Summary
- Starfield’s lead quest designer says that games like Skyrim took over from MMOs, becoming titles that players sunk hundreds of hours into.
- Now, he feels that the tide is shifting, and players want shorter games.
- He cites Mouthwashing as a shorter game that has found success, perhaps due in part to its length.
There was once a time when being told that a game would last forever was a selling point. Repeatable side quests in games such as Skyrim and Fallout 4 make it very easy to play for hundreds of hours, although one former Bethesda developer thinks that times are changing.
Will Shen, who was the lead quest designer on Starfield, believes that players have become “fatigued” over games that take “30-plus, 100-plus hours” to get through. He argues that this is why we’re seeing a “resurgence of short games”, using the success of Mouthwashing as an example.
Starfield Lead Says We’re Seeing A “Resurgence Of Short Games.”
We just don’t have the time to dedicate to games like Skyrim anymore
As spotted by PC Gamer, Shen made these comments in an interview with Kiwi Talkz.
“There are World of Warcraft super-fans who will never leave that game,” he explains. “And then all of a sudden games like Skyrim and other open world games really hit their stride with enough content to get past the tipping point of, you can play it almost forever. And so that became the big trend that hit the game industry.
“A large section or growing section of the audience is becoming fatigued at investing 30-plus, 100-plus hours into a game.”
He argues that this is why we’re seeing some smaller games find success in the industry. “Mouthwashing is a huge hit because it’s short,” he says. “There are other factors into that, the execution, you know, nice iconic keyart, all that kind of stuff. But that game doesn’t succeed nearly as well if it were longer and had a bunch of side quests and miscellaneous content.
“The shortness is the point and that level of engagement was so refreshing to see from a developer who’s done a lot of big games. It’s like, oh, you can have a fan community conversation around a game that’s much shorter because the shortness allows everyone to engage fully with the entirety of the product.”
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True enough, we do see some short games go viral from time to time. In 2023, there was Slay The Princess, which can be beaten in under five hours. A little bit before that, we had Unpacking, or even two of our previous Game of the Year winners, Citizen Sleeper and The Forgotten City.
Of course, live services that eat up all of our time are still doing incredibly well. For example, Marvel Rivals is huge and hasn’t slowed down a month after launch. So, there’s still room for live services and longer games in general, but perhaps we will start to see more success stories like Mouthwashing.
Starfield is the first new IP from Bethesda in a quarter of a century, launched for the next-gen Xbox Series X|S and PC. Taking place outside our own Solar System, you play a member of the Constellation, a collective of explorers set on discovering new worlds.