This decade is wrapping up and that got me to thinking of my favorite games of the decade. Then, that led to me thinking of some of my favorite developers of the entire decade and who I thought really stood out as the decade progressed, or just games they developed that I loved as the decade went on too.
The decade had some stand out developers and some developers that just released their first games more recently that have a bright future in general, like Studio MDHR with Cuphead, ZA/UM with Disco Elysium, Night School Studios with Oxenfree and Afterparty, Giant Sparrow with The Unfinished Swan and What Remains of Edith Finch, Thatgamecompany with Journey, and many more that I am sure I am missing.
Naughty Dog
In the 2010s, Naughty Dog created a new Intellectual Property that crushed the world with The Last of Us and also ended their Uncharted series with an emotional ending with Uncharted 4. Uncharted 4’s DLC pivoted to be a full-fledged standalone game, Uncharted: The Lost Legacy where you play as Chloe and Nadine, from Uncharted 4, walking around with you. So, Naughty Dog was quite revolutionary in beginning and ending things.
Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception released in 2011 and kicked off their decade with a great game and a great trilogy of PS3 games. Drake’s Deception won multiple and countless Best of 2011 awards. It also is regarded as one of the best games on the PS3, behind a game they also teased in this game; The Last of Us.
The Last of Us was developed simultaneously with Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception. One team worked on The Last of Us and another worked on Uncharted 3. They teased The Last of Us in Uncharted 3 and the hype began for a new game with fungi-centric enemies. The Last of Us is my favorite game of the PS3 era. The characters, the relationships between these characters, and the gameplay all are masterfully crafted into this perfect game. The DLC, Left Behind, tells the story of the backstory of Ellie and is the DLC Naughty Dog worked on. The DLC is a perfect extension of The Last of Us story.
Their last set of games released this decade were Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End and Uncharted: Lost Legacy. Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End was a perfect cap to end the Nathan Drake saga of the Uncharted series. It has a perfect story to end the saga, the epilogue is probably the best epilogue I have ever seen to end a series’ arc. I remember going into my roommate's room saying how amazing it was. They did not care too much, but that is how much that hit me.
Naughty Dog this decade has transcended the title of just a Sony first-party developer. They are now regarded as one of the best game developers in the industry today with the experiences created this decade; Uncharted 3 & 4 and The Last of Us.
Rockstar Studios
Rockstar began the decade with a spiritual sequel to Red Dead Revolver, Red Dead Redemption in 2010, highly regarded as one of the best games of the PS3 and Xbox 360 generation. Two years after, they released Max Payne 3 which was nominated for many awards during the video game award season.
However, their biggest game of the decade came out a year after, not even on the PS4 and Xbox One. Grand Theft Auto V came out to perennial acclaim and is regarded as a juggernaut in the game industry still. Every month GTAV is still in the top 10 video game sales. They have constantly updated the online service for the game, Grand Theft Auto Online, making it a joy to continue to keep playing every few months to see what is new.
Their last release of the decade was Red Dead Redemption II in 2018. This game had the hype attached to it because it was Rockstar, but also because it was a beautifully made game in general. Sure, it can’t be for everyone, but it still had 10’s across the game industry. Red Dead Redemption II was nominated eight times at the 2018 Game Awards and won four of those awards and won many Game of the Year accolades around the game industry.
Rockstar Studios has always been amazing, but this decade they have made some of the best open-world games and both have elevated in aspects of storytelling in our culture past a simple video game to me. Their next decade could bring more excellent feats of video games, but we shall see.
Insomniac Games
Insomniac Games released quite a lot of games this decade, especially the first half of the decade. They started the year off by finishing off the Resistance trilogy in 2011. But their main title Ratchet & Clank; released a total of four games. Most of these games, All 4 One and Full Frontal Assault, were project type games to experiment with different mechanics. They did not pan out so well which lead to the 2016 release of Ratchet & Clank; a remake of the first game to make the tone align with the other games in the series.
