Again in March, I gave Dragon’s Dogma 2 a 7/10. This got here with no quick quantity of second-guessing and hand-wringing. Assessment rating discourse is a cyclical, round mire that’s extra hassle than it’s price, and I’m not about to wade into it right here. Suffice it to say that PCGN, like each publication, has a evaluate scale predicated on bugs, polish, and design. With this subjective bible in hand, my choice to run with the 7/10 was partly right down to its crippling PC efficiency at launch. It was additionally right down to friction.
Friction is the place emergent storytelling calls house. It’s the diametric opposition of the homogenized ‘prestige’ recreation, the place the invisible hand of the developer pushes again. Name it an oxymoron, however I discover consolation in friction. These rough-cut imperfections spark my nostalgia for a time earlier than hyper-polished, triple-A blockbusters; when design selections got here with no-take-backs and the smallest stability wrinkle couldn’t be ironed out in a day-one patch. As the price of videogame improvement continues to soar, homogeneity rises to fulfill it. Even indie video games, thought of by many to be the final bastion of innovation, usually derive safety from established crucial successes.
Regardless of all appearances, Dragon’s Dogma 2 just isn’t a homogenous RPG. Its world is awash with emergent storytelling and unrehearsed set items that usually go away you worse off. A plague sweeps by means of the AI pawn system, bringing concerning the deaths of main NPCs if left unchecked. Quest givers haven’t any markers, and the quests themselves are purposely obscure. I miss a masquerade ball as a result of I lose observe of time. I watch a harpy abduct my pawn from a cliff edge, flying off into the horizon with him in her clutches. I fail to cease an assassination try as a result of I can’t determine the killer’s options in time. The place’s the Jadeite Orb? I nonetheless don’t know.
As an enormous fan of Darkish Arisen, my fears that Dragon’s Dogma 2 would seem as a sanitized, commercially pleasant model of its predecessor had been assuaged. I used to be delighted. In the meantime, my cellphone was blowing up with voice notes and texts from colleagues incensed over their newest grievance. The armorer ripped them off. They’re out of ferrystones. They ran right into a cyclops, fell right into a river, and a griffin landed on their pawn. And so, the hand-wringing and second-guessing started.
Let’s stick to the ferrystones. Quick journey was such a degree of rivalry that Dragon’s Dogma: Darkish Arisen threw in an everlasting ferrystone so gamers may at all times teleport to a serious location. When such a transformative utility merchandise is added to DLC, you would possibly assume it is a concession of a difficulty that must be remedied. As an alternative, Capcom doubles down and ships the sequel sans that treatment. You’ll take your ox carts, and also you’ll hate them. You’ll hate them much more when your journey is interrupted by a rampaging cyclops that smashes the cart to bits, leaving you stranded within the wilderness with a lifeless ox and a really sad coachman.
It is likely to be a bitter tablet to swallow, however there’s nothing unsuitable with the ox carts. They’re intentionally tedious as a result of Capcom doesn’t need you to make use of them. Stalker 2 follows the identical precept. Guides can ferry the participant between outposts, however that requires you to succeed in an outpost first. It pushes you to strike out into the nice unknown, to embrace the journey as a substitute of the vacation spot, as a result of that’s the place the friction lies.
In contrast, progressing by means of each video games through loading display screen teleportation is like sightseeing from the consolation of an open-top bus tour. Capcom and GSC jack up the costs, let the air out of the tires, and infrequently set the engine on fireplace. Nonetheless, the choice stays. Just like the everlasting ferrystone, ox carts and guides are a concession that almost all gamers anticipate a quick journey system. Not like the everlasting ferrystone, Capcom and GSC concede that an open-world recreation with out one is non-negotiable. Thus we attain the query: how a lot friction is an excessive amount of friction?
Stalker 2 is constructed on friction. Its Exclusion Zone is each protagonist and antagonist, subsisting individually from the participant, who should grapple with its bodily and social legal guidelines with out a hand to carry. One of the best weapon is the one in your hand; the very best gear is what you’ve managed to scavenge and promote. This can be a area that doesn’t care about you. The elemental distinction between Dragon’s Dogma and Stalker 2 is the diploma of hostility in its friction. Neither world is in service to the participant, however solely the latter employs friction to underscore the participant’s complete insignificance.
Sadly, Stalker 2 was additionally riddled with bugs at launch. Friction just isn’t bugs, neither is it jank, however each could cause friction to really feel like an train in frustration moderately than a problem to beat. When you’re already combating in your life, you need it to really feel honest – and there’s nothing honest about an anomaly, mutant, or bandit camp spawning proper in entrance of you. It’s a difficulty that GSC is dedicated to rectifying, nevertheless it proves that video games with friction can’t at all times afford to take the tough with the tough. Generally, these edges should be sanded down a bit extra.
