We'll get it right next time

And the next time. And the next time.

The creation of video games is an intensely complicated and multi-layered procedure requiring the collaboration of a ludicrous number of specialities tied together with a vested interest. And even when you have all the ingredients you should need to get everything right, there's a good chance, nay a simple inevitability, that whatever you put out won't be to the standard you originally set for yourself. (Which is why we don't make promises before we make the game, Sean Murray) So whilst it might seem that would mean all Video games are destined to be disappoints, game designers tend to be pretty ambitious folk so even missing their dreams can be pretty out there in the result. But what happens when everything doesn't just go peachy? What do you do when best laid plans go wayward and you're left with a game that lets down yourself and your audience?

There's been a few titles out there where the answer has wrapped around for a query like that and ended off simply with a shrug and a: "We'll get it next time." As if all the wrongs of today are completely and irrevocably reversed by the law of 'fool me once'. "See, if we never get to 'twice' then I'm the only one who's allowed to be upset." And whilst I will say that it's nice to have a little optimism; yes, you weren't so good today but you'll definitely make up for it tomorrow, there have been a few times when such a promise has really settled a little too well within the work cycle. In the way that the issues of today are always been laid on the backburner because they can be handled tomorrow. 'The cycle of procrastination', I call it. I just wanted to see how this was working out with our favourite games.

Take the Division, Ubisoft's Tom Clancy looter shooter that roared onto the scene all the way back in 2016 with grand promises of what it could be and the heights of a gameplay loop it wanted to achieve. Basically the game wanted to be Destiny without the crazy good visuals, supremely tight first person controls, and all the other benefits you get from literally having half a billion dollars thrown towards your project. And Destiny was what The Division ended up shaping like, only in all the stupid ways that no one wanted to emulate. It had an extreme lack of content problem which left a crazy level grind that could only be achieved by the sort of endless monotonous repetition that would make a WOW veteran blush, and at the end of the day even the best gameplay in the world isn't going to save you from a grind that ba- okay, Destiny's gameplay did kinda save it, not gonna lie. But The Division was not to third person shooters what Destiny is to First person ones, and so The Division was sort of left in the dirt.

At least that was the initial prognosis, but Ubisoft went and turned that around with the sequel which addressed all the areas that people had issue with and has gone on to become a Looter shooter that new comers get compared too. The Division 2 is an example of a situation where repairing the problems of the last entry primarily ended up working out well for the studio, and I think that may come to the nature of Looter Shooters as a genre. Most people who like those games are in it for the longhaul as it is, so as long as you create a decent enough gameplay loop that can sustain interest for that longhaul. That's pretty much what The Division 2 fixed from 1, and remains the reason why it's probably going to be a good long while before the Division 3 rocks up in stores; heck, if they handle their treatment like Rockstar does with Grand Theft Auto Online, Ubisoft might never have to update.

Of course, I now go from one extreme to the other, and using the same company as a reference to prove that this trend can effect anyone. Here's one game that doesn't nail the art of iteration nearly as well, because the developers are forever stuck making the next game what the last one should have been. Yes, I'm talking Watch_Dogs. Watch_Dogs one was sold as being this incredibly freeing GTA-like game where the freedom of the user is expanded upon with these ludicrously tactile and utility-driven hacking abilities. Except, that's what Watch Dogs 2 was, one just sort of pretended to be that in missions. The hacking just felt so situational and limited, something tacked onto the city as an afterthought and clearly geared for use in missions more than in general play. Watch Dogs 2 fixed that, but then felt a little dated by the time it did, introducing one note characters, a plot which bordered on silly and a final product that was serviceable, but not quite what the Watch Dogs name felt capable of. In a way, the other open world games of the time; The Witcher 3, Fallout 4, etc; really made the Watch Dogs 2 world feel like a relic of the old way of making games like these. They'd need to catch up once again or change the type of genre they were saddling up to entirely. (Pure open world games do tend to be pretty competitive.)

Watch Dogs Legion was the solution to those troubles. It was a game that would transcend the Watch Dogs formula from being just enough GTA clone with a gimmick to something completely of it's own. (Now it would be Middle Earth: Shadow of Mordor with a Hacking gimmick) In a way this would be their solution to getting stuck in that inescapable catch-up saga which has shadowed Ubisoft's other series, Assassin's Creed, for nearly a decade now. (Ubisoft in particular really have a problem with this habit.) Unfortunately, Watch Dogs managed to create it's USP that changed the series substantially, but forgot to make the final product an engaging out and out experience, which is somewhat understandable when you consider the amount of technical ingenuity that went into bringing the thing to life in the first place, but still means that a ball was dropped. Maybe for the next entry they can work on that and hope that a new Shadow of Mordor game doesn't come out in the meantime to make their systems suddenly look obsolete.

Which brings us around to Cyberpunk, and the thoughts that although 2077 was a let down, 2080 (or whatever the sequel ends up being) will be the one to live up to 2077's promise. Even if it does, is that something we're willing to accept? Traditionally buyers remorse works purely on revenge punishment in the Video game world, wherein people who buy a bad game will not then turn out to buy the next game in the series, but developers have managed to work their way around this by saying "next time will be the time we make it." Now Cyberpunk 2077 wasn't a bad game, per se, it was just wildly oversold; but that still sets a stigma of mistruth which, typically, wouldn't be rewarded. I want the next Cyberpunk to be great, and I'm sure it will be, but I can't help but feel they'll be a bad taste in my mouth when I rock up to pick up the game I should have got in December 2020. (Theoretically, of course; I'm not buying the next Cyberpunk game in person or on day one. Digital second hand- baby!)

I think it's a strange trend for development to fall into, where the key driving force is fixing your last attempts mistakes. Of course there should be the desire to always improve, but that should be driven by a promise of innovation not of reiterating what was broken before in an act of image fixing. That just seems like such a reductive way to approach creative design. What's more, as with Ubisoft, it becomes too easy to fall into a rhythm of unending catchup as your try to meet the tastes of an audience from two years who have since changed their tastes; you'll never make the game you wanna make or keep fans happy, so why bother? Should Cyberpunk of the future wipe it's hands of the fictionalised Cyberpunk 2077 and never try to live up to the vision? Yes. They should work on what made the first game fun, the gameplay, and lean heavier into that for a less open, but more concise and better designed, branching main quest. Leave the open world to the experts, guys, it's what they're there for.