Sometimes that looks like Fallout: New Vegas, and sometimes it looks like a speedrunning mode in Astro’s Playroom.ĭuring my time with Astro, I wanted to take pride in how I wasn’t playing the game like everyone else. It’s obvious when a game has an affinity for the player.

The point is that I want to play a game that feels considerate. Astro’s Playroom, after all, is a standard 3D platformer. My point isn’t that developers should only make games with deep, reactive worlds. And I think it just so happens that a lot of people want to collaborate with Red Dead Redemption 2 on its very strict terms. A game that sells well justifies its own existence. I might argue that Red Dead Redemption 2 is bad, but it obviously served a massive audience that seems happy with it. That’s not to say that we should eradicate linear, static games. Those games are too preoccupied with presenting a singular experience to let the player have a say in things (beyond pre-determined branching paths). Red Dead Redemption 2 and Cyberpunk 2077 are both guilty of this. But that runs the risk of putting the developer’s vision of the game at the center and displacing the player. But that is also an overwhelming notion because when you start shaping your game to fit a variety of play styles, where do you stop?Īnd in the face of the daunting possibilities, I can see why developers would want to take a strong authorial stance. Astro’s Playroom succeeded for me because developer Asobi Team predicted I might like some side mode better than the main quest.

I don’t envy the position that this puts developers into. HBomberguy’s excellent video essay on New Vegas details the countless ways developer Obsidian designed its open-world adventure to react to different kinds of players. Crusader Kings III and Fallout: New Vegas are examples of that philosophy at its extreme. Games tend to turn out better when developers understand and respect their relationship with the player. This is why games are so difficult to make It’s an indication that the game and its designers respect players as active participants in finding the fun, and that feels nice. It’s a better game because the developers knew it could rely on a collaboration with a sliver of its audience. The key here is that I brought my competitive, platform-loving tendencies to the game, and Astro’s Playroom met me halfway in anticipation of that style of play. Join gaming leaders live this October 25-26 in San Francisco to examine the next big opportunities within the gaming industry.

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