Okay, so this is going be a short and sweet post, but an important one none the less. Do all the things! Seriously, do stuff lots of stuff. Learn stuff, go places, see things, it is incredibly important that you do. Why? Because knowing more and having experienced more give you more to draw on when making a game.
If you read my article about experiences (if not check it out: here) then this should be starting to sound a little familiar. Tons of game designers draw on personal experience when making work. Experiences that the designers went through or felt physically or emotionally have helped create truly great games, but you can’t have those experiences to draw on if you don’t have many experiences.
That being said, learning is an experience too and learning a little about a lot of different subjects can really help to inspire your designs. When I write fiction mythology, world history, and culture have a huge influence and inspire me on a regular basis.
So, what I’d urge you to do is go out into the world like it was some sort of open-world RPG sandbox and interact with it. Travel to new places, taste new food, meet new people, do something new, have experiences. It’ll help you grow as a designer and it’ll help you grow as a person too.
Also, if you think that learning more about mythology and classical literature would be a cool way to expand your knowledge then I highly recommend giving Overly Sarcastic Productions a look. They’ve got great summaries of classical literature and myth with an extra dose of humor and wit. Seriously give them a look.
As always feel free to leave a comment below and let us know what’s up. I’m always interested in the thoughts and opinions of others.
If you’re interested in game design chances are this isn’t the first time you’ve heard of Dungeons & Dragons (D&D for short) or pen and paper roleplaying games, but you may not know the important role that they play in the history of game development and design that makes them relevant to the games industry today.
Way, way back, in a mythical era, called the seventies, two guys, Dave Arneson and Gary Gygax, played a miniature wargame called, Chainmail, with supplemental rules for a fantasy setting created by Arneson. The game took place in Gygax’s basement and when it was over the two began collaboration on the world’s first pen and paper roleplaying game: Dungeons & Dragons.
Gary Gygax
Dave Arneson
In case you’re not familiar with the terminology pen & paper games are games that do not require a specific board or game pieces with the exception of various dice. You can use other objects such as game boards and miniature figures if you wish, but they are not needed.
D&D itself is a pen & paper roleplaying game, in which players create a character of various races and classes that represent them in the game. Players then use these characters to interact with a world (usually of the fantasy genre) created by a DM or Dungeon Master. The game itself provides rules or systems for how players can interact with the game’s world and whether or not their attempted actions fail or succeed. In short, the rules govern the chance of success of any action based on stats assigned to the player’s characters.
You can blame twenty-sided die for any misfortune with random number generators.
If this system seems familiar to those you find in roleplaying games it’s because D&D’s systems were the inspiration for a ton of different video games. Modern game series like Dragon Age or Pillars of Eternity pull heavily from these systems and other games pull individual mechanics out of this system and use them in their games.
Here are just a few:
CHARACTER CREATION
Assigning attributes point, skills point, having feats or abilities, these mechanics found in many roleplaying games and even some non-roleplaying games all stem from D&D originally. Even the concept of having a class that outlines your characters abilities or being able to play as various races that appear in literary works of Fantasy such as, J.R.R.Tolkein’s, Lord of the Rings.
This is how you create a character in D&D
COMBAT
If you want to see one of these games for yourself you should look at the remaster of Baldur’s Gate one of the most critically acclaimed Dungeons and Dragons games.
In the mid 90’s to early 2000’s Wizard’s of the Coast, D&D’s publisher, worked with video game developers to make games that were a direct port of D&D’s mechanics and rules.
Modern games still, to this day, often utilize various elements from D&D’s combat mechanics. Whenever you see combat damage as an integer greater than one number and lesser than another you can thank D&D and the use of dice rolls to determine varying factors such as damage or a character’s chance to hit. Any time you see the term “critical hit” or critical damage you can thank D&D’s critical hit mechanic that grants players bonus damage for rolling a ’20’ on a 20-sided die. The idea of “leveling up” comes from D&D too. Players gather experience points as they interact with the world and gain more experiences. Once a player has enough points they “level up” and are able to increase varying stats and abilities of their character.
STORY / NARRATIVE
D&D was one of the first games to feature branching narrative or multiple narrative paths. Not only can DM’s plan for branching narrative and construct it before players sit down for a session, but DM’s can change the story on the fly based off of player’s choices creating a fluid and believable world.
