[Novosell]

Are there any companies continuously making widely different critically acclaimed games? or do they typically have a hit and then make games in the same vein? Bioware had a certain take on RPGs, same with Bethesda's modern Fallout/Elder Scrolls, FromSoft make DS derivatives, etc.

If I'm missing some studio which has a diverse catalogue of consistently successful games, then please tell me which. But I feel they usually find a niche and then work that.

[noirbot]

Supergiant is pretty close? Bastion, Transistor, Pyre and Hades have all been pretty big hits in different genres and styles. They're consistently high production value in terms of art/soundtrack/writing, but the gameplay varies a good bit. About the same release cadence as Bethesda in my memory while being a smaller studio.

[weard_beard]

Rockstar has grand theft auto and grand theft horse.

I hope some day to play grand theft spaceship, grand theft dragon, and maybe grand theft dinosaur.

[xyzzy3000]

Isn't that essentially what Leslie Benzies is working on with the 'Everywhere' project?

[lobocinza]

Valve and Obsidian Entertainment have such catalogue but even great studios fail from time to time.

Most will find a formula that works for a niche and stick with it. Which is smart because innovation increases both the chance of achieving something great and of releasing a fiasco.

[Shared404]

FromSoft is also making a new Armored Core, which I imagine should be pretty different from Dark Souls.

[Waterluvian]

I’m not sure I follow the point of this criteria. They find niches and leverage their experience. This is what everyone in the professional world does.

The point is that there must be a formula if studios can consistently deliver.

[majormajor]

Nintendo? but that's more "publisher who curates external- or internal-studios who largely stay in the same genre each"

[Novosell]

Yeah, Nintendo is the publisher in most of those scenarios. The individual studios, including Nintedo, tend to just iterate from what I can see.

[majormajor]

I wonder what the "new game onboarding" process at Nintendo looks like. Thinking of something relatively more left-field and recent like the Mario Rabbids tactical thing for Switch.

Was that pitched to them? Solicited to studios by them? In the latter case that would be a fascinating process to observe.

[zyx321]

Rabbids are a spinoff from Rayman. I would assume Ubisoft was the driving creative force behind it. And it's somewhat damning that the "relatively recent" innovation is currently two expansion packs into its second installment.

[majormajor]

Video games are like 50 years old now, relatively recent is relative... ;)

[Waterluvian]

Whatever you label them, the same studios keep pumping out great games.