3 genres gaming doesn't need more of, and 2 that deserve far more love

Over the years, gaming as a platform has seen plenty of trends come and go in waves. Still, some genres have lived on for eternity, like RPGs, first-person shooters, and platformers, among others. Genres like these have refused to die, but there are others that have continued on even when the well is bone dry.

On the other hand, we've got game types that used to rule the arcade scene, or the LAN scene, or even some gaming generations, and now? They can barely get a pulse check. I'm not trying to bash tastes here, but there's a bit of oversaturation going on in a few genres, which is actually taking the magic away from some games.

At the same time, it's about time we spotlit some unsung genres that deserve more than just spiritual successors or indie resurrections. Maybe, just maybe, it's time we let some genres rest while giving others a proper comeback?

Look what you've done, Tarkov

If there's one genre that truly didn't need to become a trend, it's the extraction shooter. It started as a tense, niche idea — survive, scavenge, and get the heck out of dodge. Now, it's been run into the ground by studios hoping to recreate Tarkov's success without understanding why it worked. The problem? Most players don't want to spend forty-five minutes collecting loot just to get two-tapped by a bush.

It's the worst parts of survival gaming mashed together, and on top of it, there's the stress of losing your inventory to lag, cheaters, or plain bad design. Now, even Bungie's betting the house on this genre with Marathon. It's the reboot of a beloved IP, sure, but no one ever asked for it to be turned into a PvP extraction shooter. Bungie choosing an extraction looter-shooter as their next big project after Destiny 2 is downright baffling, and it really doesn't look good for them, thanks to all the controversy it is already marred by.

This genre is being treated like the next big thing, but in reality, it's a high-stakes loop with a razor-thin margin of fun (and profit). For every good round, you get five that make you question why you booted up another PvPvE mess in the first place. It is simply not sustainable, and it's certainly not what the industry needs more of. My advice? Let it rest before it becomes the next Battle Royale.

We've really had enough of Soulslike games

Look, we get it. Difficulty is cool. Challenge is rewarding, yes. But not everything needs to be a parry-or-die game. For every Lies of P or Elden Ring, there are five other mid-budget Soulslikes with floaty controls and miserable level design. Think of the mediocre Wuchang: Fallen Feathers that just came out, or just throw a stone on a Steam store list to find six more like Thymesia or The Surge 2. The worst part? Even non-Souls games like Star Wars Jedi: Survivor — which should have been a straight third-person action-adventure — now feel compelled to follow the template. Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty is another culprit of the same thing, and its middling 6/10 reviews are proof that the game suffered because of its inability to not become a Soulslike.

The problem is that this is a fantastic genre, but its emotional punch is dulled when every boss fight feels like it was designed by a masochist with a spreadsheet about a hundred ways to torture players in order to increase game time. Are there exceptions? Absolutely — nobody expected Stellar Blade to actually have a solid core gameplay loop besides the overly sexualized (no complaints) character design, but it managed to stand its own and remains a fantastic Souls-lite experience.

There was a time when the term "Soulslike" felt like a badge of honor — a promise of challenge, satisfaction, and sheer atmospheric dread. Now, it's a genre being milked dry, where everyone and their indie cousin thinks that slapping in a stamina bar, rolling mechanics, and a brooding narrator somehow equals depth.

Please, no more Battle Royales

I'm glad that this one is slowing down

I remember when the Battle Royale genre came to the mainstream for the first time through PUBG, and I had a friend explain to me how it worked. It sounded fantastic in premise, and felt even better to play. PUBG and Fortnite, while they were still figuring themselves out, managed to give us heart-pounding final circles, but now, it feels like we've been stuck in an endless storm, and not the one closing in on the map. Battle Royale started as a novel twist on survival, and then became the default fallback for studios who ran out of ideas. Heck, even Need For Speed and Forza Horizon tried their hand at it, and I'm glad I never touched those.

You can't throw a grenade today without hitting a BR clone. The market is completely saturated, with everyone and their mascot trying to jump out of a plane onto an island. Even Call of Duty pushed their core offerings to the backseat to keep Warzone in the spotlight, and now, even if it's the bread and butter of the franchise, it's one of the only few good ones out there that keeps players regularly engaged.

The magic of the battle royale genre is long gone, and they no longer feel special. Instead, they feel forced, with studios seeing them as engagement engines. Truth is, players are exhausted, and it's high time we let the genre breathe instead of suffocating it under copycat mechanics and crossover skins.

We need a vehicular combat resurgence badly

AAA combat racing on today's hardware is a dreamy thought

This one is a personal wish, yes, but there's also no denying just how phenomenal a genre vehicle combat was, especially in the PS1 era where Twisted Metal reigned supreme. I just will never understand how we let the genre become niche again. Games like Carmageddon, Twisted Metal, and Vigilante 8 defined the edge and chaos of gaming — loud, ridiculous, and endlessly replayable. Now, you'd be lucky to find a decent one outside of the indie scene, and AAA vehicle combat games are nothing but a relic.

In the meantime, popular racing franchises like Dirt and Need for Speed have been languishing in limbo. Why not veer elsewhere instead? The interest is still there — Wreckfest has a loyal following, Crossout is doing its own thing, and I'd like to believe that PlayStation's PS5-exclusive Destruction AllStars flopped because it was a live-service husk, and not because people didn't want car carnage.

This is a genre that deserves the same kind of comeback that retro shooters and survival horror got. With today's hardware, just imagine the mayhem you could render. We could have fully destructible arenas, smart car customization, proper online mayhem, and beautiful damage effects. Instead, we keep getting action-based racers that are a dime-a-dozen.

Give me good old-fashioned cars with guns, guts, and metal-crunching madness, because if done right, we'd all line up to crash again.

Extreme sports as a genre has died out

Outside of a few indie titles and Tony Hawk's remakes, we need more

Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3 + 4 is a success, and everybody is reliving their childhood with nostalgic glasses on. Even the remake of the first two Tony Hawk games was a success, which means that, when done right, there is certainly a wide-enough audience for extreme sports, still. But we're not living in the time of Dave Mirra and Amped anymore, and high scores with style points is now reserved for Devil May Cry, instead.

Still, games like Shredders and Skater XL do prove that the hunger is still there, even if attempts at reviving the genre, like Riders Republic and Steep, went largely unnoticed. Both these games did get their own identities buried under Ubisoft-isms, but what we do need is boldness. A studio that understands movement as gameplay rather than traversal. And for those games to be priced lower than a flat $60 or $70, even if they're AAA.

It's a shame that the extreme sports genre has fizzled away, but I'm glad that the Tony Hawk's Pro Skater remakes are doing well. Now, for the THUG remakes, and perhaps other extreme sports could come to the fore thanks to those.

Oversaturated genres need breathing room

Gaming has evolved over the decades by adding so much more to the platform, but there's also wisdom in knowing when to pause. The oversaturated genres today need breathing room so that every game can get its time in the spotlight, and the ones gathering dust? Those are ready to burn bright again, but all they need is to be loved again.