Key Takeaways
- Yakuza creator Toshihiro Nagoshi has claimed that a game’s size won’t be a good selling point for much longer.
- He says that the amount of games made these days is “a little excessive” for normal gamers, and that the era of games being big as a selling point is “is coming to an end”.
- Instead, Nagoshi believes that a game’s density is more important, and that players shouldn’t be repeating things “over and over”.
More than ever, it feels like it’s impossible to play every single game you’re interested in. We’ve just had a month in which Dragon Age: The Veilguard, Metaphor: ReFantazio, Silent Hill 2 Remake, Ys X: Nordics, and Sonic x Shadow Generations were released in quick succession, and unless you’re strapped to some kind of horrible device that makes you play games for 24 hours every day, you’re not getting through all of them.
That’s primarily because several of those games are absolutely huge, with Metaphor: ReFantazio setting you back a good one hundred hours by itself. It can actually be a little frustrating if you want to keep up with current releases, but Yakuza creator Toshihiro Nagoshi reckons that this frustration will eventually stop game size from being a big selling point in the near future.
Yakuza Creator Says A Game’s Size Is No Longer A Good Selling Point
In an interview with Famitsu (translated by VGC), Nagoshi explains that he wants his next game after departing Ryu ga Gotoku Studios to be “fun to play, but isn’t too much of a hassle”. That’s because he’s keenly aware that “there are so many titles out there that it’s impossible to play them all”, and that the sheer amount of games in an ordinary gamer’s life is currently “a little excessive”. That’s why he thinks a game’s size isn’t going to matter for that much longer.
There are still many titles being released, but I feel that the era of games where the volume is the selling point is coming to an end.
Later on in the interview, Nagoshi admits that it can be nice for a game to have a big map, but that the contents of it needs to be dense, which shouldn’t be all that of a shock to Yakuza fans, as the series has often decided to make smaller maps with lots to do in them than stretch things out unnecessarily. Nagoshi also claims that a good, modern world shouldn’t make players repeat things “over and over again”.
Thankfully, it sounds as though we can look forward to a nice dense world in Nagoshi’s first game at his new studios, which we’re still rather light on details about. In this interview, he explains that he’s been working on the map and has been “gradually shrinking it down and exploring the best balance for the game“, so it at least sounds as though Nagoshi will be taking his own advice.
Yakuza
Yakuza, also known as Like a Dragon, is a series of action-adventure games developed by Sega and Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio. Taking place largely in the fictional Tokyo district of Kamurochō, the games are often crime dramas featuring characters such as Kazuma Kiryu, Goro Majima, and Ichiban Kasuga, and are known for their host of fun minigames such as karaoke.