The start of this console generation has been stuck in the past

A new Far Cry game! More Assassin’s Creed! Remakes galore! The constant cry for the return of the Fallout franchise! Cheers for remastered collections!

Ever get the feeling that most of the excitement over the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One have been over IPs we’ve seen on a regular basis and games we already experienced? If so, there’s a good reason. The number of new franchises releasing on consoles this year is incredibly low. Hiding amongst the new iterations of Call of Duty, Battlefield, Assassin’s Creed, Far Cry, Halo, Forza, and others are a handful of untested properties.

Which is weird since we’ve been welcoming these new properties with open arms.

Driveclub may turn out to be well worth the long, painful wait. Sunset Overdrive looks like honest-to-goodness over-the-top action. Evolve is a multiplayer wet-dream. The Evil Within could be a worthy return from Shinji Mikami.

I want more of this, though. Quite frankly, there needs to be more of this, especially from Microsoft. They need to give consumers a reason to buy an Xbox One other than being able to relive your fondest Halo memories. And I’d like to think that there’s always next year for those new IPs to show up, but in addition to the annual releases we’ve expect from the big name publishers, there’s a good chance we’ll see more Mass Effect, Tomb Raider, Halo, and others.

I’m not saying that all these sequels are bad; the Tomb Raider reboot was a welcome thing, for example. But we’re dealing with (now relatively) new hardware. I want some new experiences to go along with that. New worlds to explore and new characters to meet. Maybe I’m just being pessimistic, but I can’t help but feel that we’re seeing far more sequels than seven years ago.

Ironically, the sequel everyone wants isn’t happening.