The 'mini' AAA game

johnny_ultimate

I've ranted on before about how I think a lot of big games are too bloated and packed full of needless repetition. I'm a firm believer that many, many games would be considerably better if they were quite a bit shorter. Interestingly, while I wouldn't quite call it a 'trend', there seems to a bit of a shift taking place in that respect.

Over the last month or so I've played two games that offer a very different type of big budget experience. The first is Left Behind, the very impressive DLC Last of Us episode. While it's obviously very strongly linked to the main game's story, a few minor adjustments and you'd have a fantastic standalone game in its own right - and one that is perfectly paced over a short but effective running time. It's much easier to tell a compelling story in two or three hours than it is in twenty, after all.

There's also Ground Zeroes. Now, this is an odd one, and I think few would dispute it was released at the wrong price (especially compared to something like Left Behind). The 'expensive demo' comments are pretty justified. But picking it up on a PSN sale, I have to admit I find it quite a refreshing experience. The game has its problems, but it is refreshing to see Kojima - a director who has always had major issues with pacing and length - working on a small, self-contained and impressively detailed world that feels like a far purer MGS experience than MGS4 ever did. I wouldn't have been surprised if the game had a more positive reception if launch price was five or ten euros lower.

These games aren't alone - you have stuff like Far Cry Blood Dragon, the Bioshock DLC episodes like Minerva's Den and the upcoming standalone Infamous game. They're all games with the production values of full retail releases, but allowed more freedom as their own thing.

There are, naturally, concerns here. One could easily argue that most of these titles wouldn't exist without a 'parent' game - the technical and financial grunt work of the bigger game supporting the smaller ones. And as Valve have conclusively proved the shorter turnaround of short or 'episodic' releases doesn't always work out as planned.

Nonetheless, I think there's a whole lot of potential here, and I'd love to see more major developers have big releases that are released digitally at a reasonable price. From what I've seen, these 'mini' AAA games benefit hugely in terms of being able to tell a story (Kojima still can't write to save his life though ) and experiment with new mechanics. Story and gameplay also have the opportunity to work more harmoniously when there's not so much gameplay or story to fit in there!

Opening this up to the floor - is the 'mini' AAA game a feasible idea, and is it something you'd like to see more of?

Retr0gamer

It's definitely something I'd like to see more of. Back in the PS1 days japanese developers used to aim for a 7-8 hour play time sweet spot. The market now has completely changed and developers afraid of the second hand market are trying to bloat the average playtime now with fetch quests and/or multiplayer.

Now while I do like some long games, I'm playing and loving Persona 3 Portable now, rarely do a lot of the very long triple AAA games have the content to support such long play times. Many times I find myself just playing a game to get to the end so I can move on to another one. This usually comes around that 8 hour sweet spot that japanese developers used to aim for.

I'd much prefer a short but polished 8 hour experience, something like Bayonetta or Vanquish over bloat and padding. Pace is very important to games and if you can justify a long play time your game will be well paced. If you only have enough game for 5-8 hours and make a 20-40 hour game out of it you ruin the pace of a game and it can end up compromising games that would have been far better as shorter pieces of work.

Case in point, Bioshock 2. It had fine ideas and a decent storyline but I could not wait for it to end 6 hours in. 20 hours later I was well sick of it. Minerva's Den on the other hand at 3 hours flew past even with much the same mechanics in place.

CiDeRmAn

Well, as I attempt to find enthusiasm for Watchdogs right now, I see how utterly bloated this type of game is, with its running time inflated with side quests that inevitably result in fetching things, following things, or running to checkpoints.
Cut that crap out and you're left with a more manageable title, though still hamstrung by same old gameplay and grimness.

Look to No More Heroes 2, where they stripped out the open world from their open world game, and replaced it with short cuts to missions and side quest madness.

In fact, with the cost of development quite low, there were far more interesting titles on the Wii, PS2 and GC than on the PS3 or 360.

Corvo

Certainly something I would like to see more of. Interesting to see the above post mention WatchDogs, I found it uninspiring after a few hours and simply burned through it as quick as possible in order to move it on - unfortunately I went for Tomb Raider which has to be the most boring, repetitive and quite simply brain dead game I have played in years. I can't wait to get rid of it.

Similarities of course between the two games are these labour inducing collection missions/gathering.

No thanks. Would rather a better script over 5 -7 hours

krudler

People were moaning that The Last Of Us was too linear when it was released, I felt it really benefitted from that, the story drove the gameplay not the other way around. I could have done with a few less combat sections myself they did get quite repetitive. bunch of guys arrive in area, kill said guys, move on. The ability to go through those sections entirely undetected would have been much better if you had the option, which you could with some sections where it was all infected.

cloud493

Well yeah. A short great experience is far better than a 20 hour slog.

gizmo

To answer your question directly, yes I'd love to see more tighter, more focused AAA games released without the additional padding and online modes which have become standard in the last generation or so. The problem of course is, it's just not feasible for exactly the reason you postulated. There is not so much an argument that most of those titles wouldn't exist without their parents game, it is as close to fact as one might reasonably say.

