If there’s a single throughline for the PC gaming year that was 2025, it’s finally accepting that the pursuit of fancy graphics just doesn’t make sense anymore.
Tech has hit a hard graphics plateau: raw generational updates are now nuanced upgrades measured in single-digit frame gains rather than evolutions anyone with eyes can appreciate, and the subsequent pivot to AI-generated frames and experimental hair follicles aren’t really revving anyone’s engines when those upgrades cost a month’s rent. Even if the latest hardware really was all that, the precarious AI bubble is locking normal humans out of it anyway.
It’s good timing, then, that cutting edge graphics are increasingly irrelevant to keeping up with the hobby. A bright spot of 2025 was the continued rise of “friendslop,” a cringey internet-spawned label for a broad genre of cooperative games designed for groups of friends.
Though it looks like it’s sticking, friendslop is a terrible name for these games, because it (perhaps unintentionally) lumps them in with a growing pile of low-effort games cranked out by anonymous Steam grifters every day, and of course, actual AI slop. The well-intentioned use of “slop” probably refers to the subgenre’s deliberate use of janky physics and ragdolls to conjure comedy. In REPO, navigating a valuable and fragile vase down narrow hallways is uncomfortable, awkward, and intense—much like actually moving a cherished piece of furniture from one house to another.
But there’s nothing sloppy about games with a simple premise, instantly learnable controls, and crucially, with an art direction that accommodates whatever hardware you have to play them on. To have all of that at once and still end up with a fun game is anything but low-effort.
I feel like this isn’t really a new development. Back when LAN parties and local multiplayer were still a thing, games like TeeWorlds, Worms etc. were popular, because they ran on potatoes and you could often get them for free.
The actual fun then came from dicking around with or competing against your friends. The game itself does not need to be ground-breaking for that.
Hell, it technically started even earlier than that, with physical card games and board games and such. Just play them with friends and it’s fun.
Quite on point. I’d add that it’s not only games but also other media like movies you can enjoy better with friends, even if they’re not particularly cinematographic masterpieces.
Hell, it technically started even earlier than that, with physical card games and board games and such. Just play them with friends and it’s fun.
Here I was, thinking people liked Uno for the deep game mechanics and story 🙃
People in this thread try to pull compliments for friendslop out of thin air because they can’t admit they like simple or bad games. If it’s fun, it must be genius, because obviously I won’t ever play a game which is bad, would I now? 🙃😅
I’d say people should enjoy what they enjoy. We should stop judging other people’s fun. And I think this is kind of also the point of the article: if people have fun in AAA games with micro transactions and battle passes, I let them and I’m happy they can have fun. I won’t touch that shit myself though, rather play a “friendslop” title 😅
It feels like we’ve been stating the obvious for so long and it’s good to see it validated. But as others have said, this are no surprising news. Precise simulation and high end graphics make no sense if they don’t play a function in expanding the fun of the experience. We keep relearning the same thing over and over again. There’s a lot of fun to be had playing with friends, but also just having good game design.
So why does it have “slop” on the name? Should be Friendpeak
Well it’s basically gaming fastfood: they’re bad games in themselves, and you can only enjoy them with friends. You wouldn’t enjoy them with people you don’t have chemistry with. Whereas there’s some competitive games like CS2 you can enjoy with random strangers because it’s a mechanically well made game.
That’s not to say friendslop don’t have a right to exist. There’s a time and a place for friendslop, it’s not when you want to play a good game.
I often compare it to mediocre or bad movies which only work on cinema screens or home theater. If you watch “popcorn movies” without popcorn, you won’t enjoy the movie.
I very much disagree, it’s like judging that samba is not good cos it’s not blues. They’re two different genres with different goals. If it’s fun then it is well designed.
I very much disagree, it’s like judging that samba is not good cos it’s not blues. They’re two different genres with different goals.
Funny, that was actually my point I tried to make. I repeat myself:
That’s not to say friendslop don’t have a right to exist. There’s a time and a place for friendslop, it’s not when you want to play a good game.
I often compare it to mediocre or bad movies which only work on cinema screens or home theater. If you watch “popcorn movies” without popcorn, you won’t enjoy the movie.
But that’s where I’d disagree:
If it’s fun then it is well designed.
You can have fun with badly designed or badly polished games. It needs an engaging game loop, sure, it can’t be complete crap. But I’d argue that you don’t need to create a good game to create a fun(ny) game.
Example: EYE Divine Cybermancy. One of my favourite games but I often laugh at the jank and incoherent story, and the bugs, and I’m still having fun.
Maybe we shouldn’t call it friendslop, but friendjank?
Just want to drill into this real quick: a game like CS2 is a good game because it’s enjoyable to play with strangers, but a game like Peak is a bad game because it isn’t as enjoyable with strangers?
Alternatively, a game like CS2 is a good game because it’s mechanically well made, but what is it about the mechanics in Peak that make it a bad game?
Take care to not conflate a personal dislike of the genre with objective quality within a context. Liking action movies doesn’t mean rom coms are all terrible (no matter how much one might think they could be improved by a sudden firefight at the climax).
I didn’t compare CS2 to Peak specifically. I compared good games to friendslop.