Reid handed Slitterhead a 5/10, a rating that may exist alongside my insistence that it’s probably the greatest horror video games I’ve performed this 12 months. Each may be true, though my PCGN cohort won’t ever imagine me. A lot of Slitterhead’s friction may be dismissed as jank till you lean into its pitch. Sure, character actions are clumsy – however that’s intentional. You aren’t the physique you inhabit however the alien entity puppeteering it. Slitterhead communicates this from the outset, because the participant takes their first sluggish, shambling steps within the tutorial. As an alternative of a sprawling sandbox, its Kowloon-inspired slum metropolis is apportioned into levels. There is no such thing as a freedom or escape, simply the crush of our bodies and buildings. Bokeh Recreation Studio has a imaginative and prescient, and it’s decided to ship that imaginative and prescient to the participant no matter whether or not they prefer it.
Herein lies the issue. A notable title like Keiichiro Toyama hooked up to any indie challenge is concurrently a built-in hype generator and a ball-and-chain tied to its ankles. Slitterhead’s plasticine persons are a world away from the mocapped solid of Silent Hill 2 Remake, however I don’t have to see each pore or fingernail after they explode with a bloody moist pop. I wish to see a brand new imaginative and prescient from Toyama, not a redux of the identical one he had over 1 / 4 of a century in the past, and he delivers. Slitterhead is a clean PS3 case fished from cut price buckets in brick-and-mortar gaming shops (keep in mind these?). It’s scrolling by means of a pirated recreation catalog on a mod-chipped Xbox 360. It’s oddball nostalgia wrapped in defiance, however that structural friction is exactly why it’s a 5/10.
So, what about frictionless experiences? Dragon Age Veilguard was completely lambasted earlier this 12 months, having been totally brigaded on all platforms open to person evaluations. Dragon Age has at all times been preoccupied with the interaction between an intimate solid of characters. The epic fantasy is, by and huge, a backdrop to swimsuit these functions, drawing acquainted traces of discrimination for the participant to navigate. Most reputable complaints cite “bad writing” as Veilguard’s prevailing downside, however few articulate what this implies.
Not like Dragon’s Dogma 2, Stalker, or Slitterhead, Veilguard is a frictionless expertise on a social stage. Our heroes curl up on plush couches and stand round sipping espresso, participating in cordial debates that hardly ever devolve into arguments. Veilguard is the idealized model of the “town square of ideas” in motion, however such a spot is a figment of idealism. Take the argument between Emmrich and Rook throughout their romance arc. Emmrich desires to deal with the age hole between the 2, and the understanding considered one of them will die far sooner than the opposite. The dialog grows heated. Emmrich implies Rook is just too younger to know; Rook calls Emmrich out on his insecurity. The 2 lapse right into a strained silence, then they half.
There is no such thing as a chunk to this argument; there isn’t even a dialogue choice to instigate one. In distinction, the solid of Dragon Age 2 kind of despised one another. “Did you ever think about killing yourself?” Anders asks. “I could ask you the same thing,” Fenris snaps again. This isn’t a dialog for the fragile rules of the Veilguard, but these extremes are the genesis of character improvement. Morrigan’s disgust at sharing a celebration with a mabari battle hound in Origins makes the second you overhear her slipping the so-called “flea-ridden beast” treats on the proviso it “tell no one” so memorable. The revelation that Solas is the Dread Wolf in Dragon Age Inquisition is such a devastating blow as a result of of the 50 to 100 hours the participant spends in his firm.
Maybe it’s no coincidence that Rook and Solas share essentially the most notable social friction in Veilguard. BioWare lets gamers take out years of pent-up betrayal and “exchange verbal jabs with Solas” whereas he’s trapped within the Fade – and later, obtain the notification: “Solas remembered your verbal jab at him.” Nonetheless, even this small satisfaction is blunted by the actual fact Rook and Solas don’t truly know each other. There’s no actual purpose for Rook’s animosity in these scenes, and there’s no historical past between these two characters for these jabs to elicit ache. It’s hostile, however it’s secure.
Each Dragon’s Dogma 2 and Stalker 2 picked up a handful of nominations throughout this award season. Nonetheless, these achievements are misplaced underneath the avalanche of accolades for Astro Bot, 2024’s frictionless GOTY darling. Equally, Dragon Age Veilguard’s crucial success isn’t a lot a grand conspiracy as it’s proof that frictionless experiences have benefit to a sure sort of participant. The rise of ‘cozy games‘ to mitigate anxieties concerning the state of the world right now is well-documented. Nevertheless, even critical ‘failures’ like Slitterhead problem our understood notion of how videogames ought to be, which we’d like in a panorama crowded by homogeneity.
