"controlled" vs. "engaged" open-world game design

I just read this interesting essay:

Why Breath of the Wild is the future of blockbuster games

The title is a little click-baity, but I found the essay thought-provoking. It argues for a trend toward less controlled, scripted gameplay and towards more emergent play — emphasizing player stories over designer stories. (But there's a lot more to it — you should check out the article.)

I'd be curious to hear what y'all think about it!

 

It's not just the title, this seems like the typical game/tech journalist thing to do: Take recent success, ignore most of what made it a success in favor of viewing a single component(in this case one of the oldest kinds of play..) through the lens of "is this the future??" Everything's gotta be "the future of games."

Though I do think the question of how much we should encourage our players to goof off is a great(and age old) one. I don't see the more directorial breed of dev dying out anytime soon, nor should they.

Also, that Red Faction example was just silly.

 

How does a guy who's never played MMOs know more about them than a "journalist?" Anyway, I don't agree. Yeah, I know, the guys who used to play Ultima (sandbox MMO) will complain about themepark MMOs, but World of Warcraft got popular for a reason.

Those are the historical (years old) terms, by the way, not "controlled" and "engaged" like this journalist suggests.

And while these "build your own story" games are becoming more significant, there will always be a place for both. I personally am far more interested in experiencing a story within an open-world setting than either a linear game or a sandbox open-world experience.

Amusingly Ubisoft, a company people love to criticize for being completely derivative, has been doing this for quite a while now.

So basically, it's like fashion. One type gets big for a while, then the other. Both continue to do just fine.

 

So it took Nintendo to pull an Apple and revolutionize the formula before journalists take note of a decade long trend... and here I thought it was only arowx threads that made me want to drink. I was going to start putting air quotes in, but the whole thing would have had them.

Since engaged fits my definition (which is basically problem solving), I'm fine with it. I don't particularly care for controlled though. Sandbox and themepark carry different nuances to me.

 

TL;DR version - "I just noticed emergent gameplay is a thing that exists, and I am excited."

Well, if one is a game developer, one presumably talks at great length about MMOs even if one does not personally play them. I don't have an expert opinion on any particular design element of MMOs, but I've been exposed to enough expert opinions to know what one looks like. So if someone doesn't know what they're talking about when it comes to MMOs, I can usually tell.

Incidentally, I don't play MMOs because I know I would basically get lost in them and never come out. It's the same reason I stay off the strip in Vegas: it's designed to exploit flaws that I know I have. Whenever Bethesda releases a new game, I lose between six and twelve weeks playing the game every waking moment. I have to budget and schedule around their release calendar, because while I have the willpower to say "I will not log onto WoW," I do not have the willpower to weather an entire Bethesda preorder cycle.

I am actually very proud of myself for not buying GTA V, which is a lot better than I could previously manage. But Bethesda remains my Achilles' heel, because once upon a time in the space between Arena and Daggerfall I was casual friends with Todd Howard and we shared a very similar vision for what games ought to be. I have never met anyone else in this industry or any other with whom I agreed so completely. So every game in those two series just nails what I want in a game so hard, there's no way in hell I'm not playing it.

Agreed. Too much hate for that studio, IMO.

 

I'm not so much saying it's a bad word, just this:

 

I think while you could characterize the differences as "scripted" vs "emergent", the crux is really about the way the open world environment itself is used.

Mark of the Ninja featured enough system density to provide for emergence in how you solved a problem, but it was a linear level by level design.

Make no mistake, Breath of the Wild stands on many shoulders- There's plenty of elements borrowed from non-nintendo games there in plain sight, and that's why it is really something special.

 

if this guy played mount and blade his head would explode.