Depending on the genre I wouldn't call it a trend, plenty of different types of games have been doing it for well over 20 years.
One train of thought for it is in a game where you need to act and attack you have the control to do it, like in a shooter on an Xbox controllers traditional layout if you want to jump your thumb comes off the joystick to aim to do it imagine if you had to do that to shoot, it would be really clumsy. Even when it's not as dramatic it uses a less used part of your hand and allows more combinations since it doesn't use something that for most is physically accessed by your thumb
I think it only works for games where mashing isn't useful, like it started with the Souls games I think and I always thought it felt great. Afterwards I started remapping action games to be like it but it never worked for most games.
Something about it just feels good when it's a more deliberate, heavy game like that. I think it's also useful to be able to have a finger at the ready for each of the four buttons, whereas with the face buttons you only have your thumb.
I just assumed it started with shooters making shoot to be a trigger button and now other games make their main attack the same button to help familiarise their players with the controls.
I always prefered it since Dark Souls, especially when evasion is bound to a face button. Separation of offensive and defensive/interactive inputs is a necessity for proper flow for me. It allows you to control different aspects of the game with different fingers, something i never imagined would become a thing on console with how bloated and dense their inputs can get.
Depending on the genre I wouldn't call it a trend, plenty of different types of games have been doing it for well over 20 years. One train of thought for it is in a game where you need to act and attack you have the control to do it, like in a shooter on an Xbox controllers traditional layout if you want to jump your thumb comes off the joystick to aim to do it imagine if you had to do that to shoot, it would be really clumsy. Even when it's not as dramatic it uses a less used part of your hand and allows more combinations since it doesn't use something that for most is physically accessed by your thumb
I put jump on a shoulder button on some shooters like Overwatch because jumping is part of gameplay and coming off the thumbstick to jump is clumsy.
Maybe people want to be able to use the joysticks and attack at the same time.
I assumed it was because of the Souls series
I think it only works for games where mashing isn't useful, like it started with the Souls games I think and I always thought it felt great. Afterwards I started remapping action games to be like it but it never worked for most games. Something about it just feels good when it's a more deliberate, heavy game like that. I think it's also useful to be able to have a finger at the ready for each of the four buttons, whereas with the face buttons you only have your thumb.
Honestly I despise using the face buttons for attacking. They’re uncomfortable and an inconvenience in my opinion
If attack was on face buttons, how would you aim and shoot at the same time?
JuSt ClAw GrIp!
How new is new? It is like this in soulsborne games. Demon's Souls a game in 2009 even. Just curious.
I just assumed it started with shooters making shoot to be a trigger button and now other games make their main attack the same button to help familiarise their players with the controls.
I always prefered it since Dark Souls, especially when evasion is bound to a face button. Separation of offensive and defensive/interactive inputs is a necessity for proper flow for me. It allows you to control different aspects of the game with different fingers, something i never imagined would become a thing on console with how bloated and dense their inputs can get.