There
are many different people working in this industry. They all bring
their own perspectives and biases regarding video games and what make
them good. This is no less true for the designers of video games.
Each design team and each person on those teams brings different
ideas and different viewpoints to the table. This week's article is
about how these differences can lead to radically different games.
Fortunately for me, there are two games that are perfect for this
article as a way to compare/contrast design philosophies. They are
very similar, yet fundamentally different due to the teams who
created them and the circumstances behind their development. These
games are the recent Fallout games:
Fallout
3 and
Fallout:
New Vegas.
I
want to start off with a disclaimer: This
is not a debate as to which one these games is better. This is just
as analysis of different design philosophies resulting in
fundamentally different games.
These games are ideal for an analysis like this. Both of these games
were developed with the same engine and are in the same “Open-World
RPG” genre, meaning that they look and play very similarly. New
Vegas improved on Fallout
3's
mechanics, but did not significantly change them, so they are close
enough that it does not impact the comparison to a significant
degree. They are part of the same series, which means they are using
the same lore and building on the same world. On most levels, these
games are the exact same. The only differences between these two
games are the result of design decisions, which puts them in the
perfect position to compare and contrast on a purely design level.
Fallout
3
is made using Bethesda Softworks's standard rulebook for RPG design.
They applied the same philosophies that governed the creation of hit
titles like
Oblivion
or
Skyrim
when developing the third installment of the Fallout franchise. They
favor building open sandboxes that the player is free to explore at
will, which is reflected in the choices they made. The layout of the
Capital Wasteland is wide-open and generally flat terrain, allowing
players to see many of the world's set-pieces from a distance and
encouraging them to travel around and explore each of them. When the
player first exits the vault, he/she gets
an
amazing view
of the nearby town Megaton, a school building to explore, and the
image of the DC ruins in the distance, establishing several possible
destinations that the player go choose to go to.
Another
strength of typical Bethesda design is that they are very good at
telling small, self-contained stories within their games through
careful design of the environment and the people in them. I have
talked about this briefly in the past in
a
previous article,
but it cannot hurt repeat. Bethesda puts enough detail into the
places and set-pieces that they all tell their own stories. It is
hard to describe this in any way put through example. In the DC
ruins, there is a nuclear shelter that takes $0.10 to open. In this
shelter there is a male skeleton, a female mannequin, a bottle of
wine, and a clothing item called “Sexy Sleepware”. I do not think
I have to spell out what all of that means. You can figure the story
out without any guidance. Another example comes from a scene I once
came across. When exploring the Capital Wasteland, I came across a
group of wanders who were selling an item called “Strange Meat”.
They claimed that it was some of the best meat in the Wasteland.
Those who are familiar with either Fallout 3 or
my
earlier works
know that “Strange Meat” is actually human flesh. Since I knew
this, I killed every single one of them and gained good karma for it.
I like how Bethesda just leaves details in the game and allows the
player to use common sense to infer what happened. It gives the
player a motivation to explore and see what else is out there.
The
final strength of Bethesda's style is that they are very good at
using the RPG mechanics to bolster the spirit of exploration. One of
the most noticeable and well-known parts aspects of this is the level
scaling mechanic they used in Fallout
3,
which most people agree is vastly superior to the one they used in
The Elder
Scrolls IV: Oblivion.
In Fallout 3,
every location has a level associated with it. As the player's
character level rises, the levels of these locations also rise.
However, when a player first visits an area, that area's level is
locked, which prevents it from rising any further. The way this works
gives the player freedom to explore where ever they want without fear
of being completely overwhelmed (with some exceptions).
Another good way they use RPG elements is that they give the player
a clear sense of progression and a feeling that they are growing
stronger as the adventure goes on. The player gains experience for
doing most of the things an adventurer would do like killing enemies,
completing quests, hacking terminals, picking locks, etc. As with
most RPGs, getting enough experience will cause the player to level
up. As Bethesda explained it in the interviews leading up to the
release of the game, they wanted every level up to be a special
moment that players look forward to. On that count, they succeed.
Each level gives the player skill points based on his/her
Intelligence stat and a perk. Perks are little bonuses that give the
player a diverse and interesting set of advantages. Players will
crave experience, hoping to level up and gain skill points and perks
and making them want to explore the world even more. Beyond that, the
perk system and the skill point system give the player a clear sense
of progression. A player can feel the difference a single level in
make in the character's stats.
