Inspirational Failure

Trespasser is one of many games in the Jurassic Park franchise.  Released in 1998, it was a commercial failure and winner of Gamespot's worst-game-of-the-year award.  Disappointing to see considering that it spent three years in development with a very talented team of designers.  Just to stress that last point, Austin Grossman (the writer for Deus Ex and Dishonored) along with Seamus Blackley (father of the Xbox) both worked on this game.  So, what happened?  In a word - "overscoping".

As is all too common in game development, the team behind Trespasser bit off way more than they could chew.  There were a lot of ambitious "firsts" such as large open outdoor environments, a diegetic interface, a physics engine, and a complex AI to give the dinosaurs life.  That last point is especially noteworthy because all of the half-dozen or so dinosaurs species (as well as sub-types) found in the game move and act in strange ways due to them literally being puppets on strings.  It's kid of surreal to see in action and hasn't been emulated since (the one exception being the creatures found in Rain World).  

The physics engine also ties into this due to how players interact with the environment.  Much like the mannequin dinos controlled by the AI, the main character has a single working arm that they use to pick up, manipulate and throw objects with via the mouse.  Again, it's kind of weird and not a game mechanic you really see outside of quirky indie titles like Octodad and Surgeon Simulator.  Nonetheless, Gabe Newell cited the physics engine in Trespasser as an influence on a similar system Valve used in Half-Life 2.

Not having any kind of HUD was hardly a new concept in 1998, but doing so in an action-oriented FPS was courting disaster.  To work around the lack of a health meter the protagonist has a visible heart tattoo that indicates their status based on how full it is.  Ammunition for guns is tracked by the player character vocalizing how many shots they have left after each pull of the trigger.  Weird as these ideas are, they eventually popped-up in games much later on.  Dead Space for example has a life bar on the back of Issac's suit.  Meanwhile Alyx (from Half-Life: Alyx) sometimes comments on her ammo supplies.  The official game for "Peter Jackson's King Kong" movie features a particular button that (when pushed) causes the player character to exclaim how many bullets they have left.  In truth, it kind of makes sense in that game since King Kong features a lot of teamwork.  Maybe you'd want to let your allies know how you're doing ammo-wise from time to time...?

Lastly is the outdoor areas which were quite expansive for the time.  For the most part, FPS games released around that era were of the corridor shooter variety.  Obviously, Trespasser was brutally difficult to run on 1990s hardware because of the sheer amount of geometry on-screen at any given moment.  Even so, the idea of wide open environments was a direction that game development would expand toward; Halo: Combat Evolved and the original Far Cry being two big steps the industry took that way later on.

While it certainly deserves to be called a very flawed game, Trespasser ultimately attracted a cult following of sorts in the form of mod makers and bug fixers.  These individuals actually poured in a considerable amount of effort in order to make the game run with fewer issues and even significant improvements.  In some ways the fan updated (i.e. current) version of the game feels like a VR title.  Incidentally, someone is working on a mod for that.  There's also an unofficial pseudo-remake of sorts in the works, but it's anyone's guess if the DNA of the original can be revived or if it will simply live on as little bits and pieces in games that have come since.   

Beaten to the Punch (Part 2 of 2)

Cover-based shooters were all the rage during the late 2000s and early 2010s.  The mechanic was popularized with the release of Gears of War in 2006, but had existed at least as far back as 1995 in the form of the arcade machine Time Crisis.  Granted, that was a light-gun game.  However, even if we were to limit the genre to third-person cover-based shooters there was kill.switch in 2003 and WinBack: Covert Operations in 1999.  Both of these titles have largely been forgotten to time compared to Gears of War, which has since gone on to become one of Microsoft's tentpole franchises (with four mainline sequels and several spinoff titles).  If I had to hazard a guess as to why, I'd say it has something to do with WinBack and kill.switch being more techno-thrillers and less Warhammer 40k adjacent.  I guess people really love guns that have their bayonet attachments replaced by chainsaws.

Angbad is one of those venerable ASCII roguelikes whose lineage can be traced back through Dungeons of Moria to the original Rogue.  As one might guess based on its name (and the name of its immediate predecessor), Angbad is heavily inspired by J.R.R. Tolkien's Middle-earth setting.  The player begins the game in a small town consisting of some shops and a few NPCs.  Bellow is a hundred floors of procedurally generated dungeons filled with monsters, traps and treasure.  At the bottom level is Morgoth, who must be defeated in order to win the game.  In other words, Angbad is basically Diablo without music, sound or graphics.  It even has the randomized loot drops and a color coating system that is practically the standard for games of these types.  It's also free-to-play, obviously, for copyright reasons.  Despite not having much in the way of monetization potential, Angbad has been in active development for over three decades with a surprisingly active mod making community.  Even so, it has been completely eclipsed by the Blizzard franchise that was inspired by it.

Saving the most unusual for last, we have Herzog Zwei.  German for "Duke Two", this Sega Genesis exclusive was the inspiration for not one, but two whole genres of video games - the RTS and the MOBA.  As the title is perhaps trying to imply, the game can be played either versus the CPU or via split screen.  Players only directly control a single transformable air/ground vehicle, but are able to build a number of other units to assist them in capturing key locations on the map.  These subservient units can be given simple orders, but generally require a lot of micromanagement to be effective.  Because the game is real-time this can lead to feelings of being overwhelmed.  It's a problem that prevented the game from achieving wide-spread appeal.  Regardless of that, Herzog Zwei is the grandfather of Total Annihilation and Supreme Commander, not to mention Dune II: Battle for Arrakis and Warcraft as well as the Command and Conquer series.  It even got a spiritual successor in the form of the free-to-play online-only game AirMech.  Despite recieveing this polished up re-imagining the original concept has never really attracted a large playerbase.

There are more games I could cover.  Meridian 59 (the first MMORPG to feature three-dimension environments) comes to mind, but I think I have written enough for now about humble trend setters.  It's also worth mentioning that one can always dig deeper.  Back at the beginning I mentioned Sweet Home being the starting point for the survival horror genre.  In truth though one could go back further to Project Firestart in 1989 or even Haunted House way back in 1982 (for the Atari 2600) and claim that either of them is where it all really got started.  Of course that can lead to very reductive statements like "all games are based on the first distributed game ever - Space War!"  Tempting to declare, I'm sure, but the fact of the matter is game designers are influenced by things outside the realm of video games too.  The same holds true for other kinds of media as well.  One could claim that the 1982 film TRON was inspired by electronic entertainment, but if you sit down and watch the movie you'll gradually realize that it was based on Frisbee, handball, tennis and motorcycle racing as much as Pacman or Pong.      

