Lets say some for some reason Visual Novels became the next Big Thing™. They blow-up worldwide, in the same way Ubisoft Sandbox games did not too long ago. And of course, the AAA machine wants to make some mad bank on that. The Big Boys step-up with their takes on the genre. But what do those games look like? What does a massive, AAA powerhouse budget get you in the simplest genre ever conceived?
Obviously a vast majority will get it wrong, or at least take different approaches to capitalising on the trend. Perhaps they'll be more open to long story sequences, and wont hassle writers to make ever scene end in a way that lets gameplay happen, letting the writers run on for as long as they need to tell the story they want. Overall, I feel that would be a positive change. Giving writers more breathing room is a great idea on paper, there are plenty of ways to tell a story in a videogame outside of the core mechanics. With more breathing room, we might end up with more interesting exposition-delivery devices than walking next to NPCs while they talk at us. However, it would, almost certainly result in a few more Metal Gear Solid 4s and Order 1886s. Long, padded cutscenes that could easily be cut down to size, but instead go on for hours.
But even if writers do take advantage of this freedom to craft better flowing stories without the pressure to quickly get back to the action, that might not be so well received by the traditionalists that make up AAA audiences. For the people that see games as distractions, as something to do rather than to experience, a renewed interest in storytelling may just be seen as less focus on the games that THEY want. Remember, a lot of these people are the ones vehemently against the idea of something not being made specifically for them, as they loudly proclaim on twitter whenever something aimed at women is released. Because they grew up with games being less diverse, they have an idea of what games SHOULD be, and aren't fond of it being challenged.
But making those people angry is generally a sign of a good move, so I'll take that as a net positive.
Overall then, a popularity boost to Visual Novels could have a good positive effect on other genres, if it last long enough for permanent changes to set in. But the Big Boys have never been so subtle as to simply take on inspiration quietly. Oh no, they'll dive headfirst into this theoretical craze, and I think a lot of them will start to take on new projects that follow the closest analogue they can think of with proven results: the Telltale Games point-and-click genre.
Risks aren't popular in AAA-land. The idea of them diving headfirst into new territory is an entertaining one, but not bloody likely. Instead, they'll bank on something they've seen work that resembles the trend enough that they can expect returns even if it doesn't hit the nail on the head. Likely a few will pick up neglected property, hash together a team and have them make a Telltale-esque adventure game with it. Maybe we'll finally see a peep from Beyond Good and Evil, by way of a story-driven spin-off. It'd be a perfect choice on the Ubisoft front, besides something Assassin's Creed or Watch_Dogs related. Assuming Square is still on the Final Fantasy XV train in the hypothetical future we'd likely get a spin-off from that, like that VR thing and the Movie and the Anime etc.
But it's outside of the big properties where we'll probably get the best out of this, after the smaller studios pick up on the AAA's intent, and start pitching their stuff under that banner. That's where I'd expect to see the more interesting games like Life is Strange to pop up. Perhaps these smaller studios will even see that this interest is borne from the Visual Novel craze, and take more of that into account. Perhaps we'll see something in the Telltale/Life Is Strange format but rather than a series of small details changing according to minor decisions, you get a few big decisions that dramatically alter the course of the story, but with just as much room to explore and interact with the world outside of the main story path. Maybe they'll stop being episodic too, that would be a change.
But when it comes down to it, we've seen that formula already. Hell, that's why I'm thinking the Big Boys will bank on it. But lets go wild for a moment. What happens if the AAAs actually DO dive straight into this new territory? What happens if even just one of the industry big-names decides to chuck Destiny-tier amounts of money at an in-house produced Visual Novel? What would that even look like?
Well, it'll have an all-star cast, that's for sure. The visual novels at the higher ends of the genre are all fully voiced, and a AAA visual novel would almost certainly get the most expensive talent available. So it'll probably have Sean Bean in it. I mean, he's in the new Final Fantasy movie and Civ6, he'd probably be well up for it. Probably a few other big names too, whoever's popular at the time I suppose.
As for what it'll LOOK like, I'd say the aforementioned Final Fantasy XV movie will probably be the go-to look. The best CGI possible, while still being in-engine, because that's something they'll want to show off. Assuming this theoretical game stays as a traditional visual novel, without the gameplay elements of Phoenix Wright, Danganronpa or Zero Escape, they'll still want to keep some semblance of interactivity, which would likely end up as ways to manipulate the camera somewhat. Which would mean dropping the talking character portrait standard for actual rendered environments and camera angles. After all, we know AAA games don't want to leave anything up to the imagination. Maybe they'd have a few specific scenes where you can select from a few angles, or maybe some in-universe stuff. Like a character goes up to a radio and you get to thumb through the tracklist to select the soundtrack for the following scene. Nothing to alter the story, that would be straying into more adventure-gamey territory, but enough to get a little more immersed in the story and world.