This is one category in which D&D has a strong competitive edge and one of the reasons I believe it is still so popular today. D&D’s open systems and rules allow for unprecedented freedom in the choices of its players and allows them to truly play a role in shaping the story versus choosing between ‘Choice A’ and ‘Choice B’ as we do in so many other games today.
These are just a few of the ways D&D has played a role in shaping the modern game industry and without it I believe the games we play today would be radically different. So, next time you land a critical hit in World of Warcraft, create a new character in Destiny, level up in Skyrim, or choose between several different dialogue options in Mass Effect remember the game that pave the way for it all: D&D.
Ha! You thought I was done talking about Uncharted 4, didn’t you? Well, like two star-crossed lovers, I cannot stay away. That and I promised to write a second article about Uncharted 4, but that’s beside the point.
If you haven’t read my previous article you can find it here. It discusses both the narrative design and themes in Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End.
I had to write another article because the narrative elements aren’t the only thing about Uncharted 4: A Thief End that are worthy of merit. The gameplay saw some great changes and there were one or two nice set-piece gameplay moments that worked to the game’s benefit.
Gameplay / Mechanics
Uncharted 4 adds a couple of new mechanics or gameplay pieces to spice up the game and give players something new and unique for this entry in the series.
For one, stealth gameplay has been expanded upon. Uncharted 4 stealth gameplay allows you to track enemies and go in-and-out of stealth. Enemies now have a UI elements to indicate their awareness of the player as well. The addition of this works well for the game thematically as Drake as aged and matured a great deal since the beginning of the series and would most likely utilize stealth in order to more safely defeat enemies. At times the stealth felt a little cheap as I could avoid and dispatch enemies with ease negating what could have been a fun and interesting gunfight, but at the same time having that option in how you approach that situation is freeing and creates a more realistic and grounded feel to combat.
Another new gameplay addition is the grappling hook, which adds a great deal of fluidity to combat. I had a blast swing through areas of the game like Tarzan while shooting, tossing grenades, or dropping down, fist first, on enemies. The grappling hook is also used for general traversal and to solve some clever puzzles, but let’s be honest the best part is the drop punch.
Lastly, we have the vehicle gameplay, which was utilized for specific set-piece moments of the game. Finally, Nathan Drake gets to drive! In previous entries any sort of vehicle chase scene would involve someone else behind the wheel while you jump from vehicle to vehicle, fighting bad-guys, but in this entry you finally get to take the wheel yourself and it feels good. Driving through the chase scenes added a new level of tension and freedom allowing me to dart in and out of various alleyways and even ram enemy vehicles. That being said vehicles weren’t just applied to chase scenes. They were also applied to exploration.
Design
The new vehicle gameplay ties in with an element of design that is new to the Uncharted series and that is of openness. While the game may not be open world it has been designed with much more exploration and multiple routes to the player’s object which makes traversing the world feel much more improvised and realistic. This goes into everything from driving your car around a volcano in Madagascar, to haveing many more handholds and foothold when climbing terrain. This give creates a good illusion of being open even though the paths will all eventually diverge into and head to the next part of the story.
The other major change of design philosophy when it comes to Uncharted 4 is its pacing. Previous entries would feature a great deal of combat combined with high-action set pieces and then a smaller portion of platforming and puzzle solving. Uncharted 4 is set with a reverse pacing where action is built up to instead of just a constant. This entry focuses more on narrative pieces, exploration, puzzles, and platforming. There has been a significant decrease in the amount of combat encounters and it serves the game well giving it a pacing more akin to films such as Indiana Jones which served as an inspiration for the Uncharted series.
The new pacing works well as it focuses and highlights the area of the game that shine such as the narrative elements and platforming. It also allowed for more precise and tightly built combat encounters that make great use of the environment.
Lastly, I wanted to just point out one little moment I thought was cool in terms of design. At one point Drake is trying to climb a cliff face in the rain while injured from a recent wreck. So while I was trying to climb this cliff face I would try to jump from one handhold to another as I’m used to doing, but I couldn’t I would stumble and nearly die as a result. The game instead forced me to slow down and carefully grab nearby handholds without jumping which I previously didn’t even know was a feature. I thought it was an interesting piece for that moment as the gameplay mimicked the character having lesser mobility in that situation.
