These days, gamers want less, not more.

Big game developers are running out of ideas.

Well, actually, they’re not so much running out of ideas as they’re starting to run out of ways to take the same idea, but put a new spin on it. They’ll sit there and go “well shit, we’ve already done ‘shoot the bad guys in this country,’ so maybe we’ll take the bad guys and go to space instead.”

But the problem with that is, well, consumers are getting really sick of it. Like really sick of it.

Look at any comment on a video announcement for an upcoming AAA game and you’ll see, most people are keenly aware they’re being force-fed some weird mutation of something they’ve already played. It’s like tossing new upholstery onto a 1992 Toyota Tercel and acting like it’s a brand new car.

Yet the opportunities for new growth are always stunted because many of the average consumers are wary of things that are outside of their comfort zone. The reason games like Call of Duty and Battlefield are so insanely successful is because, although it’s the same dog with the same tricks, that dog is really nice. He’s a little old, yeah, and sometimes he shoots the protagonist in a big shock moment even though that moment has happened three times in a single series, but you still love hanging out with him.

But with the arrival of newer consoles, a fresher approach to these kinds of games is arriving in full force. The one that immediately comes to mind as a more stripped down approach to the FPS is Alien: Isolation. Gone are the tropes from Colonial Marines where you have an automatic weapon and a bunch of guys to help you kill a bunch of aliens, and instead you’re one person stuck on a ship against one Xenomorph.

One Xenomorph who moves through spaces trying to find and kill you, who listens to the environment around it trying to find and kill you, who smells the air for signs of you so it can find and kill you. Basically, it wants to kill you.

That’s an approach that feels new, even though it’s really not. You against one foe whose only goal is to kill you? That’s something familiar to, well, anyone who has seen Alien.

More people are starting to pay attention to the ideas of minimalism in games. Where the goals and approaches are simplified, yet done well. Take the upcoming No Man’s Sky, where you search and discover planets created in a procedural universe. That’s something that could be layered on to again and again, but it doesn’t need to be. It is what it is, and people want that.

I think this is a new approach to gaming, and one that is very welcome. Because frankly, that Toyota Tercel is starting to break down a little, and I’d prefer maybe a bike at this point. Something that gets me from A to B, and actually lets me enjoy my surroundings while I make my way there.