Hi, this is Mark Brown with Game Maker's Toolkit, a series on video game design.
If you ask me, Rocksteady's Batman games are a good example of why bigger isn't always better.
The first game in the trilogy, Arkham Asylum, was a pleasant surprise. Not only was it a
great game, and a great licensed game, but it was a killer Batman game. The developer
figured out what made this dude interesting - how he was more than just a rich guy who
punches hooligans while his underpants are showing.
For starters, Arkham Asylum had truly loony villains who got inside the dark knight's
head. And it also had free-flowing combat that mimics the martial arts of the animated
films, and when Batman fought goons with guns he'd hide in the shadows and use fear to trip
up his opponents. Like a reverse horror game, as if you're playing as the Xenomorph in Alien: Isolation
Those two main mechanics simply didn't require the massive open city that had, at the time,
become synonymous with super hero games.
(Nowadays, they're all endless runners for iPhone).
So, instead, we got the smaller, more intimate environment of the Arkham Asylum mental hospital.
But then we got sequels. And things, inevitably, got bigger. Arkham City gave us a few urban
blocks, and switched the structure from Metroidvania to full open world. And in Arkham Knight,
we get a mini Grand Theft Auto.
But does Batman really benefit from the extra square footage? I'm not convinced.
For one, the main gameplay systems in Asylum didn't actually gain anything from going open
world. In actual fact, they kind of suffered. The predator mode got lots of new gadgets
and wrinkles in the sequels, but it always worked best in the purpose built rooms of
Asylum, that encouraged you to play smart to isolate your foes, rather than the random
rooftops of City and Knight.
And the combat got plenty of new features, but it quickly becomes tiresome when you have
to fight dozens of random goons who are littered about the open world.
Sandbox games should ideally contain mechanics that need a sandbox. Like attacking bases
in any way you wish in Far Cry, or the elaborate cop chases in Grand Theft Auto. Otherwise,
you've just built an incredibly elaborate menu system to jump between gameplay moments.
To its credit, Rocksteady did add more mechanics that made better use of the larger play space.
But was anyone really asking for Batmobile tank warfare, or Assassin's Creed-style tailing
missions, or - that old favourite - liberating towers?
One of the biggest victims of an open world is story. A strong narrative can quickly lose
its structure and focus when players are given so many distractions. In Arkham Knight, the
urgency of stopping Scarecrow is undermined by the huge wheel of side missions which see
you stopping bank robberies and blowing up gun caches and training Azriel and tracking
down a man bat.
JIM GORDON: Look, I know you're busy. But anything you can do to help is going to save lives.
In a way, it emulates the feeling of Batman being overstretched and having to put out
fires - sometimes literally - but the simulation is revealed as being quite hollow when you
realise that there's no need to prioritise missions or act quickly.
Take two events that happen early in Arkham Knight. Two of Batman's allies are kidnapped,
almost simultaneously, but unlike in the Dark Knight where Batman has to make a choice of
who lives and who dies, there are no such stakes here. The Riddler will patiently wait
for you to come back to his bonkers underground race ways, and all his posturing about killing
his detainee are hot air. Take your time, detective. It's just a side quest.
Open worlds can harm the pacing of gameplay, too. Ultra linear games like Uncharted 2
can smartly dole out moments of shooting and climbing and story and puzzle solving at just
right time to stop you getting bored and to ramp up challenge and slowly teach you mechanics.
Sandbox games aren't so good at this, and you can find yourself doing repetitive tasks
or facing a weird, wobbly difficulty curve.
I can see the case for open world games, of course. Players get more freedom, they can tackle
missions in any order they want, and they get a lot more content for their cash. And
games like Fallout and Skyrim make terrific use of massive great worlds to faff about in.
But these days, I'm finding the promises of bigger and wider worlds a bit of a turn off.
TRAILER V/O: Just Cause 3 is a huge open world game with over 400 square miles of complete freedom.
You either end up with Assassin's Creed which has so much stuff to do that your map looks
like someone spilled a tub of glitter on it. Or Codemaster's Fuel which holds a Guinness
World Record for largest game world, but hasn't got a single interesting thing in it.
So maybe Arkham Asylum proves that open world doesn't necessarily need to mean open "world".
And that game environments should be measured by how much meaningful content is inside,
rather than in square metres.
Arkham Asylum was tiny, but it had better pacing than Arkham Knight and a more focused
story than Arkham City. It was claustrophobic, but the game's mechanics suited that. Spider-Man
needs a big open world to swing about in, but Batman is at his best when he's locked
in with his opponents.
So for every monstrously massive open world, we need a few sandbox games that are tiny
and intimate. More games like Resident Evil with its cramped Spencer mansion or Gone Home
with its Portland town house.
Game worlds that are packed with details but free from padding. Worlds where you learn
all the nooks and crannies and shortcuts as you retread familiar ground, instead of whizzing
past it all in a sports car. Game worlds that are memorable, not just cold, dull environments
filled with content and features.
Because, as Arkham trilogy director Sefton Hill said, back at the release of Arkham Aslyum,
"It's easy to see how people fall into the trap of having so many features. It's natural
to equate features with quality."
DAN STAPLETON: This has got to be number one for me, followed by Asylum
DAN STAPLETON: Purely because of the amount of content there is.
"You want to do less, but do it amazingly well, rather than do more and have a load
of average stuff. There are too many games out there that deliver lots of average content."
Thanks for watching. Agree or disagree with my take on the Arkham trilogy? Let me know
your thoughts in the comments. Plus, please give the episode a like, share it online,
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