Wanted to discuss the prospect of a game which is short (10-20 hours) so that it can be developed in short time frame of 2 years.
I asked this because mostly every studio under Xbox is trying to make there most ambitious game ever and this leads to unexpected delays and no game can be decided when it is coming out accurately. This cause huge gaps in first party offerings in the calendar year
Don’t care what type of genre it is. Be it action, cenimatic, rpg, startegy, race, puzzle, platformer. Be it FPS or TPS. Be it new IP, sequeal, reboot or remake. Genre and type is not what I asked for
But everyone here turned it into fps vs tps, reboot vs new IP, cenimatic vs live service, games sales and what not
Hindle is right, people believe what they want to believe
It shouldn’t really be an issue going forward with the number of studios they have/will have.
I do wonder how much time you save by cutting a game from 40 hours to 20 hours though. How much time is spent just getting the game to work properly compared to building out content? I don’t think you’d get a game down to 2 years just because you cut the length.
Perfect Dark will be an FPS ( as it should be ) it was already confirmed. Joanna Dark already made an impact on gamers in her first outing without being in third person, it isn’t needed now. I am hoping the reboot is similar to KI as in they take what worked about the original game and update it. Perfect Dark isn’t Tomb Raider and Uncharted. It’s cyberpunk 007. With tons of gadgets, weapons and very open ended gameplay.
Id say this sounded like fanfiction but its clear you aren’t a fan of PD. Because nothing about it is anything like Splintercell Conviction. There is no reason to make it anything like that either.
Also it was an fps from the get go and last i checked Ghallaher is still there. It will be an fps.
We know and are hearing more that some Xbox studios are making smaller games though. Grounded. Pentiment. Coalition new game. Project Mara. And btw 10-20 hours games can be as expensive and take as much time in development as open world AAA stuff. So can you define what you mean exactly, with some examples?
It’s gonna be a stealth action with melee and gadgets for. From the way they talked about there was emphasis on the stealth “getting in and out unnoticed” so I’m thinking the game can be very flexible with how you choose to play it. I hope they make so that you can choose to run through it all using pure stealth and pacifict/ghost mode, or go all out with shooting and melee and gadgets.
These are just my assumptions but a small game would be easy to test for QC and offcourse easy to make from development point of view.
Also, not asking to cut a game which strted development as a 40 hours game and convert it into a 20 hour game. I am asking for the game to be at max 20 hours from the start of its development. This will decide its scope and targets and then deliver it in 2 years.
Best example of this would be R&C and Miles Morales. Insomniac released spiderman in 2018… After that in 3 years they also released Miles Morales and R&C. That only was possible beacuse both games are short less then 20 hours experience. Something similar I want from Xbox studios as well(pls don’t make it about Sony games, that is not my point)
Whatever line up Xbox has now because of its 23 studios and soon to be 32 studios, it is promising but still unexpected. Every game I hear about is the most ambitious one from the studio. Even grounded is like ever evolving RPG type game which is taking years to make in its own right.
I will give example but pls don’t make it about ‘me wanting Sony type games’ because I am not asking for Sony type games
Perfect examples are R&C and spider man miles Morales. Those games were developed in parallel in just 3 years under insomniac after Spider man game released in 2018.
I know Insomniac are one of the best in game development… But it is also true that these games are delivered in such short time because scope of the game was decided to be short from the start of development. And by short I mean the length of campaign.
Edit: I don’t count Project Mara and Grounded as these type of games… Because I don’t think studios are making these games with scope of delivering them in 2 years.
Grounded is ever evolving game which is still in beta I suppose. And project Mara is experimental game type thing which I already in development for more then 2 years.
There was stealth in the original game, but it was never the focal point of it. Games like Splinter Cell were extremely rigid, if you got caught it was game over. PD was about attacking multiple objectives during one mission in a variety of ways. With the exception of when you had to infiltrate a lab and extract “Elvis”, and even then you were in disguise so it wasn’t traditional sneaking around.
The AI was actually pretty damned good for the time, the N64 required a ram cart to even play it. PD was ahead of it’s time in a lot of ways tbh. They took everything they learned on Goldeneye and improved on it. Would be a shame for the reboot to come out and be some generic AAA and/or Splintercell clone.
I never liked Perfect dark or golden eye. I get it was cool because it was 3D but I remember playing doom and hexen on n64 and just thinking these are so much better, I never understood the fascination with these games.
Isn’t the argument being made that these types of games are being made for Xbox - internally and externally AND available now? I think people are just getting tired of the idea that Xbox needs to do xyz instead of fostering and focusing the growth and creativity of what its studios actually want to make. And hey, chin up because after ABK closes you might start seeing more of the stuff you’re describing from new studios with new support and funding, new opportunities. Celebrate the diversity of gaming and the choice. And maybe be patient just a hair longer - yeah I know I know lol - until the showcase to see what they’re doing.
Probably because gameplay wise it was doing things that other fps’s weren’t. Particularly when it came to weapons and multiplayer. The Laptop Gun is still one of the coolest weapons in any game, to this day.
10 to 20 hours is pretty long for a modern game. Like Psychonauts 2, this took over 4 years. You can’t develop new experiences in 2 short years.
Miles Morales is very short for an open world game. It takes way less time than 10 hours to play through. And they reused the map and let Houdini do its work.
It is not even about being patient. It’s simply about understanding what are the scope of the projects which Xbox studios are making. They are big and ambitious.
Simply want some teams to work on small projects deliverable in 2 years. Could be of any genre. Simply find team which is willing to do so. No need to force anyone there.
This is way I sometimes think Embracer could be good choice… But now they are too big and come with a lot baggage then the offer quality
Miles Morales isn’t a great example because it was kind of like a big DLC. Much of the conceptual, game play loop, technology, and tools were done to support the original game. Those are the type of things that I am referring to that need to be done regardless of length of game.
I dunno how long R&C was in development but Insomniac has multiple teams.
I think the key thing is a 10 hour game does not take half the time to make than a 20 hour game.