Prologue

If you haven't tried it already, go to the Steam store page and type "prologue" into the search engine.  You will get a long list of games that can be played for free.  Most of them are not very good, but a few might appeal to you if you have a particular interest in what might be an underserved niche.  Two examples that come to mind are Alder's Blood: Prologue (a horror themed strategy/tactics RPG) and Empty Shell: Prologue (a game that feels like GTFO, but plays like Teleglitch).  They are demo games at heart, but not every free game falls into the category of a sample that is trying to rope you into buying the real product.  In fact, there are a number of completely free-of-charge video games on Steam (as well as other online software distribution stores) that aren't covertly trying to get you to spend money. 

The oddly named Buriedbornes is one such example.  It's basically a dungeon crawling RPG with a somewhat Dark/Demon's Souls vibe to it.  The art is static, but well drawn and it has all the fundamental mechanics you'd expect from a game of this type.  The only complaint I have with it is a persistent online requirement despite being a single-player game.  Normally, that wouldn't be an issue for me except that if the servers are down then you can't play.  I guess that's the real price you pay for this free game.  

Another game that got special mention on the "Three Moves Ahead" end-of-year-discussion podcast was Ardor.  It's a very small, tightly designed turn-based strategy game.  At first glance, it has a chess-like feel to it.  Upon further examination though major differences start to become apparent; hexes instead of squares, only one player-controlled playing piece, and a deck-builder card mechanic instead of a simple "I go, you go" approach.  The ability to unlock new cards and upgrade already acquired cards after each level is neat, and keeps Ardor from becoming an overly linear experience.  Even so, it does have a handy "revert back to the beginning of the turn" button - a very nice feature to have in the event that you miscalculated something important.

On the less analytical side of things, there are some nice free games out there as well.  Take the VR-supported game Dagon, for example.  It is an accurate retelling of the H.P. Lovecraft story of the same name.  Player input is minimal, but the narrator and environmental design do an excellent job of setting the mood for this horror tale.  

Speaking of horror, the Faith Demo is not actually a demo.  It's the first entry in a trilogy of games.  The graphics and sound are very retro (I mean we are talking Apple II retro here).  Despite the simple presentation, the game is actually pretty darn scary thanks to some well crafted tension building scenes.  The overall ambience is surprisingly good too.       

First released on Steam way back in 2014, NaissanceE is a walking sim, but not just any walking sim.  The environments in this game are positively intimidating in terms of size and scale.  It is almost as if the game is deliberately designed to make you megalophobic.  Thankfully, there isn't anything in the game that is out to cause you harm other than plain old gravity, so exploration and discovery are really what this game is all about. 

There are a number of other games I could cover such as the beautifully stylized Sailing Era with its anime inspired character and scenic 2.5D harbor towns, but I think I've provided enough examples for this blog post.  In general, I think games are too expensive these days.  Thankfully, there are a few good ones that are totally free. 

Satis-Factory-Oh

Factory construction sims are a pretty niche genre and yet there are two separate IPs currently in development that fit the definition perfectly.  The first is Factorio.  With a Steam early access release in 2016, this Czechoslovakian title has since become "complete" as of August 2020.  I put complete in quotes because even though the game has passed the version 1.0 mark it remains in active development.  Regardless, I imagine that any new official content will come in the form of paid DLC.  The other title is Satisfactory.  Made by the same developer as Goat Simulator, this game is newer (having launched in early access on the 19th of March, 2019) and is not yet feature complete despite just recently receiving its fourth major update.  Anyway...that little development overview aside, what's different about these two games?  Depending on who you ask, the answer can vary from "not much" to "quite a bit."

On first impression, players will immediately notice Factorio is a 2D sprite-based game viewed from an isometric perspective.  It's highly optimized and runs smoothly even on fairly old hardware.  It's perfectly functional, but not especially pretty to look at.  Satisfactory, on the other hand, utilizes fully three dimensional environments viewed from a first-person perspective.  Everything is more impressive visually, but the GPU demands can lead to performance issues even on newer gaming machines.  This is especially true when the number of objects onscreen get large.  Visuals aside though, what's different when it comes to gameplay?

When beginning a new game, Factorio allows the player to specify what kind of world the procedural generator should create.  It's a nice feature to have, but only really makes changes to topography and resource distribution.  Regardless of the settings, the player will find themselves in a relatively flat, arid location with patches of trees, water and minerals.  Conversely, Satisfactory has four biomes to choose from at the beginning, each with their own distinct qualities.  While a more exciting way to start off, it's important to note that there is only one handcrafted world - the player simply chooses where they get dropped into.  Given it's 3D nature, Satisfactory is much more vertically oriented.  Exploration is also a more prominent feature.  To Factorio's credit though, it has one major feature that is absent in Satisfactory - base defense.

Both games feature hostile fauna on their respective alien worlds, but Factorio takes it to another level.  Specifically, there are hostile colonies of giant insects that will encroach on and attack the player's base(s).  Apparently, these bugs really hate pollution and will seek to destroy anything that does not conform to nature.  Of course, this gameplay feature can be tweaked or outright disabled during world creation.  Nevertheless, it remains a fundamental component of the intended experience.  Everything from laser turrets and artillery pieces to flamethrowers and tanks can be built to deal with external threats.  Conversely, Satisfactory has far fewer weapons and, in general, is a much less intense game.  

I've tried to clarify some of the differences, but when you get down to it both of these titles have resource extractors, smelters, power generators, automation and a whole lot of conveyer belts.  They both take place on exoplanets.  Either can be played multiplayer or alone.  Currently Factorio has a lot of mod support on the developer's website, but there are plans to introduce mods into Satisfactory via Steam Workshop.  If you're wondering which to buy, I would say get both.  Together they cost less than your average triple-AAA title, and you'll probably get more hours of enjoyment out of them as well. 

