Pour One Out for These Load Screens
While several games during this generation hid loads behind cleverly designed environments, load screens still weren’t strange to the Xbox One or PS4. With the release of Xbox Series X/S and PS5, gamers will be mostly waving goodbye to load times for games from this generation. While I expect some games developed later this generation that even take the SSD’s some effort to load, these games will likely load (or have already been shown loading) too quickly to admire the scenery, atmosphere, or in one particular case, gameplay. We’ll all have some personal favorite load screens/sequences, but these are some of the best from this generation of consoles.
10. Overwatch
While Overwatch’s load screens are static, it gives Blizzard an excuse to show off what made them one of the biggest developers out there: the beautiful art design. There are other games on this generation that take players into a map rather than just looking at it, but Blizzard puts so much detail into their games, particularly Overwatch, that even just a static image of part of a map is enough to keep me captivated as I wait for the maps to load. Some of my favorite Overwatch map load screens are Ilios, Blizzard World, Eichenwald, Junkertown, and Hanamura. While I’m looking forward to jumping into the action of Overwatch’s PvP with the PS5 and Xbox Series X, I’ll miss gazing at these load screens.
9. Grand Theft Auto 5
Despite the fact that it isn’t a comic book videogame, Rockstar shows off their talented cartoon art with the load screens in GTA V. Grand Theft Auto 5 released way back in 2013 on the last generation of consoles, but it’s been appropriately upgraded for the current-gen, meaning loads are a bit shorter but still quite long on Xbox One and PS4. Rockstar fans will be familiar with the GTA V load screens if they played last-gen, but the images transition from one to another akin to flipping through a comic book given the cartoonish visuals. The vibrant colors of Los Santos are teased in these screens, and the overall vibe of the campaign is captured in the characters that Rockstar chose to include in the loading sequences. I’m looking forward to the next-gen version of GTA V, but these load screens will be mere blips on Xbox Series X and PS5.
8. Fortnite/Apex Legends
Fortnite and Apex Legends are similar in several ways beyond the simple fact that they’re part of the battle royale genre. Both games include free battle pass and purchased battle pass content, some of which include load screens that will take the place of the boring default load screen. In the same way both games allow for load screen customization, where gamers can pick their favorite between several freebies, and purchased load screens. Most of my favorite Fortnite screens come from Chapter 1 Season 7, Chapter 1 Season 10, and the current season, Chapter 2 Season 4: Nexus War. Apex Legends has fewer awesome load screens so far, but to be fair, it’s a newer game. My favorite Apex Legends load screen came from Season 4: Assimilation and it features a Zen restaurant setting complete with cherry blossom trees and a pool of water beneath windows that overlook Capitol City. Each season of both games offers at least one solid load screen and it has always been worth checking out the new ones, but I don’t think these will be important at all on the Xbox Series X/S and PS5.
Click through to Page 2 for more load screens we’re going to miss with the newest gen…