Ring.
Next up is Silksong, and surely (any day now) this will be revealed and finally put to bed. Once that has a reveal, what do we talk about next? There are plenty of games coming up that I'm looking forward to (check the gallery below), but none of them have attained meme status. They're just games that will come out in the future and hopefully be good. Big deal.
My Most Anticipated Upcoming Games
It could just be that we're in a dry spell, and that the next big thing will begin being whispered about soon. But I doubt it. There's too much cynicism, too much desire for instant gratification, and we're too used to games taking too long.
Sooner or later, gaming is going to hit a wall or change its ways; an industry cannot survive on the biggest releases all taking six years or more to make. For players, indie games can fill the void, but for studios, it turns every game into a make or break (which inevitably makes them safer, which makes them take longer, which makes them worse). It might just be that this era is over, and the lack of chat spam is the canary in our coal mine.
Delays And Long Dev Cycles Mean Games Are Harder To Get Excited For
Of course, this was always extremely annoying. Maybe it's a symptom of being old enough to remember that when Chuck Norris does push ups, he pushes the world down instead of pushing himself up. But I've never understood the appeal of a 'chat' function where it's just a thousand people throwing words into the void to entertain themselves. The Game Awards has some way to go to reach the prestige it hopes for, and the fact it encourages viewers to tune in while teenagers spray random words in the bottom right corner is indicative of this fact.
So perhaps I am not an expert on this behaviour. I'm sure it will not stop. But it may well end up replaced by some other meme, Silksong and its ilk going the way of Chuck Norris Facts. There isn't a game ready to take Silksong's place, and I'm not sad because I'll miss seeing a game be spammed over and over, but because it feels like the end of an era.
We're no longer collectively waiting on That One Big Game because we're collectively waiting on all games. We know they take half a decade from teaser reveal to release date reveal, and then are likely subject to two or three delays. Games take too long for us to care about some far flung title in the future - they all live out there in the aether. Silksong will draw to a close the era of anticipation. We live in the era of waiting patiently. And if we can't get our hopes up, what's the point?
