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A few contributors to the video games blogosphere have been in a buzz for the past week over a few issues pertaining to MMOs, which has garnered the attention of Massively as well as Creative Director for 38 Studios (you know, MLB pitcher Curt Schilling’s super secret studio), Steven Danuser. While several topics are currently being discussed, the umbrella issue at hand seems to be that something is missing from today’s MMOs: the possibility of failure.
Which got me thinking, this could be seen as an issue in not only MMOs, but games of all genres. It also got me thinking that I cannot think of a single game currently on the market nor in the past that explores this possibility. Granted, there have been games in the past and currently which punish you for failure, but it never has affected the game’s narrative nor its gameplay directly. Since you all know how I feel about Heavy Rain and how Quantic Dream is approaching death I won’t even mention – dammit!
So, take a gander at what these poignant bloggers are discussing and come on back here and lets us know what you think in a broader context. What if death meant more in video games? If death actually changed the landscape or narrative of a game, how would it change gameplay and not only that, design? Know of a game that out there that addresses this idea? Let us know about it or simply speak your mind in the comments section. Who knows, maybe some developers are reading what you have to say right now (creepy, huh?).
Games this gen do tend to hold the player’s hand. I’m not a huge fan of the regenerating health that seems to be the standard. I think most developers today are afraid of making their game too hard. Nowadays it seems that when games are too hard they tend to turn away people. Especially since the boom in the casual market with Nintendo, I think devs are trying to grab a bit of that audience.
I think a game that handles death and difficulty really well this gen is Demon’s Souls on the PS3. The premise is that you die immediately in the beginning of the game (part of the story) so dying is part of the game… and it’s a difficult game, so it will happen a lot.
When you die you lose your all of your in game currency (souls). You use them for everything—buying weapons, upgrading weapons, buying items, leveling up. If you manage to get back to where you last died you can reclaim all of your souls, but if you die again before reclaiming them they’re lost for ever. Dying can have a huge impact on the game if you work for a few hours collecting a few thousands souls and manage to die twice in a row. The “one strike” system seems harsh, but at the same time very fair in terms of making death count.
Given the length of today’s games, it would be a really tough sell to go back to the old ways of “3 continues and then you’re totally boned”. I sure as hell know that I wouldn’t want to be on the final boss of a game I’m 12 hours into to lose and have to start from the beginning. Actually, a common complaint of some game reviews is that check points in games today can be too far apart, making them frustrating. Most recently Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising” comes to mind.
Even the punishment of repetition doesn’t fly today. Like I said, with games holding the players hand all the way through today, people don’t want to be punished; they want to see the story through. I remember back in the days of NES Ninja Gaiden, an entire afternoon could be spent just to have it all fall apart and that was just the way it was. Something like that would never go down today, and most likely won’t ever fly ever again.
I think the way games can auto save nowadays may lead to better punishments (Demon’s Souls wouldn’t work if you could just reset when something bad happened). As stated in the article, Heavy Rain is another good example of a game that’s taking a new and interesting route with death. I’m actually looking forward to seeing newer games putting in lasting failure. I don’t like shrugging off death as no big deal. It breaks games up into small segments over being a connected running story/universe.
I think games are a lot more involved and stimulating than they were in the days of NES. A simple platformer like mario brothers or something a tad more involved like shinobi can’t be compared to a large scale firefight in an FPS when you have to watch your ammo, aim, run, take cover, throw grenades, outflank enemies, etc in the matter of a minute or two. Your chances for failure are greatly increased I think. Games today undoubtedly are more lenient on death then they used to be – but when you consider that video games (are trying to) appeal to a much broader audience they need to be more forgiving. Ramp up halo to legendary and you will die and die a lot. If you went back to the beginning of the level each time it wouldn’t be long before the game disc was collecting condensation off of a glass of coke on your coffee table. There is a trade off – the games are more difficult and the chances of dying are higher therefore punishment for dying should not be as high. Dying is an accepted part of the gaming experience.
A game that had a somewhat cool take on death was soul reaver where you would go to some sort of netherworld but it felt like there was a purpose to it. Prey had a netherworld type death thing but it was so awfully implemented. The game basically had no penalty for dying…neither did Too Human. Made the games entirely too easy – there was no need to use strategy.
Personally, I prefer it when death represents SOMETHING in games, especially if that something is more than simply redoing stuff that I already did. I’m fascinated how many more games try to explain death in the context of gameplay nowadays, like with Borderlands and Bioshock explaining your rebirth from death in terms of rebuilding you from scratch and the “world” remembering that you died. (Still waiting for the storytelling-oriented game that forces you to confront your own corpse in a horrific experience of your own mortality, though, rather than the humdrum MUD/MMO routine of finding your corpse to loot your stuff back.)
At the risk of sounding like a shameless self-promotion machine, I’ll also point out that I wrote an academic paper about this that’s online at Eludamos: http://www.eludamos.org/index.php/eludamos/article/view/42/68