What type of game do you want to play that doesn't really exist?
Have you ever played a game and wondered what if you could do something that it doesn't really allow you to do, for example being able to move around blocks in Minecraft fluidly instead of in sectors, edit the world in Hogwarts legacy with spells, be able to fly in a world like Elden Ring or Elder Scrolls with epic sky battles, have a sims game that simulates more than just sims needs, but whole economies, or a dystopian horror game set in a Minecraft style world. So I was wondering if anyone else had similar ideas for games or fantasies for possible games?
What's your ideas for games that doesn't really exist, or might not even really be possible to make?
I had an idea of a game where you played as a photojournalist documenting the brutality of a near-future totalitarian regime. There would be elements of stealth because you’d have to evade the police to take your photos and you have pretty much no combat ability. You’d use your earnings from selling the photos to gradually upgrade your equipment, maybe starting off with a shitty cell phone camera and working your way up to professional quality full frame SLRs. I’d want it to simulate the workings of a real camera… f-stop, shutter speed, ISO, etc., so you’re challenged with getting good, usable photos in difficult conditions.
Something with environmentalist and sustainability goals and principles rather than forms of destruction. I don't want to kill things or chop down trees or blow stuff up. The world is difficult and I am tired.
Search and Rescue game. I'm not really a pacifist, I don't have a problem with violence in games. But it would he nice to have an action game that didn't involve slaughtering endless waves of mooks for a change.
There's plenty of adrenaline, skill and gear porn to be had in the genre, so why don't we see more of it?
A lighthearted and colorful Soulslike RPG with actual multiplayer. I want to run around in a BotW/TotK style world and go adventuring with friends, while still feeling like the combat is challenging. I want to be able to head into a dangerous dungeon with friends and not be sure we'll make it out, while having a more storybook fantasy vibe. Too many game opt for gritty apocalypse worlds. The recent Zeldas show that you don't need to go grimdark to have a compelling fantasy world, while still retaining a save the world vibe.
I would like a language learning video game which is set up as a MMO, and you "reverse" level. You start with massive equipment because you need it to be able to fight the learning monsters, but as you get more proficient you get hit less(fewer mistakes) and do more damage (faster language entry) so you can start dropping equipment. So the monk running around in a loin cloth is the goal. All sorts of multi-player interactions are possible around setting up conversations, handling larger readings, etc.
Something like RDR2 but focused on the life sim part. Instead of narrative driven game where your main action in the world is violence, go all in on the simulation part with actually working economics, job choices etc.
I want to be a lumberjack hauling wood to the local mill via the river, not a bandit robbing every passer by. Also, I should be able to buy high heels from the big city store.
Sealed room murder mystery, with no quirky characters. And with puzzles that require you to wiki stuff.
RPG that takes place outside of western European / American / Japanese setting. I wanna see games that take place in Korea, India, Africa
RPG that takes place in a small city where you can interact with most people, a small open world like Kamurocho (maybe larger), but allows interaction with most people, instead of just handful of quest givers.
Igavania but with modern sci-fi settings. Shadow Complex exists, but that's more metroidvania (no leveling up or equipment drops from enemies)
Flight simulator but for road trip. Truck simulator but with real world map data
Flight simulator but for underwater exploration, with real world data.
PS3 Africa, but expanded to more regions, more animals.
God of War, but other mythologies, e.g. Egyptian, Chinese, South East Asians, Africans, Polynesians, etc.
One limitation that games like Civ suffer from is that diplomacy is ultimately pretty shallow because there can only be one winner, so even when you're building alliances or trading relationships it is generally to gain some temporary benefit until you are in a position to defeat your partner later on (whether militarily, scientifically, etc).
What I would love to see is a multiplayer game like Civ but where each player has independent win conditions (so that a game could have multiple winners, or no winners). The condition could even just be to attain a certain level of happiness or wealth. And if you achieve that then you win even if other nations are bigger or stronger, and conversely if you don't achieve it you lose even if you are the last nation standing. So decisions to go to war, or focus on technological development, or build alliances or trading relationships, etc, are driven by the wants and needs of your own people and not just a need to dominate others.
