‘The past is prologue’ was a statement first used by William Shakespeare. Essentially, this means that our history defines the present and the future. This is certainly true for gaming and if we look to past trends, we can start to see a clear view of the direction this industry will take over the next few years. 

The Trends Of The Past

If you explore a flashback to 90s technology, you can see a clear trend in gaming and a pattern in how it is progressing. For instance, games are getting more realistic. We have gone from games like Pong to games like Red Dead Redemption where there are full breathing worlds just waiting to be explored. The way we control games is also quickly changing. From keyboards to controllers, we now have motion sensor devices to control our games. These are going to lead to more immersive experiences over the next few years. 

VR

VR is definitely going to play a massive part in the future of gaming. There’s just no way to avoid this concept, it holds far too much potential. This is beyond the fads that have come before such as 3D gaming. When used correctly, VR can provide the most immersive gaming experience. So, could we expect to see something similar to the world showcased in films like Ready Player One? Potentially not but those who thought VR was going to be abandoned are certainly in for a shock. Indeed, Sony recently noted that VR is on the way for the PS5 and we’ll get an update about this soon. 

Photo Realism

Photorealism is often considered to be a pipe dream by gamers. However, if you speak to developers, you’ll find that they have a rather different perspective of this possibility. Indeed, game developers believe that a photorealistic game could be a possibility in the next few years. Indeed, amateurs have already managed to create games that are quite close to this in programs such as Dreams. So, it’s just a matter of an AAA title achieving this goal. 

The End Of DLC?

There are probably quite a few gamers hoping that we will eventually regress back to the point where games were released to the market complete with no updates needed. However, this seems unlikely. Despite high profile failures like Marvel’s Avengers struggling to find the expected audience, developers and studios will continue to push this highly profitable idea. Indeed, it’s possible that this will become more prominent in the future because it’s going to be easier for developers to add key updates to games in the future. We have already seen this with online gaming and it’s possible that game development will instead become more fluid with games constantly changing over time. 

As you can see, there are lots of trends that could potentially dictate the future of gaming. We’ve come a long way in this history. Regardless of whether you are a game developer or a gamer, the advances have been impressive. But it looks as though the past might be yet to come.