To Play or Not to Play

PSN recently put up ten free games on their store as part of their "Play at Home" initiative.  Never one to turn down such offers, I downloaded three titles that I had never gotten around to playing previously.  Here's are some of my thoughts:   

Abzû is what you get when you take Flower and Journey, mash them together, and move the location underwater.  Is it a highly derivative experience?  Yes.  Is it a bad game?  No, not at all.  In particular, the visual presentation is excellent.  There is a lot of attention paid to details such as the splashes fish make when they jump out of the water or turbidity caused by swimming close to the ocean floor.  I was especially impressed by the shear number of aquatic animals the game can render onscreen at any given time.  There's also some neat foreshadowing that occurs if the player is willing to explore off the mainline path.  One other touch I really liked was not only the inclusion of all manner of iconic sea life, but also some creatures that have gone extinct.  Fans of ancient history will enjoy the references to Sumerian culture.  The music is also quite good and adheres to the mood of game like a wetsuit.  It's short, but sweet...and yet I couldn't shake the feeling that I've seen all this before.

The Witness was Jonathan Blow's last game before he disappeared down the black hole of developing an entirely new programming language called "Jai."  Set on a beautiful island, this puzzle game has a lot of similarities to Myst.  The big difference being all the puzzles utilize a draw-lines-to-connect-the-dots mechanic.  At first I found it interesting, but a lot of the environmental-based clues felt a bit arbitrary.  At times, I also got the impression that the challenge came more from guessing what the developer was thinking rather than some arbitrary logic.  Normally I wouldn't mind having to guess a bit, but certain locals have a sequence of puzzles that reset the previous one if the next isn't done correctly.  It's really tedious to have to go back and re-solve a puzzle that was already completed.  Additionally, my preference for exploration over puzzle solving left me wanting to wander and sightsee the island more than engage with any of the game's actual mechanics.  

Subnautica is the third, last and most substantial of the three games I played.  At first glance it might seem like an extrasolar take on Abzû.  In fact though it's an eclectic mix of survival, exploration, horror, story-driven adventure, and - of course - crafting.  Some aspects are silly (glowing red underwater lava lakes how?) while others are perhaps a bit too realistic (an infectious diseases ruined my aquarium!?!).  The single most enjoyable aspect of the game for me was cruising around in a huge "cyclops" submersible.  It even had a foghorn built in!  Sadly, I couldn't use it to communicate with "reefback leviathans" (huge whale-like sea creatures).  The PC version might be more stable, but on the PS4 I found the game had a number of issues: save file corruption, clipping, objects popping into existence causing things to get trapped or stuck...still, base building was cool and I had some rather intense encounters with the larger more aggressive underwater fauna that I won't soon forget. 

Overall, I have to commend PSN for their choice of games.  It's a great selection for people looking for escapism while being stuck indoors.  The fact that it was all entirely free also means I don't have much cause for complaint.  I also wouldn't mind giving the sequel to Subnautica a looksee once it's out of early access...anyway...that will be a story for another time.  

Amusement Park of Illusions

Want to go on another ride?
You won't have to wait in line,
but you will have to sit through loading screens.
...many, many loading screens.

I was thinking about Anthem and how it not only represents a step backwards for Bioware, but video games as a whole in a lot of ways.  I'm not just talking in terms of storytelling here, but also gameplay.  It seems the general consensus is the action in Anthem doesn't even hold up to Mass Effect: Andromeda - a game which, itself, was not well regarded.  Exploration, too, seems pretty basic in that the world of Anthem amounts to a large surface area with little underground (or underwater) places to investigate.  Sounds fine...except when you think about it, isn't that really just the original Legend of Zelda for the NES all over again?  RPG elements also somehow manage to be inferior to 8-bit Final Fantasy in that there's no way to view character stats.  What has changed dramatically is the presentation.  Everything looks and sounds impressive at first glance.  However, upon closer inspection it becomes obvious that all the glamour is hollow, paper thin, and completely lacking in substance.

When you look back at games like the Worms series, Red Faction 2 (and Gorilla), or even Minecraft there were genuine attempts to allow the player to make a mark on the world; specifically environmental deformation.  More recently, games like From Dust, Metal Gear Rising and Astroneer have taken small steps toward improving on the concept, but when it comes to live service games (with the possible exception of Fortnite) the design is noticeably regressive.  Every object and surface in the world is indestructible and enemies themselves are just bags of hit points that burst into non-existence once their damage numbers reach a predetermined threshold, only to later reform out of the ether much like a Disneyland ride that has just been reset in preparation for the next visitor.  There's no persistency, no such thing as injuries, crippling battle damage, or scaring; there are no thoughts of retreat or escape.  Things exist or they don't exist, and on top of all that the AI only seems to have two settings idle about or attack...basically everything has a switch with two setting: off or on.

The expression "wide as the sea, shallow as a puddle," is usually applied to content in video games, but in Anthem that can literally be applied to everything including the Javelin that the player controls.  I'm not talking about a lack of character development (although that is an issue), rather I mean where is the power plant, actuators, shield generator, sensors, communications equipment or weapons systems?  None of these components are represented in the mechanics of the game aside from flight thrusters which can sometimes be disabled temporarily (usually for mission scripting reasons).  The pilot, for all intents and purposes, is impervious to harm.  Even cosmetic damage like scorch marks, slagged armor, leaking coolant and sparking wires are completely absent from the visual presentation.  Sure, there's pyrotechnics and a cacophony whenever a fight breaks out, but that's it.  It's like if a motocross bike did a couple of laps on a race track yet didn't get a single drop of mud on it.

To some degree these sort of things are limitations any video game must wrestle with.  I don't need to explain why "personalized story" and "multiplayer adventure" are mutually exclusive, right?..and yet live service games will claim that it's possible to have your cake and eat it too.  It can be frustrating to hear complaints like "I wish I could grapple enemies," or "my melee attacks contect like a bar of wet soap."  I want to tell such individuals that this is the inevitable result of games that depend on netcode...at least for companies that want to minimize bandwidth usage.  Would games like Anthem (or Destiny, for that matter) have been better had they gone the single-player offline route?  I don't know (it depends on how much you enjoy playing with friends online), but the potential for a more substantive experience would have certainly been there.  On the other hand if it's a live service, you are pretty much guaranteed to get something shallow, half-baked, and filled with microtransactions.

Two Pronged Attack

"It's the 90s all over again!" when it comes to video games and government legislation.  In the wake of recent school shootings the president of the United States wants to (maybe?) have a meeting with the ESA to discuss violence in video games and the potentially negative impact it's having on the youth of today.  Coming from the opposite direction is a grassroots push to get loot boxes and other quasi-forms of gambling mechanics out of mainstream gaming.  Should enthusiasts of this beloved hobby of ours be concerned?...eh, yes and no.

