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Rainbird on 12 December 2011
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Reasonable said:
Rainbird said:
Reasonable said:

He means they think they're going to delivery characterisation and narrative that is deeper and different than anything else in the industry - and given almost all games have shallow, weak characterisation the bar they need to jump isn't that high.  In fact arguably the bar this gen for those elements has been set by ND themselves.

I hope ND will accomplish this, but I fear they will go the Uncharted-route of making the game extremely linear to accomplish it. It's still early days of course, but I'll remain unexcited until I see that ND can deliver high quality story telling without locking the player into a very strict path.

That's probably true and the price to pay.  No open world has come close to handling narrative (and I include RDR, GTA, Skyrim and others in that statement).  Open world means loss of narrative flow and character cohesion (although I do think there are ways this could be improved) at the moment.

My expectation would be somewhat open, freeform encoutners along a structured narrative.

Which suits me.  I love narrative in books/films and while I wouldn't want it in all games I do want it in some and ND are among few developers able to deliver at the moment in this area.

Definitely, and I would not expect this game to have an open world, as there is something inbetween sandbox games and 100% linear games.

Batman: Arkham Asylum is the example I like to use the most. The narrative was very exciting, and I never felt like it lost its impact if I strayed from the beaten path to explore for a bit. But once the story was over, I still had a game with an environment full of little things to discover. The gameplay was also open in a way that really empowered the player to play his or her own way, while still being closed off in many areas.

I've simply grown a bit tired of the old rollercoaster model. It's fun every once in a while, but it doesn't really bring me into the game that much anymore.

I hope ND will try to marry a strong narrative to a more open gameplay, such that the game leaves the player more in control of what is going on in the story and in the game compared to in Uncharted.