So the reason I decided to make this thread initially was because of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. When I was a kid playing games like A Link to the Past and Super Metroid, I would fantasize about things that would be cool as hell. "Imagine if you could have a world that was like, so huge, and had like a hundred dungeons in it, and that you could send bombs flying at the enemies, but they were really smart and could pick up the bombs too, but you could set them on fire, and then like froze them and electrocuted them, or you could like get on a horse and shoot arrows from it, but the enemies could get on horse too, and you had like these big battles on horseback, and, and, and...." Then comes Breath of the Wild, and it's actually pretty much that game that I had convinced myself was just a silly fantasy.
So it made me think: what is, today, the cool stuff that sounds like it's just a silly fantasy? Because in 20 years, we might actually get it. Like
@Goodtwin, I don't think it's VR. Even if VR were to blow up overnight, I wouldn't care too much because I've never really seen the appeal of it. I don't think I ever played a game like Dark Souls, or even Breath of the Wild now, and thought: "you know what would make this game even better? VR." That's not to say that I couldn't be convinced, but I think VR has a tough road ahead when it comes to convincing people years down the line that it's a worthy investment.
If I were to talk about a concept that is truly fantastical (today) in gaming, it would be the application of machine learning (modern AI programming) in video games. Without getting too much into it, I think in the future we could see games that in some ways learn from us and use that to the game's advantage. As a reasonable example, think of the Korok seeds in Breath of the Wild. These seeds are in fixed points around the world, hidden under specific environmental puzzles. No matter how you play the game, the way in which these seeds are discovered is pretty much the same. But what if the game was actually keeping track of how you played it, and determined that, for instance, Juegos really likes to burn bushes and climb to the top of mountains. So then, the game decides to start procedurally placing new bushes on the tops of mountains and hiding Korok seeds under them, knowing fully well that I'm going to go burn them and discover them. In the same way, enemies in the game could learn from previous encounters with every blood moon that revives them. Knowing that Juegos is a tricky dick that likes to freeze and then shock them for easy kills, silver Moblins would then start carrying torches and sticking by their campfire next time they see me. There are already some systems like this in some games (Shadow of Mordor has a hierarchy of commanders that remember the player's tendencies), but I'm imagining machine learning algorithms becoming common enough to not be just a one-off feature in games, but affecting multiple aspects of it, from combat, puzzles, procedural dungeons, equipment, and so on.
As a crazier example, imagine a game where the NPCs are so good at recognizing the players actions, and reacting to them, that they are almost lifelike. this kind of machine learning wouldn't have to happen during the game, but rather be a part of its development. You could program the AI of an NPC (like Zelda), or an enemy (like the lynels), or an animal (such as a horse) to be ready to categorize player actions; feed thousands of hours of playtesting to the AI; and program responses for the NPC (or enemy, or animal) that are triggered when it recognizes the player's action. Characters in Breath of the Wild are already very detailed in their animations and their reactions to their world and the player's actions, but deeper machine learning technology could them look like puppets in comparison.
But to be clear, I think this sort of thing is far in the future, in terms of gaming years. Like I said, Breath of the Wild is the game I would dream about as a kid, and 20 years later, it's here. So I don't think this wacky deep machine learning stuff I'm imagining today is too crazy for us to get in some shape or in another 20 years, either.
