LogInThis is where the industry is heading, he thinks.
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In an age where video games last hundreds of hours, betting on shorter titles could be riskier for big companies, or at least they seem to think so, with their experiences dragging forever. On the one hand, with rising prices for games, some players do expect a long adventure to feel it was worth the $70, but on the other hand, very often, those long hours are enlarged superficially, with pointless quests and giant empty spaces.
However, this trend for longer games might soon end, as Insider Gaming's Tom Henderson believes that publishers are moving from them to humbler lengths.
"There [are] some publishers that are already starting to move away from those big 100-hour games and now start to do smaller experiences. Some of them have been cancelled, and maybe that's a conversation at a later date, but I think that's probably the direction that a lot of publishers do want to go in," he said during the XB2+1 podcast.
The problem is, he continued, that not every publisher has "a Fortnite or a Warzone or an Apex Legends" to sustain its revenue and "push that kind of creative freedom" in smaller experiences. However, Henderson thinks that it's probably the direction the industry is heading towards.
This would likely be a positive change, as developers would be able to focus on the most important parts, not pressured to drag it out for hundreds of hours, and this would also shorten the development time, which is now around 6 years for AAA titles. Assassin's Creed Mirage was a step in that direction from Ubisoft, which is usually into much lengthier experiences – the game can be finished in less than 20 hours.
What do you think about making video games shorter? Would it be a good change for the field? Watch the full podcast with Henderson here and join our 80 Level Talent platform and our Telegram channel, follow us on Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, TikTok, and Reddit, where we share breakdowns, the latest news, awesome artworks, and more.