Long time Game Designer. Formerly - Firaxis, Netherrealm, Trion, Cryptic, 31st Union. I have only two states, vibing and prototyping. He/Him.
Joined April 2010
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Chris Meyer, Earthbound Design Spirit retweeted
I’m Nessa! I’m a video game writer/narrative designer with 6+ years of freelance experience on 10+ shipped titles, including Borderlands 4 and Star Wars: Galactic Racer ✨
I’m looking for new projects, so if you need help with narrative, get in touch!
nessacannon.com
ALT A picture of Nessa at a restaurant looking out a window
This is not really true, it's just that the core design reasons are ones players rarely ever think about. Two that jump to mind are path clarity and input limits.
to have players enter that flow state where their intentions are translated directly instead of having to think about their hands.
Anyway when people look at design choices they don't like or don't understand it's almost always worth thinking about reasons why it was done.
I think people are somewhat missing the forest for the trees on this. I don't think this is purely "people are getting dumber", but rather when you spend as much as AAA studios do on games you have to widen your funnel for as many people as possible to purchase the game. 1/5
A thing that is happening even in the indie publishing space for a lot of interrelated reasons, none of which are some Mr. Burns esq evil plan to ruin games. Mainstream acclaim is not a constraint because of the average player, but because of how you have to factor in 4/5
For anyone who has not played it, SKALD: Against the Black Priory 100% deserves to be among this company. Its great, lushly designed and carefully considered with sharp writing and a horrifyingly engrossing plot. You should play it if you like RPGs.
Cold ass take, but execs who struggle to squint at in progress games but also make staffing and cost decisions are probably not great at their jobs on a fundamental level. Probably similar issues in big movie studios too.
You can extrapolate this to why so many 'big titles' are all pushing graphical fidelity. Its hard to get an exec to understand the nuance of improved gameplay and emotional engagement. Very easy to point and say "look how nice it looks".
Surprising to nobody, most games aren't designed around the idea of your character also being an immortal time wizard in addition to the other things they can do. In my (admittedly biased) opinion, you will get more out of the games you play if you try not to savescum.
Not to put too fine a point on it but he's wrong lol.
The game certainly is an amalgamation of mechanics but to say its cynical? I just cant take that seriously because there is a pretty obvious deep love and "holy shit look how cool a thing we made" all over this game.
Larian publishing boss takes some spicy swipes at Crimson Desert, calling it a 'cynical amalgamation of borrowed mechanics'—but I think he might be the cynical one this time pcgamer.com/games/rpg/larian…
I think this boils down to the fact that
1. BOTW and TOTK take very passive roles in the storytelling, focusing on link's adventure rather than the text. Crimson Desert is full of voiced cutscenes and writing, significantly more than I remember in either modern zelda.
2. The game Crimson Desert is most aggressively cribbing from isn't BOTW or TOTK, its Red Dead Redemption 2. A game pretty well liked for its characters and writing. Crimson Desert is clearly trying to make that type of connection but doesn't quite stick the landing.