I'd love for something like a watchmaker simulator to exist. You'd get broken watches, and you'd be tasked to take them apart, clean them and fix them up. Basically, something very similar to those almost ASMR videos on youtube where someone restores those completely broken things into a pristine state.
I just want a high quality horse game. Is that so much to ask? :( Apparently so.
And I mean, specifically focused on the horses, not an adventure game with unusually well done "horses as cars" like RDR2 or Zelda BOTW. A "girly" horse game, like one where you take care of and breed horses and participate in horse jumping or whatever, or one where you ride a horse around a forest and it has an actual personality and acts like an animal and not just a mode of transportation (Shadow of the Colossus is the one game I can remember feeling anywhere close to this, and even that was very minimal).
It's maddening because the minute someone makes one it'll sell like hotcakes - there are so many horse enthusiasts dismayed by the lack of quality horse games just waiting in the wings - aaaaand yet here we are. Sigh.
I want a historically accurate trading simulation set in the early modern period: I want a multitude of ever-changing regional hard, soft and bookkeeping currencies, also bills of exchange, individual units of measurement for each product, paying in kind, putting sth. on the cuff, installments, various per item or volume based taxations, tolls, tithes, tenure, social privileges, staple rights, scheduled trade fairs, regulated fixed prices, lot sales, return freight, regulated transportational services, craft and trading legislation, significance of saint days, city level legislation, guilds and other corporations, the very relevant concepts of honor, contemporary obligations of social responsibility, familial structures and needs for a network of professional connections, monasteries as large economical entities, etc. pp.
All tycoons I have played just reproduce a shallow version of our current concepts of money and trade and skin it with historical images without even trying to research the historical setting they're in. They add complexity in many other ways that don't focus on trade (i.e. combat).
No fighting. No leveling. No building. Just trade.
I want a Persona game but with the characters in college instead of highschool.
Maybe Shin Megami Tensei has older characters? But the problem is the vibe is so different. A lot of anime/manga with older characters go for a completely different tone. The friendship and family theme heart of the Persona games, and the hopefulness, is essential to me. I just want some of that hope for but targeted at adults for once.
Imo "adult" aimed media often has a real problem with conflating maturity with misery and sex. I know I'm not the only one who feels this way because it's gotta be part of why so many adults still read YA books and play games with precocious teenage protagonists.
A game like the mainline Sims series, but better developed and without EA's involvement. I'm aware there's projects like Life By You and Paralives, but neither of those are publicly playable as of now, and until they release there's no way to truly tell if they'll actually be any good.
Although at this point I don't think they can be much worse than the current status quo.
I'd love a city builder based on making gritty industrial cyberpunk megacities, with plenty of verticality and layering. You know, the places where there's nothing but concrete, steel and neon for kilometers both horizontally and vertically, and a colonies of mutant cannibals fighting against giant rats in the derelict areas near the bottom.
A RPG type game where you play as a single character, in a world of simulated NPCs, where some of those NPCs are playing something like a 4x or grand strategy game in the background and things happen independently of your actions.
I think I want a game featuring Aztecs, Mayans, Incas and / or Olmecs (hell, any "New World" civilization) in a city building, RPG or RTS setting. Not enough focus is paid to what happened in South America or American southwest
Ever since I was a kid I have wanted a Pokémon game with real-time action combat that approximates the fight scenes in the anime, not only incorporating movement and dodging but also counter-moves like using fire attacks to nullify Razor Leaves.
A survival game akin to rimworld, banished or project zomboid except food is insanely realistic. Crops take ages to grow, hunting a deer should be a massive victory that secures you for a while, you could become nutrient-deficient by only plowing down heads of cabbage, and so on...
