This article originally ran under a different banner/website in March of 2019 and is now being here re-uploaded for purposes of convenience and consolidation. Please enjoy.
HEAR YE!!! HEAR YE!!! I, THE DOOMSAYER, CHALLENGE YOU TO IMAGINE A WORLD WHERE A GAME LIKE UNCHARTED DID NOT EXIST. NO BIOSHOCK, NO ORIGINAL GOD OF WAR, OR PORTAL GAMES. As the industry keeps marching closer and closer to the end, we can see many of the big AAA publishers abandon short single-player games in exchange for these live services such as Fallout 76, Destiny, and Anthem. While many people may have written me off as a rambling mad man, many people in the industry agree with me.
On February 22, Venture Beat released an interview with Uncharted Creative Director and Writer, Amy Hennig. During the interview, she was asked if she thought single-player games were dead. While she doesn’t believe single-player games are dead, she does believe that pitching an 8-hour game like Uncharted be a hard pitch today:
“I’ve said that I don’t think a game like the first Uncharted, even though it was the foundational footprint for that series, would be a viable pitch today. The idea of a finite eight-ish-hour experience that has no second modes, no online — the only replayability was the fact that you could unlock cheats and stuff like that. No multiplayer, nothing. That doesn’t fly anymore. Now you have to have a lot of hours of gameplay. Eight would never cut it. Usually some sort of online mode. And of course, you see where things are pushing, toward live services and battle royale and games as a service.”
I can’t help but feel as though she is right. I look at the five big games released in February and I can see Hennig’s words in effect. Apex Legends is a live service battle royale looking to dethrone Fortnite. Anthem is a live service loot shooter similar to Destiny and Warframe. While the remaining three, Metro Exodus, Far Cry New Dawn, and Crackdown 3, are generally single-player experiences, these are also massive open-world games that roughly take 20 to 40 hours to complete. Even later in the interview, she mentions how God of War went from an 8 to 10-hour experience to a massive 20 to 40-hour experience. It is maddening to see all the time required to become invested in these games. WHEN WILL I FIND TIME TO COMPLETE THESE GAMES WHEN I AM CONSTANTLY HAVING TO STAND HERE, YELLING ABOUT THE END OF THE GAMES INDUSTRY.
That’s the issue though, many of the big publishers aren’t looking to give us experiences. They aren’t looking to create entertaining experiences, but mind-numbing hypnotic gameplay that tries to coerce more money from you. All of these greedy and investors aren’t looking at making art. They are looking at Netflix and trying to create platforms for us to binge off of, and frankly, they are failing. Why else are there so many studios being shut down? This isn’t the first time this is all happened though. How many companies tried to copy World of Warcraft at the height of the MMO craze? How many studios’ corpses litter the field from the modern military shooter craze. I look at those MMOs and military shooters and can’t help but imagine myself running a mouse wheel while money is being siphoned from me. That’s all companies like Activision, EA, and Ubisoft are attempting to do. Keep us logging in and spending.
Now I am not saying the publisher can’t make live services and sandboxes. Certainly, I can’t say that after all the fun I had with Marvel’s Spider-Man, but what I am saying is not every game needs to be a live service or sandbox game. Let’s look at Capcom for example. Capcom currently has its live services with their Street Fighter V and Monster Hunter World, but it also has its Resident Evil 2, Onimusha: Warlords and recently Devil May Cry V. Both of those games have short campaigns, but rather than having tacked on multiplayer, these games encourage you to replay those campaigns because they are FUN. Do you remember that word, Activision, EA, Ubisoft, or Warner Brothers? No, you probably don’t, because these companies are run by dragons, not artists.
Now I will admit, we as consumers partly to blame for this. We have frequently coined “linear” as a dirty word and have pushed for games to become these large sandboxes or live services. As I said earlier, I have no problem with games like Marvel’s Spider-Man being open world, but I feel like we, as a whole, should encourage some smaller story-driven games. So I challenge you to occasionally take a break from Apex Legends or Fortnite to play a smaller story-driven game that has been buried deep within your library like Half-Life or Dishonored. I know for me, I will often return to my favorite underwater utopia when I need a break. These games provide a much-needed break from the constant barrage of login bonuses or sandbox side quests that seem to be too common these games. Frankly, we need more games like Bioshock, Portal, and Uncharted … or else the end of the games industry might be nigh.
