Should you give me the selection between a recreation that provides me freedom, and the chance to form the story and the course with my very own selections, versus a recreation that limits my freedom, and insists that I play and behave in a sure manner, I’m at all times going to select the latter. I like course. I like imaginative and prescient. Fallout, Grand Theft Auto, and Crimson Lifeless Redemption 2 could be a few of my favourite video games of all time, but when I had to decide on a aspect – if I needed to belong to at least one sort of ‘church’ of videogame construction – then I’d be an acolyte of shorter, extra linear, and extra organized and ruled video games the place my very own company is sacrificed for larger thematic cohesion. I’ll take the unique Steel Gear Stable over Steel Gear Stable 5. The slim corridors of the primary Half-Life are extra impactful to me than the beautiful, wide-open world of No Man’s Sky.
However though I can argue the virtues of this extra directed, managed videogame construction, finally it runs up in opposition to an issue: if a recreation goes to be a recreation, at some degree it must let the participant in, and interactivity and subjectivity should be allowed to exist. There’s no such factor as ‘excellent recreation design,’ however I really feel just like the objective, typically, is to unite these seemingly oppositional forces, to harmonize the developer’s intentions and assertions with the participant’s particular person inputs. Because of this XCOM 2 is so good. Greater than some other strategy game, and maybe greater than some other recreation in any respect that I’ve performed this yr, it establishes a communication, a mutual ‘writing’ course of, between the developer and the participant.
One instance. In most missions in XCOM 2, you’re on a time restrict. It’s not a literal ticking clock, however maybe you solely have ten recreation turns till the aliens explode a bomb, or execute a hostage, or destroy the ship that’s coming to rescue you. This can be a strict, developer-enforced boundary – mechanically, it’s the non secular reverse to an open-world game or an RPG, the place the participant is permitted to roam, or not, at their will.
However whereas it limits literal exploration (you don’t have time to see your complete map, or kill each enemy, or experiment with doing something and the whole lot you need) you’re nonetheless being inspired to suppose, to plot, and to make use of your company. It’s solely via a shrewd utility of your troopers and your concepts that you would be able to surmount the impediment the sport has positioned in entrance of you.
And out of this comes a terrific sense of objective and stress. On paper, XCOM 2 doesn’t have a lot of a narrative. The characters don’t speak all that usually. There’s not a whole lot of lore. The cutscenes are quick. However though it’s a mechanical or ludic gadget, the time restrict on every mission turns into a metaphor for the severity and the excessive strain of XCOM’s and humanity’s state of affairs – actually and within the extra summary sense, underneath the hovering jackboot of the alien invasion, time is operating out.
Likewise, due to these closing dates, the whole lot you do as a participant feels extraordinarily consequential. Narratively, the destiny of the XCOM venture and your complete species is on a knife edge. Suitably, once you’re taking part in XCOM 2, the success or failure of your mission hangs on a single errant choice.
The developer, on this case Firaxis, creates a boundary. The participant has to enhance and design their interactions round that boundary. However what this creates is a larger and extra compelling sense of what’s at stake, dramatically. And that, in flip, compels the participant to suppose extra, to have interaction extra, and to really feel extra like their selections, their inputs, have that means – their company could be directed or restricted, however what the participant chooses to do in XCOM 2 really issues.