If you asked me ten years ago about what the World Health Organization is calling "gaming addiction" I would have told you it's a load of crap.  However, given the direction over the last decade or so of publishers going out of their way to introduce psychologically researched methods of manipulating players out of their money, it's not hard to see how some people might get hooked into becoming a "whale."  I still think that the underlying vulnerability to these sorts of predatory practices is caused by issues such as OCD or depression.  Treating that fundamental problem should be the overriding priority since gaming addiction is at worst a symptom of a much larger concern.  Additionally, there are still a lot of games that do not deal in micro-transaction based revenue streams.  The vast majority of games with "addictive" mechanics are MOBAs, MMORPGs, competitive online shooters, and free-to-pay (not a typo) mobile games.  If you are like me and not really into any of these particular sub-genres then I'd say you're relatively safe.  The thing is companies like WB interactive, EA, and Activision are pushing hard to turn the industry into nothing but these sorts of games; all branded under the "live services" PR label.  Speaking as someone who enjoys single-player narrative-driven experiences, I can't say I have been very happy with the direction the industry is going in for a long time now.  Does that mean that I welcome government regulation?...not really, but what other recourse do we have?

Boycotts have proven to be notoriously ineffective.  The ESRB/ESA are as corrupt and useless as the teamsters union cercia World War II.  FYI, did you know that the ESRB doesn't actually vet any of the games it tags with those E, T, M or AO labels?  The publisher just submits some paperwork, pays a fee and that's it.  What do they do then?  Well...aside from pocketing money for next to nothing, ESRB does pass some cash over to the ESA for bribes - excuse me - "lobbying" government representatives to look the other way.  Back in the 90s when the ESRB first came into existence they did a good job of compromising between the opposing groups.  Concerned mothers got their MPAA-style rating system while simultaneously not having to violate the first amendment.  This time around though, things are a bit different.

Contrary to Extra Credits' claim, I don't see any artistic value or merit in loot boxes.  In fact removing them from the hobby entirely would probably greatly improve things from a developer/consumer perspective.  The only real beneficiaries here are publishers, who (suprise-suprise!) give a lot of money to the ESA.  It's really just about profiteering, although that hasn't stopped some groups from trying to play the censorship card anyway.  The ESRB's attempts at self-regulation this time around are also a joke.  Unlike their original rating system, which is a step up from what the movie industry uses, this decision to tag any product containing in-game purchases is not only overly broad, but easily circumvented in that a company could introduce loot boxes through software updates anytime post-launch and avoid the label altogether.

So should we be concerned?  It depends on who you are and what you stand for.  More than anything else though it's a matter of a rich and powerful few getting to decide things for all the rest of us...and that sucks...even more than having to pay real money for additional save-slots in Metal Gear Survive.

Meta Games

In the indie space it's fairly common to see developers experimenting with the limits of what video games can achieve.  One direction I've seen being pushed increasingly the last couple years is in a meta direction.  "What is game?" is a question that was first brought to my attention with the Stanley Parabola about four years ago and is one which I'd like to address here by pointing out three specific examples.

What starts out as a VR adaptation of Duck Hunt on a pseudo-NES, turns more sinister the longer you play.  I won't get into the story details, but I would like to mention that the game uses the virtual reality headset to allow the player to see through the eyes of a child (complete with a 1980s home built around playing one of those third generation video game consoles).  It's all rather immersive in that the player can swap out cartridges to try out different games, stick in a VHS tape and watch live-action video on an old CRT, or even interact with various objects in the house.  Although you're limited movement-wise the weather outside the house seems to imply a hot sunny afternoon.  Perhaps the environment was crafted based on one or more of the developers' childhood memories from a leisurely summer school break.  Funnily enough when you pop in the Duck Season game cartridge the player is quite literally drawn into the TV set and a version of the game that feels much more consistent with a modern adaptation of Duck Hunt rather than the 8-bit version it's supposed to be based on.  Oh and that hound has a Donnie Darko thing going on...just replace Frank the Rabbit with the Dog from Duck Hunt.

Advertised as a text-based adventure game it actually has more in common with an old television series like Outer Limits or The Twilight Zone.  The story is broken into three seemingly unrelated episodes and a fourth info-dump that ties everything up into a big metatextual ball.  This is one of those games that sets up players with a series of extraordinary events and then hits them with an ending twist that's actually very mundane.  If you've played The Vanishing of Ethan Carter, Firewatch or Gone Home you probably know exactly what I'm talking about.  If not, then let's just say it's not my cup of tea.  Performing medical/scientific procedures on an unknown specimen is intriguing.  Relaying weapon deployment codes from a remote base somewhere in the frozen wastes of Greenland?  Riveting!  Even the first episode which features the double layer of the player using his or her computer to manipulate an in-game character to play a text-based game on their computer (which in turn seems to affect that reality) is trippy and bizzare in interesting ways...alas, learning that it's actually just a daydream fantasy made up by an ordinary loser who made some questionable life choices is kind of a let down.

Billed as an educational game, the demo version of PC Building Simulator has been freely available for download off the internet for the better part of a year now.  However, a more fully realized version of the game is set for a January 2018 release.  From the perspective of trying to teach people how to build PC desktops without make costly time consuming mistakes, I can see why this piece of software might have a degree of widespread appeal.  That said, the whole notion of using your computer to build another computer in a simulated environment is more than a little weird when you take a step back and look at it objectively.  When we're done building a simulation of a PC are we going to use that PC to run a simulated version of PC Building Simulator and build another PC in that one?  If so, things are starting to look a lot like one of the endless series of reflections you get by placing two mirrors face to face.  I suppose this sort of game coming out was inevitable considering that there are over 200 unique pieces of software for sale on Steam (not counting DLC) that have the world "Simulator" in the title.  Maybe a better name for PC Building Simulator would be Simulation Simulator...or is that too meta?

Wash Up and Eat Properly

There's been a recent uptake in discussions regarding the cost of game development.  In particular single-player story-driven experiences are, according to certain triple AAA  publishers, no longer financially viable as a one-time 60 dollar charge; hence the reason we see companies like EA abandoning the market space, while other publishers (such as WB) try to cram as much DLC, loot boxes and other microtransaction driven schemes into their games as possible.  Personally, I have doubts about these claims of infeasibility...it's not like any of these companies are allowing us inspect their accounting records.  Sure making video games has become a much more resource intensive process than it was during the 8 and 16-bit eras, but to offset that there's a wealth of third-party development tools available, in addition to a much larger potential customer base.  However, for the sake of argument let's presume that they really are in the red.  I can think of three easy ways these poor publishers could get back in the black.