As
good at Bethesda style games are in terms of exploration, they do
have downsides. For one, while they give a lot of attention to the
smaller environmental details, they are not very good at looking at
the big picture in terms of environment. For example, in the whole
Capital Wasteland, there is no farm land anywhere. The game explains
that most of the food is from two-hundred years ago and scavenged
from the DC ruins. This makes no sense. Food that old, even if it was
stuffed with preservatives, could not possibly be edible. They have
animals and creatures around that drop meat when killed, but there is
no explanation as to how they live in an area with no vegetation.
Water is also a huge problem. According to the game, since DC was hit
the hardest in the nuclear apocalypse, all of the water has a lot of
radiation and is somewhat toxic to humans. There is a explanation for
this since a major plot point in the game is providing fresh water to
the Wasteland, but it still poses a significant problem. With the
fact that basic resources cannot be found overlooked/omitted, the
Capital Wasteland realistically could not possibly sustain life.
There is no notable way to provide food or water to the people of the
Wastes. Another crucial environmental detail that was overlooked was
in a place called Tenpenny Tower. In this tower, located in the
Southern half of the Capital Wasteland, there is a group of people
who live in the tap of luxury... only there is no reason for them to
be rich. As far as I am aware, the residents of Tenpenny do not
engage in any sort of trade and have no real way to profit. They are
only rich simply because the game needed stereotypical rich people to
serve as evil-aligned characters for a few side quests. All three of
the details here are crucial details about the world that Bethesda
failed to take into account, either because of constraints or through
focusing too much on the exploration aspects of the game, when
creating the DC area in Fallout
3.
The
other problem with Bethesda design is that while they excel at the
use of environmental storytelling, but the storytelling of their main
plots are not up to the same quality. Fallout
3
in particular had several moments in the story where either what was
happening or what the player is expected to do does not make sense.
For example, there is a scene in the game where the player is going
into a old vault to look for his/her father. On arrival, the player
is greeted by a robot and told to get into a “Tranquility Pod”.
The quest objective updates to tell the player to comply. The problem
with that is that there is no motivation for him/her to do that. The
player is looking for his/her father. Looking around at exploring the
vault seems like a better idea than resting in a pod.
There
are a couple of other problem spots similar to that one. Later in the
game, the player needs to go into a separate vault to retrieve an
artifact called a GECK (Garden of Eden Creation Kit) to make the
giant water purifier that everyone wants work. The problem is that
the entrance is covered in so much radiation that it would instantly
kill the player if he/she got close. The player needs to sneak around
through another entrance hidden in Lamplight Cavern. The problem
with
that
is that Lamplight Cavern is home to a group of children who formed
their own kid society. They will not open the little,
indestructible
plywood door
until the player speech checks them or goes to save their friends
from slavers who kidnapped them to sell off to the highest bidder.
Let me repeat that for you so that you fully understand it:
Infiltrating a compound filled with trained, murderous slavers is
easier
than infiltrating the town of a group of little kids. This is stupid.
There is no reason that a group of kids should pose any sort of
obstacle to the player. These are just a few examples of the problems
with
Fallout 3's
plot. There are more than that. This is the consequence of Bethesda's
design philosophy. They build fantastic worlds to explore, but tend
to forget the details that help it to be a coherent and believable
place with believable people.
New Vegas, on the other hand, was made with Bethesda's engine, but
not their philosophies on RPG design. Rather, it was created by
Obsidian Entertainment and using their design style. Obsidian's style
has emphasizes creating a believable and having the player impact
that world through choice. To that end, they are very detail
oriented. The first strength of this design style is that the world
is much more plausible and fleshed out. The player can look around
and see how people might live in a world like the one in New Vegas.
Small towns are seen to have farmland and sources of fresh water.
Wandering around the first settlement the player encounters,
Goodsprings, he/she can look around and see farmers cultivating their
harvest of fruits and vegetables. The player can travel to the
springs and water pumps to take a swig of fresh, clean water. The
saloon in town is a great place for the player to rest. Talking with
the owner reveals that they trade with other settlements in order to
get meat and other forms of protein and that she keeps caravan
drivers happy by providing drinks and entertainment (for a small
fee). It is more than a set-piece, it is a town. Other towns have
different ways of maintaining their economy. One town, Novac,
scavenges technology from a local rocket base and trading with other
places for their resources.
Beyond the towns, the inhabitants of the Mojave Wasteland are
equally fleshed out. The owner of Novac's general store and gift shop
has a collection of dinosaur toys from before the war that he tries
to peddle off to every person who comes around because they simply
take up so much space. In Goodsprings, the local doctor mentions that
he grew up in a vault and learned medicine there. Later, he found a
woman that he grew to love and later marry, but she died later on.
