More developers need to take inspiration from Elden Ring, not The Last of Us

By that I mean, more time dedicated to letting the player play, and less time spent listening to banter or watching cutscenes.

I can see the ugly influence of The Last of Us on God of War Ragnarok and I immensely dislike it. The director went full retard with the game by filling it to the brim with walking/climbing sections and endless dialogue between characters. The game isn't even simple to pick up and replay anymore because you're constantly forced into mandatory walking sections that last 10 minutes. Just thinking about the Ironwood part is enough to deter me from doing a NG run.

Now that Elden Ring has won a major award, I hope more developers see that you don't need a bunch of Hollywood actors and an "emotional story about human connections" for their games to be a masterpiece, nor do you need to beat the player over the head with your narrative by having characters spout endless exposition.

The Last of Us' awful legacy can be seen in games such as A Plague Tale: Requiem as well, and I really hope it stops and games can go back to being games. BOTW, Doom Eternal, Elden Ring, Returnal; all good great games that don't spend hours invading you with their narrative.

@Juub1990: if you don’t like narrative driven games, don’t play them. Those big epic story driven games happen to be a lot of people’s favourite genres

I like all three games mentioned, so i wouldn't care one way or the other. One thing people don't take into consideration is that Ragnarok might have a lot of cutscenes for its capaign missions, but there is also a shitload of side content worth your time, and that has no cutscenes at all.

@Juub1990: First off your argument fails when you say someone went "Full R****" (I've been on this sight for like 15 years, and the amount of pungent filth from our forum base is pathetic, there's a reason the board is dying)

Second, people can play what they want to play. I enjoyed Returnal just as much as GOWR. COD is the most sold game every year and it's the same game, but I don't knock people for liking it.

Never understood this guy, just hates whatever others like. I wouldn't play half the games others do, but I don't make threads about it.

Beautifully said. don't like it, don't play it. Not everyone likes what you like.

That was what killed my interest in doing a 2nd playthrough of The Last of Us: Part 2. All the crap you have to sit through to get to the stuff you actually want to play.

Why not both?

@Random_Matt: Nah, screw this. God of War was negatively affected by ND’s garbage. You can’t just tell me "don’t like it, don’t play it". The cinematic trash is pervasive and infects other games. It needs to go or at least diminish.

I honestly loved GoW: R. At no point did I feel there were too many cutscene's. All in all when you count side content It's probably 80% gameplay. I also loved Elden Ring and it's ok to enjoy both. I was OK with either of those games winning GotY because they were easily the best ganes of the year in my opinion.

@pixievalerie: It’s not like before where you can just skip these cinematics. Now, they intrude on the gameplay and you cannot get rid of them.

Halflife came out in 1998 and games still have trouble doing it right.

Call Of Duty basically straight up regressed it as far as i'm concerned. A free pass to make the gameplay secondary.

Many people don’t like GoW Ragnarok, that’s why its user reviews aren’t that good. Gamers don’t want to be dictated, we want freedom.

How cute that you think your opinion is valued closet Lem. Not every game needs to be open world with no direction. It worked with Elden Ring because it has excellent gameplay.

@Sagemode87: Elden Ring is the worst user reviewed game ever made by Fromsoft. 96% quit the game after the first month and 52% never defeated the first big boss.

@mesome713: Can you source your data?

Agree with the general sentiment. Definitely don't think we need even more games aping the Souls formula, but yeah, not really your point.

The unskippable shit is what's maddening for sure. If the gameplay is good and I can skip the cutscenes, don't give a shit if the game has a million hours of them.

When it's baked into the game in such a way that I can't get around it, that's a problem. Puts me off even in the initial play. Makes the idea of replaying a no go. Fortunately most of the games I'm into aren't saddled with that nonsense. Think MGSVs intro is the only biggie I can think of. Like if BotW forced you to half-play a cinematic sequence for the first hour lol. Sucks.

The games that force you to eat exposition at regular intervals, yeah I'm checked out. Bayo 2 has a single forced walking segment that lasts something like 30 seconds tops, still makes me groan.

So basically you want every gamer to like the games that you prefer / shrug

Well said.

Woah. Welcome back dude.

People wondering about you lol

I was taking a break to see if my productivity would increase... it didn't. It declined.🤷🏽‍♂️

Ha, yeah I've tried the same. Outside lengthy, distracting debates, found it hardly makes a difference day to day posting.

Focus in when a task calls for it, otherwise just balance.

