Categorizing is a very human thing. So much so that there is no aspect in this life that is compartmentalized by any label. Sports cars, utility vehicles, family cars, SUVs… the list is endless, as is also the case with video games where in recent years there are those who have needed to invent unpublished categories with the aim of fine-tuning as much as possible how to fit it into a standard understandable by all. the users. Do you think they have succeeded?
There are genres and genres
At the beginning of time, that is, in the late 70s and early 80s, it was when the need arose to offer different categories to this phenomenon that was being born from video games. And the solution was simple: as there were no referents to refer to, simple and quick definitions were chosen , incredibly descriptive without further ado. Fighting games, soccer games, action games, arcade games (for recreational games), platform games, intelligence games, adventure games, strategy games, role-playing games, etc.
Over the decades , video games became more complicated , mixing elements of each other, so these definitions quickly became quite lame. Can we really consider Tomb Raider an adventure game, or also an action game? It is in those moments that popular wisdom took control and began to generate its new plots in which the new releases would be placed. All, almost always, already renamed with the reference to a mythical game of the genre, which gives it more consistency.
Next, we are going to list those new ways of calling video games that you will be seeing on many websites and forums, or do you know what a metroidvania , a roguelike , a side scrolling or a soulslike is ?
Metroidvania
It is a type of game that only has a single and huge map that, unfortunately, we cannot explore at our whim . Some areas will be closed until, at a certain point in their development, we acquire an object that lets us pass. Obviously the greatest exponents of this genre are Metroid (by Nintendo) and Castlevania (by Konami), which give it its name, but you have other extraordinary examples such as Cave Story , Hollow Knight , Rogue Legacy, etc.
rogue-like
In these games there are two elements that are repeated: the maps or the enemies, or both, are generated randomly with each game, and one of the conditions is that our protagonist dies many times. But many, many. On some occasions because it is complicated and its difficulty curve is very high, and others because this mechanic is of paramount importance within the very concept of the game. Dead Cells , or Returnal , for example, are good examples of this.
Role play
Not to be confused with role-playing games, the RPGs of a lifetime. Here, the player completely adopts the role that he has to play within the story, as if he were an actor who gets into the skin of a Baywatch, a gang member, a millionaire or a sports star. It is very common to find these games within the online areas of some releases, on special servers, and the best known case is that of GTA V. World of Warcraft also has areas for the roleplay of its players and this aspect is usually noticeable in the audio chat when we talk to the other game partners pretending that we are another person.
soulslike
Surely you have heard that term at some time and the same has not been clear to you what it is… although in itself it gives enough clues. One of these soulslike is nothing more than a game that is as difficult as any of the Dark Souls that FromSoftware has released throughout its history. Very demanding titles, difficult for the vast majority of gamers and that guarantee us to die hundreds of times before reaching the final goal. If they don’t make you desperate… it’s because you don’t want to.
side scrolling
What have always been side-scrolling platforms are now known in this way. It is a way of updating a term that was already quite precise, but with the habit of anglicizing everything, it has ended up succumbing to that temptation. Examples of this genre are Xbox and PC Ori , Shovel Knight , Terraria and any old releases like Streets of Rage etc.