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END OF AN ERA
A History of the Last Console Generation 2014 Notable Titles: Grand Theft Auto V (Enhanced Edition), Dragon Age Inquisition, Middle Earth: Shadow of Mordor, Alien Isolation, Infamous: Second Son (PS4).
words by: Marcus Yeatman-Crouch design by: Sahina Sherchan This console generation will end with the release of the PS5 on November 19th, so we’ve compiled a timeline of big events and notable games from the 7 year tenure of the PS4 and Xbox One. 2013 Notable Titles (PS4/Xbox One): Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag, Battlefield 4, Forza Motorsport 5 (Xbox), Killzone: Shadowfall (PS4). 2013 is where we begin our journey. June’s E3 conferences is where we first laid eyes on the marvelous, mystical, wondrous Playstation 4 and Xbox… One? Yeah “Xbox One” was not what gamers expected and was met with a major focus on watching television and playing Kinect (RIP) games; safe to say it did not go down well. Sony on the other hand came out swinging with promises of ambitious continuations of fan-favourite franchises like Killzone, Infamous and Gran Turismo. So there they were, the next-gen; powerful, futuristic and ugly. I still remember to this day looking at the launch Xbox One and laughing because of how it looked like a VHS player spent a romantic night with a house brick, although I won’t let Sony off the hook here because the launch PS4 was a little too sharp and edgy for its own good too. When the consoles finally released in November 2013, they were met with solid praise of beautiful new graphics and ambitious games, frankly just a solid upgrade from the PS3 and Xbox 360. However, issues soon arose from both consoles surrounding their disc drives. The Xbox had an issue of chewing up discs leading to a concerning grinding noise whilst the PS4 kept spitting them out thanks to an issue with the touch sensor resulting in accidental disc ejections - these were resolved through hardware revisions thankfully. Overall though these consoles saw pretty solid launches, there was no major drama and gamers were ready to embark on a new generation of gaming.
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The extensive list of titles shows that this was the year that the Xbox One and PS4 really found their feet. Gamers were clinging on to the last gen thanks to the online powerhouse GTA Online; however as soon as Rockstar dropped the trailer for GTA V Enhanced Edition in June 2014, the Xbox 360 and PS3’s days were numbered. 2014 also saw one of the biggest controversies within the generation. When millions of gamers were ready to log on to PSN and Xbox Live on Christmas 2014 they were met with disappointment as all online servers were down thanks to a group of now infamous hackers named “Lizard Squad”. This was detrimental for players on both consoles as many gamers had waited until this Christmas to make the move to next gen due to the expanded game library and more accessible price. This was soon resolved and the next generation was back on track. 2015 Notable Titles: The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain, Rainbow Six: Siege, Fallout 4, Batman: Arkham Knight, Bloodborne (PS4 Exclusive), Halo 5: Guardians (Xbox Exclusive). This year seemed to be the end of the more experimental next-gen phase as many big publishers got past the cautious first year and embraced it as the ‘current-gen’. As you can tell from the notable titles, many are sequels to beloved games with entries into the Halo, Fallout and Batman Arkham franchises which really signifies how the big gaming companies embraced the PS4 and Xbox One as the home of gaming for the foreseeable future. Any gamer that was holding out for a truly stand out game library for next-gen had no reason not to commit to the PS4 and Xbox One at this point, as they both received some of the best received games ever in the forms of Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain and The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, although Sony took the edge with Bloodborne, which was also met with critical acclaim.