@ConanTheStoner: Most of the time when I am on here, it is because I am working. The passiveness of it makes it as you stated, hardly intrusive.

You’re all wrong. Im right.

This about sums up SW

@daredevils2k: In a perfect world, yeah. That means there would only be games I like.

The general sentiment is really: Let the player play more. Every boring walking and climbing section where you do nothing but push the stick forward should be skippable. While it’s fine the first time for the story, it’s just a drag the subsequent times because it no longer adds any value.

I think the production value post-Uncharted gaming isn't as crucial throughout industry as it was 7th and 8th gen given rise of indies but I do think there's still expectations from big AAA developers to meet a certain visual standard.

I don't think the influence of such games extends beyond story and presentation and graphics and not necessarily from gameplay. I don't feel such games have people trying to replicate Naughty Dog gameplay as much as their production values.

Anyhow, we shouldn't say games should be more like others in general, variety keeps things interesting. I will say though of all big game design trends, Souls-likes have stood out as a more unique trend that hasn't been butchered by shallow lazy soulless imitations all around, not like the countless devs who failed to replicate CODs success by copying all the post-9/11 world modern military setting, stylistic design choices, and monetarily shallow driven MP season pass, all before they even nailed a viable product they want to replicate the sensational success.

Yes: We need more games focused on gameplay.
No: We don't need more games aping the souls formula, because no one else has the talent to pull it off. Only Miyazaki and a select few others got the Souls formula right.

To be fair, the success of MGS was probably why Sony decided to go the cinematic "movie game" route with their games... But Sony took the wrong lessons from MGS.

Less talkie, more stabbie

Not much of a fan of the gameplay style of Elden Ring.

The better comparison for me would be Zelda. But I very much love the story driven games too. I like diversity in my games.

Nobody needs to listen to video game opinions from a guy that thinks a broken and ugly Pokemon game is the pinnacle of entertainment. And The Last of Us, GoW, Elden Ring AND Ragnarok are some of the best AAA gaming has to offer. Period

I'm more natural to these types of games with heavy story driven but even I can say this. Once you finally beat the game, the player should have the option to skip cutscenes, no excuse to not give the player that option, and while it's true I really love TLOU games, I actually agree with @pixievalerie it's hard to replay those kinds of game without able to sip cutscenes. Sony really went overboard on the cutscenes. Playing first time is fine, I'm always in the immersion storytelling like God of War 2018/Ragnarok, and not being able to skip is the problem.

I'll be honest, ER is a good game, do we need more like that? That's up to the gamers perspective, not your choice TC. That being said, God of War: Ragnarok is my GOTY & ER is my second and that's all I got to say on the matter.

Few posts here hovering around the idea that it's outright a distaste for story telling in games. Can be true for some, but that's not really it.

Can definitely have story driven games that don't regularly hijack the game from the player, forcing them to take in exposition at a snails pace. We already had these for years lol. Story telling in gaming is not new. The whole cinematic walking, mindless climb n talk segments, relatively new to gaming. I can't think of a single instance of that stuff that wouldn't have been better suited to a cutscene, some text, or some environmental story telling.

Abandoning these practices wouldn't be detracting from gaming variety. As an aside, a bit silly to shield that stuff in the name of variety, when a lot of the games that do those things are pretty much homogenous in their approach and goals. Not like we're calling to snuff out creativity here. That's either a misunderstanding of the issue, or a very poor strawman. Would argue if anything it's a lack creativity, reducing an interactive medium to those methods for exposition dumps and banter. These things can be separated, like cutscenes the player can skip, text the player can skip, or in some forms choose not to read. Conversely, story telling can unfold mid play without locking the player into the lowest forms of interaction to do so.

It's really not complicated. Should be pretty damn obvious that slow walking and auto platforming aren't a good trade off for getting a story that can be delivered in better ways. Ways that either leave the player control, or allow them the choice. While still delivering the same story for those who are interested.

@Juub1990: "and I really hope it stops and games can go back to being games."

Call me when that happens.

@sonic_spark: @Maroxad:

Not talking about the gameplay style of Elden Ring. I’m talking about the fact that this game has about 10 minutes of cutscenes total. The rest of the time, the player is in control and you’ll never be forced into drawn out sections where you do nothing but listen to NPCs babble.

@ConanTheStoner: Valve has done this with their games, and it's easy to emulate. Dare I say, some COD campaigns actually has done it too.

