SerpApi.Org
The next Fallout game from Obsidian has already been announced, and the director Josh Sawyer wants imperfect choices. And while we don’t know much about the game, he did speak about his thoughts on players making hard choices in video games, and their impact on gameplay.
In a recent interview with The Examined Game, Sawyer talked about his stance on RPG titles, saying they’re at “their best” and players feel “at the center” of all their decisions when they “can’t control a lot,” or, importantly, “can’t control everything.”
“I think I’ve done this in a lot of the games I’ve worked on to different levels of success or favorable or unfavorable reception by the audience,” admitted Sawyer.
Want to see more exclusive entertainment content like this? Follow Bounding Into Comics on MSN.
“In Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire, notably you can’t stop Eothas. Like he’s just going to do what he’s going to do. And you’re kind of told that point blank, and we also try to telegraph that he’s way beyond the ability to physically do anything.”
That didn’t stop players from thinking they could defeat the powerful being, though. And Sawyer said that many RPGs have “conditioned” players to assume they can take out the big bad guy, or solve every problem. So when players experience Deadfire, they’re in for a shock to realize they can only help make the damage caused by Eothas less severe, but they can’t actually do anything about him.
“Part of the idea was going against this idea of ‘I’m the protagonist, I can literally do anything,'” Sawyer continued.
“And I was like, well, with a role-playing game, so much of what we excel at is making the player sort of sit and deal with their choices, which often feel very imperfect. That sense of agony where you’re like, I have two things to do that are good and bad, and I’ve got to decide which is most important.”
“So many problems are just human problems. They’re part of the reality of life and being a human being and living on this planet with other people right now. And even in a fantastic world, there are still going ot be powers that are beyond you. There are things that you can’t overwhelm.”
Along with his reference to Deadfire, he also pointed out a moment in Obsidian’s Pentiment when the player has to accuse someone of murder. But really, players can never truly figure out who committed the crime. “So you understand that this person is going to die and you have to pick someone,” he explains. “And so you kind of have to do your best.”
“And again, it requires the player to interrogate their own values and say, like, is it most important to me that I condemn the person I think did it? Is it most important to me that I condemn the person that I dislike? Is it most important to me that I condemn the person that I think the town will miss the least, or like, and it’s not easy.”
And this is what Sawyer enjoys in RPGs: Having the imperfect choices that make the game feel more real. In Pentiment, once a player makes their choice, they have to watch the execution, which is usually horrible to witness.
“And so a lot of players are just like…’I wish I hadn’t done this.’ And they’re just like, ‘I don’t know if there was a better decision to make here but, like, I didn’t think it was going to happen like this.’ And it’s like, well, this is how it happened.”
While we don’t have any details on the next Fallout title, this is surely enough of a hint that players are going to experience imperfect choices that make for a more gritty, realistic game.
Want to see more exclusive entertainment content like this? Follow Bounding Into Comics on MSN.
Related Headlines
