The video games industry has grown and evolved in leaps and bounds ever since its inception. Millions of gamers all around the world find refuge in their favorite video games and keep an eye out for the latest innovations and pieces of news deluging this industry. 2020 saw a meteoric rise in video games and gamers, with the pandemic forcing people to stay indoors. While some people experienced a newfound interest in playing video games, some had the opportunity to hone their skills and pursue gaming all over again. Therefore, a gaming saga that started in 2020 has been continuing well into 2021, and more people are now interested to keep an eye out for the trends that shall dominate the industry over the next 12 months.
Having said that, let us now look at a few of these trends over the length and breadth of this article and stay better informed.
It is expected that the first few months of 2021 shall see game developers using their creativity to their best and bringing in fresh ideas to the table. Therefore, now that we have spoken in brief about what could be expected from the video game industry in 2021, let us move on to discussing the trends in more depths and details.
A Prolonged Era of the Retro Hardware Revival:
Retro hardware and consoles have risen to sudden popularity over the last few years, and it is expected that 2021 shall prolong the trend. Mini consoles from Sega, Nintendo, Sony and the like have found new users over the last few years. However, 2021 is expected to bring in new contenders to the scene of retro hardware and classic consoles. The Atari VCS and the IntellivisionAmico are supposedly making an entry in the April of 2021. These consoles shall serve as a reminder of the early 1980s, which was a golden era for glorious video games.
Open World Adventure Gaming Shall Take the Center Stage:
The second trend in the domain of video games that shall dominate the better part of 2021 is open-world adventures. This type of gaming shall take the center stage and in ways that were unfathomable before. Open world adventures would earlier be based on a structure that we were all too familiar with. However, 2021 is expected to be the year when this format shall be upgraded and how! Narratives of these games shall become more nuanced and are also expected to make use of NPCs and advanced AI. This shall give players more freedom and control over the game and determine how the gameplay shall pan out.
Horror Gaming Shall Be On the Rise:
Horror games always come to the rescue when times seem bleak and uncertain. Be it the 1950s or 1970s, when nuclear wars and a period of recessions took over the world respectively, horror fiction has always come in a welcome relief and posed as a means for catharsis. Therefore, it needs little mention that 2021 shall see a resurgence in horror gaming after a pandemic-stricken year. Some of these games that are all set to take the video game industry by storm are The Medium, Resident Evil Village, Returnal and Evil Dead. After living through a period of online and mobile gaming on safe sites like https://www.slotsformoney.com/mobile/, it shall be nothing less than a relief to bust some lockdown stress with horror gaming.
Extended Reality Gaming Shall Have a New Lease of Life:
Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality have found significant use in the gaming industry over the last few years. However, 2021 seems to be the year of extended reality games and shall propel the same into the mainstream. Hitman 3 is going to help gamers sign up for missions in a much more physical manner, and there shall also be a wave of retro gaming with VR and AR. Facebook is also expected to release its Project Aria technology in 2021, which aims at incorporating AR technology into Tony Stark glasses. If you have no qualms about handing over your sense of reality to Mark Zuckerberg, this might definitely be something to wait for with bated breath this year.
Summing Up:
These are just a few of the many trends that are all set to inundate the video gaming industry in 2021. The pandemic has paved the way for a whole new generation to take up gaming, and as a result, more people are now interested in following the trends in this domain and set their consoles to the tunes of these trends. This is not an exhaustive list, and there are, of course, several other trends that you might want to read up on and watch out for. However, the ones that we have mentioned in the article are definitely some of the most important ones and shall pique the interest of any avid gamer.