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Putting Control Resonant Under A Microscope Is Rewarding In An Unexpected Way

Putting Control Resonant Under A Microscope Is Rewarding In An Unexpected Way https://ift.tt/BWydxQs Over many years, I've written tens of thousands of words covering the Remedy Connected Universe, the Finnish studio's world tying the Alan Wake and Control series together. This is a team that loves rewarding players who notice the smaller details and go off the golden path in search of morsels of understanding. Connecting dots is often much of the fun in a Remedy game.  To my surprise, that side of the developer wasn't on display much in Control Resonant. There are definitely a few nods, and one chain of side quests in particular seems to have greater implications for the studio's future connected-universe games, but overall, I was taken aback by how disinterested Resonant was in tying itself to Remedy's bigger picture. However, it was by looking for those hidden details that I discovered something else I ended up loving about the sequel in a different way. ...
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How Borderlands Ensures Character-Driven Storytelling Remains A Focus 14 Years Later

How Borderlands Ensures Character-Driven Storytelling Remains A Focus 14 Years Later https://ift.tt/GvgXNM4

The Borderlands franchise holds a peculiar place within the history of the gaming industry, kickstarting a genre that has gone on to become a different kind of beast. After all, though the concept of combining both RPG and first-person shooter mechanics was first seen in 2007's Hellgate: London, the loot-shooter genre owes its popularity to 2009's Borderlands. And yet, today, many of the most popular loot-shooters are also live-service games (like Destiny 2 and Warframe). Borderlands is not, having never adopted that format. It instead has multiple sequels--some of which diverge from the original game and don't feature any looting or shooting.

Like these other live-service game franchises, however, character-driven storytelling has been one of the main unifying pillars of Borderlands, which has been supported by a writer's room. "Gearbox is casually unique in the sense that we maintain a writer's room," Gearbox Entertainment associate director of narrative properties April Johnson told me. "So we don't just plunk you to work on a project and say, 'Okay, enjoy the two of you doing this--we have multiple things that we are working on, so we won't Voltron up as a full unit until later.'"

Having a constant writer's room is a strategy you usually see in story-driven live-service games where maintaining a narrative vision over multiple years--over a decade in the case of some games like Destiny--is important. It's not often seen in AAA franchises that feature several sequels and recruit a new set of writers from project to project. Gearbox Entertainment is not wholly unique in this strategy within the gaming industry, but it is a rare exception and the team points to this as one of the reasons for how the studio has managed to curate a specific narrative voice across all its projects.

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