I apologize for the lateness of tonight's update. I had initially intended to do a piece on the first Dead Space here, and then, after gushing to a friend about how great The Last of Us really is, I was thinking of doing a piece on storytelling in games, and why television tie-ins are a mediocre idea at best. I had about half of that piece done when I encountered some technical difficulties, and lost all my progress. It's been a rough night for writing.
Instead of rehashing what I had already written, I decided to start fresh on a new topic, deadline looming overhead. I've been feeling very unimpressed with a lot of the offerings of the current generation, particularly those from the large AAA publisher-developer complexes, primarily due to uninspired titles with brown palettes and an array of various firearms, all built around the same uninspired multi-player for the 3rd consecutive iteration. That having been said, as the title of this suggests, here are some things developers can do to get me interested in next gen.
Gameplay - This should be the foremost priority. Make it fun, try new things. In eras gone by, nearly every game of note had some sort of gimmick to differentiate it from others in the genre. Bring that back. Seriously, it's getting stale, and I've had enough. Some more focus on single player content would be nice as well. I don't see how a 4-6 hour campaign justifies paying $60 for Call of Duty, when I can spend $15 on Counter-Strike: Global Offensive if I want to play a multi-player modern military shooter, not to mention all the DLC map packs that will be released over the course of the year that people actually play that iteration. If they make these games something that can't be beaten with a one night rental or on the first day of ownership, and they won't have as many issues with the used games market. Make it worth buying, and more importantly, make it worth keeping. Use some of the extra memory in the next-gen consoles to keep track of things like enemy ammunition in first- and third-person shooters(Do they ever run out?), and make them drop exactly what they're carrying, not just two rounds for a pistol, particularly when they've been emptying AK-47 magazines at you for 3 minutes.
Storytelling - Tell as much of the story as possible through gameplay. This is something The Last of Us did particularly well, especially in its closing act. Cutscenes are great and all, but using too many breaks immersion. Make sure that the gameplay is as compelling as the story; this is something I see Quantic Dream struggling with, though with what I've seen of Beyond: Two Souls thus far, it seems like they're getting on the right path. Don't add things just for shock value, and add an option to skip them, because that means the story functions without them, and they add ultimately nothing(Looking at you, Modern Warfare 2). Have believable human characters. Stereotypes and subverted tropes have been done to death, and there are still far too few female protagonists. Avoid cliffhangers. There's something really great about feeling that a story is complete, and then having another chapter become available. Games like Psi-Ops where it's intentionally left open for a sequel that never came, and likely never will, just leave players feeling bitter.
Environment/Level Design - Open things up more, and use more locations. If I wanted to play an on-rails shooter, I'd have a light gun, and a copy of Time Crisis 2. If the sole difference is that I can choose when to walk down the corridor, the design is flawed, and needs to be re-done from scratch. In this era, it should be completely unacceptable.
Graphics - The industry has pushed the boundaries, as far as what the current-gen systems can do, and most games releasing now are beautiful. They've done their job well, and they can stop. All the memory and processing cycles that would be saved by just putting a temporary freeze on increased polygon counts, and custom shaders, could easily be used, to not only add new dynamics to gameplay, but also to give players a consistent 60 FPS, with fewer repeat textures, and larger, more varied landscapes. We get it, you like showing off how pretty your game and engine are, and that's fine, but when it becomes a detriment to originality, causing you to feed us the same incredibly linear corridors, just to maintain frame rate and memory ceilings, IT BECOMES A PROBLEM.
Marketing - Cut back on the in-your-face, "We've taken over 7 different websites for a month"-style ad campaigns. It's irritating, massively inflates the budget, and doesn't do a lot to promote the game unless it's a new IP from an established company. Everyone knows that there's another Madden, another FIFA, another Assassin's Creed coming this year, and in all likelihood, the next year, and the year after that. People know what to expect from these games. The people that you want to buy them already have plans to do so. Save the money, increase profit margins, and spend it on developing better games or marketing sleeper hits.
