<
https://www.pcgamer.com/starfield-and-baldurs-gate-3-have-reignited-the-quantity-vs-quality-debate-around-rpgs-that-promise-a-billion-hours-of-gameplay-but-i-think-they-can-actually-deliver/>
"There's an RPG liker's apocalypse looming on the horizon:
Baldur's Gate 3
and
Starfield are launching within a month of each other, and each is looking
like a whopper.
Bethesda has a long history of
long-ass games, with
Starfield allegedly set
to be the long-assest, while
Baldur's Gate 3 dev Larian declared that
BG3
will be a
huge game, taking at least 75 hours to beat and having "174 hours
of cinematics, making it more than twice the length of every season of
Game of
Thrones combined." In theory, that's what I want from a roleplaying epic, but
games that promise to be unreasonably long often end up making a case for
being, well, more reasonable.
This is the enduring struggle of the RPG player: we understandably idealize the
notion of a "forever game," a sprawling world we can inhabit for months, but
again and again we are disappointed by games that make this promise.
A very good commentator on this conundrum is former BioWare writer David
Gaider, who mused on the subject on Twitter, and in response to a commenter
questioning
PC Gamer's occasionally-critical pre-launch coverage of
Starfield, Gaider remarked, "The skepticism probably comes from the promises
of endless content but also meaningful content… things which haven’t really
been compatible to date. I guess we’ll see!"
That's right on the money, I think. Developers can pursue quality and quantity,
and achieving both takes compromise. We see the promises Gaider is talking
about all the time from studios marketing their games as bigger than ever, with
the finished product leaving something to be desired. Really,
Dying Light 2,
500 hours to see everything?
Is it even worth seeing? The game length promise
can feel like a threat at this point, a marketing arms race condemning us to
dozens of hours of lookout tower climbing, base clearing, and minimap question
mark compass point chasing. Arbitrary size or duration demands can hurt games
that might otherwise have brought something fresh to the table."
Share and enjoy,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
