Only Games I Would Break Down and Spend $70 to Play

The Next Generation is here and I'm in it and let me tell you: it's a lot like the other generations. But better! In some very key ways that I genuinely think are transformative.

But you know what legit sucks about this brave new future of play we've found ourselves in?

$70.

$60 was already kind of a lot and I'm actually surprised how many games I've bought at that price point over the years. I'm old enough to remember when $50 was the standard and then they all changed it to $60 and I was like "um" but went with it anyway because I'm a slave to capitalism.

But $70? Honestly, I feel like this may be the death knell for AAA game development as we know. I cannot imagine enough people will be willing to drop $70 on fucking ReCore 2: ReCkoning or Knack 3 or some shit. So eventually it'll all boil down to like twenty franchises that come out every year or every two years or something and those will be the only games anyone would spend that kinda money on.

Or more likely everything just comes out on Game Pass or Playstation Plus because that's the only reasonable compromise to this garbage.

Anyway, I decided to wrack my brain and see just how many games I am stupid enough to spend sixty-nine dollars and ninety-nine cents on. It's a small list. And some of them are games that either haven't been announced or just straight up don't exist.

List items

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  1. Final Fantasy VII Remake

  The next part/episode/sequel/whatever they call to this, which technically hasn't really been announced, but c'mon. I think someone at Square has said that they are indeed making the next one of these because of course they are, it's probably fair to say there will be, conservatively, 7,659 entries in this mini franchise within a franchise. And I would spend $70 on all of them.

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  2. Final Fantasy XVI

  Hey look! An actual game that's already been announced! Like I said, there's not going to be a lot of actual, announced games on this list because there aren't many games on the official release calendar that I will spend this kind of money on so far. But in 2020 I became a big ol' Final Fantasy shill, so yes, I will spend $70 on this thing.

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  3. Kojima Productions

  Whatever Kojima's working on next, I want it, I need it, I'll spend too much money it.

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  4. Dragon's Dogma

  2. The second one. This one occupies a strange space because everyone assumes there will be another one eventually and now with that huge Capcom leak, we know it's at least on the docket, which means there a design doc or a pre-Alpha build on a harddrive somewhere. I will spend $70 to see what that whole thing is.

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  5. Elden Ring

  I already spent $70 on the Demon's Souls remake, so obviously I'll spend another large chunk of change to see what the OGs are up to. Bloodbourne and Sekiro are masterpieces, so the expectations are frankly too high.

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  6. Yoko Taro

  Whatever this dude's working on.

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  7. Double Fine Productions, Inc.

  This one's kind of a cheat because I have a feeling that if the fine folks at Double Fine ever make another Big Game after Psychonauts 2, it'll probably end up on Game Pass anyway, so I won't have to spend $70, but let it be known: I would.

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  8. Respawn Entertainment

  Hands down the best dev team next to From Soft of the previous generation. Just an incredible track record and I will spend $70 on their next (not VR) game and even the one after that. Fallen Order 2, Titanfall 3, new IP, whatever, I'll take it.

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  9. Spider-Man 2

  Despite the fact that I bought and PS5 and have been essentially a "Pony" my whole gaming life... I kinda don't like most of Sony's games? From the last few years specifically. I used to be all about them. Loved the Uncharted games, Rachet & Clank, LittleBigPlanet, even the old God Of War games. But pretty much sense Uncharted 4, they've been real hit and miss with me. I mostly only like the stuff coming out of Japan like The Last Guardian and Gravity Rush 2. I liked Horizon a great deal, but I'm not particularly interested in another one (although, side note: the adaptive triggers on the DuelSense the the business and the idea of a bow-centric game utilizing that stuff means I will probably check out Horizon 2 {but also also: since that game may or may not also come out on PS4, it'll have to $60, so it's not that big a deal and has no bearing on this list}), and could not be fucked to care about God Of War at this point. I'll probably break down and check it out, but not $70. I didn't like that reboot enough and the more I think about it, the less I like it.

  That being said, I love Spider-Man and I love (most) of what Insomniac is doing with these games. Mile Morales is *better* than the first one for a lot of smart reasons, which gives me a lot of hope for the straight up full on sequel they are almost assuredly working on. I'll spend $70 on that, no problem.

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  10. Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart