Modern AAA gaming is broken. Let’s not sugarcoat it. Between studios abandoning their in-house engines, a blind obsession with photorealism, and forcing shallow diversity into their games, it’s clear the industry is spiraling into mediocrity. And frankly, it’s infuriating.
Unreal: The Lazy Studio’s Crutch
Why bother innovating when you can just use Unreal Engine? That seems to be the logic at play. Instead of investing in their in-house tools—built over years by talented engineers—studios are cutting costs, firing those engineers, and shackling themselves to Unreal Engine. Sure, Unreal is powerful, but it’s not a magic fix-all.
Unreal’s Hidden Costs
- Unoptimized Messes: Most studios don’t bother tailoring Unreal to their needs. Instead, they shove unoptimized assets into the engine and hope players won’t notice the stuttering, frame drops, and ballooning system requirements. Spoiler alert: we notice.
- Shader Stutters Everywhere: If you’ve played any recent Unreal-based game, you’ve probably encountered these frustrating stutters. It’s as if studios can’t even be bothered to compile shaders properly.
- Reliance on Default Tools: Features like Nanite and Lumen are impressive, but they come at a massive performance cost. Instead of balancing these tools with actual gameplay considerations, studios chase jaw-dropping visuals for trailers and leave players to suffer the consequences.
And why? Because it’s easier. Easier to slap together something shiny and call it a day. Easier to show investors pretty screenshots than to invest in actual game design.
The Photorealism Obsession
Let’s talk about photorealism. Studios are so desperate to make games look like blockbuster movies that they’ve forgotten how to make them play well. Beautiful landscapes mean nothing when they come at the cost of fun, responsive mechanics.
Photorealism isn’t inherently bad, but when it becomes the only focus, it’s a problem. AAA studios are throwing performance, gameplay, and innovation out the window for visuals that barely hold up a year later. This short-sightedness is killing the soul of gaming.
Forced Diversity: Missing the Point Entirely
This is where it gets truly maddening. Representation in games is important—but what we’re getting isn’t representation. It’s tokenism, plain and simple. AAA studios are tossing in shallow characters of color, LGBTQ characters, or other minorities, not because they care about genuine inclusivity, but to check a diversity box and shield themselves from criticism.
The Reality
- Shallow Characters: These characters often lack depth, personality, or relevance to the story. They exist solely as marketing props, devoid of meaningful arcs or relatability.
- Distracted Narratives: Instead of crafting compelling stories, studios prioritize plastering their diversity quota across trailers and press releases. This approach cheapens the very idea of representation.
- Backlash They Deserve: Players aren’t stupid. We can tell when a character was added for optics rather than authenticity. Tokenism like this doesn’t celebrate diversity—it trivializes it.
Diversity isn’t the problem. The problem is the lazy, half-hearted way it’s being implemented. Great games don’t force representation—they earn it by making characters feel real, regardless of their identity.
Bloated, Lifeless Games
AAA games today are bloated husks of what they could be. Developers are cramming in massive open worlds filled with nothing but repetitive tasks, collectibles no one cares about, and hours of uninspired cutscenes.
Open Worlds Done Wrong
Open-world games used to be magical. Now they’re just big for the sake of being big. Studios brag about the size of their maps while failing to populate them with anything meaningful. What’s the point of exploring when there’s nothing worth finding?
And let’s not forget the Cyberpunk 2077 launch disaster. Here was a game hyped as the pinnacle of open-world design—something revolutionary. Instead, we got a buggy, unoptimized mess that barely functioned on consoles. NPCs with no real AI, a world that felt lifeless despite its neon glow, and countless broken promises.
- The AI Illusion: CD Projekt Red sold us a vision of a bustling, living city. What we got were NPCs walking in circles and cars that couldn’t even navigate around the player. The illusion shattered the moment you stopped to look closely.
- Performance Nightmares: The game was practically unplayable on older consoles, plagued by crashes, texture pop-ins, and laughably bad performance. Optimization? Clearly an afterthought.
- Rushed to Market: It was painfully obvious Cyberpunk was shoved out the door before it was ready, all to meet a holiday release window. The result? Refunds, lawsuits, and a permanent stain on the studio’s reputation.
But the real betrayal came later. Instead of learning from their mistakes, CD Projekt Red announced they’re ditching their in-house REDengine—the very technology that powered The Witcher 3, one of the greatest open-world games of all time. They’re moving to Unreal Engine 5, like so many other studios, because it’s “easier” and “streamlines development.” Translation? They’re cutting corners and laying off the people who knew how to maintain their engine.
This trend of abandoning proprietary engines is another nail in the coffin for creativity and performance. Unreal Engine might be a powerful tool, but it’s designed for generalization, not for creating deeply optimized and unique worlds. Moving to Unreal is a cop-out—a way to churn out prettier games without addressing the deeper problems plaguing the industry.
Cyberpunk could have been a masterpiece, but instead, it became a cautionary tale of what happens when studios prioritize marketing over making a functional, enjoyable game. Sadly, it’s not alone—this trend is becoming the norm for AAA open-world titles.
- Copy-Paste Quests: How many more "fetch 10 items" quests do we need? It’s lazy, uninspired design.
- Pointless Cutscenes: Games are not movies. Stop wasting our time with endless, poorly written cinematics.
- Shallow Engagement: An open world should invite exploration and curiosity, not bore players with repetitive tasks and meaningless collectibles.
Players deserve better. We deserve worlds that feel alive, that invite exploration and reward curiosity—not hollow shells propped up by pretty graphics and empty promises. CD Projekt Red and studios like it need to stop chasing industry trends and start making games that are worth our time and money.
The Money Grab
And then there’s the monetization. Microtransactions, live service models, overpriced DLC—studios are more interested in nickel-and-diming players than delivering a complete, polished experience. It’s disgusting.
AAA Studios Have Lost Their Way
What happened to the passion? The creativity? AAA studios are no longer run by visionaries—they’re run by suits chasing trends and cutting corners. They’ve laid off the talent that could innovate, abandoned the engines that could set them apart, and replaced art with algorithms.
This isn’t just a problem—it’s a betrayal. A betrayal of the players who made this industry what it is. A betrayal of the developers who poured their hearts into creating truly great games.
The Solution? Stop Settling
We, as players, need to stop settling for this nonsense. Stop buying broken games. Stop supporting studios that treat diversity as a checkbox. Demand better.
AAA studios, if you’re listening: It’s time to wake up. Bring back your in-house engines. Write characters that feel real. Optimize your games. And for the love of everything good in gaming, remember why you started making games in the first place.
This has to change. Enough is enough.