To follow on from my February article where I extolled the virtues of five games which fulfilled a fantasy of mine, this week I wanted to detail five fantasies I’m yet to experience in a game. With video games taking longer and being increasingly more expensive to make, we are getting a lot less frequent AAA releases as we had through most of the 2010’s. The upside to that disappointing fact is that the games we get have more potential than ever to release thoroughly polished and developed by the best teams in the business. Hopefully at least some of the below described ideal scenarios will be created in the coming years, and to state the obvious straight away, I am not including the likes of Grand Theft Auto 6 (or even 7)!
Driving the War Rig – Mad Max
It was upon yet another rewatch of Furiosa, a film I was lukewarm about originally but am growing to love, that I began to pine for the long hinted at sequel to 2015’s Mad Max game. When it came to living a Wasteland fantasy, that game really delivered on a sizeable chunk of the Mad Max world while there are so many other things I’d love to do that the sequel could deliver. My most hoped for addition is driving the War Rigs used by the Citadel, an area not included in the first game but which would surely have featured in a sequel.
Both the Mad Max film as well as Furiosa, in which the War Rig is created, make driving the mobile fortress look fun as hell, and I want a piece of that action. News and alleged leaks on the potential second game dried up in recent years but I really hope it materialises one day, as the first was so under-appreciated and an absolute blast to play.
Exploring Middle Earth – Heavily rumoured LOTR game
As mentioned in my last article on gaming fantasies, I have a lot of love for Hogwarts Legacy for enabling me to live as a Hogwarts student, as I wished to for years and years as a child (and still a little to this day). The rumour mill started loudly churning out stories last year about a Middle Earth equivalent to Hogwarts Legacy, allowing players to explore a huge portion of J.R.R. Tolkien’s genre defining masterpiece. While we don’t know anything really about this rumour surrounded title, I do know if it delivers on the premise of its concept it’ll take the world by storm on release as Hogwarts Legacy did in 2023!
I am very aware of how many years ahead of Hogwarts Legacy release that its existence was heavily speculated of in gaming news, so we are likely several years away from the Middle Earth game being revealed and released, but we can live in hope!
Whatever Assassin’s Creed: Hexe is setting up
Similarly to how Assassin’s Creed: Origins was a drastic departure from the established formula, the next mainline Assassin’s Creed game, codenamed Hexe, is poised to again refresh the format for the games moving forward. The leaks so far point to the setting being the Salem Witch Trials during the Holy Roman Empire, an incredibly intriguing premise dripping with potential that I am massively excited for already.
I’ve been an outspoken and devout fan of Origins and Odyssey for years, but found the brief times I spent with Valhalla and last years Shadows bitterly disappointing. The time is definitely right for the series to pivot away from open world RPG’s and focus seemingly on tighter designed smaller games, similar to 2023’s Mirage, which I also really enjoyed.
I’d love to see Assassin’s Creed get back to its roots, as while I didn’t enjoy any of the games until Black Flag, it would be nice to see the higher level storytelling return whilst retaining a degree of flexibility and accessibility in its mission structure. No more instant fail tailing missions if you please! I hope we’ll hear more about Hexe in the coming months, and time will tell on whether they’ll stick the landing with it or fumble as they did in my opinion with Shadows.
Experiencing Sons of Anarchy
How good is Sons of Anarchy??! I confess I am very late to the party as I only finished watching it this year, but it has really made me wish for a game set in its universe, or just to play as an outlaw biker. The closest games we currently have are Grand Theft Auto 4’s The Lost and Damned expansion, a game packed with late noughties era jank and an entirely city based map; and Days Gone, playing as Deacon who was an outlaw biker before the world went to Hell in a viral post-apocalypse. Neither of these quite capture the vibe I am hoping for.
Outlaw “bikerdom” (Dementus – Furiosa) is such an untapped source when it comes to stories about perceived criminal enterprises. We’ve got tonnes of games about the Mafia (namely the Mafia series), the Yakuza (namely the Yakuza series) and yet no games explicitly about bikers since 2009. And yes, for any of you history buffs out there, I am deliberately not mentioning Ride to Hell: Retribution.
Real world Transformers game
We had such a good run of half-decent Transformers games around the first Michael Bay film trilogy releasing. The peerless War for Cybertron aside, they were seldom more than mildly entertaining shooters, but they released regularly enough that you could always scratch a Transformers gaming itch when the mood took you. While there have still been some games of the franchise releasing in recent years, their quality has taken an even steeper nose dive than Fall of Cybertron did in 2012.
As a brave step in a new direction for Transformers games, assisted by the versatility and amazing potential available through Unreal Engine 5, I’d love to see a slightly more realistic approach to the next game in the franchise. An original story with Autobots and Decepticons slugging it out in a non-cartoon city would be a most welcome change from the last few Transformers games I attempted to get into. To be honest, at this stage I think I’d probably get excited over a Transformers game which just isn’t cel-shaded!
That’s my list of five fantasies that gaming hasn’t delivered on yet. With Assassin’s Creed: Hexe tipped to be revealed properly in the next twelve months, the future is still bright for gaming! Let me know what you thought of my list in the comments, and tell me what your gaming fantasy is that I haven’t thought of. Thanks for reading and catch you again soon.
Written and edited by Alexx.
There’s No Safety in Silence.