Features to remain missing from future/"nextgen" titles

[Team Andromeda]

Sometimes it's to do with why, of course.

I think for Shenmue it really worked because the passage of time wasn't just a nice effect; it had an impact on the game. Seeing the seasons change was cool because it reminded you of how frustrated Ryo is getting because he just can't find any sailors make headway in tracking down Lan Di.

It was so far ahead of its time. I think the only game to come close was PGR IV on the 360 where you also saw water gradually build up over time

[teddymeow]

Ah man. PGR4 was the absolute tits!! I played that so much. The weather effects were just sublime.

I wish that the Forza Horizon team would make a track based Racer like PGR rather than another open world thing.

[wakka]

Sometimes it's to do with why, of course.

I think for Shenmue it really worked because the passage of time wasn't just a nice effect; it had an impact on the game. Seeing the seasons change was cool because it reminded you of how frustrated Ryo is getting because he just can't find any sailors make headway in tracking down Lan Di.

Yeah, exactly (I feel like I'm agreeing with you a lot today!).

The design of that game is so clever. A huge part of how immersive it is is down to its structure. The day/night cycle, the passage of the days and the seasons - it was able to build a feeling that you were actually participating in Ryo's life.

I think it's a bit ironic that 'sandbox' is often used interchangeably with 'open world'. They do often feel just as limited as sandboxes. You can't damage them, you can't change them in any permanent way, they're there just as something for your protagonist to bounce off.

Shenmue didn't feel that way, to me at least. And it was released in 1999! Remarkable, really.

I'd love to see a game that really grabbed and ran with some of Shenmue's ideas about how time should work in a game. I kind of hate that thing where the world's going to hell in a handcart in the main quest but there's no penalty whatsoever for buggering off to play minigames for 20 hours. It totally breaks the immersion and just reminds me that the gameworld really does revolve around my character.

[Dogg Thang]

like Dead Rising's sea of zombies around Frank West.

This might be the last time I was truly impressed by what a next gen leap brought us.

[Asura]

I'd love to see a game that really grabbed and ran with some of Shenmue's ideas about how time should work in a game. I kind of hate that thing where the world's going to hell in a handcart in the main quest but there's no penalty whatsoever for buggering off to play minigames for 20 hours. It totally breaks the immersion and just reminds me that the gameworld really does revolve around my character.

Admittedly some games have flirted with this.

Pikmin was a time-limited game, where you only had a set duration in which to complete it. Also the Atelier RPG series often has a time limit that affects the ending.

I think it's because few have managed to figure out how to both make it work, but also to mitigate the problems. Like it's a real pain if, halfway through a 60-hour game, you realise that too much time has passed and you just don't have enough time left to complete it.

Dead Rising had a good approach to this, in that the game had a duration, with timed events that either happened at a set duration or, sometimes, could be triggered earlier if you did things to kick them off. However, at any time, you could choose to restart the game, and while you went back to the very start of the story, you retained the player characters' stats, skills and abilities, meaning that you would likely do better the second, third, tenth time around. Maybe more games need to take this approach, instead of just having NewGame+.

[wakka]

Yeah, those are good examples of games that have had some interesting ideas around time.

I think it's because few have managed to figure out how to both make it work, but also to mitigate the problems. Like it's a real pain if, halfway through a 60-hour game, you realise that too much time has passed and you just don't have enough time left to complete it.

Totally true. But on the other hand, a simulated passage of time has the potential to give real consequences to decisions and to help up the stakes for the player.

Obviously it's not going to be fun if it's punishing to the point of frustration, like permakilling you after you've sunk 50 hours in or something, but I think there are ways that it could be done to increase immersion and enjoyment.

It makes me think of David Cage's efforts. OK, these games have pretty terrible writing and dodgy gameplay. But I do like them, in large part because they're some of the few games that feel like they have actual stakes. Usually there aren't fail states, but messing something up instead puts you on an alternative story path*.

It would be cool to see what could be done with a merging of these two ideas - an unstoppable clock and calendar, and a game which is scripted to react to you missing appointments or taking too long to do things by branching the story.

Obviously it could quickly become a nightmare for the developer if it wasn't carefully scoped. But it feels like it could make for a much tenser play experience.






*This isn't totally true of all of his games, I know, but it's true enough of a lot of them