Conclusion
Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End adds a new and exciting gameplay elements that help the game a meld really well with the overall design philosophy of the game. The new pacing really helps create a cinematic feel to the game and highlights the elements of the game that really shine. The new openness adds to the immersion and fluidity of the game creating a more natural feel in how you do everything from transversing environments to fighting enemies. Due to these improvements Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End is a great game and in my opinion the best in the series. Naughty Dog was right to make this the final chapter of Nathan Drake’s saga as it is the best one yet.
As always feel free to comment in the section below. I’m always interested in seeing feedback from readers and hearing new opinions.
Game Blurb is another column about smaller talking points regarding games and design. Basically, they’re just me trying to collect and publish some loose thoughts rattling around in my brain. This one, in particular, can be translated into a lot of mediums other than game design, but I’ll be strictly talking about it in those terms for the sake of staying on topic.
Our topic for today is experience and no I’m not talking about points used to level up a character in a Role-Playing Game or an MMO, but instead about life experiences in general and how they have inspired games and their design. It’s actually pretty amazing how much of the games creators goes into the games they produce.
One of the earliest examples of life experience being translated to a game that I can think of is Shigeru Miyamoto’s inspiration for the original Legend of Zelda game which was inspired by his exploration of the hills, caves, and woodlands surrounding his hometown. Translating these experiences into a game is what drove Miyamoto’s design and the games early concept. Link, like young Shigeru Miyamoto, would wander and explore various areas. One of the most important elements of this exploration Miyamoto wanted to convey was a sense of discovery, hence all of the secrets that players can stumble across while exploring the game’s world.
Quantic Dream CEO, writer, and director, David Cage created Beyond: Two Souls based on his experiences with the loss of a loved one. He took a highly personal and heartbreaking experience and turned it into a touching and thrilling experience in which protagonist, Jodi Holmes, explores feelings related to death and loss throughout her story within the game.
“But the more I wrote, the more I realised I was writing about what I had experienced. Writing is a strange process, because you don’t always know what you have to say when you start. It’s only when you read yourself that you realise ‘okay, this is what my inner voice had to say” – David Cage
Lastly, we have Uncharted 4, which I recently wrote about in a previous article. In a Game Informer interview with Uncharted 4 game director Bruce Straley and creative director Neil Druckmann. The two talk about the development of both Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End and the previous game they developed The Last of Us, but in the interview, they also touch on the relatability of the characters and what has inspired some of their narrative choices. Neil Druckmann talked about how his passion for making games mirrors the main character, Drake’s, passion for adventure. Both of them struggle with sacrifices in the pursuit of their passions, specifically a sacrifice of family. Neil mentioned that he hasn’t been able to spend as much time with his family as he’d always like because he is working on games. So then the game’s narrative ended up exploring obsession and passion. Can it go too far? What would you sacrifice? What should you sacrifice?
Pulling from experiences such as those above adds greatly to the narrative and design of any game. They add a level of relatability and honesty that only comes from conveying a true experience. If you’re thinking, “We’ll I want to make a game about a secret agent or a samurai, but I don’t know anything about that experience.” Then I would advise you to find the relatable experience from what you do know about the game or narrative you’re creating. Maybe you know or are someone who leads a double life of sorts. You could convey that experience in the creation of your secret agent game. Or maybe you have a strong sense of integrity and honor or live by a code of some sort, you could relate that to your samurai game.
What I guess I’m trying to say is that you can inject personal experience into games in a lot of ways by drawing from not only events but feelings as well and then translate them into your games creating an honest and relatable story. Easier said than done, but I think that’s part of the trick, part of the magic of narrative, especially in games which are, in a way, synthetic experiences.
Hope you gained something from the article, I know I did.
If you liked what you just read feel free to come back for more. I have new content towards the end of every week. Also feel free to leave your thoughts opinions in the comment section bellow.
It’s games like, Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End that make me glad that this is a small blog and not a large and professional site. Why? Because I can take a moment to gush at how good this game is and all that it does well. That’s why!
I recently started playing the Uncharted series over these last few months and I haven’t regretted it one bit. The series as a whole deserves all of the acclaim it has gathered and is definitely a series I would recommend looking into.
I just finished the last game in the series, Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End, a week or two ago and was thoroughly entertained; especially by the deep and rewarding narrative woven by the game. That being said:
THERE ARE LOTS OF SPOILERS BELOW. READ AT YOUR OWN PERIL.
Uncharted 4 brilliantly develops a series of themes that stay consistent throughout the game’s entire narrative all while having players reflect on the characters and the history of the series. I cannot think of a more proper send off for a series.
Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End starts in media res, a fancy term I’ve decided to use to make myself look smarter than I actually am, meaning to start in the middle of the narrative. The game starts with an action sequence with Nathan Drake, driving a boat towards an Island with his brother, Sam, all the while fending from pursuers. The use of media res in this entry is done better than in most and lends itself nicely to the narrative by giving players a new context for the events when presented again in chronological order.
The game then flashes back to Nathan’s childhood in an orphanage giving players more backstory on Nathan’s character and his history. It more importantly, begins to set up Nathan relationship with his brother, Sam. The scenes establish Nathan and Sam’s relationship setting Sam as a mentor and powerful force in Nathan’s formative years.
This scene then transitions to both Nathan and Sam as adults in a Panamanian Prison, a clever nod, and development on what was most likely a simple throw-away joke from the first game. Now the prison is the setting for a crucial moment in Drake’s life where he witnesses what he believes to be Sam’s death during an attempt to escape the jail.
The game then shifts gears from the intense high action scenes to the story of Drake’s life in retirement. Now settled down at a steady job at a marine salvage company and married to long time love interest, Elena Fisher. From here the writers set up a normal life for Drake. One with no action or intrigue, it’s steady but dull and uneventful. The scene working for the marine salvage company mirrors this excellently by making players work and get excited about the find only to realize it is just a bunch of copper wires.
From here the game transitions to a scene with Drake cloistered in the attic of his house surrounded by objects from his old adventures. You can, as a player, look over these object wistfully in-game looking back fondly on adventures from earlier Uncharted titles. You can also shoot some targets with a toy gun for kicks, which narratively is important because it shows Drake’s yearning for action and adventure.
Nathan’s still kept up with his gunplay even in retirement.
This section of the game’s narrative demonstrates his new relationship with Elena as husband and wife. Players can judge the relationship by observing various mementos and photos scattered across the house and come to the assumption that this is most likely a happy marriage and that Nathan and Elena really do love and care for each other. However, we as players come in at a point where Drake has become slightly distant towards Elena due to his dissatisfaction with his current lifestyle placing a small rift on their relationship.
I really enjoyed these moments of the game even though they didn’t feature much in the way of gameplay because it expanded upon Drake’s character in a way the series had never really done before making him more human than ever before. It showed him as an average person and made his character all the more relatable through this series of slice-of-life vignettes.
The game then cuts to Drake doing paperwork in his office when he hears a knock on his door only to find his long lost brother, Sam. The two rekindle their relationship by having a humorous dialogue about Drake’s previous adventures before Sam sets the game’s plot in motion by telling Drake that he now owes money to an infamous drug lord for busting him out of jail and that the only way to collect that money is by retrieving the lost treasure of infamous pirate Henery Avery.
This creates an extra layer of conflict as Drake has promised Elena that he would leave his life as a treasure hunter behind as a condition of their marriage. These themes of greatness versus simplicity and a normal life versus one of danger and adventure is constantly repeated throughout the game.
We see this a lot through the interactions of both Nathan and Sam as Sam continually pulls Nathan further and further back into his old life as a treasure hunter making the temptation of adventure harder and harder to resist even to the point where Nathan is given several outs from the adventure, but opts to stay regardless because of his enjoyment.
During the game, the story of St. Dimas the penitent thief or good thief who asked Jesus for forgiveness on the cross and Gestas the impenitent or bad thief who mocked Jesus on the cross, is related as it ties into the treasure of Captain Avery. The story draws a nice parallel to the brothers in term of the penitent thief and the impenitent thief as Nathan has left behind this life of treasure hunting, he is penitent, while Sam has yet to escape his obsession for Captain Avery’s treasure and his own desire for a life of adventure and greatness.
If you’d like to learn more about both Nathan and Sam’s relationship in the game there is a great interview with both Nathan’s voice actor (Nolan North) and Sam’s voice actor (Troy Baker) where the two discuss their thoughts on the relationship of the brothers. They make interesting points about a role reversal that goes on with Nathan the younger brother taking on the role of the older brother and becoming the mentor.
As the game goes on Elena finally catches on to the ruse Nathan used to go on this adventure and she finally confronts him forcing him to deal with the fact that he lied to her. This goes back to the theme of family and what’s important to Nathan and he’s forced to choose between both his brother, Sam and his wife, Elena, and in part adventure as well. Nathan ultimately chooses to help Sam and Elena walks out.
