You know that weird, itchy feeling in the back of your brain when you pick up a brand-new, $70 triple-A title? You’re ten minutes in, swinging a sword or looking down the sights of a futuristic rifle, and it hits you like a freight train. I’ve played these games before. Not literally this specific title, maybe, but the mechanics, the UI, and the "climb the tower to reveal the map" loop feel so familiar they might as well be muscle memory.
It’s not just you.
We’re living in an era of "safe" game design where billion-dollar studios are terrified of risks. When a game costs $200 million to produce, the suits in charge don’t want innovation; they want a return on investment. This has led to a strange phenomenon where every open-world game starts to feel like a reskin of Assassin’s Creed or Far Cry. It’s a comfort food problem. Sometimes you want a burger, but eventually, you realize you’ve eaten the same burger every night for five years.
The Mechanics of Modern Familiarity
Why does it feel like I’ve played these games before even when the box art is different? It comes down to the "Standardized Feature Set." Think about the "detective vision" or "Witcher senses" mechanic. Ever since Batman: Arkham Asylum introduced Detective Mode in 2009, almost every major action-adventure game has copied it. The Last of Us has "Listen Mode." Ghost of Tsushima has the "Guiding Wind." Horizon Zero Dawn has the "Focus."
It’s a crutch.
Instead of designing levels that naturally lead the player's eye toward a goal, developers just give us a button that turns the world gray and highlights the objective in glowing yellow. It’s efficient, sure. But it contributes heavily to that feeling of "been there, done that."
The Ubisoft Towers and Map Bloat
Let's talk about the map. You open the menu, and it’s a mess of icons. Collectibles, side quests, outposts, and viewpoints. This specific style of gameplay loop—where you clear a zone to unlock more of the map—has become the industry baseline. It’s "The Ubisoft Formula." While Ubisoft didn't invent every piece of it, they certainly codified it.
When you play Marvel’s Spider-Man, you’re fixing radio towers. In Zelda: Breath of the Wild, you’re climbing Sheikah Towers. In Shadow of Mordor, it’s Haedir towers. The skin changes, but the skeletal structure is identical. It’s why gamers often feel a sense of burnout halfway through a 60-hour campaign. The novelty wears off, and you’re left with the realization that you’re just checking boxes on a digital chore list.
The Technical Reason Everything Feels the Same
It’s not just lazy writing or copy-paste design. There are genuine technical hurdles that force developers into these corners.
Most modern games are built on either Unreal Engine or Unity. While these engines are incredibly powerful and have democratized game development, they also come with "presets." If you use the standard character controller in Unreal, the way your character jumps, turns, and interacts with physics is going to feel remarkably similar to ten other games released that same month.
Then there’s the "animation density" issue. Motion capture is expensive. A lot of studios buy or license the same animation libraries. That’s why the way a character crouch-walks in an indie stealth game might look suspiciously like the way they move in a mid-budget Eurojank RPG.
Risk Aversion and the Sequel Trap
Look at the top-selling games of the last three years. Call of Duty, Madden, FIFA (now FC), Pokémon, and various remakes.
- Resident Evil 4 Remake
- Dead Space Remake
- The Last of Us Part I
- Final Fantasy VII Rebirth
We are literally playing games we have played before. Remakes are the ultimate safety net for publishers. They have a built-in audience, the "fun" has already been proven, and the marketing is halfway done. But this creates a cycle where the "new" games being developed have to compete with the nostalgia of the "old" ones, leading developers to play it even safer.
Honestly, it’s exhausting.
How to Break the "I’ve Played These Games Before" Fever
If you’re feeling the fatigue, the solution isn't to stop gaming. It’s to change how you shop for games. We’ve been conditioned to look at the "Big Three" (Sony, Microsoft, Nintendo) and the massive third-party publishers (EA, Activision, Ubisoft) for our entertainment.
But the real innovation is happening in the cracks.
Look for "Genre-Benders"
The games that break the "I’ve played these games before" curse are usually the ones that mash two things together that shouldn't work. Look at Dave the Diver. It’s a deep-sea fishing game... and a sushi restaurant management sim... and an action RPG... and somehow it works perfectly. It doesn't feel like anything else because it refuses to sit in one box.
Similarly, Pacific Drive took the survival crafting genre and tied it to a station wagon. Instead of building a base, you’re upgrading your car. That one shift in perspective makes the "collecting scraps" gameplay loop feel fresh again.
The Power of the "Short Game"
Part of the reason games feel repetitive is their length. When a game is forced to be 40 hours long, it has to reuse assets and mechanics. It’s filler.
