There are genres and genres
At the beginning of time, that is, in the late 70s and early 80s, it was when the need arose to offer different categories to this phenomenon that was being born from video games. And the solution was simple: since there were no referents to refer to, simple and fast definitions were chosen, incredibly descriptive without more. Fighting games, soccer games, action games, arcade games (for recreational games), platform games, intelligence games, adventure games, strategy games, role-playing games, etc.
Over the decades video games got complicated, mixing elements of one and the other, so these definitions quickly became quite lame. Really tomb Raider Can we consider it an adventure game, or also an action game? It is in those moments that popular wisdom took control and began to generate its new plots in which the new releases would be placed. All, almost always, already renamed with the reference to a mythical game of the genre, which gives it more consistency.
Next, we are going to list those new ways of calling video games that you will be seeing on many websites and forums, or do you know what a video game is? metroidvaniaa roguelikea side scrolling or a soulslike?
Metroidvania
These are the type of games that only have a single, huge map that, unfortunately, we can’t roam as we please. Some areas will be closed until, at a certain point in their development, we acquire an object that lets us pass. Obviously the greatest exponents of this genre are metroid (from Nintendo) and Castlevania (from Konami), which gives it its name, but you have other extraordinary examples such as Cave Story, Hollow Knight, Rogue Legacy, etc.
rogue-like
In these games there are two elements that are repeated: maps or enemies, or both, are randomly generated with each game, and one of the conditions is that our protagonist dies many times. But many, many. On some occasions because it is complicated and its difficulty curve is very high, and others because this mechanic is of paramount importance within the very concept of the game. Dead Cellsor returnalfor example, are good examples of this.
Role play
Not to be confused with role-playing games, the RPG of a lifetime. Here, the player completely adopts the role that he has to play within the story, as if he were an actor who gets into the skin of a Baywatch, a gang member, a millionaire or a sports star. It is very common to find these games within the online areas of some releases, on special servers, and the best known case is that of GTA V. world of warcraft It also has areas for role play of their players and this aspect is usually noticeable in the audio chat when we talk to the other game partners pretending that we are another person.
soulslike
Surely you have heard that term at some time and the same has not been clear to you what it is… although in itself it gives enough clues. One of these soulslike is nothing other than a game that is as difficult as any of the Dark Souls that FromSoftware has released throughout its history. Very demanding titles, difficult for the vast majority of gamers and that guarantee us to die hundreds of times before reaching the final goal. If they don’t make you desperate… it’s because you don’t want to.
side scrolling
What have always been side-scrolling platforms are now known in this way. It is a way of updating a term that was already quite precise, but with the habit of anglicizing everything, it has ended up succumbing to that temptation. Examples of this genre are Ori from Xbox and PC, Shovel Knight, terraria and any old releases like the street of rageetc.
