Growing up I always thought it was clear where games were going, what we all dreamed games would be. For me playing Zelda I could envision myself one day playing games that had freer worlds, more immersion and when VR back in the day started to become a thing, I knew that's where we were heading, to have games that were so near to virtual worlds as possible, as realistic as we could make them(within the rules of the world). Every console generation with it's boost in graphic capabilities it seemed we were getting there.
Then, we lost our way and everyone seemed be about "cinematic set pieces" and movie like stories to tell and I was like "what no what are you doing?"
I started to realize that who I am as a gamer and what I wanted for the medium isn't what everyone wanted all along.
So which camp are you in? As I see it, there are two main camps.
Worlds to explore where a predetermined story is minimal and it's mostly about freedom. This can be both your standard openworld games but also many RPGs and hell even point and click games can be this since those allow you to just run around the world and explore.
Focused experiences, here you have your linear games, cinematic experiences, corridor shooters, choose your adventure type games like tell tale games.
How do you see either going in the future? For me, the goal for the medium is to be as reactive and adaptable and to have as much freedom and possibilities and within that be able to create experiences. I am a firm believer in the concept of "emergent story telling". The story would be the framing and "rules" for the world and then everything is just set to play out.
Also why I don't like focused experiences is because if I can't play a game at my pace I get super stressed. I can't play COD games anymore. Tell tale like games I can barely play because how linear they are no matter how many dialogue option I have. In games, I really don't care about story, of course its nice to have a good one.
Then, we lost our way and everyone seemed be about "cinematic set pieces" and movie like stories to tell and I was like "what no what are you doing?"
I started to realize that who I am as a gamer and what I wanted for the medium isn't what everyone wanted all along.
So which camp are you in? As I see it, there are two main camps.
Worlds to explore where a predetermined story is minimal and it's mostly about freedom. This can be both your standard openworld games but also many RPGs and hell even point and click games can be this since those allow you to just run around the world and explore.
Focused experiences, here you have your linear games, cinematic experiences, corridor shooters, choose your adventure type games like tell tale games.
How do you see either going in the future? For me, the goal for the medium is to be as reactive and adaptable and to have as much freedom and possibilities and within that be able to create experiences. I am a firm believer in the concept of "emergent story telling". The story would be the framing and "rules" for the world and then everything is just set to play out.
Also why I don't like focused experiences is because if I can't play a game at my pace I get super stressed. I can't play COD games anymore. Tell tale like games I can barely play because how linear they are no matter how many dialogue option I have. In games, I really don't care about story, of course its nice to have a good one.