What about the original Beyond Good and Evil?

 What Sequel? There's no sequel

Every now and then I harper on about this 'game', this long obstructed promise that has stretched and contorted to a thing of myths and frivolous legend murmured over in drunken stupors by those few out there who haven't yet lost hope. Those one might consider only a hop, skip and a jump away from the hopeless in the Half Life Three fandom group, only they at least got their 'Half Life: Alyx' game, we've just smoke and mirrors. I'm speaking of the project called 'Beyond Good and Evil 2', and no, I don't mean 'Beyond Good and Evil 2', I mean 'Beyond Good and Evil 2.' Hmm? That's confusing? Oh well, you see, 'Beyond Good and Evil 2' is the long proposed sequel to the Ubisoft cult classic 'Beyond Good and Evil, whereas 'Beyond Good and Evil 2' is the much more recent, teased with actual very early alpha gameplay this time, prequel to Ubisoft cult classic 'Beyond Good and Evil'. Make more sense now? I hope so, because it doesn't to me.

These games, both of them, held the promise to expand the world which could have easily become one of Ubisoft's best and most unique exports if the studio ever cared a lick about it more than they do. You can't tell me that one of the biggest studio's in the world, (at one point at least) a studio which excretes a half-hearted Assassin's Creed game out every couple of years or so, couldn't have sacrificed some of that trite in order for us to be 3 sequels deep in a series brimming with more creativity than Yves Guillemot has every tripped up over in his CEO Tenure. The fact that they keep turning around and promising more, only to disappear for another eight years and make out like that was all just a bad dream, is evidence that Ubisoft clearly suck as the arbiters of this genuinely cool idea for a series, a series I genuinely feel could be a Regent of the animated-fictional-worlds kingdom with another entry, and I really hope someone with actual agency comes along and snatches the rights for the series out from under them, for everyone's sake.

But "what even is Beyond Good and Evil", I'm sure a great many are asking out there everytime they see this name,(it was just a cult classic, afterall) and to be honest there was a time not so long ago that I was right there with you. Much as with the extended Tim Schafer library, I hadn't really been there for the years when this game was active and instead ending up hearing about this game from the outside. Or more accurately, I would thumb through game manuals religiously and now and then, on the back, would see this strange looking advert splayed on the back of the Ubisoft ones and wonder, 'What's that about? This little advert sort of makes it look creepy and drab'. Those were honestly my first thoughts regarding this game whenever I saw those printed ads, spurred by non-gameplay shots of protagonist Jade caught sneaking in the middle of her boxart, or spying on armies of mutant-like creatures wielding a camera whilst words like 'secret' and 'conspiracy' were scrawled across the layout. Typically I can imagine a lot of this stuff would be exciting, but with it's dark-mossy hue, long shadows and oppressive high-angle shots, young me was actually turned away from the game.

It seems so strange because for the actual game itself, there's so much colour and life to the world and it's characters that to think of it as imposing is remarkably off-base. In fact, I'd go so far as to chide the advertisers for failing to really hone in on the parts of the game that were it's strengths and instead focusing on what the raw narrative did. In fact, even with focusing on the narrative I don't really think they nailed the essence of the game, making it seem more like a spy-thriller into disturbing government conspiracy than the almost Disney-style (with a decidedly more politically driven edge) romp that the length of the game was actually made up of. Maybe that's just another way in which Ubisoft failed to support the hard work of their developers when it came to this game. Heck, their advertising department are solely responsible for why I, at least, almost never played the game.

Yet as was the wisdom of one Guido Mista, we may stumble and err but eventually and inevitably we always end up on the path we were meant to. That is the crux of living entwined with the red string of fate. (Unless we gain a Requiem, I suppose) So of course I would find my way to this game over a decade later, spurred on my endless good words and 'you have to play this game's. And my experience? I really enjoyed the thing. I mean it's flawed, in many fundamental aspects too, from a stealth system which seem functionally useless to a rigid combat system which is basic and frustrating nearer the end, and with smaller issues such as navigation aides that sometimes screw up when pointing towards interiors. This ain't no 'Ocarina of Time' or 'Deus Ex', worthy of joining the halls of some of the best games ever made. But the rest of the package is strong enough still for my to heartily recommend it above the garbage Ubisoft have pumped in it's stead.

