It’s kind of funny reading that article as it’s basically saying longer games make for longer work hours from the perspective of a games journalist. Must be pretty annoying to get through some 60 hours of same-ish game just to get a review out.
I think this slammed Exoprimal, too? It’s a multiplayer game oddly designed to dripfeed a story (and more content) across the long time that people are expected to play multiplayer games. I think that made for a poor reviewing atmosphere.
I don’t think there’s a backlash against shorter games. Ubisoft found a formula that has kept people playing their games for long periods of time, and if anything, there’s a backlash against these long, collect-a-thons.
Yep. The only games that really pull off being “long” well are the ones that let you do as much or as little as you really want.
Elder Scrolls is usually the go-to example. It’s easy to be aimless in those worlds. There are main stories, usually not overly long, and a heaping pile of side content to do. But you get to play how you want. You’re not railroaded. Unless you’re a hardcore completionist, the games don’t make you feel like you’re missing anything by not doing every faction, every sidequest, etc. Eventually you just reach a good place to stop, but usually in the process you feel as though your character told a story.
Valhalla was just a chore. There was basically a single path from start to finish and that path took >100 hours to get there. I couldn’t make it to the end. The result is that, even though I played over 50 hours, I feel like I never really played the game because it never ended up taking me anywhere. There were some places that I did want to go and explore because they seemed cool, or some quests that I wanted to keep going with, but I’d get walled by sudden level spikes, which just felt crappy. It just turned out to be a waste.
Yeah, I feel that way about all entertainment. I don’t want to be watching 8 hour movies, reading a book for six months, or sitting through 20 seasons of a TV show. There are so many entertainment options, it seems crazy to spend so much time on one thing.
I’m currently enjoying Witcher 3 but at the 80 hour mark I’m seriously considering finishing Hearts of Stone and then taking a break before tackling Blood and Wine.
Wide as an ocean, deep as a puddle isnt as meaningful of an experince as some thats maybe wide as a pond and deep as a pond. 100+ hours is useless if those hours are boring. Id rather they make shorter more meaningful experiences.
Quality content is better to me than having a large quantity of content. I’d rather finish a game and think, “wow, that was solid” instead of “wow, when will this end”. Even if it’s endgame content; I don’t want it to feel like chores.
I’ve been playing off and on for a month or two and feel like I’ve barely scratched the surface. I tend to get distracted though and just go off and fuck around, finding things.
That’s the way to play. Trying to grind the game and do everything…it’s a lot. Best to either just plow through the singleplayer main story if you want to move on or play a little at a time over the course of 10 years.
Thing is the story didn’t stay compelling and fell off. The level barriers also felt super weird in a way that didn’t feel good. If they can make ass creed in in a similar way to ghost of Tsushima where every quest even side quests felt amazing, then I bet they’d really bring assassin’s creed back to the front of gaming
Yeap. The quality of the quests were bad. Maybe good for a AssCreed game, but compared to modern counterparts in the genre, weak. Witcher 3 is the high bar for me.
Add comment