Rumor has it that some of EA's past games were marked on budgets equal to the amount actually spent making the game.  In other words, they could have reduced the development costs of certain games by nearly 50 percent simply by dumping all the thirty second advertisements in lieu of sending some free copies out to Youtubers and Twitch streamers.  It seems silly to do otherwise considering word of mouth has, for a long time, carried more weight than simple product placement.  Visceral Studio, the now defunct makers of the Dead Space series, was based out of San Francisco...one of the most expensive cities in the world.  When you look at companies like IBM, they have all but deserted their corporate offices in large part because it's no longer necessary to have everyone under the same roof.  A variety of video games, including Kerbal Space Program as well as Ori and the Blind Forest, were made by a team scattered across the globe that coordinated their development efforts via the internet.  This sort of dispersed workforce brings up the question of executive supervision.  Former EA employees have gone on record saying that the company has a nontrivial number of people who get paid a lot to do very little.  Reducing wasteful administrative spending though is only one part of the problem when it comes to leadership.

Asset creation is a time consuming process that needs to be channelled by a strong directorial vision.  Too many games waste time and money on stuff the player doesn't notice, doesn't care about, or is thoroughly unimpressed by.  When you look at games such as The Vanishing of Ethan Carter, or more recently Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice, it's amazing what a relatively small team can accomplish.  Could they have added more provided they had the time/money/people?  Sure.  Would it have improved the experience significantly.  Not really.  Some developers have a bad habit of stretching the scope of their game in the vain hope that bigger equals better.  This often leads to over budget hot garbage, or titles that are trapped in an early access limbo for, seemingly, an eternity.  In other words, it's better to come up with a tight concept and execute on it rather than faffing about half conceived notions of open-world games with crafting and rogue-like elements.  Fun isn't going to materialize from the ether just because you keep attach more bells and whistles.

This brings me to my final point which is trend chasing.  As far as I know nobody has gotten rich making Minecraft clones or Clash of Clans copycats.  Worse still are flash-in-the-pan hits like Angry Birds and Farmville.  Real success comes from franchises like the Soulsborne series...which, I should stress, wasn't an instant hit; Before Demon's Souls there was King's Field and before Command and Conquer there was Dune II: Battle for Arrakis.  It takes time, money, effort and a few iterations on an idea to cultivate something that is both innovative and entertaining.  Hitting paydirt straight out of the gate is exceedingly rare and in most cases fleeting.

Of course most businesses only see the future in terms of next quarter profits, and as such often screw themselves when it comes to sustainable profits.  They can scoop whales and dolphins out of the water for awhile, but how long until that well runs dry?  More importantly, where's the respect for the craft?  I'm not going to climb on my high horse and claim video games are art, but at the very least they are supposed to be for the express purposes of entertaining the people who buy them...not to abuse and exploit.  This is rapidly degrading into a rant so I'll wrap it up by simply saying developer harassment and death threats are not acceptable, but publishers and shareholders that push this kind of garbage need to engage in some serious introspection rather than dumping their problems on enthusiasts of the hobby. 

The Consequences of Failure

Generally speaking, video games differ from reality in a number of ways, but of those, one of the most prominent has to be the "failed state."  More often than not, losing equates to death.  Granted, there are usually mechanics to partially negate this harsh penalty in the form of a save system, checkpoints, continues, respawns, etc.  Outside of Rogue-likes, perma-death is pretty rare.  Almost as rare in a single player experience is the notion of a game proceeding after failure.  Let me pose the following question, What if the player's on-screen avatar survives, but is unable to complete whatever goal the game designers expect them to accomplish?

The overwhelming majority of the time players are simply slapped with a "mission failed" message which necessitates a restart.  Almost as if the player were an actor on a film set and the movie director yells, "cut!" over and over again while demanding a scene do-over.  Not every game embraces this concept fully though.  When it comes to reality you win some and you lose some, but regardless life go on.

Based on the above axiom it comes as no surprise that simulation games, particularly combat flight-sims, were one of the earliest examples that I'm aware of that accounted for the possibility that you could lose some battles, but still win the war...or at least survive to the conclusion of hostilities.  There also seems to be a tendency for games that don't do "game over" screens to operate in a small area with a narrowly bracketed time frame.  I know that's awfully vague and, depending on how you define it, a lot of games that sound like a good match (such as Way of the Samurai or Majora's Mask) don't really fit.

The fundamental benefit of narrowing down a time and place is it allows game developers to trade breadth for depth. The two previously mentioned examples inch toward the concept, but stubbornly cling to a directorial series of events. To some degree, I get why they do this. Even if you make the exchange, developer resources are still finite.  It's a problem Telltale is well aware of, I'm sure.  Still, I think the more than can be influenced by the player's actions, the better.  It's like that movie "Groundhog Day" except instead of passively watching Bill Murray's character experimenting with various possible outcomes, the player actively gets to do so.

Not Big Enough

Jumping animation
not included

I didn't back Double Fine's second kickstarter project, Massive Chalice, but I did purchase the game when long-delayed version 1.0 finally rolled out.  Right away the music struck a cord with me, evocative tunes that conjured up a world of faded memories and half-forgotten daydreams.  Sadly, that's about as far as I got before I began to notice...well..."problems" isn't the right word for it, but an experience that felt awfully sterile.  Perhaps it's easier to talk about the game in terms of what it needs rather than what it lacks.  To ease comprehension though I'll try to break it down into five areas.

Bandits and Rebellions
Considering how much Massive Chalice borrows from XCOM it's kind of surprising that there's no Exalt equivalent in this fantasy themed interpretation.  It would be interesting to have a force of (possibly redeemable?) heroes in-league with the Candace.  In lieu of open conflicts, inter-house rivalries could add to the experience in the form of duels, tournaments, plots, and intrigue, as well as wards and political marriages (essentially hostage exchanges between families to ensure peace).  Basically, add more "Thrones" and "of" in front of the "Game" part.