There is a farmer, located on the outskirts of the Vegas strip. He is
a part of the New California Republic's sharecropping program. As he
goes about his daily tasks, the player can strike up a chat and learn
that the NCR is bad at resource management and that the farmer might
be under quota because of it. These people are not at all vital to
the plot of New Vegas. They are background decorations, but they all
have stories and personalities of their own. They are people
inhabiting this world that the player has also chosen to inhabit.
This is a reflection of Obsidian's ability to make a believable place
with interesting locals.
The
second strength of this philosophy is that they are very good at
guiding the player in the direction that they want him/her to go
while keeping the plot consistent. One of the best examples of this
is in the beginning of the game. The very first scene of the game
involving the player character has him/her being shot in order to
secure the package he/she was supposed to deliver to the New Vegas
strip. Naturally, the player will want to seek revenge on the guy who
did it and his
obnoxiously
loud checkered suit.
This whole scene sets up the plot in a way that when the quest
objective says “Find the man who shot you,” the player goes “I
thought you'd never ask.” It hooks the player into the world
without creating any of the inconsistencies that plagued the plot of
Fallout 3.
While some parts of plot are weaker than others, most of the things
that the player is asked to do make sense. The player naturally goes
from town to town in order to track the shooter down. Though the
people often make requests of the player in exchange for the
information necessary to keep going. It is an easy enough motivation
for people to understand (though it does relies on the player having
a tolerance for revenge stories).
Obsidian's
third strength lies in its ability to use choice in its narrative and
have those choices produce realistic consequences. The second half of
the game is almost completely dedicated to this principal. Once the
player tracks down the shooter and extracts revenge, he/she learns
that his motive for trying to kill the player was to attempt to take
control over New Vegas. From this point on, as I have gone over
before in
older
posts,
the player can choose which faction of the big three to side with in
the war for New Vegas. Alternatively, the choice can be made to screw
all of them over in a bid to maintain New Vegas's independence. This
choice radically affects the route which the player will take to get
to the end of the game. However, each faction will ask the player to
deal with the various side-factions of the game (as does going
Independent). The final battle and the ending changes radically
depending on which faction the player sided with and how he/she dealt
with all of the side-factions (or, sometimes, if they were even dealt
with at all). This system is great because it encourages the player
to think about what they are going to do and how it will affect the
citizens of New Vegas and the Mojave.
The choice of which faction to side with has real, lasting
consequences after the story is over, but the player is never locked
into a choice until the quest line they are on is near completion. At
any time they can switch to a different faction (provided their
reputation with that faction is not too low) if they feel that the
story will not go the way they want it to go. The player can convince
most of the side-factions to align with the major factions and turn
the tides of the war one way or another. The player feels like they
are playing an active role in determining the future of New Vegas
through the choices they make in the plot, which increases his/her
immersion and involvement with it.
The
theme of choice extends to day-to-day operations in New Vegas.
Obsidian has a style that focuses as much on customization as
Bethesda focuses on exploration. Many of the weapons the player can
use have weapon mods that the player is allowed (and encouraged) to
find/buy and install, increasing the weapons effectiveness and
physically changing its appearance. Another change that reflects
choice is the crafting system. While Fallout
3
had crafting, it was nowhere near as robust as what is seen in New
Vegas. The former only allowed for the creation of specific weapons
through crafting, the latter does much more. New Vegas allows for the
creation of new weapons and armors, custom ammunition, medical
supplies, healthier and more nutritious food and drinks, narcotics,
poisons, and repair kits. The player is completely free to skip
crafting entirely, but taking advantage of it will give him/her an
edge over those who neglect it. It can even be enjoyable to gather
ingredients and create custom stuff for some people, letting them
build their own fun.
The
next place where Obsidian's preference for choice shines is in the
changes they made to the leveling system. The reduced the number of
skill points accrued at level up and reduced the perk gain rate to
every other level. Plus, they changed a few skills around, added a
new Survival skill and many more perks than Bethesda did. This means
that every point the player allocates and every perk they choose
become much more crucial choices than they were in Fallout
3.
In Fallout 3,
the player was guaranteed to be incredibly strong by the end and able
to take on most threats. In New Vegas, the player's power is more
limited. The player has to choose which skills they will specialize
in and which perks to select over the others (unless the player
install the DLCs, which raise the level cap by twenty).
