If that’s your definition of a low bar, then it hasn’t really fallen so much as it’s always been that low. From the beginning, games have gone without cutscenes, plot, even dialogue. Many of the greatest and most beloved games of this decade and the last have had sub par stories, and often times no plot, cutscenes, or characters to speak of at all, and yet they’re some of the best of all time. They’re three of the least important things for a game to have after all, especially the Borderlands games, where the story is little more than a vehicle to deliver more gameplay, and the gameplay in 3 is the best of the series. Thats the only thing that really matters when it comes to people wanting to play games.
If that’s your definition of a low bar, then it hasn’t really fallen so much as it’s always been that low. From the beginning, games have gone without cutscenes, plot, even dialogue. Many of the greatest and most beloved games of this decade and the last have had sub par stories, and often times no plot, cutscenes, or characters to speak of at all, and yet they’re some of the best of all time. They’re three of the least important things for a game to have after all, especially the Borderlands games, where the story is little more than a vehicle to deliver more gameplay, and the gameplay in 3 is the best of the series. Thats the only thing that really matters when it comes to people wanting to play games.