Have games stopped innovating?

Nathan Drake in a scene from Playstation 4's Uncharted 4: A Thief's End.

Why aren't new consoles ushering in new experiences? Siobhan Keogh takes a look at E3, where this year's biggest reveals weren't software-related, but hardware.

Of all the announcements at this year's E3 press conferences, the one that got the biggest reaction was a remake of classic role-playing game Final Fantasy VII.

I've written about that particular game multiple times, because it's my favourite game ever. And don't get me wrong - I'm thrilled that I'm going to get to experience it again in glorious HD.

But as E3 went on and more announcements were made, I had to wonder: have games stopped innovating?

It's not the first time I've had that thought, but it's the first time it's scared me a little bit. See, game developers tend to take big risks and release new blockbuster properties when there's a new console cycle. The original Xbox brought us Halo. The PlayStation 3 brought us Uncharted. These games introduced new mechanics and redefined their genres, heavily influencing the games that came after them.

What have the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One brought us that we haven't seen a hundred times before? What was announced this year that isn't just a remake or a sequel, but something new that would change the way we play and the way we view games?

The answer is a very depressing "not much". It wasn't totally bereft of fresh ideas: The Last Guardian is still happening, and there's always the massive procedurally generated No Man's Sky. But press conferences were mostly an endless parade of titles we're already familiar with. Another Dishonored, more Deus Ex, a new XCOM game. All great games, all based on a pre-existing formula.

Even new franchises, such as Guerrilla Games' Horizon: Zero Dawn, look somewhat familiar. I love the setting so far: a post-apocalyptic game where the apocalypse is in the distant past rather than just a few years ago. But the gameplay looks like any other recent third-person shooter where the main character has a bow and arrow. There have been more than a few of those. I guess the robot dinosaurs were pretty cool, though.

On introducing Horizon: Zero Dawn - a name that sounds as if it came from an especially dull game of mad libs, by the way - Guerilla Games' Hermen Hulst outlined the problem. A game development company is only really given permission (read: funding) from a publisher to produce something new about once every 10 years. To a publisher, games are not supposed to be new experiences that enrich the lives of the people who play them. Games are money.

For gamers, that can really suck.

The real disruption in the industry - outside of indie games, where there are new and cool things happening all the time - is happening in the hardware space. Microsoft's HoloLens Minecraft demo was incredible, and something I would like to try for myself right now, thanks. Oculus Rift introduced Oculus Touch, a wireless controller that feeds back when you reach out in the real world to try to touch virtual objects. Those things are creative, fresh, and could potentially change how we play games.

The software on display at this year's E3? Not so much.

There is one thing that gives me hope, and that's that other industries have suffered the same fate. Film is the obvious example - it's all sequels and remakes now and has been for years. But every now and then something stands out - take Mad Max: Fury Road, which managed to do incredible new things in spite of being a sequel. When I went to see it, I came out of the movie theatre saying, "I've never seen anything like that before." It had been a long time since I'd said that about a movie.

Eventually, the games that were announced at this year's E3 will be released. I'll be happy if there's just one that makes me say, "I've never played anything like that before."

- TimeOut