I have been in tears for the past few weeks. I often get into long ruts, picking up and playing a lot of games at various times but never finishing them. Thanks to this job, I rarely have time to spend too long doing one thing outside of professional obligations. Luckily, the last few games I’ve purchased have been sized just right, allowing me to see them from start to finish and marvel at their construction and ingenuity. I am now more convinced than ever that we need shorter games.
At its most basic level, shorter games are just Feel Better. Or rather, I It felt better to see their conclusions. Games are not only experiences to be gained, but also things to be defeated. Completing a race should be a feeling of victory, and that feeling of victory often carries me from one race to the next. Even though the game lacks any real story, we’re given its own narrative arc, complete with rising and falling action, climax, and conclusion, which is a satisfying pacing for a game. Your impression of a movie, book, show or album depends on how much time you spent with it and how thoroughly you experienced it. So if you’ve never heard the last song, or seen the last shot of the movie, it’s a little incomplete. Likewise, games I don’t finish leave this half-formed image in my mind. As most notable distributions have ballooned in size and now take dozens of hours to complete – time is increasingly hard to come by in my life – I’m completing fewer and fewer releases, but now more More barely forming an impression on my mind than ever before. Do you know what this all means? This means I’m playing fewer games than ever before and therefore experiencing fewer new ones, which is as frustrating as it sounds.
My experience over the past few weeks goes against the industry misconception that bigger is better. It started when I review astronomy robota 3D platformer that thankfully requires It takes more than ten hours to defeat And ensure 100% completion. Soon after, brave squire After release, I managed to complete the roughly 10-hour game two nights in a row. That night when I couldn’t sleep I got up thank god you are here and wrapped in about three hours.
Even looking ahead to some competitions that I’m excited to compete in, Arranger Sounds like a great game I could finish over the weekend castaway It’s clearly communicated that this is a little adventure. I am your beast is a comic book-style speedrunning first-person shooter that’s several hours long and Arco Looks like most of the titles above. See how many different experiences I can have without using up my entire day.
I’m not rooting for these games just because of their length, either. Every game I’ve played in the past few weeks has been different and felt like a breath of fresh air. astronomy robot It’s a feel-good, polished AAA 3D platformer that’s so beloved that only Nintendo and Sega seem to be making it. brave squire Maybe a nod to the past love of gaming a little also hands-on practice With its guidance but often jumping between genres and dimensions, you can relax in the best moments. thank god you are here At times it feels more like a series of interactive comedy sketches stitched together than a fully functional game, but it’s also one of the most ridiculous games I’ve ever played and unlike anything I’ve played before.
All three games feel like something that only a small team with a clear vision could make, and not beholden to the trends of an industry chasing trends in vain. They eschew the parameters of success outlined earlier, but I consider each of them a huge win. Crucially, none of them become stale or stagnant due to premium inflation, which is common among long-winded blockbuster games that are often touted as cultural bests.
In contrast, many of the criticisms leveled at tentpole games, e.g. god of war ragnarok Discovery game is Significantly, even distractingly, stuffed. Persona 5 It felt like such a slog by the end that I had to put it aside for a month just hours before the end. I like both very much The Witcher 3 and Cyberpunk 2077but ultimately found myself rushing towards the credits and giving up on an almost endless stream of narration that was either designed to distract me. this year’s final fantasy 7 reborn yes Bigger than it should beits best moments are marred by the inconsistent quality of its filler content, which is often pushed to the forefront. There yes Things like this are certainly worth the money, but longer gaming experiences aren’t always richer. These games exhaust me, and their increasingly standardized frameworks feel like a prison for the games and their developers. There’s only so much that can be made with such a specific and narrow vision before we start replicating the same shit ad nauseam and it all risks becoming nothing more than crap.
The previously mentioned blockbusters are all great in their own right, but they’re also victims of AAA inflation, which results in scope creep, inflated schedules, increased budgets, and publishers and business partners struggling to meet increasingly unrealistic demands. issues such as greater pressure exerted by expectations. The idea that games need to be this big is a scam sold by marketers and executives who want to sell you the same type of game over and over again. These are the people who created games as a service, turning a one-time purchase or installation into a “permanent” game, squeezing your money for months or even years at a time. Those who are trying to deceive you all into believing what they believe are the same people harmony and then Will be pulled from physical and digital shelves within weeks. These games are victims of failed gaming systems and vision.
Astro Bot, Brave Squireand thank god you are hereand other shorter games, aren’t a panacea for the industry’s ills, but they do read like a beautiful blueprint for a possible future. There’s no good reason why these reasonably budgeted, mid-tier, creative games should feel like outliers in the field. Even the safest of them all, astronomy robotfeels like a bold experiment that really shouldn’t be done. Family-focused platformer Cute brand icons It’s a no-brainer on many levels, but after a decade of chasing prestige and a sophisticated audience with increasingly bloated games and overly similar franchises, Sony breaking out of its own stale mold is seen as revolutionary in common sense sexual.
I don’t want big games to disappear. Sometimes you need a three-hour epic movie to shake your world and emotions, or a dense novel to challenge you. I don’t know of any good double albums, but I’m sure there is one that offers a sonic journey like no other, and again, the world and story in the game require a certain scale and investment to pay off. i just finished Like a Dragon 0 After more than 80 hours of playing it, I still think it is one of the best games I have ever played. I only Hopefully we can escape the trap of a homogeneous vision for big games.
that’s why we need Shorter games. Yes, I selfishly feel better about being able to do these diverse, exciting, small-scale experiences, but it also feels like a healthier move for everyone involved. It gives developers the freedom to make game modes that differ from what the industry has considered acceptable for games over the past decade. Oh my gosh it might start save The industry benefited from ballooning costs and increasingly common service play failures, and the bubble has clearly burst. This is what video games need, and it’s more important than ever.