Can you tell me why you’re upset that I call “friendslop” bad games? I didn’t say you can’t enjoy bad games, I’d say in many instances I had more fun in objectively bad games and movies with friends than I had in good games. Sometimes the good games are boring and the jank makes “bad” games great or funny.
I also didn’t say I dislike friendslop. I enjoyed Lethal Company and Among Us with friends, for example. I also really like watching “bad” movies with friends, we even watched The Room once 😅
I even watch objectively bad films by myself. One of my favourites is Fortress (1992). This has an 38% rotten and a 40% popcorn meter rating on Rottentomatoes. Which is basically my point – media doesn’t have to be good to be enjoyable or funny.
I’m not always after a laugh though. There’s a place and a time for friendslop, and it’s specifically called friendslop because of that. Don’t see it as an insult.
Don’t agree at all. If you’re limited on resources, you can certainly make an excellent game without intense graphics. But sophisticated graphics also can make a game. I often find myself in these types of games just wondering around and taking in the view and appreciating the artwork in it.
Of course a good game will also be efficient and not require a fucking $2k GPU to run properly. And with hardware prices going through the fucking roof it’s also good to ensure that your game will run at all on low end hardware.
It all comes down to personal preference.
But sophisticated graphics also can make a game.
This is not the case for any of my favorite games, for example.
It was not presented as personal preference. It was presented as “the pursuit of fancy graphics just doesn’t make sense anymore”.
It makes lots of sense, even if you don’t care for it.
the pursuit of fancy graphics just doesn’t make sense anymore
Their assertion is that fancy graphics doesn’t necessarily equal good gameplay, and the major industry players are focused on ever-increasing frame rates instead of game quality.
Nobody cares if your game is fully immersive and rendered down to the atomic scale if it is boring or the game mechanics are shite. Sure you can wander around and look at stuff and gasp at the physics, but unless the game is titled “Look around and enjoy it” , that’s not the point.
That’s not what they said.
Yeah, I am saying I think it comes down to personal preference, not arguing against your point.
sophisticated graphics also can make a game
I agree to an extent, but good graphics can’t save a game with bad gameplay.
I bet you’ve never heard “the game isn’t fun but I put hundreds of hours into it because it’s beautiful!”
In contrast, good gameplay can save a game with abysmal graphics.
I’m willing to bet money you’ve heard something around the lines of “it doesn’t look great but I just can’t stop playing!”
Right but that’s not what it says. It says “the pursuit of fancy graphics doesn’t make sense anymore”.
This is the case for many of the original NES games.
Yeah to say they dominated seems a bit extreme. Some people are mostly looking for a virtual activity to do with their friends, and for those people quality of the game itself is secondary in a lot of ways to the ability to play it with their chosen people.
Agreed, couch co-op games are doing well in general because they’re an easy hangout activity and only require one console/computer. Couch co-op has been out of vogue amongst the big publishers (I’m sure a fortnite player is more valuable to them) so people are using what’s available. The few by big publishers with nice graphics have been popular as well (split fiction, it takes two).
This feels like cope a bit, honestly. The thing about the current push for system requirements these days is it’s less about visual fidelity and more about saving development time. This is especially the case with ray tracing, with setups that are far easier to get passable lighting on. Not that there’s ever a fortunate time for exploding hardware prices, but it’s especially unfortunate that they hit while the most popular GPUs right now are 3060 and 4060s. Not exactly RT powerhouses. It would have been better for everyone involved if RT hardware was a generation ahead, and the “we want to spend less time on optimization” part of the push isn’t going to stop.
I don’t know if the AAA devs will hit the brakes a bit on visual fidelity in response to the hardware situation slowing down, but that and the gradual rise of handheld PCs will certainly create an opportunity for lower-spec games to find a market.
A bright spot of 2025 was the continued rise of “friendslop,” a cringey internet-spawned label for a broad genre of cooperative games designed for groups of friends.
This is the first time I’ve ever heard “friendslop” and I knew exactly what it was talking about.
At least the same guy doesn’t also use “boomer shooter”
Boomer shooter doesn’t sound too derogatory to me. Friendslop does.
Which is funny, because “boomer shooter” is literally named after a generic, derogatory term for “older people”
I prefer something descriptive instead of the inside-joke brain-rot nature of “boomer shooter.” Though now I’m sure people just think it means “loud noises”
I mean, it refers to the games that are like those older shooters that old people used to play, I think it works well as a term to distinguish those games from more standard shooters. Also it’s catchy, which really helps
Calling anyone older than you “old people” totally proves my point, thanks!
Friendslop is catchy and accurate!
said older shooters are things like doom and quake, if you played those in your early twenties when they released you’d be nearing retirement, I think it’s a fair descriptor.
Nearing retirement at 50 is already funny, but “old” is honestly hilarious.
Speaking of “slop,” I can see you’re not really old enough to be interesting to talk to so I’ll go. Bye!
Tech has hit a hard graphics plateau: raw generational updates are now nuanced upgrades measured in single-digit frame gains rather than evolutions anyone with eyes can appreciate
in my mind this happened a decade ago and people are only just now realizing that the emperor has no clothes
CoD4 from 2007 looks fine. Sure there’s room for improvement but it’s not been making gameplay better.