Personality and Customization
Despite having heroes with personality traits like "cocky" or "rebel," I didn't see any of that conveyed when the characters were on-screen.  In fact, heroes appear to be devoid of any passions or motivations.  Even basic stuff like "asthma attack" or "hung over" don't have any visual indicator aside from a tiny white text prompt.  I understand that house sigils and names were a special contribution made by upper-tier kickstarter backers, but the inability to choose given names (or even nicknames) makes it difficult to keep track of who's who.  There's also no "Tomb of Fallen Heroes" (or equivalent) that players can visit to reminisce about past glories and sorrows.  For a game centered around bloodlines and ancestry this seems like a major oversight.

I would have been happy with any of these concept
artworks for the over-world map in the final game

Images and Animation
A few more splash screen stills like the one shown in start of a new game would have gone a long way toward defining the world of Massive Chalice.  Some in-engine cuts-scenes or images to accompany the text based events (a la Crusader Kings) might give the player more reasons to care about the fate of lands under his (or her) control.  The over-world map also suffers from a bland presentation.  Three-hundred years is a long time.  Stuff should gradually change to reflect the passage of centuries if not decades.  At the very least each fortress should have a distinctive look with the appropriate banner flying from its ramparts.

Swapping pixels for polygons might not have
been the best idea from a graphics standpoint 

Art and Weapons
Pretty as it is, the UI needs streamlining.  Some simple icons the player can mouse over for more information or click on to modify would be a large improvement over the current system which requires a lot of menu navigation.  Maybe it's just me, but something about the vibrant color pallet makes me think of some mythic kingdom in South Asia.  Rather than the oddly generic European medieval vibe of the game, a slightly more stylized look might have helped distinguish the visuals.  The exotic weapons wielded by heroes into battle would have complemented those found in middle-ages India quite well.  For example the pata, katar, urumi, chakram, bagh naka, and gandasa are all extremely unusual weapons rarely feature in these sorts of games, but great additions nonetheless.

Armies and DNA
The in-game conceit that only a small number of genetically predisposed individuals are able to effectively fight the plant-like Cadence monsters is a bit of a cop-out.  At the very least the developers could have thrown in some kind of simple multi-choice system for sieges and field engagements that, in turn, influence the small scale heroes skirmishes, as well as spread of the Cadence.  It would have also been nice to have some objectives that were something other than "kill all enemies" during battles.  Here's a link to a forum post with some ideas on how vary it up.  The strategic aspect of the game would be a lot more interesting if the research unlocks had greater variety too.  Off the top of my head something that could extend the lifespan of a single hero, whether it be a potion of youth or "Sleeping Beauty" time stasis, could create compelling player choices with regards to prosecuting the war against the Cadence.

Ancestor count may vary
Weapon types subject to change 

One last thing I want to mention about Massive Chalice is the amount of funds this game received, 1.2 million dollars and change to be specific.  Compare that with a similarly kickstarted game, The Banner Saga, and I find myself wondering what happened.  Both are roughly comparable gameplay-wise, and yet The Banner Saga has far more flare despite getting 43 percent less funding.  The only rationale I can come up for this discrepancy is that fact that Double Fine is based out of San Francisco.  Perhaps it would be better if they didn't develop games in the most expensive city in America?  Oh well...here's hoping the mod community picks up where Double Fine left off.

A Bad Year

Twenty-fourteen...where to even start?  Bodily injury and work trouble in my personal life aside, it was a terrible year for video games...possibly the worst ever.  Looking through my Steam account transaction history, it shows exactly three purchases made by me (excluding gifts) for games that were released that year; The Banner Saga, Ultimate General: Gettysburg, and Elegy for a Dead World.  All tiny indie projects, one of which is more of an exercise in creative writing than an actual game.

On the big budget side of things there were so many disappointments.  The reboot of the well regarded Thief series and Strider IP were both flops.  Destiny was a fairly lean experience despite the fact that it consumed a great deal of the money, labor and time during development.  Even game of the year award winners like Dark Souls 2 and Middle-earth: Shadows of Mordor were marred by some questionable choices on the part of their respective publishers.  Of course, they still had it better than Mythic Entertainment, Irrational Games, and Crytek USA which were closed down.  Despite new console hardware, or possibly because of it, a number of high profile titles were pushed out of 2014.  Of those that remained at-launch bugs and glitches abounded, as well as a general malaise of underdevelopment in the form of graphical downgrades, shallow storytelling, and recycled game mechanics (particularly all the HD remakes, not to mention most of Ubisoft's lineup).  Titanfall could have really used a single-player component.  Watch Dogs needed a better plot and a relatable protagonist.  As bad as all this was, I haven't even gotten to the truly rotten stuff yet.  In all honesty I don't really feel like going over it in detail, but suffice to say two loosely associated groups abbreviated as "GGers" and "SJWs" got into a pissing match across various media outlets, both on and off the internet, wherein there was much wailing and gnashing of teeth and little net gain to be had.

There is a silver lining to all this though.  Now that we've hit rock bottom it's a lot easier to go up than down.  Many of those delayed games are finally nearing completion.  A number of early access and/or Kickstarter titles hit version 1.0 recently (Kerbal Space Program and Massive Chalice being two examples that come to mind).  Steam has also finally implemented a proper refund policy, while it isn't a perfect solution, at least consumers have some degree of recourse when they get burned by deceptive reviews.  No need to stomp out corruption in the games media if even those of us on a limited gaming budget can discover the truth for ourselves.

Re-imaginings of Futures Past

Remakes are all the rage these days which makes me wonder why no developer has revisited the Wing Commander franchise.  With the success of War Thunder's free-to-play model and Star Citizen's fund raising efforts, you'd think it would be a no-brainier.  Then again, it's surprising how many people have never heard of Wing Commander.

If you're not familiar with the IP, it's basically World War 2 in space.  An alien race of bipedal felines, called the "Kilrathi," are stand-ins for the Japanese while humans, or "Terrans" (as they are called in-universe), are the Americans (although their ethnic diversity reminds me of the RAF during the Battle for Britain more than anything else).  Regardless, the game is really about dogfights and fleet actions, just in space instead of the Pacific.

I won't go into great detail about how to do a remake, mostly because someone else has done an fairly good job of laying out how to go about it.  For the sake of brevity, I will try to summarize some of the ideas presented in the link provided here.

Rather than spanning over a  hundred different solar systems, the area of conflict is narrowed to a pair of neighboring stars, Sol and Proxima Centauri.  Around the red dwarf orbits a lone planet.  A thick atmosphere allows only a dim haze of crimson illumination to filter down to a tropical jungle of dark colored foliage.  This is the home of the apex predators known as the Kilrathi.  Their large stature is the result of a low gravity environment, their "cats-eyes" a natural evolutionary adaptation to the low-light conditions, geological instability has resulted in steep mountain ranges and long chains of volcanic islands which in turn has contributed to the formation of their aggressive, warlike society.

