Hi, this is Mark Brown with Game Maker's Toolkit, a series on video game design.
The first thing I did when I emerged from Vault 111 in Fallout 4 was deactivate the
main quest. And whenever someone gives me a mission...
BLAKE ABERNATHY: Those raiders that killed Mary, they took her locket too. If you could get it back, it'd mean a lot to us...
I deactivate that too.
I'm doing this, slightly mad thing, because I had just been playing The Witcher 3, and
felt that the game's helpful, hand-hand-holding quest information - like the commands on the
side of the screen, the marker on the mini-map, and the magic GPS trail to my next location
- was kind of... spoiling the experience.
Like, take this chap with the funny hairdo. He's giving me some directions to my next
quest point and he says...
BOWL CUT BLOKE: Know the small pond near the village? Path leads off from
it. Follow that 'til you come across a lone rock. Walk around that and into the woods,
find the old cart, you're there.
Okay, got it. Pond, Boulder, Cart. I'm on it. But as soon as we leave the conversation,
a dotted line appears on my mini-map. So I follow it. I end up here, and I guess I have to find
GERALT: a large stone near the pond
ah, god damn it Geralt! I was about to say that.
The quests in this game are often exciting and funny and thoughtful, but getting to them
just has you blindly stumbling from waypoint to waypoint, not fully taking in this incredible
world that CD Projekt Red has established. It's so hard to be truly immersed in a world
like this when you spend most of your time operating in this artificial video game layer,
that sits on top of everything else.
Games with nonlinear levels and big open worlds didn't use to be like this. It's hard to believe
there was once a time before floating arrows and mini-maps but go back and play Deus Ex
and when Paul Denton says he has map for you, he just means you now have an aerial photo
in your notes, and you'll have to figure out where you are, where your objective is, and
where to go by observing and investigating. Similarly, the maps in the original Thief
were incomplete sketches, covered in doodles and notes.
And then there's Morrowind. You've got a map but it only shows you places you've been so
if you need to get somewhere new you need to ask someone for directions, or consult
your journal, or look at a signpost. You actually have to be a part of the world, and become
immersed in the landscape. Instead of simply following a trail of breadcrumbs you make
your own way through Vvardenfell, and often end up finding secrets and surprises along the way.
A few games are still carrying that torch. Science-based survival sim Miasmata, for example,
offers you a map, which is pieced together from places you've been and scraps of paper
you find, but it refuses to show you your current position unless you get to a good vantage point
and triangulate your location by pointing to two, known structures. Or weenies, if you
watched the previous episode. Again, simply moving through the world requires skill and
determination, and there's a huge sense of reward when you reach your destination.
But okay. Those are arcane retro games and high concept indies. What about modern triple-A
open worlders, that feel the need to offer dynamically updated maps and helpful hints
in the name of accessibility?
Well, how about more optional quests that shun such navigational aids, and encourage
devoted players to really engage with the world? Like the treasure maps you find in
games like Red Dead Redemption, Skyrim, and Assassin's Creed Black Flag.
The idea with these is that you get a scrap of paper which directs you to some hidden
booty. The map might have a crude drawing of some landmass or a rock or a tree, and
that's about it. You then need to scour the landscape and find the real-world equivalent
of this drawing. You're left to figure it out yourself with no hints, no map markers,
no hand-holding.
They're fun because they encourage you to really study and explore the game's world.
And they also have a nice byproduct in that they delay the gratification of getting a
reward. Like finding keys, to open lockers in Yakuza, or hitting goddess stones to unlock
goddess chests in Skyward Sword, putting an extra step in before finding a reward makes
it all the more sweeter.
Anyway. I always cherished these scraps of paper in games because they give me a chance
to slow down, take in the environment, and figure things out for myself.
The other way to encourage proper exploration is with small scavenger hunts, that don't
actually count as quests. Sometimes they're called hidden quests or unlisted quests by
the fans.
One of my most memorable moments in Fallout 3 took place in the Anchorage memorial museum.
I hacked into this computer, and found a note about a hidden stash, behind a busted storage
door near the service entrance. I just needed to find a floor safe in the clinic.
Which is this room. How do I know it's the clinic? Well it says clinic on the door which
is a pretty big giveaway but also there's an operating table and x-rays on the wall
and a changing screen and a scalpel in the locker. You can see how playing in this fashion
encourages you to read the world in a very different, but more organic way.
Anyway. Inside the safe is a component, which lets me open the door. And behind that door
is some goodies, a key, and a note pointing me to a refrigerator. Which I find and open
to get my prize: a big load of bottle caps and... A recipe for mirelurk cakes?
Well, turns out the recipe is just an Easter egg. An inside joke at Bethesda. But I didn't
care. The real reward was the chance to engage my brain, to study the surroundings, and to
follow clues instead of bread crumbs.
So that's why I'm wandering the wasteland in Fallout 4 without waypoints and quest markers.
I want to be lead by my own curiosity, and not by a compass. I want to find interesting
notes and follow scavenger hunts, but using my own powers of investigation. I want to
see some interesting building over the horizon, and just go see what fun treasures or stories
can be found inside.
And when I find a note that says...
SHELTER GUARD: Found the mayor in the tub last night. Locked the door before the missus found him
I want to find the right room by finding a sign like
this, instead of just following a waypoint.
I'm not exactly making much meaningful progress in the game, mind you. I've been playing Fallout 4 for
around 10 hours and finished exactly two quests. The game simply isn't designed to be played
this way - like how you can also turn off all the quest helpers in The Witcher 3 but then
some guy will say...
MILAN NORAN: The patrol has been lost, somewhere along the south shore of Lake Wyndemere
and you soon realise there are no signposts and no place names on your map and you can't
ask for directions. So you try and find it yourself and you end up in a bandit camp and you
run away and oh god is that a bear? This has gone very wrong indeed.
But I am having fun. Perhaps in an ideal world, games like this would be perfectly playable
without map markers, but you could turn them on if you get really lost, or you just want
to make some fast progress. But, for now, at least, it'd be cool to see a few more optional
missions in games that don't show up on your map or your quest log, and let you take a
moment to really soak the world in. To get around through observation and investigation,
and not blind subservience to that little dotted line.
Hi guys, it's Mark here. Thank you so much for watching the episode. If you enjoyed it
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