Modern Chore Design a Litany of Obligation in Games

For the last couple of years, most of my experiences with games has been a matter of "What can I use to take my mind off things." Often its a chore, to play a game for me at least. I become hesitant to play a game because I have a laundry list to complete in the game. Its less about playing it and more completing it and all the tasks associated with it.

Games are escapism for me, and I doubt I am the only one, who does that with any medium in fact. I have friends who read books, others draw, and some go on long hikes and I don't hear from them in a couple of days. Yet they want to do that, they aren't obligated to do it. Very few times does a game break through and engage me in a manner that it stops being chores and instead things I want to do. I create tasks and goals that I want to see myself do. I don't have obligation and that to me, is the perfect form of escapism. Where is new obligation to finish, except for what you put yourself as a self challenge.

Open world is often an ugly word, its not really descriptive of the experiences that can be had. Open world, to me entails the idea of an entire planet, or a large space to explore. Open-Roaming, or Open-Level I feel far more expressive of what the experience is. With a level designed with non-linear escalation for the player. WHere the experience is curated by the players own curiosity.

The Clutter of Open Design

When ever I pick up a open world game I feel like I am always overloaded, with hundreds of tasks, and quests, and millions of small objects on my screen or map that litter the screen with noise. Are my health bars alright, did my character eat? are my weapons needing fixing? Are my items powerful? Maybe I need to grind all these things to get a powerful object... A lot of things are given to, in many of these open world games, and I often find them a chore and when I am done playing them, I stop, and I never go back to the experience. Its a very weird. For a game that is supposed to take so much time, I have trouble going back to that experience because I feel like it is chore to do.

Designers first inclination is often to have ways for players to explore an environment. Often this takes the form of Ubisoft's Patented Radio Towers, or Fortresses where you have to capture an object. These become just a check mark on a list, a premade list, that the designers have instead of digetic .experience. Its very invasive design, the designer wants you to go there to that tower, they spent time on that tower, and they want you to see it. But instead of having the player discover it through natural means like seeing a tower in the distance, it pops up on your map when you open it up, and becomes a beaming golden banner that you can see on the map and constantly told on pop ups about how necessary this radio tower is!

And I just feel its a chore, in the end I just roll my eyes and do it, because I have to. Elden Ring has this with catacombs, but thankfully you only have to do them once, and are more like puzzles than the same experience over and over again. You could ignore every single catacomb in elden ring and would be fine. Like make of the systems in the game you can ignore most of them, and just play the game. Its Bizarre.

Elden Ring is the first game since Witcher 3 that I just sat down and had no issue with putting it down. It was an open-roaming game and I was enjoying it! Its strange often times a game is about how addictive it was to play. How few times you want to put down the game, and that it was hard to put down. But with games like elden ring, I don't have a sense of attachment.

I don't have daily need to do dailies or drag myself through an experience because I have obligations. Its similar to how steak is a wonderful meal to have but too much of one thing cheapens the value you put behind that meal. Especially if I have to jump bunch of hoops to get that steak, even though that steak is right there. And I can smell it. You choose what experiences you want and you go that way.

Which is odd, I don't have obligations of a stupid narrative that I am forced to watch for millionth time, I just play the game. The systems speak for themselves, the environments are open for me to explore. Its really open design. Its the first time in ages I've had that happen, and its something I wish was repeated more often.

The Chore Design

I like to express that, I have issues with games that are all about attention grabbing, where it is a chore to keep up with the latest materials and having to go back to an experience to grind out something because there is a limited timed event. I don't like that, its just another chore to my life that I don't need. Maybe others enjoy this approach to game design, but I feel it is parasitic and leeches off my life. Where I could've better spent that time grinding for a banner or slightly different looking mount and just enjoying an experience.

My controversial opinion in games, is that its fine to put down a game. Sometimes your just done. And there is nothing left to do. I love that feeling of success, where its all wrapped and I will look back it with fond memories. I wish many tv series and movies took that approach, where they gave it a sense of finality. Like Sekiro before it, I think Elden Ring is a solid experience. I don't need to go back to it, if I do its not out of obligation but because I want to play it.

Maybe games should stop being a chore and start being a game again?

Games I feel have longevity but I don't think its in the way that games are currently crafted. I can't tell you the amount of times I've replayed Talos Principle and did the exact same ending. I know there are others but I never felt comfortable doing anything but that ending. And there is no new content, there is no daily releases, its just out and done. I don't have to worry about it. I just play it.

I think in essence that a great game to me is something with finality, where it ends and I don't have to worry about something I might've missed because the game is on a live service binge. Isn't that what games are about a game you can commit to without making it a job?