A war between two stars might sound too small compared to the vastness of the original setting, but don't forget that space (even in the limited context of our own solar system) is really huge.  It's easy to think of various planets as being roughly analogous to places of conflict during the Pacific War; Mars as Hawaii, Mercury as the Aleutians, the Asteroid Belt as the Solomon Islands, Jupiter (with all it's moons) as the Philippines, Saturn as Malaysia and the moon Titan - Saipan.  Perhaps Uranus and Neptune could be Rabal and Truk respectively.  Pluto would make a good Iwo-Jima.

Of course, the link above goes into even more detail, especially regarding the individual pilots and fighter spacecraft.  The only major thing I'd like to add is the notion of the emperor (and imperial family) being non-indigenous to Kilrah.  The Kilrathi always struck me as being far too primal to naturally develop into a space-faring race.  If their technology and organization were the result of an "up-lifting" by another enigmatic race then things would make more sense (at least to me).  It was an idea suggested in the novels, but I'd like to see it more integral to the setting.

I also think a bit more strategic input would work wonders for the setting.  Looking at the pre-alpha footage of Enemy Starfighter, it's pretty clear that a lot is being done to innovate on the space flight-sim combat genre.  Being able to switch control from one spacecraft to another could easily be justified in-universe if the player character were a remote drone pilot.

In terms of graphics, I think there's a number of improvements that can be made.  Sure, detailed textures are great, but aesthetically I'd like to see some of the sleeker designs of the earlier games, rather than the boxy shapes that came later.  Battle damage tends to not receive the attention it deserves which is why I'd love to see ship models that allow wings to get ripped off, noses smashed in, and ruptured hulls bleeding trails of vapor.

Rather than heavily scripted missions with rigidly defined objectives, it would be great to see a more dynamic framework the adjusts depending on how well the player does during sorties (think Middle-earth: Shadows of Mordor, but with capital ships rather than orc captains).  As always, I'm going to lobby for the option to fly as the Kilrathi, if for no other reason than increased replay value.  Some kind of co-op multiplayer mode or asymmetric gameplay wherein some players fly fighters while others drive capital ships would be pretty interesting too.  Oh yeah...and the obligatory traitor pilot should be decided via random algorithm.  Then, maybe I'll have a chance to kill Maniac without getting court-marshaled.

Money, Money, and More Money

This particular blog entry might sound a bit like a lesson in economics, but bear with me.  I want to explain what, in the game industry, separates the artisans and craftsmen from the con artist and snake oil salesman.  To start with lets break down the sources of video game revenue into three basic categories; content, perks, and resources.

The first is the least offensive of the bunch from a consumer perspective.  Simply put you pay for the thing and then you get the thing.  More purchases might be possible later on because new content has been added in the form of DLC, expansion packs, or direct sequels.  Generally speaking though people don't have a problem with this arrangement so long as the additional content doesn't give the impression that the game is being chopped up and sold piecemeal (day-one DLC or pre-order bonus exclusives are prime examples of the abhorrent side of this practice).  Compare that to indie games like FTL: Advanced Edition or Teleglitch: Die More Edition, which have major updates free of charge despite not being in early access, and it's easy to see why some people might get upset at big publishers.

The second category, perks, is much more of a mixed bag.  Purely cosmetic stuff is fine, but video game developers have an annoying habit of locking powerful/useful items and abilities behind a pay wall.  In a single player experience this isn't necessarily a problem (although it can be...more on that in a second), but in the case of multiplayer this tends to turn into a pay-to-win situation.  More frustrating still is the fact that freebie games like Card Hunter deliberately have difficulty spikes or large amounts of grinding which, in essence, ruins gameplay for the sake of a perceived short term boost in digital sales revenue.  Ironically, purchasing in-game perks can sometimes go in the opposite extreme, make the game uninteresting because it becomes too easy due to an overpowered player.

The third category is by far the worst offender.  At least with the aforementioned content and perks categories there are theoretical limits to how much one can spend.  However, resource driven models of revenue tend to encourage repurchasing the same in-game "currency" for real world money over and over again.  It's a system designed to prey on "whales," a euphemism for fools and the rich.  No matter how one slices it the practice is disgusting (both metaphorically and literally).  Problems with perks and resources have become so endemic in mobile games that the Apple has begun to segregate pay-once-to-play games into a special section of their online app store for customers who have grown sick and tired of micro-transactions.  For me it's a welcoming trend that needs to be more wide spread.

While I'm on the topic, there really should be a condition of service imposed by Kickstarter that forbids developers from using backer money to make micro-transaction spin-offs to what was originally pitched as content based game.  We've seen this bait-and-switch once with the Banner Saga: Factions, and again with the tablet version of Godus.  In both cases the only thing these side projects did was sap time and money away from the development of the main game.  Neither attempt was particularly profitable from a business standpoint either.  It's an unfortunate regression in the game industry that Stoic Studios managed to overcome by delivering on their promised product.  Sadly, it remains to be seen if 22Cans will weather the storm of their own making.

It Should Have Been A Game

Usually when I do these movies-that-would-have-been-better-as-games blog posts I select three titles for the sake of variety.  This time though, I want to focus on a single film (which is actually based on a book), Ender's Game.  It's got the word "Game" in the title!  On a more serious note though, I think it deserves more attention than I have given other movies because I want to emphasize a concept that I've alluded to in the past know as storytelling decompression.

Back in the early days of comic books the amount of real estate one could use to tell a story in was about two dozen pages. This was because collecting hadn't really caught on yet so readers tended to throw out older monthly issues of whatever series they were subscribed to.  The result was every story arch had to begin and conclude expeditiously.  Not necessarily a bad thing, but the problem is what if you want to create a work of fiction that doesn't fit within that framework?  Well, some things get cut or padded and the overall tale suffers as a result.  This especially applies to books and film.  I can think of a lot of door stopper novels that would have been much more enjoyable had they been short stories.  Conversely, movies can feel rushed when they try to cover to much ground.  Video games, on the other hand, can be as long or short as needed.

