Like every other industry, video games aren't immune to trends — battle royale, live service, NFTs, and more — but when all you see are negative trends sucking the life out of modern games, you're bound to yearn for the good ol' days. Many of you might never have played split-screen games with a sibling, desperately hunted for cheat codes, or unlocked characters instead of paying for them.

So here's my wishlist for the gaming trends of old that I wish to see make a comeback in 2025. I know wishful thinking doesn't count for much, but we can at least revisit a time when gaming didn't feel so dry and impersonal. Who knows, publishers might reconsider reviving some of these trends out of sheer desperation when not much else seems to be working.

10 Finished and unbroken games at launch

Is it too much to ask? Don't answer that

Expecting games to launch in a finished state used to be the bare minimum before studios got too comfortable with the "ship today, fix tomorrow" approach. And it's not like we've only seen broken and unoptimized games in the last 4 to 5 years. You can go back 10 years to find games like Assassin's Creed Unity and Batman: Arkham Knight that launched in frankly unplayable states.

Whether it's the worsening crunch culture, more meddling by the higher-ups, or the race to bring the product to market to appease shareholders, it seems like a miracle when a mainstream title launches without major bugs or content cuts. I wish we could get back to the time when you'd purchase a game and not wait for dozens of patches before developers made it playable.

9 Unlockables over microtransactions

It's just not the same

The sense of achievement you used to get after unlocking a special character or outfit after putting in the hard work can't be replicated by buying it for money. Many newer games still retain the older way of doing things, but countless others have shifted to making money off of every single unlockable.

Microtransactions represent an additional source of revenue for publishers, but they should be limited to indie and free-to-play games, not titles I pay $60-$70 for. More than questionable business tactics, the dependence on microtransactions robs the fun of unlocking stuff organically, as there's no effort involved in entering your credit card details. Here's hoping more developers increase the focus on the latter.

8 Mainstream studios taking risks

It sounds unthinkable today

It seems like ages ago that mainstream studios were willing to risk it with innovative new IPs or established franchises — Resident Evil (1999), Grand Theft Auto III (2001), Fatal Frame (2001), Uncharted: Drake's Fortune (2007), Assassin's Creed (2007), Demon's Souls (2009), XCOM: Enemy Unknown (2012), The Last of Us (2013), Alien: Isolation (2014).

We still see exceptions like God of War (2018) and Death Stranding (2019), but radical ideas and uncharted waters have largely been left to indie studios. Sky-rocketing game development budgets mean there's much more at risk in case a new idea flops, plus in the age of social media, it's hard to shake an initial negative reaction to doing something different. We can still hope big studios can sometimes do something other than sequels and remakes.

7 Split-screen and local co-op gaming

The source of endless childhood fun

I can't count how many games I cherish simply because of the blast I had playing split-screen and local co-op with my brother. Whether it was balancing racing and combat in Blur and Split/Second, mashing buttons in Tekken 3 and Dragon Ball Z Mugen Edition 2, or beating each other to death in WWE RAW Ultimate Impact, almost all our gaming sessions were spent playing against each other.

Before we discovered intense single-player, story-driven games like Dead Space, Crysis 2, Assassin's Creed 2, and Deus Ex: Human Revolution, split-screen gaming felt integral to our gaming experience. Over the years, there has been a void in terms of decent split-screen games. It Takes Two and A Way Out are exceptions to the rule. As multiplayer gaming has completely moved to online PVP and PvE modes, I don't think split-screen is on the radar of any developers or publishers.

6 Cheat codes

Cheating can be fun too

Before people take out the pitchforks, I'm referring to the death of cheat codes in single-player games. If you remember entering specific key combos in Road Rash, Test Drive 5, GTA V, or even Batman: Arkham City, you'll agree that cheat codes have largely fallen out of favor in modern games. The enjoyment of using cheats to get ahead in a single-player game was rooted not in easing the difficulty, but in wreaking havoc.

