On Cliffhangers and Sequels

The popular gaming media is quick to say it’s looking for new franchises. Fresh ideas seem to be in high demand, and games like Dead Space and Mirror’s Edge received a great deal of coverage last year for their efforts to push the envelope of new properties. We all love new ideas, new worlds to explore. That being said, sequels are where the real money’s at. Activison’s proven this with the Guitar Hero franchise. If you’re creating a new property, therefore, you want to leave yourself room to make a sequel if the numbers show merit. It’s the endings of these IP’s, the the beginnings which follow them, that I want to look at in this post.

The game which got me started on this is Half-Life 2. *SPOILER WARNING: I’m going to reveal the end of Half-Life 2* You see, Valve is well known for creating a great story in HL2 without having your character speak a single word or using any cutscenes which change your perspective. Towards the end of HL2 I felt compelled to play and finish the fight I started so many days before. And the end was satisfying, at least at first. I was ready for Freeman to die in a catastrophic explosion. He seems like the kind of guy to make such a sacrifice. Just when you expect the screen to fade to white, however, in steps the infamous “G-Man” to sweep you away to safety (or in step the vortigaunts if you’re looking at Episode 1). This mechanic serves to prolong Freeman’s life for another installment without eliminating the climax we have come to expect from videogame conclusions (you fight the last boss and you win). I found this moment, with the cryptic G-Man dialogue, made the ending feel flat. I felt like my final actions, those actions which destroyed the “ultimate” enemy, were inconsequential. After all, if I can slip away just before death why can’t he?

And that brings us to a tricky point: Should you have a cliffhanger at all? I mean, does leaving an ending open take away from the overall greatness of a game? In an industry sense, I really don’t think so. I hate to say it, but given the fact that the minority of gamers actually finish the games they play, it seems a little silly to get bent out of shape with respect to how those games end. But what about those of us who want to squeeze all that value out of those games, or better yet, what about those games who actually craft a narrative we long to see the ending to? To this day there are gamers who talk about how unfulfilling the ending of Halo 2 was. Simply getting to the end of x hours of gameplay and throwing up credits is a copout, and in my opinion makes for a crappy game. When I finish a game, I want to feel like I accomplished something (even though I really didn’t). I want some resolution to all that conflict you’ve spent hours telling me about. I want to feel like the tension I had over the fate of my characters can be dispelled since their fates are now assured. Without these things the game doesn’t really end. There are many times when I’ve found myself staring at credits rolling past thinking “But what about…”

That’s the idea, of course. That’s why you’re going to watch the shows and read the articles about the next title, and then you’ll be one of those gamers who buys the game in the first two weeks, helping to insure it’s continued life on retail shelves. But that sequel presents a number of other problems. The whole purpose behind having a sequel is to bring back fans of the first game for another taste. That means that you have to satiate their desires for something new out of the old. At the same time, since the gaming industry hopes for growth at every step, you have to also create a world that isn’t intimidating to new fans. If I pick up a game and don’t know what’s going on because I didn’t play its predecessor, I’m not likely to want to keep playing (let alone pay for DLC or another sequel). On top of those contradictory mandates, there’s also the need for innovation in the content of the game. It’s not simply about taking the first game and giving it a new story. No, now you have to refine the combat, introduce new weapons, environments, and enemies. If you stray too far from the first game, however, it’s no longer a sequel and it becomes another new IP. Then you’ve just alienated fans and actually start from a negative position.

It would appear that expectations defy the creation of sequels. How can developers possibly make something precisely the same and almost completely innovative at the same time? That’s a fine line to walk, though if done correctly it can pay off. If you slip … well then you get Prince of Persia: Warrior Within. I think Ubisoft learned a good lesson there. I think it’s great that they took a franchise, which had essentially become a quasi-new IP every few years, and started all over with a refresh for another series. They still didn’t eliminate any expectations from the fans, but at least they had a decent argument.

Another game-changer I didn’t cover is DLC. How do you create a sequel when you’re not even sure that the fans know about the second ending? That just creates a third group you have to cater to when designing such a complex creature. If history has taught us anything though, it’s that no matter how disappointed gamers are at sequels, they still make money. And so long as there’s money to be made, who cares about the writing?