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Mid-Tier AA Games Have an Important Place in the Game Industry
If you are looking for some awesome AA games to play right now, check out our list!
I’ve recently come to the conclusion that I really enjoy mid-tier games. Mid-tier, is that a thing? Maybe not but I’m going to try and make a case for this non thing I’m calling mid-tier games anyway. The games I am talking about are not quite Indie games, at least not in the usual perceived sense. They aren’t the hugely polished, heavily marketed, massive AAA games either. They sit somewhere in between.
Don’t mistake my classification of mid-tier as an indicator of quality. I’m mainly referring to a games scope and budget. Some people call them B-games (sometimes referring to quality but also typically scope), the most common name for these games is probably AA.
These games seemed to be a little more popular back in the day. In the days of N64, PS2, Original Xbox, you would get a handful of them from time to time. In recent years they have been making a comeback. I don’t know exactly why they seem to be more viable now, maybe its because of the new avenues available for game creation in recent years like Kickstarter and Xbox Game Pass.
My guess is they are a tough niche to be in. They aren’t cheap enough to be made by a really small team in many cases but they also aren’t well funded enough to create the types of splashy games that will see massive success in the gaming market.
Some of the contemporary games I really enjoy that I would throw into this (admittedly loose and wildly up to interpretation) AA category are as follows:
The Earth Defense Force Series
Wasteland 3
Shadow Warrior Series
Deadly Premonition (One of my favorite games of all time)
It Takes Two
Hi-Fi Rush
A Plague Tale Franchise
Some of those games are maybe a little more “mid-Tier” than others but in my mind they all belong in the same class. Games that punch up with AAA games in a bigger weight class and succeed at landing some blows. Heck in some cases, these games knock their better funded rivals right on their ass.
Why I love AA Games
So what is it about these games I enjoy so much? Well it’s a few things. Not all of these games have the the same qualities in common but generally, they do something that bigger games can’t for whatever reason. These games aren’t optimized in every way to receive 10/10’s and appeal to all gamers everywhere. They games generally have a very specific audience, a very specific goal, and they pour everything into achieving that goal.
Reason 1: AA Game Length
There used to be a time when I thought the longer the game is, the better. I fondly recall being a teenager over various summers, getting a new game that I planned to dump months of my time into, and being sorely disappointed when I finished it in two weeks.
Admittedly I still do love a long engrossing game, but in today’s gaming landscape there are just too many good games available and so little time to spare to play them.
Seemingly every few weeks there is a new and exciting title on the market and many of these great experiences run for 40+ hours. Most adults, hell, most people period, would not be able to dedicate that kind of time to a new game every few weeks and play them to completion.
Avid gamers have to pick and choose among the most appealing games they want to play, and then backlog every other game they are interested in playing down the line.
Thus we come to one of my key loves for mid-tier games, shorter length; with most of them you can enjoy what they have to offer and complete the story in far less time than their AAA counterparts.
That’s huge for someone like myself who likes to finish game stories and then revel in the glow of a job well done while the credits roll.
A 10 or 20 hour game that I can blast through in a couple of weeks is a welcome reprieve. After putting 50 hours into a game like Horizon Forbidden West, it’s nice to throw in a game like Hi Fi Rush and complete the entire thing in about 14 hours, nearly a quarter of the time I spent grinding through Horizon.
Shorter game length also has the added benefits of allowing me to beat more games in a shorter duration of time and that greatly feeds my desire to try to new experiences. I can play and enjoy 3 quality AA games that are different in the same time it takes me to finish some AAA ones.
Reason 2: AA games may not do everything right but they almost always do THEIR thing right
I got to be honest, very frequently these games don’t have the shine and finely tuned polish of much bigger or smaller games. They can have wonky mechanics, poor graphics, lack certain production values, or just be buggy as hell; this is the accepted price you pay for being on a lower budget while still having a large ambition. With that said, these games almost always still have a unique sense of identity.
As many modern AAA games try to be the “Every game” so they can keep you playing for 1000 hours, these AA games know they aren’t on that level and they don’t try to be.
They hone in on something different, maybe its a gameplay mechanic that lets them stand out (Hi-Fi Rush and its rhythm action) or a plot that is overly zany (Deadly Premonition has some of the most out there and memorable story beats of all time) and that’s what makes them interesting.