They also experimented with different publishers since a majority of their games were published by Sony before the 2010s. They released Fuse with EA being the publisher, they released a Metroidvania style game titled Song of the Deep with Gamestop’s publishing company, the GameTrust. The cult classic of their games not published by Sony, Sunset Overdrive was published exclusively by Microsoft.
However, they went back to Sony with the exclusive release of Marvel’s Spider-Man in 2018. Spider-Man finally elevated Insomniac into the acclaim they deserve. It won a few Game of the Year titles in a year with God of War and Red Dead Redemption II but more importantly was praised with the fluidity of being Spider-Man, which is heavily refined from Sunset Overdrive.
Throughout the decade, they also experimented with Virtual Reality and created exclusive games for the Oculus platform which showcases just how versatile Insomniac is as a whole studio, instead of just being known for crazy and fun shooters.
They have finished off the year by being acquired by Sony Worldwide Studios to be a part of their first-party lineup for many years to come. So, overall their decade has been pretty interesting as a whole studio; fluctuation of publishing experiments, genre testing, and finally reaching the heights with Spider-Man.
Sony Santa Monica
Sony Santa Monica only released three games this decade, but have also reinvented their biggest franchise with excellence enough to be recognized as one of my favorites this decade. They released God of War III in 2010, capping off the saga of Kratos and his goal of revenge. It received many awards in 2010 and is a great way to end this saga… But they didn’t. They released a prequel in 2013, God of War Ascension which was not well received as much as the other God of War games. The character of Kratos was starting to get bland. You can only do so much with an angry character.
In 2018, God of War returned to form and reimagined Kratos and made him a character you truly cared about more so than his revenge. The game was a continuation but fully reimagined. God of War 2018 is regarded to some as the game of this console generation. The game won Game of the Year at many different media outlets, including The Game Awards and beat out a previously mentioned game, Red Dead Redemption II.
To begin the decade with a game like God of War III and ending it with another game like God of War PS4 is remarkable for a studio. To completely get the feel of the previous two games so well mastered with III, then completely reinventing your series to make it more accessible is insane and a heck of a comeback story in a way after the disappointment of Ascension.
Capcom
Capcom has released many, many games this decade. However, they were not what they used to be. Until the second half of the decade really. Big titles like Dragon’s Dogma and Dead Rising 2 were quite special early in the decade. However, Capcom was just another developer of games that did not reflect well into what the fans wanted for their most famous series. The reception for Resident Evil 6 has mostly been awful and not anything like a Resident Evil game should be. People wanted a sequel to Devil May Cry 4, but they instead got a reboot game that didn’t pan out so well among Devil May Cry fans.
In the second half of the decade though, Capcom started to become the juggernaut of fandom as they used to be. In 2015, they released a demo called The Kitchen that would later utilize VR. A year later at E3, they revealed that to be Resident Evil 7. The gaming world erupted. A first-person VR Resident Evil game that is going back to the horror elements of the series. The comeback was beginning.
Capcom rethought another one of their series, Monster Hunter. This mindset was to make the game have more of a worldwide approach instead of a Japanese centric approach. Monster Hunter: World became Capcom’s best selling game as a company with shipments surpassing 14 million in October of 2019. So, I think that mindset to reinvent a decade-old series worked out pretty well for the development team.
Their next big release was Resident Evil 2 Remake, which was revealed in 2018 at E3 after a few years of non-updates on its development. It is a remake full-heartedly using a camera like Resident Evil 4 instead of the locked camera the original used. It has surpassed the sales of the original Resident Evil 2 and was in contention for the Game of the Year award at The Game Awards this year.
Finally, Devil May Cry 5 was announced at Xbox’s E3 conference last year to astounding surprise, even with hints that it was happening prior. The game was received gloriously well and has an 89 on Metacritic as people said: “it was a return to form for the series”. It also won the Best Action Game at The Game Awards.
Capcom has been on a hot streak over the past few years with other games even not listed like Mega Man 11 and previous Monster Hunter entries. However, these four main games have proven that Capcom is now back in the fold of great developers of the industry.
These were just some of the developers I believe deserve recognition for their efforts in the game industry this decade. Thanks for taking the time to read! Until next time.
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