The two brothers then leave alone to pursue the lost treasure of Henery Avery. As their situation gets increasingly dire Nathan tries to talk Sam out of hunting for the treasure. This is due to Nathan realizing just how important Elena is to him and the fact that he might have lost one of the few things in his life worth caring about. Again we see Nathan in a role of penitence.
Eventually players reach a scene where the two are cornered and Sam is forced to reveal that there was never a drug lord that he owed money to. Sam lied to his brother in order to get him to join him in this treasure hunt. Nathan nearly gets shot by, Rafe Adler, and is knocked off of a cliff unconscious.
The scene then transitions to a flashback of Sam and Nathan when they were both younger. The two discover documents relating the story of their deceased mother’s archeological expedition to find Henery Avery’s treasure. This then ties back into the theme of family and it increasingly becomes apparent why Sam is so obsessed. It isn’t about the wealth, but instead about having something to prove. Nathan and Sam in their past were considered nobodies and they never really had any family, except each other. This treasure in a way would not only reunite their family but, finally prove both of their worth in Sam’s eyes. It would validate the two of them. This is simply good storytelling that really ties together with metaphors and themes just like a piece of good writing you would find in any other medium.
After this flashback we witness Elena nursing Nathan back to health as he recounts the flashback player had just seen. The next few scenes nicely work together as Nathan and Elena try to find and save Sam all the while the two reconcile their relationship. In the process, it is ever so slightly revealed that Elena had missed their former life as well. The two have a good deal of romantic moments that definitely pull on the heart strings of hopeless romantics such as myself.
Eventually the gang manages to rescue Sam and begin to head back abandoning the treasure and hopefully Sam’s obsession with it, but it doesn’t pan out. Sam darts headlong toward the treasure first chance he gets. Nathan eventually catches up with him aboard Avery’s pirate ship and is forced to confront Rafe Adler after the ship is set on fire by his partner. During the fight Sam has been trapped under a large pile of wood and players are led to believe that Nathan will have to leave his brother behind as he dies for a second time. It is during this that Sam reveals that all he really wanted was for the two of them find the treasure and that he can now die happy, fortunately, Nathan cleverly uses a canon to free his brother at the last second. The two narrowly escape as the surrounding environment crumbles around them.
The game then transitions to everyone saying their goodbyes and parting as everybody goes back to where they belong. Sam goes with Nathan’s mentor and father figure, Sully, to continue having adventures of his own and Elena and Nathan head home. In the next scene, it is then revealed that Sam managed to sneak a sizable amount of treasure into Elena’s pockets allowing Nathan and her to buy the salvage business and travel the world looking for artifacts legally and safely leading an adventurous life while simultaneously settling down.
The game then fades to black and cuts to what I think is one of the best epilogue chapters of a game. In this epilogue chapter, you control Nathan and Elena’s daughter years after the events of the game. You explore their familie’s home and get to not only know, but experience the idyllic life Nathan and Elena have won for themselves. In a medium that is saturated with tragic heroes and ill fates befalling our protagonist towards the end of their journey it is nice to see the classic: happy ending. It was especially worrisome in this entry since it was subtitled: A Thief’s End. But knowing the ending the title is oh so fitting as it is a thief’s end and the start of a new life for Nathan as both a husband and father.
Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End has a fantastic narrative thanks to skilled writing and intuitive design choices working together in tandem. The game explored themes of family, sacrifice, and the virtue of a simpler life. The game also successfully brought about a satisfying end to a beloved series for fans old and new.
In the next installment of this two-part Case Study, we’ll look at the gameplay elements that helped to make this game as fun to play as it was to experience.
Playing games makes you a better game developer. Common sense, right? Of course, it does! Having experience with a medium as a consumer is important and will help you to better understand it. The same goes for a lot of other mediums. Musicians ,for example, are large consumers of music and much like game developers got into music because of their love for it.
Now, I’m not saying you should play a whole lot of video games and call that your education, that’s ludicrous. What you should do is play games and study them. Look closely at the game and it’s mechanics, then think about it as if you were a designer. What does this mechanic evoke in the player? Is it fun? Rewarding? Why? Is it intuitive? Do would the designer in this instance want it to be intuitive? You could probably think of 100’s of questions about game design if you tried.