Enter Ender's Game, a sci-fi version of Harry Potter wherein Hogwarts is replaced with Battle School and Quidditch with the Battle Room.  Unlike Harry Potter's four houses though there are twenty-two "armies" that compete against one another.  In the film we only ever see eight displayed on leader boards and watch a few fights.  In a video game though this kind of thing could easily be the backbone of gameplay.  Players could spend hours learning the tactics of various army commanders and competing for top spot.  After all a huge theme of Ender's Game is the notion of being empathetic enough to understand your enemy yet sociopathic enough to exploit that understanding.  Granted it's bit much to expect the player to be a tactical genius, but once the mechaincs have been introduced in this hypothetical version of Video Ender's Game (get it?) things could be simplified to this commander likes to X while that commander always does Y.  Between battles time can be spent on fleshing out characters and exploring the setting in more detail.  Again, the events in the Ender's Game novel take place over a five year period (age 6 to 11) while in the film it's only a small fraction of that time (with Ender starting off much older to boot).

Now, before anyone starts talking about how ridiculous the premise of this story is remember that Ender, and pretty much all other kids at Battle School are the product of ad hoc eugenics.  Think of it as the Olympics except the events are stuff like Starcraft and Zero-G laser tag.  Children tend to excel at these kinds of things because unlike adults, they have less to unlearn.  Sort of like Halo except with  inspiration coming from the air force and navy rather than the army or marine corps.  Another important point of distinction to make is the universe of Ender's Game doesn't have FTL travel, although there are some sci-fi bits of technology mostly reversed engineered from captured Formic ships like artificial gravity, engines capable of interstellar travel and instantaneous communication via the "Ansible" (derived from the Formic's telepathic form of communication).  Then there's the Molecular Detachment Device or "Little Doctor" which creates an interesting dynamic between tight effective formations highly vulnerable to this super weapon versus loose ineffective, but safe fighter arrangements.

All this might sound a bit complicated, but in a video game there's plenty of time to work with.  After all, it's ostensibly a school so it would be easy to ween players on the intricacies of warfare in space.  Start off with players only controlling themselves as a "launchy" then bump them up to "toon leader" with a squad under their supervision.  After that it's full on army commander and once they graduate from Battle School it's time be shipped to Eros for simulator training.  Again, begin with individual drones, then squadrons with support ships, and eventually all the way up to whole fleets.  Both novel and movie skip over a lot of Ender's battles, but in a game players could command each and every engagement.  There could even be the option for co-op multiplayer here in the form of detaching battle groups to sub-commanders, much like Ender did with his former schoolmates.  Alternatively, managing your team of personality driven A.I. assistants could also be interesting.  Sort of like fighting against different army commanders in Battle School except in reverse.  Players would have to maximize the strengths of their subordinates in order to succeed.

I should conclude this by saying I've never read any of Orson Scott Card's other works aside from Ender's Shadow (which mostly covers the same events in Ender's Game but from a different perspective).  My understanding is he's a nutcase and bigot, but I don't see any of his reprehensible views on display in Ender's Game specifically.  If anything the overall vibe in Ender's Game is cosmopolitan (it's called International Fleet after all) with the Formic Wars being the result of misunderstandings rather than ingrained malice.  That said, I never much cared for the direction the series took after the first book.  In my mind it would have been far more interesting had Ender defected, taking the last Formic queen and raising her, instilling her with his tactical skill, then after the untimely death of his sister (his last connection to humanity) have him go off the deep end and charge his adopted "daughter" with getting revenge on his own species for all the injustices done to him in the past.  It would be a case of the series taking a radically different direction than it ultimately went, with abused becoming the worst kind of abuser, but I really just want to see the Human/Formic conflict continue.  Granted, this idea would never fly because it strongly implies the road to hell is paved with good intentions and I don't think that's something the author believes to be true.

Evolution of a Theme

It goes without saying that the Legend of Zelda series is one of the longest running adventure game franchises ever.  Spanning nearly seven generations of console hardware and over a quarter century of real history, the tale of a boy garbed in green is perhaps the quintessential example of Joseph Campbell's The Hero's Journey in video game form.  Because of it's legacy, I think Zelda deserves the "Legend of" namesake in the title.  The question is though...can a legend evolve?

Based on what little we've all seen thus far, the Wii U iteration of Zelda looks promising.  Despite the limited power of Nintendo's current platform, the development team has shown that they are able to produce impressive visuals through stylish art rather than pixel and polygon counts.

"Zelda should be more like the Dark Souls!" was a comment I often saw and heard on the internet in the wake of Skyward Sword.  I even suggested the same idea in this very blog site several years ago.  In hindsight though, I don't think Zelda would do well copying from another similar franchise whole cloth.  Instead a new Zelda needs to borrow from a lot of places at once in order to be successful.

Interconnected open world locals have already been mentioned by the game's producer, Eiji Aonuma.  Along with that, I think environmental/visual storytelling is a good match since Zelda has never really benefited from lengthy dialogue sequences.  Still...keeping to text boxes would be better that trying to introduce voice acting to the series.  If there is anything I've learned from playing the Banner Saga, it's that reading what people say is still a perfectly viable way to tell a story.

Music in Zelda has made steady improvements over the years (as the video bellow clearly illustrates):    

I think the next step would be to upgrade to a full symphony orchestra (like this one used to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the franchise).

Eiji Aonuma also mentioned in an interview that many younger members of the development team have strong reservations about what a Zelda game should and shouldn't be.  Not knowing the details, I can't comment on what has been suggested thus far, but off the top of my head, I think it would be wise to avoid the RPG tradition of stat based numerical progression, as well as extremely gimmicky boss battles.  Then there is the excessive amount of hand holding that, in truth, could easily be avoided by simply including yes/no prompt at the beginning of the game that asks, "Have you played a Zelda game recently?"

Speaking of choices, it sounds like the player will have to make a lot of in-game decisions about where-to-go and what-to-do.  Especially since simultaneous events will be occurring in Hyrule.  For me, these welcome additions should tie nicely into the theme of player freedom (which is itself a callback to the original NES titles).

Exploration and the feelings of mystery, suspense and wonder are what originally drew me to the series.  Varying mixtures of triumph and terror are what have kept me interested even after all these years.  In some ways the development of the Zelda franchise is a reflection of the events in the games themselves.  Will the triforce of new ideas, old ideas and fun ideas be united once again?  Or will this next entry fragment fans like we've seen in the past?  I can't say for certain, but I do know that if the legend does continue it must evolve in order to endure the tests of time.