Part of the appeal of Visual Novels is moving at your own pace, so you couldn't just have a solid cutscene for 4 hours or so and call it a visual novel. You'd have to retain the ability to move dialogue on at a button press. The Big Boys probably wouldn't like bulky text-boxes taking up space on those lovely visuals they paid for though, so you'd probably get basically subtitles at the bottom of the screen, without borders. Probably wouldn't even need coloured character names, since you can now rely on cinematography and actual voice lines to convey who's talking.
and this is a AAA videogame, they want to have VALUE stuff to tout on the back of the box, so it's bound to have extra content. I was thinking something kind of like the journal, from Highway Blossoms, where at certain points in the story you'd unlock pages of a journal with story relevance, which could be read at any time. You could take that further, have a bunch of in-game fiction pop-up during the story, which you can than peruse at your leisure should that interest you ("Over 100 pages of bonus content!"). And obviously you'd have concept art, and you'd be able to watch individual action sequences out of context after they happen, maybe even have a model viewer, that's all the sort of thing I could see in something like this.
Oh, and it would definitely have action sequences, no way any of these AAAs would spend all that money on pretty graphics without some expensive-looking fight scenes. They'd take up the place of the anime cutscenes you get in the bigger-budget Visual Novels.
So what would be the story then, to have some of those action scenes without feeling like it couldn't have been better served as an action game? Well, how about something like Star Trek? A space adventure in a ship you can get familiar with, focusing on crew interactions, diplomacy and exploration, but with well enough room for the occasional action scene, perhaps as part of an overarching plot. Give the player an important role and you've got an easy way to get big branching decisions.
So yeah, to stop myself rambling forever, a popularity surge for Visual Novels could make more interesting game stories all around, bring back Beyond Good and Evil and net us a huge-budget Star Trek Visual Novel by Square Enix maybe. I like thinking about it.
This wasn't EDF, because there's more to it than I thaught. Next week might not be it either, but rather Aarklash Legacy, or maybe Endless Space. Who knows.
Obviously a vast majority will get it wrong, or at least take different approaches to capitalising on the trend. Perhaps they'll be more open to long story sequences, and wont hassle writers to make ever scene end in a way that lets gameplay happen, letting the writers run on for as long as they need to tell the story they want. Overall, I feel that would be a positive change. Giving writers more breathing room is a great idea on paper, there are plenty of ways to tell a story in a videogame outside of the core mechanics. With more breathing room, we might end up with more interesting exposition-delivery devices than walking next to NPCs while they talk at us. However, it would, almost certainly result in a few more Metal Gear Solid 4s and Order 1886s. Long, padded cutscenes that could easily be cut down to size, but instead go on for hours.
But even if writers do take advantage of this freedom to craft better flowing stories without the pressure to quickly get back to the action, that might not be so well received by the traditionalists that make up AAA audiences. For the people that see games as distractions, as something to do rather than to experience, a renewed interest in storytelling may just be seen as less focus on the games that THEY want. Remember, a lot of these people are the ones vehemently against the idea of something not being made specifically for them, as they loudly proclaim on twitter whenever something aimed at women is released. Because they grew up with games being less diverse, they have an idea of what games SHOULD be, and aren't fond of it being challenged.
But making those people angry is generally a sign of a good move, so I'll take that as a net positive.
Overall then, a popularity boost to Visual Novels could have a good positive effect on other genres, if it last long enough for permanent changes to set in. But the Big Boys have never been so subtle as to simply take on inspiration quietly. Oh no, they'll dive headfirst into this theoretical craze, and I think a lot of them will start to take on new projects that follow the closest analogue they can think of with proven results: the Telltale Games point-and-click genre.
Risks aren't popular in AAA-land. The idea of them diving headfirst into new territory is an entertaining one, but not bloody likely. Instead, they'll bank on something they've seen work that resembles the trend enough that they can expect returns even if it doesn't hit the nail on the head. Likely a few will pick up neglected property, hash together a team and have them make a Telltale-esque adventure game with it. Maybe we'll finally see a peep from Beyond Good and Evil, by way of a story-driven spin-off. It'd be a perfect choice on the Ubisoft front, besides something Assassin's Creed or Watch_Dogs related. Assuming Square is still on the Final Fantasy XV train in the hypothetical future we'd likely get a spin-off from that, like that VR thing and the Movie and the Anime etc.
