For a very long time now, developers and even a large portion of the gaming populace have equated game length with value. Essentially, the longer a game is, the more players get for their dollar. It’s gone even further in recent years too, with a great many game makers trying to make their own version of the “forever game:” something that players can enjoy (and pay into) indefinitely. This would be fine if the “greater length = greater value” was true, but is it? Does spending more time on a game really make it more fun? Perhaps, but perhaps it’s more a matter of what the game has its players do with that time.
Starting with one of the most successful “forever games,” Destiny 2, it undeniably has excellent shooting and moment-to-moment gameplay. Firing weapons always feels satisfying, making taking down allies of the Darkness enjoyable, no matter how tough or weak an enemy is.There’s the issue of repetitiveness,however, something that’s plagued the Destiny experience from the beginning.
It’s Time for Destiny 2’s Vaulted Content to Return Ahead of The Final Shape’s Release
With such a large lull until The Final Shape, it might be time for Destiny 2’s vaulted content to return.
As satisfying as the combat is, it can and often gets stale, andBungie’s commitment to not “over-delivering”has ensured that players only rarely get anything new to do in the game. If one really wanted to, they could very well play Destiny 2 forever, but there’s little reason to do so. Each season bleeds into the next with the same activities, rewards and challenges all repeated over and over. Is there fun in there? Sure, but all these extra hours, months and years haven’t exactly added any fun to the experience, have they? All it’s really done is stretch out what was there from the beginning.
Extra time does not always serve the player’s, or even the game’s, best interests.
“Stretching it out” is perhaps the most appropriate phrase for games that don’t actually make good use of their extra length, a prime example beingFinal Fantasy XVI.It’s not a terribly long game on its face, lasting ameresixty hours. It tends not to use those hours well, however, the latter thirty hours or so in particular. Final Fantasy XVI starts out strong, but as one progresses through the game, both the story and the activities start to drag.
Where combat was initially fast-paced and exciting in the beginning, towards the end it just becomes time-consuming. Enemies are more powerful and have much larger health pools, but they don’t offer any more challenge in terms of behavior. They are defeated in the same way just about every other enemy in the game is, it just takes longer. The story suffers similarly; there are several points where it easily could have progressed to the conclusion, but didn’t because Square Enix needed the game to hit a “good” hour count. As it is, Final Fantasy XVI would likely have been much better off as a more manageable forty-hour experience that allowed its players to reach the end before the story and gameplay could grow stale.
One might be tempted to argue that gamers aren’t willing to pay full price for shorter games, but one would have to ignore the likes ofResident Evil: Villagein order to do so. A standard run of the game lasts around ten hours, and it uses that time to put players through their paces in a variety of ways. Tense exploration leads into explosive action set-piece encounters which lead right back into warily wandering through the next area. Players get both fun one-liners from Ethan and intriguing lore drops from scattered collectibles. Resident Evil: Village’s ten hours are short to be sure, but they are packed, making the experience as a whole more memorable and possibly more fun overall.
More length certainly need not equate to an inferior experience. Longer games likeBaldur’s Gate IIIandElden Ringprove that much. Extra time by itself, however, as so many seem to believe, is not actually more fun on its own. Rather than being a “forever game” or getting stretched out to hit some sort of “time/value” milestone, perhaps most games would be better off following the “short, but packed” model instead. That way, perhaps gamers would be more satisfied with their seventy dollar purchase more often.
This is just one gamer’s take, though. How do you feel about game length? Does it feel more valuable if it’s longer? Would a shorter experience be more fun most of the time?
But Is Grind Actually Fun?
Grind is found in a great many games these days, so much so that one could be convinced that it’s all a part of the fun. But is that really true?