There's room for innovation and improvement in nearly every department, and really, just one or two would be enough to garner more interest. However, to just accept minor improvements will do very little to refresh the industry, and that stale feeling will return much faster than if they were to continually attempt to improve in all these categories in an iterative manner. These are just a few of the myriad ways that the big players in the industry could change, and I'll probably do a follow-up in the future with even more.
Instead of rehashing what I had already written, I decided to start fresh on a new topic, deadline looming overhead. I've been feeling very unimpressed with a lot of the offerings of the current generation, particularly those from the large AAA publisher-developer complexes, primarily due to uninspired titles with brown palettes and an array of various firearms, all built around the same uninspired multi-player for the 3rd consecutive iteration. That having been said, as the title of this suggests, here are some things developers can do to get me interested in next gen.
Gameplay - This should be the foremost priority. Make it fun, try new things. In eras gone by, nearly every game of note had some sort of gimmick to differentiate it from others in the genre. Bring that back. Seriously, it's getting stale, and I've had enough. Some more focus on single player content would be nice as well. I don't see how a 4-6 hour campaign justifies paying $60 for Call of Duty, when I can spend $15 on Counter-Strike: Global Offensive if I want to play a multi-player modern military shooter, not to mention all the DLC map packs that will be released over the course of the year that people actually play that iteration. If they make these games something that can't be beaten with a one night rental or on the first day of ownership, and they won't have as many issues with the used games market. Make it worth buying, and more importantly, make it worth keeping. Use some of the extra memory in the next-gen consoles to keep track of things like enemy ammunition in first- and third-person shooters(Do they ever run out?), and make them drop exactly what they're carrying, not just two rounds for a pistol, particularly when they've been emptying AK-47 magazines at you for 3 minutes.
Storytelling - Tell as much of the story as possible through gameplay. This is something The Last of Us did particularly well, especially in its closing act. Cutscenes are great and all, but using too many breaks immersion. Make sure that the gameplay is as compelling as the story; this is something I see Quantic Dream struggling with, though with what I've seen of Beyond: Two Souls thus far, it seems like they're getting on the right path. Don't add things just for shock value, and add an option to skip them, because that means the story functions without them, and they add ultimately nothing(Looking at you, Modern Warfare 2). Have believable human characters. Stereotypes and subverted tropes have been done to death, and there are still far too few female protagonists. Avoid cliffhangers. There's something really great about feeling that a story is complete, and then having another chapter become available. Games like Psi-Ops where it's intentionally left open for a sequel that never came, and likely never will, just leave players feeling bitter.
Environment/Level Design - Open things up more, and use more locations. If I wanted to play an on-rails shooter, I'd have a light gun, and a copy of Time Crisis 2. If the sole difference is that I can choose when to walk down the corridor, the design is flawed, and needs to be re-done from scratch. In this era, it should be completely unacceptable.
Graphics - The industry has pushed the boundaries, as far as what the current-gen systems can do, and most games releasing now are beautiful. They've done their job well, and they can stop. All the memory and processing cycles that would be saved by just putting a temporary freeze on increased polygon counts, and custom shaders, could easily be used, to not only add new dynamics to gameplay, but also to give players a consistent 60 FPS, with fewer repeat textures, and larger, more varied landscapes. We get it, you like showing off how pretty your game and engine are, and that's fine, but when it becomes a detriment to originality, causing you to feed us the same incredibly linear corridors, just to maintain frame rate and memory ceilings, IT BECOMES A PROBLEM.
Marketing - Cut back on the in-your-face, "We've taken over 7 different websites for a month"-style ad campaigns. It's irritating, massively inflates the budget, and doesn't do a lot to promote the game unless it's a new IP from an established company. Everyone knows that there's another Madden, another FIFA, another Assassin's Creed coming this year, and in all likelihood, the next year, and the year after that. People know what to expect from these games. The people that you want to buy them already have plans to do so. Save the money, increase profit margins, and spend it on developing better games or marketing sleeper hits.
There's room for innovation and improvement in nearly every department, and really, just one or two would be enough to garner more interest. However, to just accept minor improvements will do very little to refresh the industry, and that stale feeling will return much faster than if they were to continually attempt to improve in all these categories in an iterative manner. These are just a few of the myriad ways that the big players in the industry could change, and I'll probably do a follow-up in the future with even more.
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