Linearity, Part Three

Games have transformed just as the world has. They have gone from complete linearity to expansive environments, and all the way back around. They have gone from simple to complicated. Back in the last post the question was asked "Where should games go with linearity?" How much linearity is needed or wanted to make a good game? Going from the start of games to the current day, linearity is finally at a stand still. Gamers are now at a point where linearity is going to become crucial in the future of video games. For almost two decades, linearity has been tossed and turned on it's side. It's been used for better and for worse. It's been the highlight of games, and the ruin of them. And after all this time, gamers still have no idea what the answers to these questions are. But some games offer the best answer possible.

Mass Effect could be the future of linearity in video games. No game series has every brought on itself a bigger task than the possible solution of the linearity problem. For years, linearity and story could not go together. Giving freedom and giving a story looked to be impossible. In fact, only a couple months before the release of the second game in the series, Robert Bowling of Infinity Ward stated that it was impossible to make a good story in a game without set events that the player must be forced to go through. And to a point, he was right. Mass Effect does not eliminate this by any means. Players are made to go through a set story with set events, and this makes for a great and immersive story. In this aspect, players are put in the shoes of a character. Mass Effect realizes the classic elements of good stories in any media require immersion and placement in a setting full of things. But instead of choosing all of the elements in this story, BioWare does something extraordinary. Players are given complete freedom on how they look. They are given complete freedom on moral choices, weapon loadout, character, emotion, and even dialogue. BioWare, in many ways, was the first company to implement human freedom in a game. The freedom we are used to in real life, put into a game.

Mass Effect takes these freedom aspects and puts them in a shell formed by story. Your choices don't determine the story, but effect actions in the story. BioWare realized something everyone is evident in real life. We can't fix what we can't change. Events that are meant to happen will happen. But how we react to these events, how are character responds, how we use what we have to REACT to a situation, are all things that affect the future in a profound way. In short, BioWare discovered a real aspect of freedom without even speaking the word linearity. And while this is a penny in the bank of the first game, it becomes a wealth in the next game. Choices made in the first game, alliances formed, and everything else truly impacted Mass Effect 2. Even though the story of Mass Effect 1 is a constant for the most part, Mass Effect 2 is not. It is built completely and utterly on choices made by the last game. And although it still follows a set story, and that makes the game at the core a masterpiece, it is the freedom of the player having a real effect in the simulated future that gives a feeling no other game can.

But others would disagree with this. Mass Effect is certainly a top example of game excellency, but many games cannot and will not reach this kind of quality. There has to be a solution to the rest of games. Does Mass Effect set a bar, or is it just and example of something done right out of many examples that could be done? Many games have no player freedom whatsoever, and are masterpieces too. Certainly games like Modern Warfare 2 singleplayer and BioShock have shown that freedom would ruin those games. Well, here's the answer to the big question.

There is no correct answer to how much linearity is good or bad. Linearity is just another element like gameplay or design. It is a choice that is made very early in the game making process, and is at it's core part of the blueprint of all games. Linearity works if everything else is working with it. Maybe this is the wrong question. Maybe the correct question gamers should be asking themselves is something like "Does everything else work with the linearity of this game?". It isn't the fact that BioShock is extremely linear that determines that linearity in itself should be done this way in every game. Extreme linearity works here because 2K created such a vivid environment and immersive gameplay that giving freedom would ruin all that the developer made. It is like the difference between Shakespeare and a "choose your own adventure" book. While both are books, one has literary merit, and the setting Shakespeare puts you in is much more entertaining than any type of other book that might have choice in it. A book like that kills itself slowly by taking the reader out to make an irrelevant and unnecessary decision, just for the sake of making a decision. In this example, a developer should make the choice for the gamer, as it just fits with the game better.

But many games have shown that choice can be made in a great way and not ruin a game. Many developers have made meritorious games that go farther away from linearity. Again, this all depends on how all the other elements work around the game. Gamers can explore what the Washington D.C. has to offer and choose missions because Fallout 3 works that way and calls for it. From the outset, Bethesda didn't make a character for me. I was the kid in the vault that escaped to look for my father, so my story could be shaped that way. I could choose what missions I did first, how I looked, what I used, who I talked to, and how my story would be told because it was my story. It wasn't Jack's story in BioShock. It wasn't McTavish's story in Modern Warfare 2. It was my story, and the element of linearity was not important or relevant because it naturally felt that I should be making these decisions.

And many games have failed at implementation of all these elements correctly. They've given freedom where it wasn't needed. Certainly a game like Prototype could have used a much better story and much more refined gameplay rather than a big, open environment. Certainly a game like Wanted could have used a lot bigger of a story and a much larger scope of choice. It all depends on the quality of how all the things work together. Games are just like anything else that is built from scratch. Everything must work together to be recieved well by the public. The question of linearity isn't a question at all, really. It's more of a statement. Linearity is something that will always be in games, and the level of linearity really isn't determined from the outset. A good game will determine how much linearity is good by everything else put in the game, and if the game doesn't make these decisions, then the game probably isn't worth looking at anyway.