This article on ‘How Three Of The Biggest Titles This Year Define Play And Launched Almost Right Next To Each Other’ was available earlier as part of the GamerBraves Newsletter. Sign up for free to gain access to more articles about news and trends in the gaming industry and community.

Time is funny, man. I remember in the early 2010s, late August was considered the date you released your game if you wanted it to quietly die. Yet somehow, this year’s late-August Early-September window had one of the strongest showings, with three critically acclaimed titles all launching basically within a month of each other.

I’m talking, of course, about Baldur’s Gate 3, Starfield and Armored Core 6. It’s not particularly interesting that all three of these games are excellent- given their pedigrees you’d expect nothing less. But I think it’s worth noting that while all three games cut themselves a slice of internet discourse, they did so for totally separate reasons.

The State Of Play

After a lot of ruminating, I think I’ve figured out what’s so special about this trio- they’re all focused on play. I know that sounds stupid when you remember play as the literal definition of what you do with a game, so bear with me: what a game is has become largely expanded in recent years. For titles like The Last Of Us, they’re a vehicle for storytelling. Yes, Ellie can shoot the gun, but the context in which she has a gun in the first place is why you’re here.

For multiplayer games like Street Fighter, play can be defined in the same way you would play a piano. It’s a highly refined and practiced art, and way more focus is put on the end result (say, qualifying for Capcom Cup or just winning a set against the lads) than the actual fun of hitting buttons and making the ballet judoka do a sick command throw.

Yet, with this trio, I think we’re seeing a return to a much more open form of play. In Howard Scott-Warshaw’s book he spends a whole chapter talking about the early days of Atari, throwing fruit and the like to find out what processes are fun- then building games around that. Given how much gaming has ballooned in the decades since, it’s nice to see a return to these ideas.

With that in mind, let’s take a look at how these games deal with the concept of play:

Baldur’s Gate 3

Given that it gets its rules from a tabletop, it’s no surprise that Baldur’s Gate 3 would have such a solid grasp on play. While you may think that Baldur’s Gate 3’s approach to play might be the fantasy expect, I don’t think that’s where it really shines.

Instead, Baldur’s Gate 3’s strength is giving you a space where you can do anything, and the systems can anticipate it. The game can anticipate almost any action you can try to throw at it, from greasing a stuck lever to sneaking up on a Paladin with an explosive barrel to blow him up Looney Tunes style before he can attack you for betraying him.

Larian has created a world that demands your participation, and rewards you with the aftermath- characters will acknowledge your actions, like bothering to have Talk To Animals on to speak to a random squirrel or even some background choice when you made your character 40 hours ago.

It’s an expensive and lavish way to do things, yes- we’d covered it in our previous newsletter about CRPGs. But it’s made it so that every game that does do it, will usually be run by some kind of madman who can make it keep pace with the others.

Starfield

You’d be forgiven if you thought Starfield and Baldur’s Gate were similar in terms of play. While Baldur’s is more focused on interacting with the world, Starfield is about exploring the world itself. There’s a whole galaxy ahead of you, and lots of ways to go about it.

They’re both size queens, totally- I’d heard legend of a roaming ship with a sweet grandma on it who invites you onboard, and even in my group of friends who are almost done with the game, none of us have encountered her.

The idea with Starfield is that the overall map is so huge, you wanna explore all of it. Admittedly, the problem with games of this scale is not all content will be created equal- compare it to Baldur’s where every NPC has a name and a story, you’ll probably cleave through 100 nameless space pirates before you get to a plot-relevant one.

That being said, if you’re the wandering type, it’s easy to just be sucked into Starfield. Bethesda RPGs are so good for sucking up hours of your time- you can easily find something interesting no matter what direction you waltz towards.

Armored Core VI: Fires of Rubicon

I find it fitting that while Baldur’s Gate 3 and Starfield define their play as interacting with the world in specific ways, Armored Core VI defines it with Gunpla. I’m not even kidding. Yes, Armored Core has huge maps with the occasional side objective for those who know where to look. Yeah, its corporate dystopia setting is pretty great to the point you’ve got fanartists giving smoochable faces to a bunch of disembodied emblems. Are those the main appeal though? No.

Instead. Armored Core VI is all about that thrill of building your own AC unit. I’ve spent hours in the game’s decal editor making everything from Neco Arc to generic warning labels you’d get in a set of waterslides. Even as I’m here, in the office in the middle of Tokyo Game Show, my mind is only thinking back to how cool it’d be to stun another mech with a flurry of spider-kicks before finishing them off with the pile bunker.

It’s the same kind of love I get building a model kit. While yes, having a cool doll of a robot is great and all, the fun is from the hours you spend putting it together. I remember staying up well into the night putting together my MG/100 Sinanju, admiring all the extra boosters and fuel tanks meant for what’s essentially a 10-storey sports car. You fantasize about things like being in the cockpit of a Geara Doga, peppering some federation grunt with bullets before closing in with your beam axe to finish the job.

Armored Core 6 caters to this fantasy exactly- letting you shoot lasers from on high to defend allied helicopters, or boost through a torrent of missiles to get to a prick in a hover tank. It knows the mecha fantasy you want, then gives it to you.

Of course, its greatest strength is also its biggest weakness- my non-mecha friends and family look like I’m speaking french when I try to explain to them how cool Assault Boost is. Unlike Baldur’s Gate or Starfield, Armored Core is a very specific fantasy. Thank god that fantasy just so happens to be targeted to me.

Closing Thoughts

Amid all the discourse of what makes a numerically good game, I think it’s a good exercise to just occasionally boil it down to what makes things fun. Armored Core is pretty, yes, but I think it’s the fact you have all the little flourishes like a delayed explosion on a dead MT that makes that fantasy so strong. Likewise, Baldur’s sheer “I thought of that” energy is more valuable than any amount of high-fidelity face.

Admittedly, it’s easy to get into fart-sniffing territory with any kind of games criticism. But one thing is for certain- 2023 has been an amazing year for games no matter what your own ideas of play are.