In the years and months leading up to the release of Starfield there existed a vague buzzword whispered across social media platforms: game of the generation. It was not only mentioned when describing what Starfield would be like if it were the "game of the generation", but what it would be like if it were not. What if all that hype and media marketing collapsed beneath the weight of its incredulity. In the earlier days of Starfield the quality seemed a foregone conclusion, but years later we know it to be a house of cards built on questionable facial animations and fast travel.
But the buzzword remains: game of the generation. It feels reductive to break down gaming into such large sections as generations, seeing as gaming generations can last upwards of a decade and lead to technical results that vary so wildly that you wouldn't know they were developed for the same console, but I thought it a buzzword worth repeating and adding a question mark to.
What are some games that you feel were the very best that their generation of gaming had to offer? Were they titles that occurred so early in a console's lifespan, or games that acted as the capstone to an otherwise comparable video game generation? For me the two that come to mind are Undertale and Baldur's Gate 3, Undertale being my favorite game of the Xbone/PS4 generation, and Baldur's Gate 3 setting such an astronomically high standard for the RPGs of the next generation that it is almost guaranteed to one-up whatever game dares succeed it.
Last edited: