Gamescom Latam and Indie Gaming Tendencies

Between the 26th and the 30th of June at São Paulo Expo, in Brazil, the Gamescom Latam festival was held, for gamers who want to keep their eyes on the new releases of their favorite franchises and companies, along with independent developers who had the chance to exhibit their most recent works to the public.

Our UmGamer team was there for complete coverage of the event, including the Ten Brazilian Indie Games You Must Get to Know, and we decided to hop on the hype train of so many news and releases to look into what are the most probable tendencies we can expect from indie games on next generations, both for consoles and PC/Mobile Gaming.

We are going through a moment when game tendencies are strongly inclined into the concept of Past and Future, or Nostalgia vs. Innovation. Big companies keep releasing reworks, new versions and sequels of already known and established franchises, and this ends up creating new challenges for independent creators.

The Nostalgia vs. Innovation factor doesn’t exist just to continue or rework names which are already big in the market, but also the huge amount of new technologies and engines, graphics and stories that can vary from the most simple and beautiful Pixel arts all the way to ultra-realistic games with outstanding graphics that, about ten years ago, many thought were impossible to achieve on video games.

This higher level of modern platforms and engines can be a pro for more experienced developers and more established independent studios, who can make use of more of these news and features, making more well-rounded games in a very general point of view.

On the other hand, this factor can also directly affect smaller developers that might not have enough resources to produce a game with everything it could potentially feature, many times falling behind in a very challenging business market filled with talents - what brings us to an essential issue among the game dev community and was quite well elaborated during one of the lectures that UmGamer covered during the first open-to-public day on the event: the use of Artificial Intelligence and how it can affect creators.

On Thursday, June 27th, our UmGamer tem watched to a lecture where Damien Sarrazin led an interview with many key-questions about The Main Tendencies and Trends for Video Games in 2024 with three big names in gaming journalism and content creation, Joshua Duckworth from Gamerant, Eleni Thomas from Dexerto and Dom Preppiatt representing VG247.

The theme of this debate was the direct influence for us to bring this theme here to our site, so we can share with our readers such trends and their pros and cons.

Among all the technical and artistic aspects mentioned on stage, a very pertinent topic about the use of Artificial Intelligence was seriously addressed. While many content creators and developers end up using this resource to some extent, the community in general sees such tools with uneasy eyes.

While it can be true that the cost of game development can get expensive and the use of AI tools ends up being a cheap solution for some creators, what these tools do at the end of the day is basically art, data and development theft to generate literally mechanical results, with no real art or love involved. And we obviously need to raise awareness about the amount of artists, programmers, game devs in general who lose their jobs, freelances or commissions to results that are usually objectively inferior.

All the three interviewed professionals thoroughly agreed during Preppiatt’s definition about how "there is no such AI capable of creating actual art or a script that has the same depth, emotions and feelings that only a human could properly reach".

The concept of AI can be something quite useful and better explored for the right means, but it should never replace the most intrinsic human abilities, such as how to tell a story through a piece of art, which obviously includes video games.

While we can’t foresee what future news and trends will be like in the far future, current tendencies can give us quite nice expectations about what the next steps in the scene could look like.

Artistic Trends

To face so many big franchises and renowned reworks of games from the past, independent creators have been finding some success when aiming towards the same Nostalgia factor. Retro graphics and mechanics, many times referencing huge hits on their gameplay styles or simply going through absolute innovation while keeping beautiful pixel art, 2.5D or 3D visuals that bring players to more polished versions of their most loved games from the PS1 or N64 style eras.

This does not exclude the many wonderful independent creators that venture themselves on more advanced graphics and technologies on their own, but due to its high costs, it’s likely that the main trends tend to favor a little more towards the retro-gaming style.

Gameplay Trends

We are happily going through a moment when it is getting quite less complex and bureaucratic to release independent games on big platforms and consoles. Of course, we still can’t say it’s something super easy and accessible for everyone, but there have been more openings and opportunities currently than what we used to see just a few generations ago. Slowly but surely, more and more indie games are being added to many more console, PC and Mobile platforms, at least that’s how we expect it to keep going.

Another positive aspect in the scene is the wider opening towards more inclusion and accessibility in the games. The game optimization made in order for anyone to be able to enjoy a game was always something necessary, but hasn’t been always taken so seriously or even done for a long time in gaming history.

Not only the inclusion of disabled or neurodivergent people, but the representation of those individuals along with their communities and among so many other social minorities that, for such a long time, weren’t even portrayed in video games or pop culture, nowadays have better opportunities to show how massive is their importance and the need for such evolution in gaming.

With a new gaming generation that is more open to inclusion and accessibility, with an immense variety of talents and so many good stories being created and beautifully told, the first thing we definitely should expect from the near future is that this current trend keeps on getting stronger, or at least swiftly going at the same pace. There is still a lot to be worked on within the gamer and gaming community in general, but it is always good to see that the first steps are being taken in the right direction.

We should keep seeing this boom of reworked versions and/or sequels of big franchises and well-known titles, just as much as many innovations and memorable independent creations into the Retro style. VR Gaming has also been seeing more attention lately and already counts with many hits, so it could also be a new door to be opened by developers of every kind.

With so much going on at once, many new games, reworks and DLCs, new versions and competitions, we, humble video game loving players, have no idea if we get lost, confused or excited about living in an era with so many evolutions in the gaming universe. At least we can have a slight idea of what to expect in the next few months and, if we are right, we’ll have a lot to love and enjoy.

Don’t forget to leave a comment with your opinions about Video Game Trends and if you agree with the topics we brought to our article! Thanks for reading!