Let’s think of a couple examples questions using popular games to help get you in the right mindset. You can provide answers in the comments if you like. We’d love to hear what you think.
1) How does the Dark Souls series create a feeling and atmosphere of dread?
2) What is (in your opinion) the most core part of a game like Skyrim’s design?
3) What makes Minecraft so appealing to multiple audiences?
4) What in your opinion is the best, opening or start, of a game you’ve played? What made it the best?
4.5) Have you ever played through a game tutorial you thought was good or well done? Why did you think so?
Another good practice to get into is to take notes on games you play. Not to hint at any upcoming articles, but I personally have a good chunk of notes on the most recent Uncharted game, Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End. I looked for things like the game mechanics, how did they work, how did they make me feel, did they help or hinder the narrative, and then being a writer I have a ton of notes about the narrative structure itself.
So, if you’re interested in game design or are hoping to become a designer I would highly recommend thinking critically about the games you’ve played and taking notes on the games you play in the future. Journal your experiences and reflect on them. It’ll not only make you a better designer, but also a better critical thinker.
Want to talk more about studying games? Well, you’re in luck! Play Study will be a reoccurring segment on The Game Library that will look into more fine points of analyzing game through the lens of design. I also have another similar column in the works called Case Study which will feature a breakdown of my or another member of the Game Libraries notes on a particular game.
“My roommate is on her fourth play-through of Dragon Age: Inquisition,” said one of my friends. “She’s playing through it in French now, but she’s played it so many times she’d know what’s happening if she played it in Greek.” I know the feeling all too well having played Skyrim for 379 hours, according to Steam.
You totally want to explore that castle in the distance. Don’t you?
What causes us to get lost in games like this? What makes a game last in comparison to other games we play through once or play very little of before tossing them aside? What makes a game immortal?
That’s what we hope to cover in our first series: Immortal Games where we’ll talk about what makes these games last and why people keep coming back for more. In this article, we’ll be discussing the worlds created for video games and what helped them to stand the test of time.
First, let’s talk about the two games that were just name dropped, Dragon Age: Inquisition and Skyrim. Both of them are sprawling fantasy epics with well over 100’s of hours of content each. Both feature a huge world littered with interesting sights, puzzles, combat encounters, and narrative elements. Both have hundreds of quests, big and small, to give the player things to do in the world and then reward players both through narrative means and through in-game rewards. In general, they have a lot of stuff. Yet, recent release No Man’s Sky has a full-scale universe to explore and has not met the same acclaim from critics and consumers alike. Why do you suppose that is?
No Man’s Sky may have a whole galaxy for players to explore, but it is missing something crucial, content. “But, Ian!” My imaginary readership cries out, “Didn’t you just lump in having a massive world space for your game with having content?” Okay, kinda, but more so as an element of content.
Everyone of those suns has a planet with no real content
Let’s use an overly complex and outlandish example: Let’s say you wanted to buy what was speculated to be one of the tastiest beverages ever, but when you bought it and removed the lid you found that you had only bought a cup. It’s a nice cup, very pretty and ornamental and it could certainly hold a lot of liquid, but there isn’t anything in there. That, in a sense, is why No Man’s Sky doesn’t hold up compared to games like Skyrim or Dragon Age. No Man’s Sky has the world but doesn’t have much filling it. It lacks the narrative elements and personal touches that exist in the worlds of other great and lasting games. Their worlds aren’t just unique locals, they’re dynamic worlds that can tell stories from their appearance alone filled with various events and characters to entice players as they explore.
For example, in Skyrim players may encounter two skeletons in the harsh tundra. One has its leg caught in a bear trap and the other is sitting next to it. The player can then infer a narrative: That one person, free to go, loved or cared about the other person so much that they stayed and froze to death with them despite being able to save themselves. That’s just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to what Skyrim has to offer.
So many houses to explore and people to meet.
In No Man’s Sky players just discover new planets, species, flora, and fauna. This is exciting at first, but the novelty wears off. Despite the entire universe being unique & randomly generated, you only can see so many variations of the same thing before becoming bored. It is for this reason, I don’t see No Man’s Sky becoming immortal like Skyrim, Dragon Age, and many other impressive titles.
So, in short: Game worlds filled with content and incentive to explore such as narrative, puzzles, and combat are those that stand the test of time, the ones that capture our hearts and minds. The games that become immortal.
