Games Are Getting Too Damn Big

Death Stranding 2 has a photo mode that will influence the way the story plays out. It also has in-game concerts. The attention to detail is incredible. But come on Kojima, I have a life. Games are getting too damn big.

I’ve been playing Final Fantasy VII Rebirth since March. It’s one of the best games of the generation and I don’t see that changing. But its need to completely dominate my free time is frustrating. I’ve enjoyed every single moment with it and yet those moments could be spent elsewhere.

On the other hand, I’ve been breezing through Beyond Good and Evil with my wife. It’s the first time either of us has finished it since the PS2 era. It’s taken us less than a fortnight. It hasn’t overstayed its welcome at all, despite us playing it to 100 per cent.

I talk a lot about graphics being a problem in modern game development, but scale is also completely off the rails too. Something like Beyond Good and Evil could become a quiet cult classic (read: complete bomb) and be done in a weekend by someone with the time and energy to do it. Then the 360 era came along and short games became taboo. Perfectly paced action games that only offered ten hours of story and 100 hours of multiplayer were suddenly ripe for being ripped apart. It wasn’t if it felt right, and it wasn’t if it worked – the act of simply being “short” was an affront.

Developers took it seriously. Now every AAA game wants to offer dozens of hours of gameplay, but not where it counts. It’s not world building or bonus development, it’s busy work. It’s “let’s stop saving the world to listen to a concert”.

Games Are Getting Too Big

Good writing contains light and dark. Make everything miserable and rush through the story and people will stop taking it seriously. I’m not calling for an absolute re-dedication to story.

But I’m begging anybody involved in narrative creation to start considering the sense of scale, and what it brings to the story they’re trying to tell. Does there need to be this much of everything? Are Cloud and Company the only mercs in the world capable of turning on a tower? Isn’t it odd that the world is so empty, but filled with so much stuff?

Big games are all the rage right now. These tend to come in the form of endless titles – your Fortnites and your Call of Dutys. For reasons I’ve never fully seen an explanation for, single player publishers are trying to get in on this too. What does Ubisoft get out of making Assassin’s Creed be 700 hours long, with new quests being added every week? Whatever they add to Valhalla, I still only paid £10 for it, and I’m not paying any more.

This brings the cost of development up, which means you have to sell more copies to make it successful. Then most people don’t bother finishing the game or doing any of the additional content anyway.

It’s a poor substitute for actual content. for actual quality time. Some will love it, and will be finished in a few weeks. Others plod along, waiting for it all to be over. Is that really the impression you want people to leave your game with?