Opinion #2
Extending the life of a game can be done with more killer, less filler
A huge, beautiful world can turn to white noise.
Why are there so many huge open-world games with tons of map markers to tick off like a checklist? We all know the answer: to create value for money. That isn’t necessarily a bad thing, especially as big-budget games keep impacting our own economy-constricted small budgets. £70 is a lot for a game, but when you know Assassin’s Creed Valhalla will easily last you upwards of 50 hours, it’s a bitter pill that’s easier to swallow.
And yet, as great a time as we have with games like Vahalla, something can grate about the way they’re stuffed with content. A huge, beautiful world can turn to white noise as we traipse across it for the thousandth time to reach a new objective, almost like it’s become a glorified loading screen; we begin to realise that many outposts repeat similar content; and we enter a zen-like state of opening chests without caring what’s inside, just delighting in the serotonin buzz that comes from another task done.
SIMON SAYS
But let’s be honest, if we didn’t like repetition, we wouldn’t like playing games. Tetris Effect is one of the most repetitive games on the planet, but the core of the series is so strong that we could play it forever.
Resident Evil Village is a fantastic game, as we said in out review last month. Its RRP is a more reasonable £55, but it also takes a darn sight less time to hit the credits in it than in a huge open-world game. But you can put just as many joyous hours into Village as you can an Assassin’s Creed. Once finished, you can play Village through again and keep things like weapon upgrades, as well as unlock new special items (like infinite ammo) that make subsequent playthroughs more interesting, or even significantly harder.
In earlier eras of gaming, when at least some of Team PLAY were dependent on pocket money, we had to make do with a smaller selection of games, and we didn’t have sprawling open worlds to occupy our time. Metal Gear Solid on PS1 had a similar system of unlocks and replays, and the original Resident Evil was great to revisit to see if you could get a faster time. You don’t always need fresh material to enjoy returning to a game either. You don’t want to know how many times I’ve collected all the dragon eggs in Spyro:
Year Of The Dragon.
In fact, for as long as it might take you to complete them to the last mission and collectible, huge open-world games can actually feel less encouraging to revisit. Every time I think about going back to Egypt to enjoy Bayek’s story in Assassin’s Creed Origins once again, I remember just how spread-apart the interesting bits are, and wish I had a mission select to get straight to the good bits. While still open worlds, the smaller, earlier titles like Assassin’s Creed 2 feel more welcoming to returning players. Hopefully the likes of Resident Evil Village prove that a game doesn’t have to be buttered too thin to be of value, or even to be worth putting a lot of hours into – a truly great game will always entice us back for another taste, no matter how long a first playthrough.