They certainly didn't do anything "new" as such - but they packaged it in such a way that the changes in them became mainstream.
Open world games with mission structures, for example, have been about from the earliest days of text adventures (known today as "Interactive fiction") - and open world 3D games have been around since the days of Elite - a 3D space shooter (which actually had scripted missions and 65,000 systems to trade and fight in).
Even in regards to stuff like Bully - it wasn't the first free-roam game based in a school environment - we had "Skool Daze" and "Back to Skool" away back in the 1980s on pretty much every single 8-bit home computer of the time.
Did they bring certain game techniques to the masses? Yes. Did they innovate those techniques? No. Everything done in a Rockstar game can be traced back to older titles.
Yes, I do expect quite a lot of downvotes for this - but when you've witnessed videogaming all the way from the 1970s you get to recognise where things came from.
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u/Gunbladelad 4d ago
They certainly didn't do anything "new" as such - but they packaged it in such a way that the changes in them became mainstream.
Open world games with mission structures, for example, have been about from the earliest days of text adventures (known today as "Interactive fiction") - and open world 3D games have been around since the days of Elite - a 3D space shooter (which actually had scripted missions and 65,000 systems to trade and fight in).
Even in regards to stuff like Bully - it wasn't the first free-roam game based in a school environment - we had "Skool Daze" and "Back to Skool" away back in the 1980s on pretty much every single 8-bit home computer of the time.
Did they bring certain game techniques to the masses? Yes. Did they innovate those techniques? No. Everything done in a Rockstar game can be traced back to older titles.
Yes, I do expect quite a lot of downvotes for this - but when you've witnessed videogaming all the way from the 1970s you get to recognise where things came from.