Opinion #2
Beyond marketing, some games could benefit from alternate cuts
This year’s trend on PlayStation seems to be director’s cuts. Ghost Of Tsushima’s has just been released, and Death Stranding’s arrives next month. As both are narrative-driven, the addition of more material sounds promising, but poses the question: what is the difference between a director’s cut and a GOTY edition?
Generally, a GOTY edition is a more complete package – usually you get the base game plus any DLC that’s been released for it. A GOTY edition of a game usually signals the conclusion of postlaunch additions and support. In contrast, the directors’ cuts of Ghost Of Tsushima and Death Stranding bring games from the last console generation forward to the new one, with both including features that didn’t make it into the original releases, as well as boasting the PS5 enhancements you’d expect, such as graphical improvements and better framerates.
DIFFERENT STROKES
Taking films into consideration for a second here, a director’s cut is (usually) longer and full of material the director couldn’t include in a theatrical cut – often making it the most authentic vision of the film you can see. Following that logic, giving players the opportunity to experience possibly their favourite series at its fullest sounds like something I’d love to see more of. It feels like it’s aping cinema, but isn’t – recall the retro days of Resident Evil: Director’s Cut, Silent Hill 2: Director’s Cut, and er, Transformers: Director’s Cut. To see this idea revived for current-gen videogames is exciting.
Neither Ghost nor Death Stranding is a free PS5 upgrade, so the extra content takes the sting out of having to pay up again if you already own those games. And plenty of us love gaming auteurs and want to support getting their full creative visions. That said, when film-lover Hideo Kojima takes issues with the subtitle, tweeting that he’d prefer “director’s plus”, it makes us pause. We love the idea of new storylines, but do they really enhance that original vision? For a game as oddly paced as Death Stranding, it feels like adding more to the main narrative could be transformative, but if Kojima isn’t confident about living up to that mantle, it’s hard to believe that will be the case.
As huge projects become common, with Sony boss Jim Ryan doubling down on those being the company’s primary pursuit, the idea of a directorial vision can be hard to pin down. Lots of people have a hand in shaping a game, and Ghost Of Tsushima had two directors. Whose vision is the Director’s Cut championing? If you look at the director’s cut of Blade Runner, plenty has been written about the small yet important changes Ridley Scott made for his preferred version, reversing some of the studio-mandated decisions of the original release. With huge game studios, and the development process itself being such a black box in many cases, it’s hard to see what the equivalent choices even would be in a big game, and when core feature changes are often off the table due to how long it’d take to develop, it’s just as hard to really know what a true game director’s cut should be.
The extra content takes the sting out of having to pay again.