I just want a vehicle game that is open world, with roads and trails, the vehicles don't have to be licensed. I just want to travel and explore, basically a road trip simulator. The Crew, Forza Horizon, and NFS Heat/Unbound are the closest I can get, I don't care for the density, just distance. This is why I know that it will never be a reality, because without having mechanics, would make the game boring to many.
Basically a remake or continuation of Fuel (2009), I really enjoyed the vastness of the world, it wasn't anything really special, but to me I had so much fun exploring and seeing the distance of the massive world(5,560 square miles/14,400 square kilometers). The many regions around the map were diverse and there was 16 player multiplayer where others just popped in and out as you moved around, I didn't really care for it much, but it was fun for group road trips or adventures.
A game like Stray, but with actual mechanics and that's difficult where you actually need to git gud at. I'd like the world be even more like a maze, both horizonal and vertical (like Kawloon Walled City), that isn't strictly linear, but has many hidden ways to be completed. Basically what I want is a Stray-Dark Souls hybrid.
I've always wanted something that takes an RPG (JRPG a la Final Fantasy or Western RPG a la Fallout) where the economy is real and active. Like, if I go out and grind to get 9999 of some valuable resource and just dump it on some poor merchant in some tiny town and sell them all and buy all other resources, that should have a noticeable impact on the local economy. Or that there are trade routes between towns Town A specializes in weapons while Town B specializes in healing items. Then you can support them by facilitating trade between towns or you could "be evil" and create larger imbalances in market demand. I don't know, it's just a super nerdy idea.
Black & White 3. Just more Black & White, slightly updated and improved since technology is better, but it doesn't have to be much better. Just a little bit. But basically more of the same.
A game with a truly completely fluid magic weaving system where you can casually levitate spoons around the corner and then liquify that spoon into a pool of metal and finally having a spoon-elemental emerge. Magicka comes really close, but even there you have pre-defined spells with specific effects in addition to the "3 stone 1 fire 1 arcane" stuff. I can't just magically slap on a conjured knife onto my fire elemental.
Bonus points if the magic system is gesture-based like in Arx Fatalis.
I want a GTA style game set in the early 1900s Lovecraft world mixed with a procedural world builder like Covert Action had. So the overall world would be set but the inside of buildings and tunnels and etc as well as the overall story would change. Then release DLC for each of the Great Old Ones that each came with 6-8 major plot lines. With 8 player coop. No lazy pvp bs. PvP can be included but it's not the focus so as to not give a shit about anti-cheat or stat tracking on a master server.
Then implement a scab system like in tarkov but for cultists. You turn PvP on and a cultist can come play in your game doing things.
A game where you're in the Star Wars Universe and it's open world and you can walk around and interact with people and if the people on that planet aren't doing it then you can get in your Millennium Falcon or any other SW starship and cruise on over to the next planet.
Basically, No Man's Sky on steroids with a Star Wars skin.
An MMO where is truly feels like player versus environment and not another pawn versus environment. Stop having 300 people deliver the one lost ring to the same npc for days at a time. I think one way to do it is to provide a general prompt to GPT models and have them generate a few hundred similar but different quests that get assigned per player. But also keep track of these generated differences to weave a story. Make there be more npcs than players.
I love beautiful environments and such, so if I could pick anything that wouldn't exists based on something that does exist, I would make a 3D or even VR version of this old Korean 2D sidescrolling game called Maplestory.
Not gonna lie, that's going to be 99.9% nostalgia, but it has a couple of awesome areas that have amazing backgrounds and thoughts behind it. Like typical magical forests, dungeons, cloud cities, but also a lego-gone-interdimensional city where time is weird.
True MMORTS with persistent non-instanced map and PVE content.
IMO best example was Ballerium developed by Majorem ( but game doesn't exist anymore ) - on graphical level looked like WC3, on PVE side there were monster encounters and monster pack migrations that you could engage or had to run from
A strategy/management sim where you are a Madam running a brothel. Lots of ways to take it-- set it in different places/eras to signify how far under the radar you have to be, change your regime from harsh to compassionate, build out the brothel itself, recruit talent (ethically or unethically), decide if you want to theme the establishment to attract a certain clientele-- lots of interesting things you could do with the setting!