Not the best examples, but I think devs can improve upon this in 2022. Heck HL2 is a decade old game, and its pacing is still absolutely great to this day.

EDIT: I tried to play Days Gone recently, and I quit halfway through because of how bad the pacing is with the cutscenes.

I agree. Slow walking/talking suck.

It's not as simple as ignore the games that have it because this stuff has infested so many games. It's probably the worst thing in modern gaming ... more so then MTX for me , atleast no game forces you to buy mtx (even if they are made grindy to get you to buy em)

Somewhat ironically the first Uncharted actually did it well. Chapter 2 where Nate and Sully are exploring the ruins, they never force you to walk slowly and there's still plenty of dialogue.

I think Days Gone let you skip some of it... the best we can hope for is that more devs follow suit. I doubt this shit is going anywhere since modern gamers can't seem to get enough of it.

I know it's been said, but, don't like it? Don't play it. Plenty of games are influenced by Souls shit. Take your pick.

this is why I hate most third person games due to slow walking talking. very few third person games are actual games. and these are what I like.

only play first person games 99% of time.

Cant wait for System shock and Atomic heart.

Doesn't work like that. GOW wasn't like that and wouldn't have been if it weren't for garbage Naughty Dog games. It's not a simple matter of "don't like it, don't play it". It's bad game design and influences spreading to other games.

Eh. Don't like it don't play it has been a sound strategy for years. Nothing's changed. Good games without the filler n shit are still made. Stick to those.

I do not mind long cutscenes in games as long as the story is engaging. Despite the cinematics in GOWR there was still a ton of gameplay.

Games are for playing not for story.

You want story watch a film

Thats why old games were better as it was all about the gameplay

definitely agree in principle but don't see it as tlou's fault that so many devs have taken influence from its narrative driven style and not been able to effectively incorporate it into their games. for me it's generally a square peg, round hole attempt to force a tv / movie story into a video game setting, and prioritising the telling of that story at the expense of what makes a game a good game.

for tlou, firstly it actually has a very good video game story. it's simple, focused, never wanders, is not over told i.e. little superfluous detail, delivered through two very strong and compelling characters, and the plot and game events walk hand in hand i.e. what you play combat-wise is directly related to what is happening in the story at that time (ragnorak isn't good at this). the gameplay is simple but solid enough, and it's all wrapped up in about 12-15 hours.

my experience with ragnorak is it quickly settles into a formulaic routine of walking and talking to the next combat "arena," where you battle a bunch of fodder opponents until they stop spawning, then you're allowed to exit and walk and talk to the next. rather than the more natural way tlou manages to fuse narrative with gameplay creating a sense of tension and jeopardy with each encounter, gowr generally feels more disconnected in that sense. combat encounters often feel tokenistic, like they're there just to break up the walking and talking. conversation is paused whilst you fight a bunch of repetitive indigenous enemies, as soon as they're taken care of you pick up the conversation where you left off, almost like the combat never even happened. the two dont always flow well into one another

@Juub1990:

This is where I'm at with it personally.

I wouldn’t mind the cinematic games if developers/publishers weren't so risk averse and prone to aping the easier design trends that the cinematic games represent.

Because let's be real. The game design craft of something like TLOU is significantly less than something like BOTW/ELDEN RING/Outer Wilds.

Note, I'm not saying that it's less work or effort because its clearly not but that the actual game building aspect of player space and toolset interaction is much smaller in most cinematic games than in those titles.

TLOU2 is the only one that really tried to take on advancements in that exact space as a third person shooter and what game does it get compared to the most as a result?

MGS5, a game 5 years it's elder. And it's still nowhere close in terms of sheer game design but it tries.

People will bitch and moan about it but when you sit back and really think about it, you'll meet me right here.

If you have to tell a story, make it so that people who care can get it and those who don't can skip it.

The walkie talkies should just be cutscenes that are skippable, and try adding fail states back into traversal portions.

There is room in the gaming space for both narratively driven and non-narratively driven games. Personally, I enjoy both types of games and there are times when I want pure gameplay, and there are times, I want to be told a good story while I am playing my games. Luckily, both experiences exist. I would rather have the option to play games like Uncharted 1-4, Last of Us 1 and 2 then they not exist. Personal opinion of course.

There are times I am playing a game and it irritates me when I just got control, am forced to walk 10 feet, then enter another cutscene. I also don't like when the end of a boss fight is cinematic as opposed to gameplay driven.

Hopefully nobody ever takes anything from TLOU. We need higher standards than that, lol.