Crackdown 3 is really all about blowing crap up and platforming. It’s simple, overly simple perhaps but that’s also its greatest strength. It’s a game you can turn on at anytime and just putz around in without having to worry to much about doing anything outside of that main focus.
I think someone once referred to it as comfort food of gaming and I feel that’s a fine description. One fo my favorite game franchises, Earth Defense Force, is another silly game where you are blasting giant insects to bits and grinding loot.
Though it sounds odd and maybe even unappealing to some, it is amazingly fun and the series has provided me ample entertainment through several iterations of this same concept.
The core loop of 10 minute battles, constant weapon and character upgrades, and then going into the next battle with those upgrades is delectably satisfying. This game has a very straight forward identity, it sticks to one thing it does really well and I think a lot of AAA games lack that refined sense of focus.
Reason 3: AA Games can be Unpredictable
As mentioned in point number 2, these games have a unique identity. Sometimes the most creative stories, characters, or weapons come from games such as these because they exists outside of the conventional blockbuster game realm.
Because they are not hugely valuable franchises from major development companies, they don’t have to play it as safe. There isn’t the same fear of the game being a gigantic failure that alienates too many casual gamers with a certain gameplay element or setting. These games are also commonly not covered widely by the games media so you are aren’t over exposed to the plot, characters, or gameplay.
One of the greatest gaming experiences of my life happened when I decided to blindly play Deadly Premonition based off a recommendation from a user on Gamefaqs.com.
Going in I had almost no idea of what I was about to experience and for the following month I took part in an exhilarating adventure that elicited emotions from me I have rarely felt playing any video game before or since. It simply was unlike anything I had quite experienced.
Another game that is currently in early access, this one is probably more on the Indie game side but still fits the ethos of what AA games are all about, is Shadows of Doubt. This is a PC detective game where you play in a procedurally generated city and solve crimes with generated suspects. Every building or room you see can be entered. You can figure out many ways to solve your crime including breaking into peoples places of work, their homes, etc. and collecting evidence.
The game is so out their conceptually that I have to learn how to wrap my brain around playing a game with this much autonomy. This is an idea you could probably only get in a AA or Indie game because no studio would want to risk millions on trying something that goes against the norm. This game isn’t scripted, you never know what situation or case you may get next will be and that’s scary for a game with a huge budget.
Mid-Tier AA Games have much to offer a gamer who is looking to spice up their library
These are 3 of the main reasons why I’m falling more and more in love with mid-tier games. There is a charm to many of them that’s reminiscent of my teenage years, more specifically, the games that I experienced in that era.
The days were I would be taking a casual trip to Blockbuster Video, perusing the assortment of available game titles that Inevitably lead to me finding a game that catches my eye; I read the description on the back, rent it out, and pop it into my machine to see what new world awaited me.
The adventure you got may not be the one you envisioned but it was often something unique and sometimes, something unforgettably entertaining. A lot of these games are just that, they aren’t aspiring to be feature films with their story, they don’t mind if you don’t play their game constantly for the next 5 years.
They aren’t trying to dominate the game market by being the biggest game with the most microtransactions and online player counts. They are humble offerings crafted by smaller studios who know they don’t have a massive money maker on their hands.
Even so, they still have a ridiculously hard earned piece of art entertainment that they want to share with the world. Something that they know will speak to some players out there and move them in some way.
They want a player to feel vindicated for giving their smaller game a chance over the major studio counterpart they could have purchased instead. I admire the companies who put out these games and I appreciate their efforts.
I hope the Mid-Tier AA Game Space Continues to Grow
These last two console generation have seen a renaissance in the AA game space. For a long time it looked like it was dying off but after Indie games started to find a lot of success it looks like new life is being breathed into the games that fall in the large gap between small indie titles and huge AAA offerings.
I hope we will continue to see games like this being made. New services like Xbox Game Pass and PS Now give me hope that developers and gaming companies can find more reasons to produce these games and find more homes for them.
What’s the next mid-tier game you are looking forward to? Do you have a favorite you would like to recommend to others? Post a comment below and get in on the discussion!
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