The way skills interact with the world also reflect choice. Obsidian
made each quest in the game so that there are several ways to
approach a given situation. For example, when a military doctor asks
the player to find out who has been stealing his supplies, the player
can has a choice between different solutions. He/she can just sit in
the tent and watch for somebody to come around. Another option is to
sneak around the base and look for clues. Lastly, the choice exists
(provided the player has enough Medicine skill) to learn the symptoms
of addiction to the particular stolen drugs and catch the thief by
going around and looking for somebody with the symptoms and diagnose
them. These are all viable options and all of them solve the quest in
a good way. Other quests will need high skills to get good
resolutions and/or to skip objectives. It allows for players to see
their skills having an impact on their experience, encouraging
experimentation with different character build and propagating a
notion of choice.
But
while this style has its strengths regarding story and choice, it has
its own, critical weaknesses. The most damaging of these weaknesses
is that while the world is very rich and detailed, it is simply not
fun to explore. Several choices made that help to promote
verisimilitude are detrimental to exploration. The biggest example of
this is the topography of the area. Where Fallout
3
was a vast, open area, New Vegas is much filled with much more hills
and valleys. This in itself, while it makes the world feel smaller
and discourages exploration, is not inherently detrimental. What is
detrimental is the fact that there are several mountains and hills
that the player should be able to climb thanks to the games engine,
but are blocked off from the player by invisible walls which Obsidian
put in. This makes the world less fun to explore because it feels
like the game designer actively discourages players from doing so.
Another way exploration is discouraged is in the placement of
enemies. In a Bethesda game, the enemies scale to the player's level.
In New Vegas, enemies have predetermined spawn locations and minimum
levels. This means that if the player decides to make a trek directly
to New Vegas (because the fact that the shooter is from New Vegas is
fairly obvious if the player is familiar at all with the region),
then the going will be difficult because of creature tens of levels
higher than they are. It is not impossible, but it is difficult
enough to dissuade even the most determined of gamers. The game uses
these spawns, coupled with the layout of the Mojave, to funnel the
player through a decidedly linear path during the course of the first
act. It also inadvertently makes wandering, even on at higher levels,
an annoyance instead of a pleasant excursion.
The
interiors areas of the game are no better in this regard. In fact,
more often than not, they are far worse. Many of the locations are
incomprehensible rat mazes with several different paths that all look
incredibly similar, yet lead to different locations in the building
and the map often does not help. Several times when I gave up and
decided to use the map, I ended up slightly less lost, but still so
lost that I had to rely on luck to get through the area. This is
nearly every interior space large enough to take multiple floors.
While all of the above criticisms
of this style essentially come to “The world is simply not fun to
explore,” this is a critical problem. After all, the player will be
spending hours
exploring in order to get from location to location and dealing with
the trials on the way. For this part to be boring is almost akin to
intentionally sabotaging the game.
While
this is not immediately noticeable in
Fallout:
New Vegas,
there is another problem with this plot and choice focused style. All
of these choices and branching paths take time and money to create,
especially since it requires voice acting and other assets. In the
AAA
gaming industry we have right now,
this kind of commitment is incredibly difficult to pull off. This
often results in Obsidian releasing products that are either
unfinished
or
lacking
of a degree of polish
that other games have. This was a first noticeable in New Vegas with
all the bugs and glitches (many game breaking ones) that it had upon
release. Since then it has mostly been patched out, but there is one
feature that was left on the cutting room floor, one many fans were
angry about, because of time and budget constraints. The team at
Obsidian was originally going to allow post-ending play so that the
player could see the aftermath of the game much more visibly than
through the slideshow they used and continue to explore the Mojave.
The reason they avoided this was because lacked the time, money, and
processing power to make alternate versions of the places that would
be visible affected by the ending (notably New Vegas and Hoover Dam).
New Vegas got off easy, usually this kind of concern ruins Obsidian
games in other ways.
As for which design philosophy or which game is better, it is
completely subjective and dependent on what you are looking for in a
video game. And these two styles are far from the only ones. There
are tons of different design styles that developers use and they each
have their own pros and cons. This is just to show how much the
design has an impact on the final product. Thought these two games
have the same engine, the same gameplay, the same lore, and the same
genre, they are radically different and showcase two totally separate
ways of thinking about games and game design. Keep this in mind when
playing your next video game. Think about the design and the intent
behind each choice the developers made. Think about how it affected
the experience. You might be surprised at how much you learn.