If one was to ignore this caveat then yes, there's most certainly potential here however with production costs, game length and consumer estimation of worth so intrinsically linked in the most horrible of manners these days, it's just not something I feel we're going to see more of in the future.

nesf

krudler wrote: »

People were moaning that The Last Of Us was too linear when it was released, I felt it really benefitted from that, the story drove the gameplay not the other way around. I could have done with a few less combat sections myself they did get quite repetitive. bunch of guys arrive in area, kill said guys, move on. The ability to go through those sections entirely undetected would have been much better if you had the option, which you could with some sections where it was all infected.

I think there's an issue for many people that if a game is too linear and lacks a lot of gameplay variety of some kind then they start questioning why this isn't a book/film/tv show. There certainly have been games in recent years that probably would have worked better for many people as small independent short films/animations. If all there is to your game is a great story mixed with some bare bones game mechanics, then you're not really selling people a game anymore.

You can have short, story driven games with interesting game mechanics, just look at Transistor. People did have issues with this game feeling too short/too linear but by and large most people were interested enough in the combat that you didn't have "interactive fiction not a game" claims being made about it.


Mini AAA games are just continuing the long tradition in gaming of games leveraging technical or thematic assets from a previous game for a smaller more tightly focused or unusual creation. Look at the use and reuse of the various isometric engines from 90s/early 00's PC RPG games (and that we're seeing again with Pillars of Eternity and Tides of Numeria sharing engines and technologies) if you want an example of this, or for an amateur example look at some of the more insanely detailed mods available for Civilisation V or the Total War Series games. This is nothing new at all.

tok9

It's all about the padding really. A game can be 5 hours or 40 hours and both are fine. It's just the ones which have all the pointless fetch quests etc.

In terms of actual smaller AAA titles, I'm going to be pretty interested to see how Hellblade does as that's exactly what it sounds like it will be.

Generic Dreadhead

My 1st play through of Resi 4 was about 40+ hours and I loved it.
I think since the Gamecube/PS2 era it's more padding nowadays.
But collectables were always around... Skullatullas in OoT, Golden Bananas in Donkey Kong 64

johnny_ultimate

gizmo wrote: »

To answer your question directly, yes I'd love to see more tighter, more focused AAA games released without the additional padding and online modes which have become standard in the last generation or so. The problem of course is, it's just not feasible for exactly the reason you postulated. There is not so much an argument that most of those titles wouldn't exist without their parents game, it is as close to fact as one might reasonably say.

If one was to ignore this caveat then yes, there's most certainly potential here however with production costs, game length and consumer estimation of worth so intrinsically linked in the most horrible of manners these days, it's just not something I feel we're going to see more of in the future.

Yes, I fear you are right. But imagine one of the bigger studios opted to make a completely different game using the assets from the 'parent'. If someone from Naughty Dog had this totally independent idea that didn't fit with Uncharted or Last of Us, could they potentially use the grunt work done for those titles to build something separate? Heck, one could possibly even imagine characters being 'recast' for appearance in something totally different (we accept it in cinema, after all!). This is probably an overly utopian ideal and an underestimisation of the costs involved (compared to the market for digital releases), but I can only dream of what some of the bigger game makers out there could do if they opted make some smaller original games - a standalone offering to the standard of Left Behind would be an incredibly exciting prospect, even if they had to heavily adapt existing assets to do so.

Maybe UbiArt and Telltale's engine are doing this already, albeit on a smaller scale than the hypothetical effort mentioned above. In those cases small teams can turn around pretty different and riskier games. I'd be really excited if a successful big studio tried something similar on a bigger scale, even if the reality is more likely to be DLC and expansions of existing properties. Even then, though, these 'mini' games are potentially a great opportunity to do something fresh and unique with an existing property - without the risk and bloat of a full retail release.

Timmyctc

I was considering something similar just recently.
I just replayed HL2 and boy oh boy does that game get repetitive and drag . Certainly imo doesn't stand up half as good as it did back 10 years ago. The game is just 'traverse semi-difficult area' then 'shoot a number of enemies' and repeat. It basically goes "Quiet jumpy part - Loud shooty part" broken up with the odd Boss fight which is almost always "Shoot this spaceship 5 times with a rocket" The story feels much too long too.

However I also replayed Deus Ex and that game goes on forever but it just seems wholly satisfying the whole way through, even though it is exceptionally old I think the story keeps you wanting more the whole way through it. I think varying the gameplay and getting the pacing right are the two main factors. Length doesn't really come into it imo if the story is varied and paced (and quality obviously)

Retr0gamer

Well Warp had a digital actress for D, D2 and Enemy Zero with Laura who appeared in these games which is kind of similar.

Most companies also reuse their engines. It's been happening for years, the Capcom Megaman engine was used for nearly all their in house games. DLC is kind of a way to tell new stories while reusing assets, Minerva's Den being a good example.

Shiminay

Far Cry Blood Dragon I think falls perfectly into what we're talking here. Fun, cheaper than a full game, AAA grade game none-the-less though and I don't think it unfair to say it received a largely positive reception and review scores. Assassins Creed Liberation and Cry Freedom probably fit this bill too (but I haven't played them so apologies if I'm off target). More of that sort of thing I say - don't want to play all of Far Cry (or insert game here), here's a stripped down supplementary experience so that you can spend the 3 or 4 hours you have to spare on it rather than 10-12 hours.