Fallout co-creator Timothy Cain has released another fairly depressing video about the state of RPG game development today compared to his heyday in the late '90s to early '00s. According to Cain, RPG developers aren't bothering as much with hidden and optional content because the people with the money aren't as willing to shell out for stuff that most people won't see. Broadly speaking, Cain even argues the industry is trending away from non-linear game design altogether.

"Things are really going to linear storylines, with one end state," he says. "There are still some non-linear games being made, but more and more I see linearity with one end state. And I think this is done because they're trying to not only minimize that expensive-to-make unseen content, but they're trying to make a lot more common moments so that when people talk about the game, they've all gone through these same stages."

I'm not qualified to question Cain's insights, but this is a curious bit of commentary as I've personally struggled with open-world fatigue in recent years, but I can reconcile that by drawing a distinction between the kind of uninspired, checklist-style quest design that I'm bored with, and the embrace of signposting, which seems to be more what Cain is referencing.

Cain says "unguided exploration" is going the way of the dodo. "You used to just wander around, especially the world map, and you stumbled across places, and you stumbled across items and combat encounters.

Source link