The video gaming industry is famous for being able to surprise us with its endless innovation continually. In less than half a century we’ve come from playing pixelated games of Space Invaders to the point where we can enter limitless virtual reality gaming universes.
If you look back to the inventions of the 1990s, things seemed pretty primitive. Overall the decade saw the last of the low-resolution three-dimensional polygons with the emergence of HD games and focused on developing immersive and interactive environments, implementing realistic physics, and advancing artificial intelligence. And much of these changes have come from advancements in technology.
Now a multi-billion-dollar industry, the race is on to create the games that will set the trends for how we are going to play games in the future. But, let’s take a step back and see which games we enjoy today were unimaginable just a decade ago?
Pokémon Go Heralds The Augmented Reality Breakthrough
Who can forget the Pokémon Go craze of 2016? This saw millions of gamers all over the world wandering around their cities in a bid to hunt down those Pokémon creatures. It was the first game to take advantage of augmented reality technologies, and it has yet to be surpassed by another game.
It’s not hugely surprising to find that Nintendo played a role in the development of this iconic mobile game. This Japanese gaming company has had a large hand in each significant gaming trend, and the brand helped Niantic work wonders with Pokémon Go.
While many people were quick to claim the Pokémon Go was just a fad, it has had over one billion downloads as of early 2019. Plus with some new remote raiding options that enable you to play while on lockdown, it should continue to be one of the world’s biggest games.
Online Casino Games Opening The New Frontier Of Online Gaming
The iGaming industry was one of the first industries that took advantage of the digital age by establishing itself on the Internet. With a gradual rise in popularity, and taking advantage of newly available technologies, it has successfully propelled itself into the digital age. If we take a look at all sites that are legal in the US, we can see that online casinos wouldn’t have enjoyed this freedom a decade ago when the law and technical developments were different.
It’s just the latest sign of how online technologies are eroding the borders that used to limit how players could enjoy casino games. And once 5G connectivity and cloud gaming become an actuality, then we can expect to see further liberation of how we’re allowed to play games across the world.
Resident Evil 7: Biohazard Ushers In VR Gaming
Some people will claim that virtual reality gaming has yet to reach its true potential. But such critics have never played Resident Evil 7. This survival horror game made full use of VR technologies to create one of the most terrifying video games of all-time.
The Capcom game was released in early 2017, and it featured full support for the PlayStation VR headset. This put you directly into an immersive and chilling atmosphere as you battle all manner of gruesome cannibalistic creatures in a virtual reality environment.
Such was the success of Resident Evil 7: Biohazard that it picked up the award for the Best VR/AR game at The Game Awards, and showed us that there’s no limit for how virtual reality tech can both entertain us and scare us out of our senses.