When you can unlock infinite ammo, nitrous, and health, you can fully spread your wings and experience a sandbox in all its glory. Sure, you can reserve these shenanigans to a separate save slot while playing the game as intended in another one. Both approaches can be enjoyed equally, but the point is that developers aren't giving cheat codes their due in modern games.

5 More mainstream puzzle games

Still waiting for the next Portal

When Valve launched Portal in 2007, it felt revelatory that a puzzle game could garner such acclaim and adulation. Of course, its connection to the Half-Life universe and the backing of Valve played a role in the success, but not every offbeat idea from a big-budget studio takes flight. Hence, it's a bit "puzzling" that we haven't seen too many mainstream games except the Portal sequel.

Titles like The Talos Principle and The Turing Test are quite similar but neither have captured the imagination of gamers quite like Portal. Maybe AAA studios don't think gamers have the appetite for puzzle games outside the indie scene, but I'd like to believe that isn't the case.

4 More car combat games

Need for high-octane destruction

If you cheered at my earlier mentions of Blur and Split/Second, you've tasted the unadulterated fun car combat games can be. Fans of the Carmageddon, Twisted Metal, and Demolition Derby series might sorely miss similar titles in this era. I don't believe we got any mainstream car combat game after Wreckfest in 2018.

Vehicular combat games are some of the most adrenaline-spiking experiences you can play. Combined with split-screen or local co-op, they can help create some of your strongest gaming memories with your friends and siblings. Upcoming games like FUMES and the Screamer reboot give me some hope for this genre.

3 Owning games forever

Ubisoft isn't the only one

Day by day, gamers are expected to become more comfortable with the iconic sentiment "You'll own nothing and be happy." In stark contrast to owning game discs that could be played forever if you had a compatible console or PC, we're now dependent on publishers keeping a game alive that we've already paid for. Unexpected delistings and deleting games from players' libraries are practices that are becoming more common as companies make decisions seemingly on a whim.

Live-service games, subscriptions, and always-online games have eroded the notion of buying a game once and owning it forever. At this point, you're just buying a license to a game that could be removed from storefronts after a corporate diktat. This concerning trend isn't exclusive to the gaming industry, so I sincerely hope people's overarching backlash manages to reverse it to some degree.

2 Storytelling that respects the player

Deeper narratives are few and far between

I still maintain that the best stories are told in gaming, not movies or TV shows. The degree of interaction and immersion is unparalleled in any other medium. However, over the last few years, the emphasis on a good story as one of the essential elements of a video game has taken a huge hit. Chasing trends, squeezing every last penny from gamers, and next-gen visuals have taken centerstage.

The games I personally rank among my all-time favorites have one thing in common — solid stories that bring goosebumps even years after the original experience. It's not that we don't get excellent stories in gaming these days, but the few exceptions are vastly overshadowed by a slew of superficial and repetitive titles. The days of nearly every mainstream game having a killer story are probably gone forever.

1 Games that don't feel like a second job

I came to play

For younger audiences and those just picking up gaming as a hobby, video games might not feel like a chore, but it sure does to me. Gamers who are now managing a job and a family, and find it hard to take out time to play games will agree that gaming feels too much like a second job. Installing a new launcher & creating a new account, troubleshooting performance issues, grinding for hours doing repetitive missions, and keeping up with endless live-service updates — all of this together gets overwhelming.

I want to unwind in the little free time that I have left, not feel compelled to tick things off a checklist. Maybe I'm too old for gaming, or maybe games have stopped targeting a wider audience, focusing on those with shorter attention spans. Here's hoping we make gaming fun again in 2025.

Gaming is an evolving (sometimes devolving) medium

While we want to make our complaints heard, games and gaming companies are constantly trying to decode what works and what doesn't. Amid over-inflated budgets, layoffs, studio closures, and questionable practices, everything can be traced back to keeping the business going. In this struggle, companies often take things too far and forget to listen to the community. If we share our problems constructively, developers and publishers are sure to take notice. After all, they need us to stay afloat.