Short games—those 4-to-6-hour experiences—don't have time to get boring. Titles like Cocaine Shark or A Short Hike or Untitled Goose Game do one thing, do it well, and then leave. They don't overstay their welcome, so you never get that "here we go again" feeling.
The Psychology of Mechanical Familiarity
Psychologically, our brains love patterns. It’s why we like pop music with predictable chord progressions. In gaming, familiarity can actually be a good thing for "onboarding." If I know that "X" is jump and "O" is dodge, I can start playing the game immediately without reading a manual.
But there’s a tipping point.
When the mechanics become too predictable, the brain stops engaging. You go into "autopilot." This is why you can play a game for four hours and realize you don't remember a single thing that happened in the story. You were just responding to the UI cues you’ve been trained to follow for the last twenty years.
The "Souls-like" Saturation
Even the "innovators" aren't immune. Dark Souls changed the world. It was fresh, difficult, and mysterious. Now, "Souls-like" is a tag on Steam with thousands of entries.
- Hard bosses.
- Stamina bar.
- Lose your "currency" on death.
- Vague lore.
I’ve played these games before. Even when FromSoftware themselves released Elden Ring, it was essentially "Open World Dark Souls." It was a masterpiece, yes, but it didn't hide its DNA. Now, every second indie action game uses the same bonfire-style checkpoint system. We’ve traded one set of tropes (Ubisoft towers) for another (Souls-like checkpoints).
Is Innovation Dead? (Spoiler: No)
It's easy to get cynical. It's easy to look at the storefronts and see nothing but "Generic Shooter #49" and think the medium is stagnant.
But look at Balatro. It’s a poker roguelike. It sounds simple, maybe even boring, but it’s one of the most addictive and unique experiences in years. It doesn't use "detective vision." It doesn't have a map full of icons. It just has a deck of cards and a hell of an idea.
Innovation is still there; it's just rarely found in the games with a $100 million marketing budget. Those games are designed to be played by everyone, which means they have to be somewhat familiar. They have to be the burger.
The Role of VR and New Inputs
One way to kill the "I've played this before" feeling is to change the way you interact with the game. Virtual Reality (VR) is still a niche, but it forces developers to rethink everything. You can't just use a "Ubisoft tower" in VR because the physical act of climbing is the gameplay, not just a cutscene that reveals icons.
Even on consoles, haptic feedback on the PS5 DualSense controller is a small step toward making the "familiar" feel "new." Feeling the tension of a bowstring or the gritty texture of gravel under a car’s tires adds a layer of sensory input that breaks the autopilot.
Actionable Steps for the Bored Gamer
If you find yourself saying "I’ve played these games before" more often than you’re saying "Wow, that was cool," it’s time for a palette cleanser. Don't just keep buying the next big sequel and hoping it’ll be different this time. It won't be.
Stop following the hype cycle. The games getting the most marketing are the ones most likely to be "safe." Ignore the pre-order bonuses. Ignore the cinematic trailers that don't show gameplay.
Audit your library. Look at the last five games you finished. If they all have the same "open world, crafting, skill tree" loop, you’re burning yourself out. Force yourself to play something in a genre you usually hate. Don’t like racing games? Try Burnout Paradise. Hate horror? Try a "cozy" horror game like Dredge.
Follow individual developers, not studios. Studios change. Lead designers move. If you loved the "vibe" of a specific game, find out who the creative director was and see what they’re doing now. Usually, those creators carry their specific brand of "weirdness" to their next project, even if the IP changes.
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Embrace the "weird" on itch.io or Steam Discovery. Go to the "New and Trending" or "Hidden Gems" sections. Look for games with weird art styles or control schemes. Sometimes a game that is a bit "janky" but original is more rewarding than a polished game that feels like a duplicate of something you played in 2014.
Limit your playtime. Sometimes the "I've played this before" feeling is just mental fatigue. If you play games for 6 hours a day, the patterns become glaringly obvious. Step away. Read a book. Watch a movie. When you come back, the "game-iness" of games might not feel so oppressive.
The industry is currently in a state of hyper-consolidation and risk-management. It’s a business, after all. But as a consumer, your power is in where you spend your time. If we keep rewarding the same loops, we’re going to keep getting them. Search for the outliers. They’re there, hiding under the piles of sequels and remakes. Go find them.
Next Steps for Your Gaming Library:
To truly break the cycle, start by identifying the specific mechanic that bores you the most (e.g., crafting, skill trees, or map icons) and purposefully seek out a game that lacks that feature entirely. Check out developer interviews on sites like Gamasutra or watch GDC (Game Developers Conference) talks to see which creators are actively trying to subvert these tired industry standards. By understanding the "why" behind game design, you’ll become much better at spotting—and avoiding—the clones before you hit the "purchase" button.