the most prominent trends affecting gaming right now, selected by THE 35 EDITORS OF PC GAMER
Blockbuster busts, underdog breakouts
The 'fear with friends' genre is fantastic
The extraction shooter second generation
Upscaling is becoming a system requirement
Blockbuster busts, underdog breakouts
A saturated gaming market (39 new games per day on Steam in 2024) has created a vibrant but crowded environment where games of all sizes are competing for pockets of attention. Some big-budget games like Star Wars: Outlaws, Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League, and Concord (which was shut down after just 11 days) underperformed hard in 2024, raising questions about the viability of traditional service games. In parallel, unexpected hits like Helldivers 2, Content Warning, Balatro, and Lethal Company have defined the last year.
PC GAMER COVERAGE OF THIS TREND
GOOD & BAD
VERY POSITIVE
beneficial
unclear
Good & Bad
Concerning
Detrimental
Trend identified: January 2024
Japan falls in love with PC gaming
The future of gaming belongs to weird little games
Is Concord the biggest live service failure of all time?
Content Warning is rapidly climbing the Steam charts
Video featuring: Evan Lahti (Strategic Director, PC Gamer), Tanya X. Short (Captain, Kitfox Games), Dave Oshry (CEO, New Blood Interactive)
Japanese PC Gaming saw another year of explosive growth
Metaphor: ReFantazio review
Japanese games are kicking ass on PC so far this year
PC GAMER COVERAGE OF THIS TREND
Video featuring: Serena Cherry (Social Media Editor, GamesRadar), Mollie Taylor (Features Producer, PC Gamer), John Famiglietti (Bassist/Producer, Health)
Metaphor: ReFantazio, Palworld, Tekken 8, Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree, Kunitsu-Gami: Path of the Goddess, and Like A Dragon: Infinite Wealth, comprise hot streak of Japanese standouts in 2024. After generations landlocked on consoles, Japanese publishers have embraced PC as a primary platform in recent years and have gotten significantly better at optimizing their games toward PC's diverse hardware, further eroding the walls of platform exclusivity.
Trend identified: June 2023
Japan falls in love with PC gaming
VERY POSITIVE
Remnant 2's upscaling settings are more necessity than nicety and players aren't happy
Best graphics cards in 2024
FSR 3.1 vs DLSS showdown
PC GAMER COVERAGE OF THIS TREND
Video featuring: John Loeffler (Computer Hardware Journalist, TechRadar), Jacob Ridley (Managing Editor, PC Gamer)
When the technologies debuted beginning in 2022, DLSS and FSR were miraculous: ways to deliver higher fps, effectively for free. A few years later, these features are being now seen by developers and publishers as something that should be required as standard for a good gaming experience. New games are in some cases requiring GPU-based upscaling to be used in order to achieve desired frame rates. The first hints of this trend emerging coincided with the ultra-demanding Cyberpunk 2077, and solidified further with releases like Starfield.
Trend identified: July 2023
Upscaling is becoming a system requirement
GOOD & BAD
Hands-on with extraction shooter Exoborne
My most anticipated extraction shooter of the year just launched
Arc Raiders could be the extraction shooter that finally brings the genre to the masses
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Video featuring: Jake Tucker (Editorial Director, PC Gaming Show), Dean Hall (CEO, RocketWerkz)
A second wave of new extraction shooters is visible on the horizon. Beautiful Light, Marathon, ARC Raiders, Arena Breakout: Infinite, Exoborne, Ascendant, The Forever Winter, and Outlawed are all hoping to be the last one standing on the genre's map in 2025-26. Fantasy extraction games are expanding too, following in the ironclad footsteps of Dark and Darker. Each of these games iterates further on the get-in, get-out rhythm of Escape from Tarkov and Hunt: Showdown, games that descended from PUBG, which itself grew from Arma 3's modding scene.
Trend identified: August 2024
The extraction shooter second generation
BENEFICIAL
Phasmaphobia is far from the same game you played in 2020
Steam smash hit Content Warning has sold over 700,000 copies
Co-op horror game Lethal Company costs $10 and is outselling Call of Duty
PC GAMER COVERAGE OF THIS TREND
Video featuring: Bryan Wynia (Studio Creative Director, Tripwire Interactive), DieHardDiva (Digital Creator, Gaming & Lifestyle), Elie Gould (News Writer, PC Gamer)
In an era where Discord and crossplay are ubiquitous, players' have an unprecedentedly strong preference for "co-op hangout" games. The pandemic seemed to accelerate the interest in a more specific subset of socially-compatible horror games, led by Phasmophobia in 2020, and later by Lethal Company, No More Room in Hell 2, Content Warning, and Nuclear Nightmare. Other than their unique sandbox nature, one design aspect these games have in common is that they tend to center mundane-but-tense tasks over combat, if they feature weapons at all.
Trend identified: December 2023
The 'fear with friends' genre is fantastic
beneficial
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