Realism versus Entertainment

The debate of a generation.

Entertainment mediums are designed to be, go figure, entertaining for the fellow experiencing them on the otherend of the screen. Or comic book. Or stage. Whatever, there are a lot of vectors to experience entertainment from. At the end of the day, no matter how twisted that quest becomes, it really is the deep-most desire of all creatives to entertain someone, somewhere, even if that person is ultimately just themselves. Which is why one might often find themselves asking what place of purpose truly difficult or overly challenging games have in an environment where entertaining the player is the main goal. Surely it would be time efficient to just shorten the time between input and satisfaction. Well, of course it isn't as easy as that- delayed gratification is often a more effective feeling and there's a difference between earned rewards and given rewards. I'm not getting into the weeds about all that, we've had that discussion before. Instead I want to focus in on the 'realistic' games.

As a general rule, games are typically designed in a way that isn't exactly realistic in the worlds and scenarios that they're depicting. Whether you're a incredibly agile shinobi who stabs people through the heart but they keep coming until an arbitrary life bar is drained, or you're an 'army of one' Nazi killing machine rampaging through an ancient German castle withstanding the various bullet wounds you receive by munching down on wayward bowls of dogfood. There's an inherent suspension of disbelief that one must commit to whenever they dive into any video game in order to be inducted into a immersive environment where they play the center of the storm around which all the action and excitement is funnelled. In order to narrow down the vast experience of entering the shoes of another human, simplification is inherent and unquestionable, unless you want to be playing as the one ass kicking super-hero who has to take time of his day for toilet breaks. 

But then there are the games who accept the inherit aura of disbelief requisite to form a game playing experience, but then attempt to make up the deficit in the design of systems that simulate realistic systems for the express purpose of being as realistic as possible. Often times, games which go this direction will actually prioritise the pursuit of some simulation of 'realism' over raw entertainment and enjoyment, and not necessarily always with the understanding of the power of delayed gratification. Sometimes developers just want to chuck a hunger, thirst and sleep bar at you because they think it'll be a challenge. For a long time in the middle 2010's, so many games that didn't need to be survival titles, and didn't particularly wear the coat gracefully, found themselves bogged down with overly excessive resource management bars that ended up being so strict they tipped the bar the otherway and became unrealistic again. "I starved fully to death in half a day without eating? Poppycock!"

There are a couple of decent budget games that would fit into the mould of being 'AAA' which I've selected that both have their own ideas of bowing down to the ideals of realism over quick gratification entertainment. And both are constructed to some level of gameplay coherence, unlike the vast majority of that survival game deluge I alluded to. One such game is the sweeping cowboy adventure epic sequel, Red Dead Redemption 2; which altered many systems of the first game to be more of a 'realistic' simulation of Wild West life. The other being the maiden game of Warhorse studios, 'Kingdom Come: Deliverance'; a game for which the concept of 'crushing and unforgiving medieval realism' was an actual selling point within the marketing cycle. How do both games manage their pursuit of the 'realistic' and how does that come off to the audience?

Red Dead Redemption 2 actually caught a lot of slack for it's intentionally slower pace from a crop of more casual gamers who preferred the more easily accessible way that Red Dead Redemption 1 played. Rockstar went for a much slower pace for RDR2's moment to moment gameplay, with greater emphasis being put on the effort of exploring in-door environments as you manually loot each draw and cupboard, or manually hauling the carcass of an animal onto your horse in order to ride it into town and sell the thing before it expires. There's even a system of eating regularly to increase your health regeneration, and wearing warm clothes in the cold and thinner clothes in the heat. This bleeds into the presentation of the story too, where many missions take their time to just move from one area to another, rushing neither you or Arthur's narrative as you immerse yourself in the gang.

I think 'immersion' is the key word for Red Dead Redemption 2, because beside what some dissenters might like to think, Rockstar never ties the weight of consequence too much over you. Management bars being ignored can never kill you, nor really inconvenience you so horribly that you feel obligated to maintain them. And the pace of the slower missions are intentional in order to juxtapose the game to the moments of wild explosive action when the bullets start flying, heightening their impact. Whether you're willing to endure the play at realism and give into the immersion ploy is really up to you as a player; but I think most who are willing to give that over agree that the result is a more visceral and intense experience where you truly fill the shoes of Arthur, living the life of a cowpoke of the century as well as of the anti-hero gunslinger.

Kingdom Come: Deliverance is similarly married to realism, although for that game it is taken in a more hard-line way. Your management bars are deadly, for example, and not being rested and fed before a battle can actually make a bit of the difference. But then, that marries well with the setting of Kingdom Come being a seemingly authentic medieval experience through old Bohemia where you start as a literal know-nothing peasant and have to build yourself up into a being of prominence. I'm not alluding to some sort of montage sequence, either. Kingdom Come fully expects you to train for real-life hours in a combat ring in order to rank up your various combat stats before you're ready to face enemies in combat. Knowing the intricacies of combos and deflection isn't enough, without those stats you will die often.

I find much of the immersive 'realistic' elements of the game are justified as attempts to stay authentic to the age. Finding written words to be gibberish until you force yourself to learn how to read is in fitting with the level of literacy of the age; being unable to hold a bow whilst flailing wildly is the baseline of most any amateur archer. The process of starting from the bottom and struggling to become someone of any sort of skill is certainly appealing, especially smothered in a package called 'realism' which makes ever struggled-for achievements feel that much sweeter for the hardship endured to get there. Warhorse does go a bit overboard in some specifics, though. The training for hours is quite mind-numbing to be honest, and the restriction on saving, in a game as unstable as that, was a bold and ultimately unwise design decision.

Realism doesn't inherently need to be the enemy of entertainment, even though it might seem that way at a simple glance. Escapism and fantasy gains it's initial spark of interest from the promise of not resembling the dour real world we live through every day; and inheriting any aspect of that tedium just feels counter intuitive. But in the same way that the bow string which pulls ever tighter suffers tension before it snaps back to send an arrow flying further, some level of realistic tension can counteract with the entertainment to heighten the effect and propel excitement further. Of course, by that same merit; those who marry themselves to the ideals of 'realism' too staunchly can find themselves using that badge as an excuse to 'forgive' tedium and boring gameplay, finding the balance there is the art of intuitive design practises.