Set on an alien mining planet called Hillys, populated by humans and anthropomorphised animals, Beyond Good and Evil follows the tail of a young spunky woman called Jade and her boar-uncle Pey'j as she judo flips and quarterstaffs her way into the middle of a conflict between the tyrannical fascist military dictatorship known as DomZ and the good people of Hillys. Through the body of the plot, our orphanage-running heroine opposes the DomZ misinformation campaigns and rampant propaganda through the power of free press and various clandestine actions that could charitably be labelled as 'journalism' but more falls under 'straight wet work'. Oh, and smashing things. She does a lot of smashing things. So can you see what I mean with that premise? There's something very 'Disney' in that premise, young orphan works to save her local talking animal people from the big bad guys, alongside the pretty and well prosperities visual style, and that is a spirit you'll see backed up in game itself from every facet. The orphan turned freedom-fighter feels very 'Treasure Planet' or 'Atlantis' to me. (Although I may very well me misremembering those movies for how they look rather than how they were. I haven't watched either in decades)

For me, however, the star of the show is the setting because of course it is. Hillys is this freely roamable space that the player is encouraged to explore between main mission areas and it is just brimming with character. The various different types of animals all come with accents and personalities derived from different cultures from our world, with my favourite being the Caribbean shark people. (though I may be a little biased there.) But even beyond just the world, we're talking about a game with a hovercraft exploration mode which doesn't feel tacked on, plenty of worthy and gameplay enriching secrets for those who want to explore off the beaten path, an in-game camera that encourages you take pictures of everything for lore that's easily digestible, a cast of funny and memorable characters to make you care; and even a few boss fights. Yes, this was back when games had boss fights. There's also a surprising number of set piece cinematic moments to be playthrough standout scenes, which isn't something you got a whole lot of back in 2003, so in so ways we're talking about a game far ahead of it's time too.

Basically what I'm trying to say is that Beyond Good and Evil is some of the best content that Ubisoft has ever had under it's banner, and the fact that we're still sitting on a potential sequel with little to no word on how that's trucking along, tells me that, amazingly, Ubisoft prime have no idea about the value of the property they hold. They'd rather go along bastardizing Tom Clancy or squeezing out yet another Far Cry before their next flush. BGE is less than a fiver on Steam (in the UK) and worth anyone's time more than other vastly more expensive Ubisoft offerings, and given we'll all be too busy signing our grandchildren's immigration papers to Alpha Centuri by the time BGE 2 comes out, we might as well rock that ol' classic out in the meantime.

World's worth exploring

I'd rather go and journey...

The other day I found myself exploring around the parts of my neighbourhood that I had previously never witnessed. It was an attempt to shake some focus back into my mind, ( I've had a hard time thinking straight of late) but I found myself engrossed in the act of exploring. Seeing new places and accidentally getting lost on a hilltop cul de sac (That place really needed better signage) was quiet the fun adventure to go on, and it really got me thinking about the times when games managed to illicit similar feelings as you explore their worlds, as well as the factors that make those worlds worth exploring.

Just to be clear, I'm not talking about what it is that makes open worlds worthwhile, (I've already covered that before, anyway.) but the elements of any game world, be it open or otherwise, that tickle your spirit of adventure. For me, this means a game which makes you want to look in every house and dive into every cave, not just for the promise of treasure but simply just to see what's there. Or even worlds that have you delve voraciously into it's lore to explore that world in a manner more favourable to folk like Otto Von Bismark. (God, even by my standards that's a dumb reference.) Of course, that means that this blog will likely be highly subjective and my views may differ from your own, but as long as I get you thinking about the topic I'll consider this a success.

For me there are a few factors that go into making an interesting gameworld. One of which would be creating a world that rings with authenticity. Now, that doesn't necessarily mean that world must be accurate, (Most games suffer in their attempts to be accurate) but it must feel like a world/society that obeys to it's own rules. This can come down to doing something as extensive as writing lore for that world, to something as simple as providing little continuity snippets that explain the mundane things in the world. Neglect these can make your world feel very surface level or too 'game-y' to make you want to dive in. I know it sounds silly, but part of the reason I couldn't enjoy the beautifully crafted gameworld of Assassin Creed 2 without an objective was due to these little annoyances. 'Why did guards put your wanted sign up ontop of buildings?' Questions like that kept nagging me and breaking my immersion before it had a chance to form.

On the otherhand, when games do put in that extra effort to ensure that the world is beholden to some rules, even if those rules are weird, it can really resonate with the players. 'Beyond Good and Evil' is a mostly average adventure game with a fairly interesting story that gets less intriguing the further you pursue. The game is a huge cult classic, however, such to the point that Ubisoft are hard at work making an incredibly ambitious looking sequel. (Which they then intend to ruin by turning it into a live service.) For my money, the wide spread fame of the game came down to the incredibly vivid and unique world that you find yourself inhabiting. Huge sentient Rastafarian shark mechanics stick in the mind of the player much more than an enthusiastic but unremarkable fighting system. (To clarify, I refer to sharks that happen to work on mechanical objects, rather than indepth coding for a race of Rastafarian sharks. Although I would be curious to see how that idea would play out for the long awaited 'Jaws 3: The game'. Wow, my reference game is whack today.)