X-Men Turn Based RPG kind of like Suikoden. You have a huge world you wander and recruit members. Your school grows and expands the more people you recruit, and you can build a team using any 6 characters you have recruited.
Give me something like The Matrix Online again. I want missions/quests that are unique. Only one person/team can complete them. Failing is an acceptable outcome and has ramifications for the rest of the story. You would absolutely need writers and asset artists on staff as old things content gets completed. Let the players make content as well a la Eve Online where factions vying for control of territory IS content. This fills in the blanks between the written stuff.
Kerbal Space Program crossed over with factorio/satisfactory. Basically building worldwide factories over several planets and moons and travelling between them by using the harvested materials and minerals.
It seems like that's something that they are going for in KSP2, but the concept is vague and the game is quite delayed and the uncertainity is huge. So I am not optimistic that it will ever be close to what I want.
With really great action combat like dragons dogma or monster hunter.
with multi class and equipment build system like dnd or Diablo.
That's it, just a really good 2d rpg with action combat. I have been furiously chasing this, and anything even kind of influenced by darksouls or that is a roguelute doesnt count.
Pokemon GO hit it uses the real Pokemon battling mechanics in all battles (including wild encounters) instead of the dumbed down system currently in use. Catching and even monetization can remain the same.
I mean, Ubisoft basically has every resource needed for this, but I'd like to see a DLC or gamemode where you can play like in GR:Breakpoint and the mobility of Watch Dogs in The Division. It's absurd not being able to climb certain obstacles, but that's also an engine problem.
I also would like more storytelling in-game, having to listen to audios and ECHOs, while entertaining, it's not enough and can confuse you.
simultaneous two-player jrpg where each of us plays our own character following our own story-line but our story lines intertwine throughout the game. either of us can jump in, play our story, grind, etc, and sometimes we can't progress without the other person. sometimes we have to team up to defeat bosses, etc. but ultimately it's a single world and requires both of us to play to beat the game. once beaten, we can replay as the other character to experience the game anew
I have been really searching for an immersive FPS space sim centered on survival and building. Yes, I know space engineers exists and I've pumped many hours into it, but it just doesn't satisfy this specific itch I have. One of the main mechanics I would like is you have to salvage derelicts for parts to cobble together a working ship where you can eventually work your way up to manufacturing new parts to build ships. Think of it almost like Rust + Space engineers + ship breaker in a way. I've wanted this for so long I started learning have development to try and make it come true!
You get to actually modify cars "by hand" swapping out or repairing individual components and the chassis can get bent up by big wrecks, you can buy new or used cars and tear them down and build them up and just cruise the world do street or track racing, demo derby etc. It's all extremely rough but conceptually it's the best thing ever, you really get to "own" a car and experience the highs and lows associated with that.
The closest game with any amount of polish I've played is Test Drive: Eve of Destruction you buy cars at the junkyard and take them to demo derbies, they need to be repaired upgraded etc and they have permanent damage from big hits.
Obviously there is My Summer Car and Mon Bazou both great games but they lack a racing centric gameplay loop and MSC in particular is too hardcore to be a mainstream game.
I want Master of Magic but modern. I want all the same style of gameplay (squares, not hexes) with similar art style (not grimdark browns) but uprez to modern resolutions (still pixel, but tiiiiny ones). I don't think turn based strategy with tactical combat is popular enough right now to justify it.
I want World of Warcraft but it's an actual role playing game. It's not. It's got roller coaster dungeons and the main characters are putting on a stage play, not actually there. They hide main characters when they're not needed or inconvenient. There are so many Plot-By-Stupid writing mistakes. I don't know if it's possible to create a world that actually seems plausible (not realistic, but plausible). I want to love the story of Warcraft again, but it's been years.
