State of Play

My wife and I just moved into a new place. Amidst the packing and unpacking, I stumbled across some of my old handheld gaming systems: my Gameboy Advance SP, my 2DS, and my PSP. Nostalgia hit me pretty hard as I looked over the old games. There were so many memories poured into each of them.

As I checked to see if they still worked, I had a sudden realization: I’d been feeling burnt out with my current playlist of games lately. Pondering it further, I zeroed in on a change in narrative gaming dynamic. What was that change, how did it affect our current state of gaming, and can we go back?

Narrative videogames have fallen into two categories as of late: Live-Service and Standalone. Live-Service games are constantly updated, while Standalone games are fully contained within themselves. To clarify, Standalone games can be within a series of titles, but you don’t always need one to play the other.

First of all, many games as of late have been released in incomplete states. Textures don’t load properly. Bugs and glitches occur at every turn. The worst part is that these games are advertised as “full and ready to play,” but then reveal that they’re in a “version 1.0” and the bugs get patched out later.

While we see this often in Live-Service games, this isn’t unique to them. Some Standalone games, such as Assassin’s Creed Unity and Pokémon Scarlet and Violet, also launched unfinished. Although some glitches needed to be ironed out, they were released as they were in order to hit certain launch dates.

I think the ability to update games post-launch has made developers complacent. Back in the days of discs and cartridges, games couldn’t be updated after their release. They had to be complete and ready beforehand, or else sales would plummet. Yes, some bugs could still slip between the cracks and being able to update post-launch is a major blessing compared to the past, but developers shouldn’t rely so heavily on that.

This is probably why Baldur’s Gate 3 and Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 took the gaming community by storm recently. These two games were released in near-complete, if not complete-complete, states. The entire story was there and most of the bugs were removed. What confused me was, in the case of Baldur’s Gate’s release, many AAA game companies started claiming, “Oh, we can’t make that the standard. This is an outlier.”

Um…excuse me? Can’t be the standard? This WAS the standard! For years! I can only assume releasing partial games instead of finished ones is for business purposes. The less savory side could be releasing the Version 1.0 and then update later to generate more revenue with “constant content.” Yes, there could be a greed factor, but there is also the rising cost of developing videogames. A more positive take, although still unfavorable, is to meet a specific release date, either to avoid or stamp out competition. Either way, I’m getting tired of paying good money for a work-in-progress.

The second big change in games today is the end. Literally. For Live-Service games, such as Fate/Grand Order and Zenless Zone Zero, they almost can’t write an end to the story. The moment the story is over, why would anyone want to play anymore?

There are two downsides to these never-ending stories. One: the plot could get drawn out or repetitive. We can only deal with invading super armies so many times before things get predictable. Two: beloved characters can get turned into abysmal versions of themselves. I personally saw this with Zavala in Destiny 2. I had written an entire exposé on how he stayed true to his beliefs regardless of what came his way. However, in last year’s The Final Shape expansion, he practically abandoned his faith in the Traveler and eventually wielded Darkness abilities. It felt like a drastic departure from his character.

Some games try to keep their relevance after the story concludes. Some release DLC for bonus side-stories. Others focus on online multiplayer. Skyrim featured an infinite quest generator, which must have been a key factor in its longevity.

That being said, the older games had a charm in being complete, closed stories. They were like books you could close once you finished, then reopen after some time had passed. With Live-Service games constantly having to update their content, or even games that require an online connection (remember when we hated that idea?), we don’t get that same sense of closure. The narrative team doesn’t get that closure, either. They have to keep coming up with more and more, without giving their stories an ending they deserve.

Is there a way we can go back to how things used to be in narrative gaming? I’d say there is. Baldur’s Gate, Clair Obscur, and multiple indie games showed us that we can, but that’s mostly on the developer’s side. As fun as Live-Service games are, they aren’t the best fit for the story mode types, unless they provide a way for us to go back and enjoy them after the story concludes. Taking the time to polish and complete a game prior to launch will help tremendously. No more Version 1.0 nonsense.  

I do miss those old days, when I could boot up a game and play it through without these worries. Honestly, once this article goes live, I think I’ll do just that.