Feature: Genre blending and the future of games

Let's hope that video game blending is less catastrophic.

So I’ve purchased three full-fledged video games this year and despite the fact that they all hail from very different genres, Mass Effect 2, BioShock 2, and Splinter Cell: Conviction have more in common than one would think. How is it that the RPG, FPS, and Stealth-Action genres, as mutually exclusive as could be just a few years ago, are producing such similar content in 2010? Well, it’s an interesting trend that I intend to examine in this here article. The implications of genre blending are seriously important in regards to what we’ll be playing next year or even ten years from now, so it’s a topic worth talking about.

First I want to elaborate on the similarities between the aforementioned games I’ve played this year. I certainly don’t want to imply that these three games are inter-changeable, but there’s no denying common game-mechanics and gimmicks. As big as dialogue trees and player choice are to the core of Mass Effect 2, the cover-based shooting and biotic powers are arguably just as central to the experience. Not-so-coincidentally, shooting and plasmid powers happen to be the main course of the story-driven BioShock 2. And while Sam Fisher doesn’t boast any super-natural abilities in Splinter Cell: Conviction, he does forgo stealth in the name of bad ass shooting (well, it can be bad ass sometimes). So clearly, despite whatever connotations these genres may have had in the past, shooting stuff and taking on super-human abilities (biotic/plasmid powers, Mark and Execute feature in Conviction) seem to be a similarity.

Of course guns and violence have always been a part of pretty much any video game genre, but these games demonstrate a very deliberate effort to streamline the shooting mechanics and make combat flow as effortlessly as possible. They also share cover mechanics (with the exception of BioShock 2, because cover seems to be about the only difference between an FPS and TPS today), experience/leveling systems, and narratives that take themselves very seriously. It’s also worth noting that both BioShock 2 and Splinter Cell: Conviction feature multiplayer modes despite a sentiment among fans that such a component is unnecessary.

The fact is, simplistic shooters with competitive multiplayer and blockbuster stories sell well, and games like Psychonauts don’t. So naturally, as video games become more and more expensive to make, shooters are going to have more and more influence. On the one hand, this is bad because it dilutes the market into one giant Shooting genre. It’d be like if every movie Hollywood put out from now on starred Bruce Willis. Now I love me some Bruce, but can you even fathom the man in something like Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind? Yeah.

Bruce Willis: Professional Bad Ass.

But there’s a silver lining to this as well. The various genres that adopt classic shooting mechanics adapt them to their own roots and make them more interesting. Few straight shooters feature the depth of combat available in Mass Effect 2‘s slick combination of real-time shooting and biotic powers. The super powers just add another layer of complexity to every combat scenario. And the cover mechanics popularized by Gears of War have helped transform the shooting genre from run-and-gun to something a little more tactical. Frankly, the more complex a given situation in a game becomes, the more interesting it is in my mind (assuming that it is streamlined and responsive enough to foster intuitive decision-making).

We can also thank genre blending for the addictive qualities that have been popping up in shooters as of late. Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare truly revolutionized the shooting scene when it took the idea of RPG elements in a shooter, which games like Deus Ex had done years before, and trimmed the the concept down to a primal reward system. Modern Warfare is far from an RPG, but its persistent leveling system and the tangible rewards that come with it harness one of the core aspects of a good RPG. Since then, it seems like every game is trying to introduce some sort of RPG-like leveling system that rewards continued or creative play in both single and multiplayer modes.

Taking a step back from the few games we’ve looked at here and pondering the entire gaming landscape, it’s easy to see that this is an industry-wide trend. True, there are plenty of non-shooters out there (just look at the Wii), but it’s this concept of simplistic and accessible gameplay that’s taking the industry by storm. Publishers want games that anybody can jump into, and they want the addictive qualities (stats and leveling, a good story, multiplayer aspect) that keep the disc in a player’s system. DLC is also an extension of this mindset. The entire MMO genre is the epitome of this perspective.

Beware of the future.

We need look no further than Holiday 2010 to see some glowing examples of this commercial mindset. Microsoft’s Project Natal and Sony’s PlayStation Move are trying to appeal to the main stream masses with their (supposedly) intuitive motion control schemes. Halo: Reach is branching out from the tried and true Halo formula to offer some RPG-like class structure. Fable III is dismissing experience all together in favor of more visual and visceral representations of power. The next Assassin’s Creed is set to introduce multiplayer assassinating. And gaming executives can’t get over the fact that Farmville has more daily users than World of Warcraft. Games are becoming products that intend to bait the player with accessible and and visceral play while hooking them with addictive rewards, narratives, and social interactions.

Now when I put it that way, this all sounds pretty great, right? I mean, I used the word “visceral.” Hell, I’ll even throw “emergent” in there. And accessible games are great just as long as they don’t sacrifice depth. But that’s exactly what games like Splinter Cell: Conviction are doing. What used to be an intense tactical-stealth experience now forces the player into boring firefights. And the experience rewards in that game have little bearing on gameplay, so they may as well not be there. And I’ve been saying for years how much I hate the “modern realistic” look in games. It’s not that the art direction itself is poor, just that the market is over-saturated with it. I also think we can all agree that BioShock 2 would have benefited had the multiplayer been scrapped in favor of more single-player attention.

It is my personal opinion that genre blending could turn out to be a very dangerous practice in the long-term future of video games. It is true that genre blending has produced some of my all-time favorite games, and I think it would be foolish to shun the practice, but it would also be terribly unwise to go forth without any thoughts of the consequences. The next ten years could very well kill off artistic masterpieces like Shadow of the Colossus (The Last Guardian should be a good indicator of things to come) and transform the gaming landscape into portable MMOs where achievements for walking ten steps backwards fuel harmfully addictive “gaming.” I suppose genre blending is more of a symptom of the greater problem, commercialization, but whatevs.

We may have to rely on the Indie scene for unique games before too long.

The future of video games is literally being decided as we speak. One could argue that we’ve already seen the systematic elimination of stealth and horror games and RPGs could be up next. The key is for RPG developers to find a way to make their craft commercially viable in a market that lusts after everything that critics of our industry cite when debating the artistic worth of video games. Perhaps genre blending, despite the terrifying potential of its pitfalls, is actually the key to helping this medium ascend to the realm of high art. Maybe the next few years will see a golden ratio of engaging story, visceral gameplay, and immersive worlds that could have never been created within the confines of the rigid genres of the past. Or maybe we’ve already seen that and publishers thought there wasn’t enough multiplayer…

Author: Cody