I know there will be some more organic titles like Helldivers 2 getting popular and of course the much loved Deep Rock Galactic. I wonder though if we're going to see more and more co-op based stuff being pushed as devs seem completely uninterested in trying to solve the issues of multiplayer games if they can't retain control of the playerbase. The co-op genre by itself I don't have a problem with, I'm just not that interested in it.
Seems that the next logical conclusion for these bastards is to start making a push for catering to casuals and console players a lot more and pump out boring online only co-op scenarios that aren't remotely challenging and then proceed to spam microtransactions in peoples' faces. My reasoning for this is that it gives players something 'new' to try and they don't even have to worry about all of the problematic stuff like balance or hacking that often comes with more competitive based titles.
This makes sense to me, but it's so damn cringe because it's the safe and easy option and bores me to death. More and more it's becoming clear that AAA studios are simply not interested in catering to gamers who want to be challenged because it's too much of a challenge for them to make something good.
TLDR: Smol pp AAA studios are pussying out of the overall gaming market to cater to normie console peasants by trying to normalise co-op gaming and avoid all other genres.
...... what? Seriously, what? Co-op is not a genre. It's never been a genre, and never will be a genre. Or are we saying that Left 4 Dead, 7 Days to Die and Project Zomboid are all basically the same game since they all are co-op and all have zombies in them?
And, no, I'm not being pedantic here - you have a fundamental misunderstanding of what co-op is. Co-op is not a type of game. Co-op is an implementation. Helldivers 2, Palword, Baldur's Gate 3, Diablo 4 are all co-op games released in the past year and they are all vastly different games. Co-op games can be easy. Co-op games can be difficult. The co-op could be necessary, or optional. You even have weird pseudo-co-op stuff like the pawn system in the Dragon's Dogma games.
If you want to complain about cash-grabbing devs and MTX, feel free. But co-op has nothing to do with that. Blizzard spammed D4 with a huge number of MTX, both cosmetic and gameplay. Fatshark stuck a ton of MTX in Vermintide and Darktide, but those are mostly cosmetic and have no impact at all on the difficulty. Larian and PocketPair didn't put any MTX in BG3 or Palword. And you'll find a similar spread in any video game, single or multiplayer.
And saying having co-op means a game is inherently not challenging is just ignorant.