I want a game that doesn't get corrupted by rich executives trying to squeeze every last dime out of people, but has the fidelity that large resources allow. I hate microtransactions, even if I don't use them. I play games to get out of the world and its disparity of incomes and being poor. People running around with things I'll never buy just reminds me that rich people are there.
@hzkvskd an actually good, deep Fantasy sandbox PvP #mmo
Fans of the genre will be aware of the problems and the failures.
Mostly/specifically the existing ones don't provide structures to prevent griefing. And building some boring hut but having no meaningful interaction with others is something you can just do in Minecraft.
A VN/RPG that has romance and doesn't make it an after thought. Like in most persona games or fire emblem games or even like mass effect. When romance is a thing, once you hit that we're a couple button that's pretty much it.
But then VNs represent the opposite end of the spectrum where you make the decision to pursue someone and that's it, the entire narrative shifts to completely focus on that. I want a middle ground, where there is one structured narrative that asks the question "How might chasing down the big bad change if this person versus this person was the person most important to the main character"
Like for example of you wanted to woo the nerdy tech wizard, following his or her story might involve tracking down parts and materials to improve tech and brace against the coming of the bbeg. On the other hand of you want to romance the overeager hothead it might involve trying to take the fight to the bad guys while saving puppies and children along the way. Completely different paths with the same end goal of defeating the bbeg.
Here is my idea massive multiplayer ; from the top you have civilization game feeding strategic objective to a command and conquer player who's feeding tactical objectives to battlefield players. You could branch out to integrated logistic games with the same kinds of levels. From factories to train tycoon to truck simulator.
My friend and i dreamed up a Zoids mmo, whered youd create a pilot and could fully customize a zoid. Itd have a huge open world with places to explore and fringe pvp areas where good loot was. It would have arenas where pro matches would be held from mlg players or whatever and youd be able to watch the streams live either at the stadiums or through streams on in game tv's. Winners would get real cash prizes.
A true investigative horror experience that requires actual deduction. Phasmophobia is kind of close, but I'm talking about real investigative work with a multitude of threats all around the world. Xcom, mixed with SCP and Phasmophobia.
I want Stellaris or something similar but in VR. I want to spin the galaxy around and resize it to zoom in and out with my hands and pluck cruisers and point them to the right place, I want big tactile sliders and stuff for controls, spaaaaaace
I've been thinking about an ARPG based around World of Warcraft's mythic dungeons.
Scalable, multi-player, enhanceable instances where completion of more difficult versions of the instance rewards in better gear and crafting options.
The idea is that the content is created for a 5-man party (1 tank, 1 healer, 3 dps) but you can try solo it, or bring up to 20 people to massively increase the difficulty and the rewards. Instances would follow WoW dungeon's formula of trash mobs (which drop crafting materials and have rare drop chances for certain gear) pathing you towards a succession of bosses with very different, complex mechanics with stages, signaled abilities, and skill requirements.
This would include a character levelling system to unlock new class abilities and mechanisms, a party finder system, certain dungeons locked behind character level and the completion of other dungeons at a certain difficulty level. Perhaps you could extend it to add in "world bosses", massive 200-man bosses with a chance at particularly unique loot, but of course that would require a certain level of infrastructure and a game population making it justifiable.
I want several parts of several games merged together. I want DF's level of complexity, set in space, with parts of Elite Dangerous and Star Citizen, and a more comprehensive system of adjusting power to systems. Like I want to be in a big battle and if I get damaged on the right side, I have to actually route power through undamaged systems in a more complex way than just "weapons, shields, engines" with no regard to the power conduits in your ship that may or may not exist after a big hole's been blasted in ya.
I want to capture the essence of the random shit the crew says in a fight in Star Trek, without it just being a simple flip of a switch. I want "fake science" that I can perform... Like sending various forms of energy through the deflector dish to do stuff. I can't even really describe it because it's one of those things that really isn't even possible with a modern video game. It would require dynamics that I don't think you can code with traditional systems; it would need quantum computing or some kind of AI to create new elements of the game on the fly.
