To make a game feel like a movie the gameplay has to be presented with little resistance.
They want to make you feel danger but they don’t actually want you to fail.
It’s why you get the no fail QTE sections and the easy traversal stuff. Nobody wanna watch the same train explode 15 times cause you can’t make a jump. But that means the traversal has to be shallow and almost fail proof throughout the game.
Combat can’t be too difficult. Most games, especially difficult ones have a low completion percentage. Movie games are built for pretty much anyone who picks up the controller can make it through. That also means loot can’t be too significant, can’t have you get to a certain boss or enemy and not have the equipment/skills to win. Backtracking makes little sense in a “cinematic experience”
Level design is influenced by the need to funnel you to the next story beat. GOW devs said the squeeze through and forced walking sections were about pacing and controlling where the character can or can’t go. You said it yourself that open world games have a hard time telling a good story because the player can just walk off and do what they want to do. That goes both ways. In a movie game they can’t give the player much choice at all cause then it would fukk up the narrative.
Animations have to look realistic, but that doesn’t always make for the best gameplay. RDR2 was the worst for this. Yea the animations were cool and cinematic the first couple times, but it made the game a slog to get through.
Camera Angles. Moving the camera to close shoulder view changes mele combat profusely. You can’t see behind you so there will be less enemies and they will all be programmed to kinda wait and circle around to only attack you in the front. This makes spacing and positioning less important than the average mele action game.
There’s more, but this is the gist of it.
Movie games have very different design goals and priorities than other games. Same as an RPG is very different from an Action game.
All that talk about same games, one n dones, and movie games. Only to end up with this bs crazy.
I just hope y’all actually bought the game. Ninja Theory needs the support Xbox bros.
