Bigger might not be better anymore as some of your favorite open-world RPGs’ creators are now supposedly realizing the pitfalls of their designs. One of the latest among those developers is none other than Obsidian‘s Josh Sawyer who now thinks that smaller games might be better and could be the new paradigm after the deluge of huge open-world games in the past decade.
For those who don’t know who Josh Sawyer is, he’s the Studio Design Director of Obsidian Entertainment and has worked on games like Fallout: New Vegas, Pillars of Eternity, and even classics such as Icewind Dale. Sawyer has no doubt seen much of gaming’s major trends ebb and flow like very the fabric of the universe itself.
In any case, Josh Sawyer recently posted a video on his YouTube channel about his answering Tumblr questions. One of the most insightful takeaways from his answers was how it’s now more important than ever for developers to reconsider making their games too large, such as in Skyrim‘s case (the game that was partially responsible for the trend).
Sawyer recalled that during his time in some of Obsidian’s biggest games, one of their researchers actually found out that the majority of players don’t even finish the games they start (perhaps you’re even included in this majority). Here’s the exact quote and retelling from Sawyer:
“We want people to think about our games and our studio and have a positive experience. I’ve told this anecdote before but in this context, I think it’s really important, I remember talking to a useability group, we were talking about the size of our games.
We like to make them pretty big and pretty long even if a lot of the stuff is optional. One of the researchers said, ‘We found two-thirds of people don’t finish the games they start.’ He went on to suggest that therefore we should make shorter games,” as told by Sawyer.
Here’s the full video for those interested:
Sawyer then gives the perfect example: Skyrim. The Obsidian dev explains that too many people restart Skyrim over and over again and they never finish or even see a third of the map. That isn’t to say they didn’t like it, as Sawyer knows that those players had a great time regardless of their metrics. It’s Skyrim, after all.
Sawyer did pivot back a bit and defended games with large scopes. Because player enjoyment is all that’s necessary for a video game. But then again, a game that’s “6x bigger than Skyrim” might not be for the best.
Coincidentally, a former Bethesda dev who worked on Starfield has similar sentiments about games being too big. Smaller games apparently engage players and communities better. You also have a better chance of finishing them and feeling less overwhelmed by your Steam backlog.
