On Video Game Length

Assassin’s Creed: Shadows! Finally, we’re getting feudal Japan! Stabbing! Samurai! Ninjas! Grappling hooks! Stabbing! What more could you ask for?

Also, it looks like Shogun, which was meant to be a miniseries, will be getting two more seasons? Why? I don’t know that I like that.

Otherwise, though, I’m okay. A bit overwhelmed because people keep announcing stuff for me to do in the next few weeks, though I think I’ll make it through just fine.

On Video Game Length

Because of Reasons, earlier this week I was listening to the soundtrack of Legend of Spyro: A New Beginning (one day I’ll write more about these games), and I kept thinking about how I played through that game a lot. The second game in the trilogy, too. Not the third one, though, because that one sucked. Anyhow, there were several games that I’ve played through multiple times back in the day, and I don’t do that very often. A lot of the single-player, story-based games I get now are so massive that it’s hard to dedicate enough time to play through them more than once.

We’ve talked a few times about Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla on this blog, and a criticism I see about it sometimes is that it’s just too long. Not only is it packed with a lot of side content, the actual story itself takes a very long time to complete. It’s an absurdly long game. It’s a very different type of game design, of course, but it’s become standard for single-player games to be very long, massive games with a million bajillion things to do in order to capture player interest for a long time.

Part of this is because, as I’m sure I’ve said before, a game’s success these days is not just built on how many units it sells, but also by player engagement–how long people keep playing it. That’s part of why the ‘live-service’ thing took over so much, with seasonal updates in games like Overwatch and Fortnite, or continued storylines and expansions like in Destiny. Not only are they opportunities for the developers to sell you stuff, it’s also a reason to keep players coming back, and to prove by metrics (since most systems are connected online) that people are continuing to play this game however long after release.

Compare this to a game like Legend of Spyro, which came out on Playstation 2, before online play was much of a thing. Online playability certainly existed on the Playstation 2, it just wasn’t as much of A Thing in that era; it really picked up on XBox with XBox Live, and Sony jumped on that ship with the Playstation 3.

[Also, online membership to Playstation’s account used to be free as long as you had an Internet connection, but alas, those days are over. :( ] 

The result is that you have very massive single-player games that expect you to sink hours and hours into them if you want to get to everything. Some games like Skyrim hope that you’ll replay by making drastically different choices, which it allows you to do. Others have instituted something called ‘New Game+’, which means you start the story over again, but now with all the levels and equipment that you’ve already earned in your first playthrough, while facing enemies who are also scaled to your level. Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla not having New Game+ is a major reason I feel I have no reason to ever start the story again–I’d have to go through and do so much junk collection again across like, five maps, and I have better things to do with my time.

For the record, the people at Ubisoft recognize that their games are generally very big, so the last major AC release, Assassin’s Creed: Mirage, is actually smaller and more reasonable in length–so I hear, anyway. I’ll let you know when I finally get to it, which I hope to be soonish.

Also, New Game+ isn’t just limited to massive RPGs now; Batman: Arkham City had it (I don’t know if the previous game had it), and Portal 2 had a feature that when you finished it, you could play it again with developer commentary.

And I want to say that I don’t think making a massive game is a bad thing; there are plenty of games back in the day that I remember thinking were way too short. Legend of Spyro comes to mind, as does Star Wars: The Force Unleashed, and Rise of the Argonauts. In that latter case, though, in part it was because when it was first announced, the developers promised it would be much larger than it ended up being. Those games felt like there was so much that they could have been doing, and just didn’t, and so a giant game like Uncharted 4 gets to scratch that itch of letting me play through and find all sorts of secrets throughout or play through the story and have a satisfactory experience.

I do like those short games, though. I can go through and play them over and over again. It’s like coming back to a favorite book or movie, you know? It’s going back to something you love. And I don’t know that I can do that with a massive game, even with New Game+, because it’s such an investment of time. I loved playing The Witcher III; however, I know if I start playing it again, I’m going to be spending so much time doing that. If I decide to replay Assassin’s Creed II or Halo: Reach or Portal 2, on the other hand, I can do that in a few days at most, and then move on. I miss that, a lot. I went through too many games, perhaps, but I could go back to them without any problems.

I don’t know if maybe I’m just playing the wrong games; I know that not every single-player game that exists is a massive RPG made by a massive studio. Maybe I should try more independent games and see where that gets me. I do intend to try out Stray Gods some time, and my understanding is that it’s not too long (and also a musical!). I need to get through my current pile right now, though.

Maybe I should just start playing older games again.

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