Another aspect of game design that really elevates the product, in my opinion, would be the scope of that world. I'm not talking about how big the playable game world is, rather than how big the ingame world is. Oftentimes it's the parts of the world that we don't experience and only hear about that really bring the story to life. Just hearing tales about the lawlessness of the 'Terminus systems' in Mass Effect 1 was enough to spark the player's imagination. You didn't even see a Batarian in the entire game (at least not in vanilla) so all we had were stories about an entire race of bandit aliens who famously slaughtered and enslaved an entire colony. Mass Effect was full of universe building snippets like this that made the wider world feel alive and existing beyond the direct actions of the player. (Which is where, I believe, 'Mass Effect: Andromeda' went wrong.)

Of course, as I mentioned in my lore blog, all of this can only serve as a addendum to what you have built up in the main game. All these extra world details are useless if the world that the player gets to explore is empty and uninteresting. Just look at Bungie's Destiny. That game built itself around the themes of legendary heroes and mysterious unknowable acts of heroism. Unfortunately, that ended up meaning that the entire main game was full of meaningless self-important dialogue and nothing substantial for the player to get themselves involved in. The famous tagline for the game was 'Become Legend', but in truth all you spent your time doing was hearing about other people who became legends whilst doing boring back and forth fetch quests. Just as with all things, lore must always be implemented with a sense of balance.

Visual diversity is also something to keep in mind when designing a game world. There is nothing more soul crushing, for the viewer, than being running through the same looking environments for several hours on end. That's part of the reason why I hate sewer levels, or any themed level for that matter, they ask you to withstand the same visual palette until it makes you nauseous. (Which is something that 'Shadow Warrior' actually did for me with it's sewer level.) Now I know that this seems to be more of an issue that is related to the 'appealing' aspect of a game world, but you'll find that it's a rock to start a landslide. If the area you are experiencing is visually appealing then you'll be more inclined to stick around and want to explore it. Bioshock's Rapture is an entire city that is made up of bathysphere-like glass domes that all reside underwater, yet the area still manages to encourage curiosity due to many factors, one of which being the range of visual diversity. Apollo Square is realized as a lowlass tenancy, whilst Nature's Bounty is an old fashioned fishing port and Arcadia features a whole underwater forest. Despite boasting a consistent location and a general art-deco design convention, the place manages to be diverse in a way that inspires and encourages curiosity.

A lack of visual diversity can suck out the feeling of life in the playable world. Oftentimes most storydriven games seek to take their players on an adventure and if the beginning areas of the game look identical to the closing areas (And it's not part of a dramatic convention i.e. 'Claptrap's New Revolution') then it can be hard to reconcile that promise of adventure with the experience you just underwent. Take the base game of the original Borderlands, for example. Most of that game took place in an area know as 'The Badlands' which, much as it sounds, was Mesa-like environment with an abundance of rocks and sand. Now that's completely fine for the introductory few minutes, but by hour 15 your eyes will start to get bored of looking at faded out yellow and brown everywhere. Luckily Gearbox recognized this for DLC and future titles. (Although Gearbox Australia apparently didn't get the memo when they made 'The Pre-Sequel'. Oh look, it's more moon...)

Painting and theme-ing the world is only one part of the battle, however, things really get interesting when it comes to filling that world. Although this is primarily a struggle that open world's work to face, anygame must endeavour to fill it's dead air with clutter. There is no one way to go about this practise and it can take many different forms; sometimes you'll dabble in environmental story telling, whilst other times you'll be working on narrative cues or just simple flavour material. Bringing all of these things together help to create an immersive environment that keep players hooked long enough to wonder what is around that corner. Games like the upcoming Cyperpunk 2077 have pushed this even further by enlisting bands to fill the world with original music to fill the gameworld's airwaves. This encourages people to listen into music tracks they hear, not just because they may enjoy the song, but because it paints a picture of the wider game world. Bethesda did something similar in Fallout 4 with Lynda Carter's singer character; Magnolia, and 'Dragon's Age: Inquistion' boasted a whole bevy of bar shanties that I still find myself humming. (Sera was never an agreeable girl...)

Oftentimes it can be all too easy for the devs in charge of clutter to focus on being functional and forget about or ignore immersivenss. This is completely fine when we are talking about a game that is focused on guiding you through it's events like Battlefield and Call of Duty campaigns; but you likely won't find yourself coming back to those levels to take a look around. Walk into a room full of waist-high objects and red barrels and it can be hard to buy into the fiction of the world and want to explore. Again, it all comes down to the type of game you want to make.

The ability to explore the worlds in which we play is one of those aspects unique to the medium of gaming that makes it so transcendent, in my book. That is why I commend and celebrate any developer or genre that exemplifies these efforts and pushes their artform forward through them. Companies like CD Projekt Red, Rockstar and Bethesda create entire realities that feel as real as the one we face every day and I find that to be one the highest forms of art. Maybe you agree there or maybe you look for something entirely different in your games, either way, I'm sure we agree that those games we consider special are the ones that manage to get us to boot them back up again, after everything's said and done, just to see what we might have missed.