We know that certain games are big, like BG3 or Persona 5. But recently games like FF7 rebirth and Indiana Jones just kept going on and on past “Act 3”. Also Rise of the Golden Idol seemed a little short to me
Are developers getting more efficient with generating content?
Untitled Goose Game, but the other way. Got to the end of what I assumed was the first world, but it turned out that was the entire game.
Still a good game, but if I’d known I would have waited for a sale or something.
Nethack.
The first few dozen times I played it, it felt like it took forever to get anywhere. The most recent time I played, it felt quick and easy to get to the bottom. (I got stuck on something, though, and haven’t been able to continue past the valley of the dead.)
Portal
Final Fantasy 12
I had just come off of FFX while running through all the FF games that I could. With FF12, I got to a point where I had a solid amount of freedom and did a bunch of side quests and stuff. Then the next portion of the story takes you to this mountain, and I thought, ah cool, this looks like “new base” material. They lay out new information about the plot and then the next stop is to assault an air ship.
Kick ass, I think. This is probably roughly the story equivalent of the assault on Bevelle from FFX, you go in, fight your way through, a cinematic happens and the thrust of the story changes, new info drops, motivations change and are renewed just like in FFX.
Nope. You get to the boss on that ship, it’s some dude you have little to no investment in fighting. You kick his ass, he transforms, easy fight, and the game just ends.
I sat in actual open mouthed disbelief. There was no way the game ended there, at what I felt was dramatically and game time wise to be the obvious mid point. And yet, there the credits rolled.
I was so disappointed.
I haven’t played since the original release, but I vaguely remember feeling the same way. If I remember correctly you get to the boss and he is practically like who are you guys. I felt so let down there was no build up between the boss and your characters.
And then Square repeated it with FFXV. Whole time I was like why do I care about this villain? Apparently you had to play some side game or read a story to understand why you were meant to care.
With the decision that we needed to play the Kingdom Hearts mobile game to fully understand KH3, I’m starting to not like Square telling us we need to play so many different games to get how KH plot was
Wow did not know about that. Guess I’ll stick to KH1 and 2.
Developers are demonstrably not getting more efficient with their content. More content means more assets, and that’s why development timelines have only gotten longer over the years.
Yeah, games take time to make. It’s good that they have more content now. Do you not remember how short campaigns used to be?
I love persona 5 but always quit after 40 hrs of playing it. It’s so damn long lol