Open world video games, content bulimia and Assassin's Creed

The news he sees was a few days ago Assassin's Creed Valhalla be downsized compared to its predecessor, the gigantic Odissey.

Through the official profile of the social communication manager of Ubisoft the company has made it known that the new chapter of the saga will be neither bigger nor longer than the previous ones.

This could mean a compression of intentions for the title, which has become incredibly dense for situations and settings after the last two chapters, set in Egypt e Greece.

The return to the "origins" of Assassin's Creed however, it is a fact that interests us relatively; what we will do instead is chat slightly about a problem that has increasingly affected modern videogame productions.

Modern video games have become bulimic due to the futile race for longevity. The productions Ubisoft (specifically) they all suffer from the problem of an unprecedented content bulimia, with infinitely large worlds, full of things to do, all on average fun without particular peaks.

The last two chapters of Assassin's Creed specifically, they perfectly represent the thing due, with mammoth open worlds to be explored top to bottom always falling into a handful of very well-made gameplay loops, surrounded by a long series of accessory mechanics (like that ruolistica, very accentuated in Odissey) which rarely reach qualitative peaks.

Video game bulimia.

The problem of contenutistic bulimia in video games it is a problem usually linked to those videogame genres that they tend to last several tens of hours thanks to a fragmented structure.
Video games open world, i mmorpg, some types of role-playing games and action rpg are all videogame genres which over and over again fit perfectly within the aforementioned definition.

The developers put in place a framework of mechanics and gameplay loops that are capable of working in the short term. This combination of tools has the power to keep the player glued to the pad for a limited amount of time, and to avoid an early player escape from the title, the developers tend to fill the game in question with the famous secondary content.

Which wouldn't even be a big deal if it weren't that Ubisoft, specifically, it tends to transform these secondary contents into obligatory contents if we want to continue history in human times.

With the progressive rpgization of the mechanics and the creation of impassable doors consisting of level gaps to fill the secondary quests, I have become the best method to obtain experience in a convenient way.
Despite a good deal of commitment (visible in several points, we underline) the secondary quests of the last ones Assassin's Creed (you hate Ghost Recon Breakpoint, of Far Cry 5, of Watchdogs 2 etc etc) are fairly linear tasks, which never present peaks of difficulty and which do not ask the player for any other commitment than to perform the task.

What happens if in order to get to the natural death of the game we have to perform 600 tasks all the same?
That sooner or later we break the boxes.

The bulimic video game is that game that has no intention of presenting a structure with peaks of fun during the course of its duration but prefers to rest on a situation of relative stability, not offering a fluctuating experience but focusing on always giving a little something, does not matter if that's dull entertainment.

The other life?

This game design paradigm is obviously not the only one that works but it is clearly the cheapest one, which is why it is used by multiple companies.

Not all companies have the talents that Nintendo has been shown to possess by standing The Legend Of Zelda: Breath Of The Wild, nor the money that Rockstar he lavished on making Grand Theft Auto V with dozens of refined gameplay loops like few other things.

Ubisoft in the end it behaves exactly like Avalanche or as also Insomniac they did: create a decent core gameplay and pair it with a whole series of more or less effective secondary contents, with which to attack the player's free time.

Spider Man is a video game that is based on thirty missions not particularly memorable, accompanied by a system of enjoyable movement like few and by an almost vomiting amount of secondary content which give the player the resources necessary to access the latent potential of our spider man.

Companies like Nintendo e Rockstar they demonstrate that it is possible to follow, after obtaining the right resources, alternative roads capable of changing the cards on the table.

In Breath Of The Wild the open world is nothing more than the huge playground where physics and creativity collide with always amazing effects, in Grand Theft Auto V the open world is so large and neat that every activity seems to have the same love of the main gameplay loop; titles like Yakuza they can boast an open world content with the bulk of the game hidden in the side activities, all of them with a remarkable depth that do not regret the core of the title.

But then why Ubisoft do bulimic video games?

Assemble video games.

Ubisoft for more than a decade now he has set up an almost infallible system for creating video games: taking advantage of dozens of teams scattered around the world to literally put together a title.

As written by Alex Wawro in this splendid article by Gamasutra Ubisoft uses its size to create impressive video games from a content point of view with relative simplicity. Each video game of Ubisoft it is separated into different modules (a module for the core gameplay, a module for the help sections, a module for the secondary contents etc etc) and is fed to different development teams who work solely on that.

To this must be added the foresight of Ubisoft in using advanced procedural generation techniques for the realization of their worlds, a technique that allows them to save time and aim even higher with larger worlds and more massive experiences.

Unlike what is expected by Chadi Lebbos (Executive Director per AC: Origins o Ghost Recon Breakpoint) the public does not seem to have appreciated this bigger is better philosophy. With the extremely disappointing results of the last chapter of Ghost Recon the company seems to have taken a different path; the latter will be clear to the public and critics only in correspondence with the new trio of titles that the company is ready to launch by the end of the year.

Gods & Monsters, Watch Dogs Legion e Assassin's Creed Valhalla they could be more contained games and this could only be an advantage for many of us players, tired of getting stuck in playful loops that require a minimum effort for a not particularly satisfying result.