Free-to-Play gaming isn’t all that strange of a market to console gamers. It’s a market that users of mobile platforms such as iOS and Android have gotten used to a while back and even PC has become heavily accustomed to before them. Over the years, the market has grown, and we are seeing games that stand in the Triple “A” quality. We’ve seen titles such as DOTA, Smite, Heroes of the Storm,Warframe, Blacklight: Retribution and even League of Legends take the world by storm. These free-to-play games with paid options have been a driving force in game development, but there are always a few that have slipped through the cracks or stand out to the point that they deserve a release on consoles. So we’ve made a short list of ones that.. Well would do quite well on consoles when the time comes.
So you may not be familiar with this classic franchise that kids in the 90’s and 2000’s were growing fans of. The series was not known just for it’s twitch shooting, but for it’s innovative use of vehicles, skin mods, weapon mod’s, modded game modes, and even it’s use of skiing across maps using jet packs while using disc launchers to annihilate your enemies. In recent years the game series was re-implemented by Hi-Rez Studios (Smite and Paladin’s) as a free-to-play on PC with paid options. Now? We feel with the next gen consoles, it might just be time for Hi-Rez to launch the game on next gen and wrestle with games like PlanetSide 2 and Warframe.
We all got to experience that almost awful game Ghost Recon Future Soldier. It wasn’t that the game was bad, it was more-so that the games maps were horribly unbalanced and unlocks didn’t feel noteworthy. Taking note of those changes that were needed, Ubisoft decided to join the free-to-play market with Ghost Recon Phantoms, which takes the best parts of the Ghost Recon franchise and puts them into a market where players can play freely, unlock stuff through the in-game unlock system, or simply buy what they need for cosmetic appeals or even early unlocks. Not something we haven’t seen in other games before.
For anyone familiar with the Legacy of Kain series knows that fans have been clamoring for another game in the franchise. Well with the not-so-finished ending to the series, we’ve been hunkering down for the day the series gets a reboot or even a continuation. While that doesn’t seem in the works, Square Enix did decide to let a company make their new Free-to-Play title, which seems irrevocably like a Legacy of Kain title. The game pits players as vampires against a team of humans. The idea is simple. Beat the objectives needed using two very different play styles in order to wither each others teams to nothing. While this game is still a recent release, Nosgoth does find itself as an enjoyable title for those who want nothing, but pure competition. Plus, it has vampires.
I’ll be the first to admit that I’m guilty of having no-lifed the crap out of the game for nearly 28 levels in a weekend. Sitting around at my cousins house allowed this to happen and allowed me to really get a feel for the games gunner class. The game is very-much a third person title that offers small cosmetics and the likes at the cost of real-life currency. While that may seem like a slight downer, Tera is as big and as crazy as games can get as the development team is constantly putting on contests and community challenges for fans of the game. With how it plays? Tera would fit right in with games like Warframe and even Final Fantasy XIV with a steam-punk twist. Wait… FFXIV has that. Who cares, it’s a great and enjoyable game.
If you ever wanted a replacement for the need to play another Jade Empire-esque game since the game launched, Blade and Soul is a game that doesn’t just seek to be a martial arts filled title with flashy moves and weapons. Instead Blade and Soul is a rather in-depth game that offers tons of customization, gameplay mechanics, and a decent amount of end-game content. While fans in the west have been clamoring for this game, it’ll be interesting if the game doesn’t get enough noise to come to PlayStation 4 and Xbox One within the foreseeable future.
Black Desert is an interesting MMO. With its extremely in-depth character creation, paid options, and even triple “A” style graphics, Black Desert will easily put MMO’s like Final Fantasy XIV and Tera Online in their place for who has the best graphics, bounciest physics, and most realistic graphics engine. Lets not forget it’s third-person like hack-and-slash approach that’ll send enemies flying into the skies.
Dirty Bomb having come out of open beta not long ago, is a game that presses players to play characters that they unlocked via item boxes. These item boxes contain character cards, which players will use to continue playing through the game. These character cards offer characters with unique talents, health, and even appearances. While this approach seems weird, it keeps Dirty Bomb as an interesting and rather entertaining game as they go. If blasting your way through post-apocalyptic London isn’t your idea, then we aren’t sure what is! The game is unique, fun, and quite a bit of a unique twist on team based games.
I’ve actually put a little bit of time into Red 5’s futuristic sci-fi MMO that offers a unique blend of action, shooting, and RPG elements into one. The game takes place after a tragic event happens, the world ends, and a new enemy called “The Chosen” emerge from the ashes of a shuttle. With them came death, war, and the fight to survive for the last remnants of humanity. With them being thinned out, a special group of operatives have arisen, and seek to protect the last bits of humanity in order to keep them safe.
With all of these great titles, it’s hard not to say, which one we want the most, because we do want all of them. It’s just a matter of when they will come to consoles.
About the Writer:
Dustin is our native console gamer, PlayStation and Nintendo reviewer who has an appetite for anything that crosses the boarders from across the big pond. His interest in JRPG’s, Anime, Handheld Gaming, and Pizza is insatiable. His elitist attitude gives him direction, want, and a need for the hardest difficulties in games, which is fun to watch, and hilarity at its finest. You can find him over on Twitter, Google+, and or you can find him on PSN with RaivynLyken.