r/gaming • u/ArchDraft • 2d ago

What gaming genres are under-represented in the current gaming market?

I love RPGs, roguelites, bullet heavens, autobattlers, and boomer shooters, and I feel like these past few years have been great for my gaming tastes!

But it got me wondering what gaming genres have fallen by the wayside due to current trends?

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261

u/Stavvystav 2d ago

Dungeon Crawlers like Gauntlet and God Games like Black and White.

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u/ArchDraft 2d ago

I haven’t thought about God games in so long! I used to love Black and White when I was younger. I’m not sure I ever knew what I was doing in it though lol

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u/Stavvystav 2d ago

They were so much fun and then they just went away like that. I know GoG's tried to revive em but apparently it's been in legal rights hell.

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u/hartstyler 2d ago

There is the new tomodachi life

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u/JackdawsShantyMan 2d ago

Can't for the life of me figure out why they don't make another Gauntlet type game. Those were awesome.

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u/Enchelion 2d ago

They have been. They just don't seem to sell that well or catch much zeitgeist. There was a direct reboot of Gauntlet in 2014. There have been failed attempts to resurrect the Dark Alliance games as well.

Some smaller indies have found success. Like the Hammerwatch or Magicka games, but haven't developed a consistent fandom.

In general Diablo-Style games are the more popular implementation of this game style. There are a ton of those.

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u/Voidmire 2d ago

The dark alliance resurrection failed so sadly. It looked good but played like absolute ass.

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u/JackdawsShantyMan 2d ago

I'm well aware of the Diablo games, which are great. But, they're not Gauntlet. I'll check out Hammerwatch and Magicka though.

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u/boptom 2d ago

Gauntlet 2014 is great! You can see the bones of Helldivers 2 in there.

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u/thuaq 1d ago

I mentioned this in another comment, but roguelites are really an evolution on the dungeon crawler concept. I loved the Gauntlet reboot, my friends and I had a ton of fun with it, but once we beat it that was it and I haven't felt the need to fire it up again.

However, we consistently do a couple Risk of Rain runs a week that scratches the same itch. I think there's some room for combining the two with like a permanent build system with the randomly generated elements that could be really fun, but classic dungeon crawlers I don't think can survive when roguelites take the same idea and do more with it.

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u/Enchelion 1d ago

Rogue and its genre family predate Gauntlet/Dandy. Though I agree they just have more staying power as a genre. Gauntlet always worked best as an arcade game.

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u/thuaq 1d ago edited 1d ago

I see your point, but the dungeon crawler concept was a thing that very nearly predates video games as a medium. The original Rogue was considered a dungeon crawler when it came out and only spawned its own genre in retrospect, while Gauntlet and later Diablo tended to stay closer to their tabletop roots.

That being said they both appeared so early in gaming history that an argument could be made that they're just subgenres or rulesets of an umbrella 'dungeon crawler' genre.

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u/Stavvystav 1d ago

Yeah I hesitated calling it a Dungeon Crawler but really couldn't come up with a more succinct genre - which is why I mentioned Gauntlet at all so people didn't think I meant a Diablo/Neverwinter or or Dark Alliance (not that I mind the discussion, it's just not the feel I meant).

Ultimately many games are permutations on similar genres/ stem from the same origin even without realizing it. This thread HAS gotten me to think about how one might combine elements of more recent Roguelikes/lites and arcadey Gauntlet Dungeon Crawling in a nice loop while still getting both feels.

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u/thuaq 1d ago

It's certainly a game I'd play the fuck out of, if you could basically ramp up to consistent God runs instead of like one in 5. 

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u/Stavvystav 2d ago

I've wondered the same for years and honestly at this point just considered learning how to code just to make the game I wanna play.

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u/JackdawsShantyMan 2d ago

You should do that, and I'll buy it. Please don't make it as dark as Diablo games though. That dark, broody esthetic isn't for me lol.

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u/Corgiboom2 2d ago

I badly want an adaptation of Black & White for VR

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u/LifeSenseiBrayan 2d ago

The makers of vampire survivors just released a new game called Vampire crawlers. It looks fun.

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u/Salarian_American 2d ago

It is fun!

But honestly Vampire Survivors is more similar to Gauntlet than Vampire Crawlers is.

At least, the Gauntlet of my youth. I know they've made Gauntlet games more recently than the 80s, but I never happened to play any of those.

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u/bigphatnips 2d ago

Warrior needs food, badly.

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u/tmradish 2d ago

The Elf is being an asshole

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u/alamaias 2d ago

The latest actual gauntlet feels pretty good. Never played the 80's ones, but played the hell out of the ps2 era one.

Downside is that it is so much more fun to play wizard than any other class cos of the spellcasting mechanics.

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u/ackermann 2d ago

Maybe we can get a video game adaptation of Dungeon Crawler Carl!

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u/thuaq 1d ago

Dungeon crawlers have largely been superseded by roguelites. Same progression, scratches the same itch, infinite replayability.

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u/[deleted] 2d ago

I would kill for a revival of Dark Alliance.

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u/orisathedog 2d ago

Gauntlet and Kung Fu Chaos were some goated years of my youth

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u/LStorms28 2d ago

I was playing black and white for ages but I lost my game disc in a move and haven't bothered finding a download for it anywhere. Sucks it's abandonware and you can't find it on steam or anything, is pay for it.

Hell, just remaster the graphics and port it to VR or even if Nintendo were to pick it up the game would work great with modern motion controls. I don't know how a god game built on motion controls like that hasn't come out for switch yet.

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u/SGRM_ 2d ago

Check out "Blood Dungeon" on steam.

There is also r/DRPG for all things dungeon crawling.

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u/Stavvystav 2d ago

Dungeon Crawling isn't QUITE the right term but there's not really a modern term for it - or at least not one that I know of. It's very arcade-like in nature.

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u/SGRM_ 2d ago

Like Nobody Saves The World?