Spurred on by the continual improvements and increased accessibility of powerful hardware – be it computers, home consoles, smartphones, or tablets – gaming has come on leaps and bounds in even just a few years, let alone over the last decade.
Even with colossal, expansive, and incredibly cinematic games like Grand Theft Auto VI, Ghost of Yōtei, Death Stranding 2, and Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater on the horizon, the biggest releases of 2009 continue to have an influence on the industry of today.
A Huge Year for Game of the Year Contenders
Even now, if you bring up the discussion of which was the best game of 2009 to people who were around at the time, you’ll likely trigger a heated debate.
Uncharted 2: Among Thieves set a new benchmark for aesthetics, creating likeable and in-depth characters, and creating bombastic cinematic set pieces. Critics praised it across the board, as is perfectly demonstrated by the Eurogamer collection of overviews for the game.
Next up, it’s the incredible Batman: Arkham Asylum. Far from the usual movie tie-in cash-grab of the day, the Rocksteady release is the epitome of living out a superhero fantasy, and just as a certain cinematic universe from DC’s rival comic brand was starting to get going.
Then, there’s one of the games that made Bethesda a much-loved studio, Fallout 3. Changing the formula of the series to a vast, open-world sandbox, players could do whatever they wanted in the post-apocalyptic wasteland.
Nowadays, you can see the fingerprints of Uncharted 2 in cinematic epics like The Last of Us, the influence of a vast superhero game like Arkham Asylum in the Spider-Man series, and Fallout 3 can be seen as a projenator to the likes of The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt and Cyberpunk 2077.
Picking up Steam in Online Gaming
MMORPG’s were certainly established in the world of online gaming before 2009, but it was at this point that games in Eastern markets began to influence Western games.
World of Warcraft was already collection some $1 billion each year, but it was free-to-play games from China and Korea that made enough to convince others of the worth of large-scale free-to-play games. Now, we see it in games like Fortnite and Warframe to come.
Elsewhere online, it was a case of testing the limits of browser-based gaming tech. Put out by Barcrest, the Rainbow Riches slot game came loaded with different features, being one of the first big-hit games to come with several different bonuses and it remains popular to this day.
It’s got the Road to Riches, Pots of Gold, and Wishing Well, each of which can grant access to the 500x jackpot. Now, multi-feature slots are essentially the standard, with very few of the majority residing themselves to having just the one feature.
Mobile Gaming Changes Forever
On 1 December, Angry Birds launched on iOS as a premium mobile game. It went on to make over $100 million and remains among the 150 highest-grossing mobile games of all time. That year, The Sims 3, The Oregon Trail, Need for Speed: Underground, and Madden NFL 10 were the top-selling mobile games of the year, but they aren’t the story here.
In 2009, however, the race to the bottom truly took shape as Pocket Gamer details. The top ten app games in the US averaged at $1.19, which happened to align with iOS 3.0, released in June, that allowed for in-app purchases. Online shooter Eliminate Pro was the first to ride what would be the freemium tsunami to come. Now, it’s reported that 98 per cent of revenue on Google Play is from freemium apps.
Whether it’s console, computer, smartphone, or online gaming, the fingerprints of 2009 creations remain on the industry in the 2020s.