But it's outside of the big properties where we'll probably get the best out of this, after the smaller studios pick up on the AAA's intent, and start pitching their stuff under that banner. That's where I'd expect to see the more interesting games like Life is Strange to pop up. Perhaps these smaller studios will even see that this interest is borne from the Visual Novel craze, and take more of that into account. Perhaps we'll see something in the Telltale/Life Is Strange format but rather than a series of small details changing according to minor decisions, you get a few big decisions that dramatically alter the course of the story, but with just as much room to explore and interact with the world outside of the main story path. Maybe they'll stop being episodic too, that would be a change.
But when it comes down to it, we've seen that formula already. Hell, that's why I'm thinking the Big Boys will bank on it. But lets go wild for a moment. What happens if the AAAs actually DO dive straight into this new territory? What happens if even just one of the industry big-names decides to chuck Destiny-tier amounts of money at an in-house produced Visual Novel? What would that even look like?
Well, it'll have an all-star cast, that's for sure. The visual novels at the higher ends of the genre are all fully voiced, and a AAA visual novel would almost certainly get the most expensive talent available. So it'll probably have Sean Bean in it. I mean, he's in the new Final Fantasy movie and Civ6, he'd probably be well up for it. Probably a few other big names too, whoever's popular at the time I suppose.
As for what it'll LOOK like, I'd say the aforementioned Final Fantasy XV movie will probably be the go-to look. The best CGI possible, while still being in-engine, because that's something they'll want to show off. Assuming this theoretical game stays as a traditional visual novel, without the gameplay elements of Phoenix Wright, Danganronpa or Zero Escape, they'll still want to keep some semblance of interactivity, which would likely end up as ways to manipulate the camera somewhat. Which would mean dropping the talking character portrait standard for actual rendered environments and camera angles. After all, we know AAA games don't want to leave anything up to the imagination. Maybe they'd have a few specific scenes where you can select from a few angles, or maybe some in-universe stuff. Like a character goes up to a radio and you get to thumb through the tracklist to select the soundtrack for the following scene. Nothing to alter the story, that would be straying into more adventure-gamey territory, but enough to get a little more immersed in the story and world.
Part of the appeal of Visual Novels is moving at your own pace, so you couldn't just have a solid cutscene for 4 hours or so and call it a visual novel. You'd have to retain the ability to move dialogue on at a button press. The Big Boys probably wouldn't like bulky text-boxes taking up space on those lovely visuals they paid for though, so you'd probably get basically subtitles at the bottom of the screen, without borders. Probably wouldn't even need coloured character names, since you can now rely on cinematography and actual voice lines to convey who's talking.
and this is a AAA videogame, they want to have VALUE stuff to tout on the back of the box, so it's bound to have extra content. I was thinking something kind of like the journal, from Highway Blossoms, where at certain points in the story you'd unlock pages of a journal with story relevance, which could be read at any time. You could take that further, have a bunch of in-game fiction pop-up during the story, which you can than peruse at your leisure should that interest you ("Over 100 pages of bonus content!"). And obviously you'd have concept art, and you'd be able to watch individual action sequences out of context after they happen, maybe even have a model viewer, that's all the sort of thing I could see in something like this.
Oh, and it would definitely have action sequences, no way any of these AAAs would spend all that money on pretty graphics without some expensive-looking fight scenes. They'd take up the place of the anime cutscenes you get in the bigger-budget Visual Novels.
So what would be the story then, to have some of those action scenes without feeling like it couldn't have been better served as an action game? Well, how about something like Star Trek? A space adventure in a ship you can get familiar with, focusing on crew interactions, diplomacy and exploration, but with well enough room for the occasional action scene, perhaps as part of an overarching plot. Give the player an important role and you've got an easy way to get big branching decisions.
So yeah, to stop myself rambling forever, a popularity surge for Visual Novels could make more interesting game stories all around, bring back Beyond Good and Evil and net us a huge-budget Star Trek Visual Novel by Square Enix maybe. I like thinking about it.
This wasn't EDF, because there's more to it than I thaught. Next week might not be it either, but rather Aarklash Legacy, or maybe Endless Space. Who knows.
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