I always wait for a game where you manage a remote Starbase and the main part is to put together Spaceships out of parts made by yourself or salvaged from fights. So you repair and build them out of a limited amount of parts and assign them to your pilots, give them patrols or mining missions etc.
I want to know what Jet St Radio for the Wii could've been. Apparently one was tossed around, but at the end of the day was rejected. Tbf, this was 2006~ Sega, and it probably would've been trash. But I will still never not be curious about what could've been.
A real time RTS with proper command and control and fog of war. So like, you don’t have perfect information on where your units are, let alone enemy units, where you have to contact the units on the ground and request that kind of information, and also manage to communications system you’re using to maintain contact.
Radio commander does something a lot like this but I’d like something a bit more in depth and comprehensive.
A “legacy” game, where your contributions to the game continue even if you’re logged off, meted with an mmorpg
It could be anything, but my idea is something like cities:skylines. Interconnected cities or areas each with a mayor or admins that direct the goals of the area..
Then the 2nd aspect of the game is more like GTA, where people interact with the areas.
The areas could be like San Andreas, but then you could walk to the edge and it becomes more like a village from Warcraft. Or maybe an area is filled with ghosts and most of the goals in the area are delivering packages. Or maybe there’s an area like Sanctum 2, fallout, or any other idea. It would be up to the admins/mayors to figure out how to design it.
The game would fill in gaps in city creation for random encounters, etc. the in-game players actions would have some effect on the area itself.
I would expect the game to support itself through a combination of ads and subs. Companies could pay to have more control over what advertising exists in their area.
A game like Hunt Showdown, an extraction based game set in 1895 Louisiana, fighting other hunters on the same map to get to the bounty (a boss that everyone goes after) and extract.
Imagine that game, but set in something like in the Star Wars world, With lightsabers and blasters in dagobah or tattoine, going after a boss like Darth Maul or Yoda, while every other bounty hunter is going for the same target.
Games that lets you explore beautiful and fictional worlds in VR. Kinda like Minecraft but not with voxels, not a survival game but have some sort of game loop to keep you going. Or a puzzle game like Myst but with bigger and explorable maps, perhaps a “home” to decorate with trophies you found in other worlds (ACNH style?)
I just want a chill game in VR…
Welp, I tried to find the video for like an hour with no luck. But I think it was made by the Rocket Jump guys at some point. It was a live action video of a video game like fps where there are two teams. One person spawns on each team and goes on to the map, trade gun fire until one dies then time resets and another person spawns on each side, BUT the other player still does what they did last round, runs out and trades gun fire. But the newly spawned guy kills the enemy that shot tge first spawn guy before that happens. Breaking the first spawn guy out of his preset loop, and they are now coordinating.
Very cool concept. If anyone knows the video please help me find it. Told a friend about it yesterday. Must have been filmed at least 8 years ago now.
Ever since the pandemic, I wanted a multiplayer skateboarding game where the social aspects of it are just as important as the mechanics so you can hang out with your friends and skate in a way that feels authentic to doing it in real life. Instead of having a plain multiplayer lobby, you could have an apartment you could decorate that you guys could hang out in before you pick the map. You'd be able to sit on your skateboard or chairs and benches to get out of the way-or also to be an obstacle if you wanted. It would also be pretty cool to edit a map in real-time by having some items be movable by the players, like kickers. The maps would vary between skateparks, street skate spots, and DIY spots that have been modified to be more skateable. There could be a couple NPCs you could skate with if you don't have any friends online, but they would be more predictable in how they behave. There could also be NPCs that are purely obstacles, as well.
A hybrid of dagger fall and Minecraft. Open procedural generated world rpg with npcs that give quests but a semi hand designed main quest. Crafting with loot found in dungeons to either kit out my character or sell for profit. Sell me a plot of land in town I can build on or a house I can modify. With real rpg mechanics