Could consequence-driven RPGs be improved by removing the option to manually save?
Rumour has it that the console versions of Mass Effect 3 will be including a novel feature that’s not so novel for savvy PC gamers: a manual quick-save option. While this rumour is potentially exciting for any console gamer that’s ever tossed a controller due to many accumulative hours of lost gameplay time because they forgot to do an in-menu save while engrossed in a game, I think a quick save option shouldn’t be included for Mass Effect 3.
Or any consequence-driven RPG title, for that matter.
Now, I should hasten to add that this very newfound view is coming from a guy who hits the quick-save button more in a single play session than a Morse code operator tapped out messages in a year. I’m addicted to quick-saving--particularly in open-world RPGs that often tempt me to head off the beaten track--but much like any addiction, my dependency on a one-touch save option is ill founded and should be curbed.
Impatience gamers such as myself will doubtlessly find this an intimidating concept from the outset (believe me, I do) because our enjoyment of a game tends to be linked to an absence of frustration at not having to repeat sections of a title. But even during my most dogmatic quick-save frenzy it’s difficult for me to not feel as though I’m missing out on something in any game that prides itself on player choice and, more specific to my argument, consequences for those choices.
Take Deus Ex: Human Revolution, for example. I previewed the game before its late August release and tested out some of the short-term consequences based on an early decision. Those who played the early hostage ‘negotiation’ level of Deus Ex should remember the hostage-wielding Zeke Sanders and the different ways the standoff with him can play out.
The first option is to end negotiations aggressively, in which case Zeke executes the hostage. Your second option is to let him leave, but he’ll take the hostage with him and she’ll be executed to enable Zeke’s escape. The third choice is a little trickier (albeit made easier by having the conversation augmentation), especially if you want the hostage to live, but you can talk Zeke down and everybody lives. Better yet, if you persuade Zeke to let the hostage live and let him go, you can meet up with him later for valuable information.
For the purposes of a preview, this save-and-reload approach was ideal for highlighting the consequence system of Human Revolution. But outside of the preview, I would have much preferred to be thrown into a scary place whereby I didn’t have the safety of a quick-save option--or hell, even a manual save option at all--and it was up to me to roll with the narrative and gameplay consequences of my decisions that I made at the time; sometimes, in the heat of the moment.
To me, this highlights the idea in games such as Human Revolution and the Mass Effect series that there really would be no such thing as a right or wrong decision; even by individual player standards. Instead, there would simply be consequences--good or potentially bad--for any given decision, no matter how insignificant it may seem at the time. In this respect, particularly in the instance of my running reference to RPGs, the player would be required to truly role play: that is to say, create a mental understanding of the type of character they wanted to play (even if it changed from decision to decision) and roll with it.
And while a big part of me would be scared shitless of the prospect of having my precious quick-save or manual-save option taken away from me, a bigger part of me sees the potential for a richer experience. It means that whenever I told my story of Mass Effect or Human Revolution, it would be different to yours; if only in terms of the motivation behind the decisions I made in regards to how I was role playing my character.
I believe it would make for greater immersion, alluring replayability and the aforementioned ability to talk to multiple gamers about the same game where alternative decisions were genuinely surprising to hear about because we hadn’t seen them.
Sure, I could try to resist the overpowering urge to save at all in a game, relying on any game’s auto-save system to drag me back to life when I died, but remember that I’m a quick-save addict. If you’re like me, you’ll know how difficult it is to ignore the possibilities of glimpsing at other consequences and picking the subjectively determined ‘right option’.
But I’d gladly accept the challenge of being forced into this position if a developer had the guts to put me there without any form of manual-save option. Would you?
Issue: 137 | June, 2012