I was trying to think of which games created certain mechanics that became popular and copied by future games in the industry.
The most famous one that comes to my mind is Assassin’s Creed, with the tower climbing for map information.
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Gothic had NPC pathfinding and behavior routines before Bethesda did it with Morrowind (and Gothic did it better).
Skyrim for the horse armor dlc.
I remember them having a sale on Oblivion DLC one time where the rest of the DLC was half-off, but the horse armor was double.
Oblivion was weird on DLC. Knights of the Nine was pretty good, and Shivering Isles was amazing. But they also had bullshit stuff like Horse Armour.
It was the beginning of the end, because they saw how much money they made on the horse armour vs how much effort it took to make it. It was actually generally criticized at the time, but it also sold really well.
That was Oblivion believe it or not. Ahh, the good ol’ days where everyone got up in arms over even cosmetic DLC.
I thought that the uproar about horse armor was that it was the first pay-to-win DLC. The armor was not just cosmetic but actually provided a stat boost to your horse. The accusation was that the developers had made it too easy for enemies to kill your horse and decided to patch the game to fix it but made players pay for the patch.
Lol you’re correct it did increase the health pool, but what I remembered most was the cosmetic aspect, I was young tho
My mistake you’re totally right there!
Kinda wild to see nobody mention System Shock, the game that invented audio logs. It may seem quaint in retrospect, but at the time all shooters were in the vein of Doom, and story in a shooter was considered “like story in porn.” System Shock was not only the first to communicate the plot and next steps to the player through found audio logs, but it also filled the player in on side stories and provided characterization to the survivors on Citadel station.
The game recently got a remaster, and despite very few gameplay changes, still holds up really well in 2024. You can really see the bones of later games in it, such as story focused shooters like Bioshock or F.E.A.R. and I’d really recommend it to anyone interested in playing a great retro game.
They also said popularized, though. System Shock never really got beyond cult classic status, so while it invented them, I’d say BioShock popularized them.
Rouge rougelike
Minecraft singlehandedly created a genre called “Survival”.
I think most of the games around 2005’s Indie Game Boom created lots of brilliant mechanics that’s been copied still.
Single-handedly? Nah. It pulled a lot of existing ideas together though, and it’s certainly responsible for the popularity. Another Minecraft influence is early-access.
Note: read “first” as “first popular/important”, not just for this thread but for most conversations across media like this.
Spelunky was the first “Roguelite” that brought permadeath with meta progression to another genre, starting the modern wave of Roguelites.
Pokemon kicked off “monster collection” as a mechanic
To my knowledge, Halo was the first major game to do regenerating health
Crush the Castle inspired Angry Birds and several other games with the same catapult mechanic. Loved that flash game way before Angry Birds was put on the App Store.
Minecraft for the fully breakable/buildable procedural open world.
Minecraft is far more responsible for the survival crafting genre that followed in its wake.
Minecraft Hunger Games, although a mod, is responsible for the Battle Royal hype aswell.
So Minecraft caused Fortnite twice - once as a survival crafting and building game and then as a Battle Royal retaining some of these elements
What’s the timeline on that mod versus the Battle Royale mod for DayZ? Because as far as I could tell, the DayZ mod is the true progenitor, but DayZ was itself inspired by Minecraft.
Day Z the standalone game was a result of Day Z the mod for Arma 2.
While Day Z (the mod) and Minecraft were in their early phases around the same time (i alpha tested both), I have never heard anyone say that Day Z was inspired by Minecraft, beyond the idea of it being possible for an indie game with a small development team being able to become a huge commercial success.
I couldnt find a release history for the Minecraft mod, however according to the following article, it was released about a year before the original PlayerUnknown mod for DayZ / Arma 3.
Warning: Cant decline cookies (at least in EU)
https://www.eurogamer.net/before-fortnite-and-pubg-there-was-minecraft-survival-games
It was more a server side plugin than a mod, but that only grew its popularity.
Even randomised loot existed around the map
I miss u bukkit ;-;
Also Mindcrack UHC, not sure if that came before the hunger games mods tho
Pretty sure the actual hunger games movie had more to do with that
As the inspiration yes. But Minecraft hunger games was the first to do it in gaming while also reaching maybe not more people than the movies, but definitly spreading to communities that the movies and books didnt reach (e.g. i didnt watch the movies until well over ten years after I had played my first game of MC hunger games)
I miss MC Hunger Games servers. Are any still around?
Battlefield 1942 introduced rideable vehicles to the maps.
Halo introduced regenerating health.
Dark/Demon Souls. Elden Ring
Rolling to evade incoming enemy attack.
Always thought it being a strange way to do this. Bloodborne and Sekiro dodges seem more realistic.
Hope Vaati explains.
I don’t know what game first came up with it, but Super Mario RPG was the first time I saw timed hits for attack and defense in a JRPG. While the mechanic isn’t exactly ubiquitous it has popped up in a handful of other games over the years and it always reminds me of that game.
This was definitely the first time I also remember this appearing, and it made it more engaging for me as a child.
Dune 2 for it popularized RTS genre. C&c to bring it to the masses
Donkey Kong (1981) popularized having different levels in a game to progress a storyline. Until then, you would have the same level over and over with increasing difficulty
Another one that comes to mind (that someone can correct me on). Was Uncharted the game that made the “no health bar, but redder screen as you are close to dying” popular?
Warcraft started an entire genre of games. Blizzard took that concept and created StarCraft, which spawned million dollar tournaments.
You mean RTS games? Warcraft is from ‘94, two years after Dune 2 was released.
I think he means Mobas or Tower Defense games
Yeah, however before Warcraft there was Dune II. But I am not sure which one was more popular at the time and I think Dune II came way before Warcraft.
I think why Dune II is more notable though is that the first Dune game was more of an adventure style came, not a strategy game. Then they changed the game with its successor and introduced the asymmetrical factions that each had a few unique units with differing strategies.
Warcraft took that concept further of course. But even there its rather Warcraft II that really had a big breakthrough.
