I value how a game feels and the feedback it gives above all else. A great story elevates a game to greater heights and informs on its design, but its gameplay will always be why I play it. Several successful modern games feature “next-gen” graphics and a cinematic gameplay style to push their story to the forefront of their experience. These games still have good gameplay, but it feels like a compromise was made for storytelling: stealth missions, walking segments, quick-time events, and two movies’ worth of cutscenes. This is so prevalent in those games that some call them “movie games”—aided by the fact that they quite literally have “cutscene movies” on YouTube for these titles.
I am not shaming these games to be clear, yet they continue to persist in the industry since their popularity several years ago. It isn’t a mild thing—developers suggest that story has taken too much focus over gameplay. Billi Basso, the creator of hit indie game Animal Well, has said that he consciously decided to make the levels of his game first, before layering it over with a story. Hollow Knight, by Team Cherry, is also known for doing this, acclaimed for its great gameplay, only heightened by its lore. So, I’m saying this as a writer: let games be games.
Games like Gris are known for their impressive storytelling through their video game format, being swooned over as “amazing experiences.” That’s a hint. That specific wording is becoming more relevant in the gaming industry. Has anyone noticed how the gaming industry repeatedly emphasizes games as an “experience”? So many businessmen showing off new trailers of exciting games tend to use that word at showcases as if it trumps all else, as if it is the defining factor of a game’s value or identity. It has gone too far now with these games, costing a lot of money and many years of development time to create them. Wouldn’t it be cheaper to guide the philosophy of game design towards raw, fun gameplay? Wouldn’t development get faster if fewer resources were used on graphics for “immersive worlds” or beautiful cutscenes? If more developers followed the old gameplay philosophy first, we’d get more Game of the Year’s like Astro Bot and It Takes Two.
One of the unsaid motivators of having a gameplay-first mentality is that with each new entry in a series, it tends not to simply repeat its gameplay. What do I mean by this? The best developers don’t think inside the box: they evolve the gameplay to the next level. A big example is the Resident Evil series, which elevated the horror game genre into survival horror with its first entry, then redefined the genre again with Resident Evil 4, popularizing action horror. And even if you take the iterative approach, you could get a game like that from the Monster Hunter series. Monster Hunter was refined repeatedly until it reached its peak with Monster Hunter Wilds, finally breaking into the mainstream. It made more in-game guides, added quality of life features with each new entry, accounted for new or casual players, and increased the depth of their combat system. This is what we need for all games. Whether it takes the iterative approach or the long development cycle, as long as we can expect great gameplay, we won’t have to worry if a game will be good, just when it comes out. I think this is the best approach to game design: focus on the story afterward.
It’s not as if you can’t layer a game with story, in small ways, either. I mentioned Hollow Knight earlier—well, it has a rich lore to enrich the game. This adds a layer of depth to the game and a bit of motivation for the player. No less does this inform the art direction and some gameplay elements, too. It is because of this proportionality—this balance between gameplay and story—that it succeeds in being a great and memorable game to many fans. This, to the point that it is a running gag about the immense wait for its sequel; Hollow Knight Silksong is awaited at every games showcase that comes along. That says so much about Hollow Knight’s reputation and how its gameplay truly led to its success. It creates a sort of identity, of an “experience” unique only to the game that essentially becomes unable to replicate. This is something that I personally believe about Resident Evil HD Remaster, for example, where there are hardly any games like it, only now being compared to its modern counterparts. What other kinds of games become that legendary?
Ok, maybe I’m stretching it a bit far, but the point is made. Even these popular “movie games” have great gameplay, regarding games like Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 and The Last of Us—why else would anyone talk about them, much less play them, if not otherwise? If I had to put it in numbers, I’d say gameplay should make up at the very least 60 percent of an experience, with story making up at most 40 percent. Well…make that 70 and 30, subjectively speaking. A lot of us just want those special games to be made more frequently, and it feels like that is being the focus less and less in this industry. So there it is: let games be games.
