Can we please drop the blind hype?

Mysterious beast

I hope I wont be so long with this message, but its one I think needs delivery no matter how I put it. It comes after this years E3 as people were disappointed with Sony for not showing us anything on the Last Guardian.  Team Ico has made two big PlayStation 2 hits. Ico, and Shadow of the Colossus. Their 3rd one is running into some serious trouble, and it was supposed to be the one that elevated them into a new era when it seemed promising. Here is what was revealed on it. Nice, but no gameplay sadly. Another trailer exists, but its very similar and again has nothing mechanical or in game shown off. The world hasn't played a brand new game from this praised artistic team since 2005. Still that's not exactly a shocking statement despite its context. There also hasn't been a new entry in Acclaim's Turok since I was in late elementary school. There hasn't been a new Doom game in about 6 or 7 years. There hasn't been a new true Spyro game since like the year 2000. F-zero fans have been shunned the last generation as well, and StarFox has been around for about 20 years but only one game within that time has seriously kept it on the map. Games come and go, and so do teams, and sometimes there can be long waits in between a game entry. Thankfully we've learned to be skeptical about that situation, as something has clearly gone wrong. Something very apparent with a game like Duke Nukem Forever. There's also colonial marines. However this doesn't seem to be the case with The Last Guardian. Some people are finally catching on, and asking why the game has more excitement than skepticism, but its still got a lot of unexplained hype. So to those still holding onto extreme expectations, this article goes out to you.

While hype for a troubled game is potentially dangerous it can be forgivable if the expectation isn't too high, and I'll admit I myself feel enthusiastic for both this game, Prey 2, and Doom 4, but instead my problem with this hype scene is that it exist in a way that says the game will be incredible even without evidence. Actually there's a lot of evidence pointing to the contrary in the case of Last Guardian. Director left for social games, some other key team members left, the game has been silent for about 4 years, and its console generation has left. It sounds like it would be a mess, but it might still be something cool. Might is the key word, but hype doesn't like to hang out with that term too often, and many are just talking like it is still going to be incredible when/if it releases. I seen the same thing with Last of Us.... which doesn't help my argument necessarily since that was a true hit, but until that happened it was kind of pathetic. I mean we had it teased by basically showing off plants, and knew it was Naughty Dog who was making it, and that was all it took for The Last of Us to cement itself as a legendary game. Why!? Then we heard the concept was yet another post-apocalyptic shooter in a time where people were starting to say they were sick of it... but oh don't worry, its an exception to the rule and the best thing ever even though we don't know squat about its genre, mechanics, characters, or anything important to what makes a game a good game. Hallow teaser, overused cliched boring concept, no gameplay, and people were still hyped it like it was going to invent space travel. If you're excited to see what Naughty Dog has planned next, that's fine and I've got to say I was curious and hanging onto the news as well, but hyping up nonexistent gameplay as the greatest thing ever is just absurd. To this day I can't help but wonder if that colored the views with the game. It was a great achievement on the team's part, but I wonder if people took that good quality and multiplied it just like reviewers do the majority of the time (you know, like when they have a strongly covered game, spam you with its advertisements and hype previews, and then give it an 8-10 without exploring hardly any mechanic to tell you why its so special). Whats probably worst though is that it derailed from the criticism....

In the eyes of many it couldn't do any wrong if it hit a certain quality mark, and from there it just becomes magically perfect to many people... to the point where the blatant lying trailer about AI was forgotten about by most and even in that exact video you have more people worshiping it than you have people demanding ND be held to their own promises. However actually doing that would require thinking about what you're interested in the game for, and that's where it all goes back to square one: if you're literally hyped over nothing, you're not paying attention to what the game means and what it is doing, and from there you can go to some dangerous roads whether through the consumer being let down, a sour fad developing, you tell the industry they can get away with certain things, or again the problem where you don't get people to improve.

Its all okay! They made this

Isn't it time we learn now to be careful about that kind of thing? Like I said before I'm not hating on the simple principle of hyping something, as that's just part of life... we anticipate things. However to anticipate something so much, and without any justified cause, it begs the question of one's own ethnics and competence. I'm excited a lot for prey 2. Why? Well conceptually it was amazing, it had a brilliant CGI trailer, has an underrated past game entry, and some old gameplay footage that was interesting. Even then though I'm not taking my hype too seriously, and I tell myself its subjected to harsh change at the potential of being in a publisher/dev power struggle as well as a potential team switch and rework. Likewise I expect other dreamers to take caution with this as well.

Last Guardian is made by a company with a great record... so fine, lets hope with confidence that it'll be something interesting. However where else has the game looked promising? Where else have you seen something in the game that facinated you? What caught your attention to the point of child-like excitement? It'll take more than a logo to start dubbing a CGI trailer responsible for the best game that never happened. Its not that I doubt Last Guardian; For all its troubled development I honestly expect it to show up and surprise me one year with interesting gameplay. It has a unique setting and idea, so I hope to one day see its concept in action and see a reason to watch it better. There's got to be a reason Sony's still dumping money into this thing. Still we need to cut the crap out with blindly hyping things that don't exist as games yet. You stand higher potential to hurt the game's ratings, hurt your own expectations, hurt others gullible enough to fall into a contagious hype train trap, and I wouldn't be surprised if you were also enforcing dumb pre-orders in the process (though by then you often have game footage to go by). Truth is you need more than a name, or some pretty CGI E3 trailer to truly know whether or not a game is worth it. These are video games, not movies. See what it plays like. Start to pay attention to what mechanics you want to see, know what stories you want told, and see if a game relates or engages you. That doesn't happen through teasers, flashy over-ambitious E3 showings, or company logos. Once you can seperate the two, you not only know better what to expect, but you can start to get the word out and better judge the game and that even applies way outside of this "blind" hype bit and into just general gaming. For example, imagine if Assassins Creed actually had better combat by now because people said something before going all google eyed over the pirate tag. I guess I'm getting off subject here, but I'd just be repeating myself, much like this mistake of blind hype does. Just stop hyping without a reason guys.

Don't kill it with your anticipation