With all that is available on the current market and what is yet to come in the likes of Light No Fire and Star Citizen I find myself asking a simple question.
Why play anything else?
These games that are currently in development, and those titles that have already released, that achieve what we might call “metaverse” status in that they are essentially simulated realities no matter how rudimentary they may seem. When games like these exist, that create spaces where anything can happen. What reason is there for anything else to exist?
If Star Citizen created a low stakes PvP arena for gun slinging gladiators, what reason would Call of Duty have to exist other than the story it presents in the context of modern or near future military fiction?
Once the fantasy virtual world of Light No Fire is released, will there be a reason for Dungeons & Dragons to release a new game or would it make more sense to contact Hello Games and work out a collaborative deal? After all, it’s not like they couldn’t just generate a whole DnD themed planet with key locations injected at various points. I would be surprised if Wizards of the Coast hasn’t already had that conversation.
On a personal level I’ve been asking this question of myself with regards to Frontiers Reach for the past 4 years. But as a developer watching other devs work on things they love, I’ve also been pondering what the question means beyond just myself and FR.
With entire studios putting enormous amounts of effort into whole universes, rendered at or beyond the edges of what is possible graphically, where anything is possible in terms of gameplay…
Why would you play anything else?
The truth is that there is plenty of reason. First and foremost is that there are different people in the world with varying levels of interest and time. Second is that not every game is able to deliver on the same experience in the same way. Frontiers Reach being as visually distinct as it is, is just one immediate example I can think of. Another reason is depth, having played games like No Man’s Sky and Elite: Dangerous, one thing that always sticks out to me is just how shallow some of the mechanisms in these larger metaverse type games are. And some of that may come down to accessibility in effort to maximize player appeal across ever wider demographics.
However there is something going on that is affecting the games industry at nearly every level. Something that is having an impact not just on Frontiers Reach, but every game.
I have heard my publisher make mention of it in our meetings. I’ve heard other devs mention it in their complaints about the industry. And recently I’ve read articles about it in the media.
They all say essentially the same thing, that the AA Games section of the industry is gone.
Lesser and lesser interest is being given to games that aren’t AAA games with AAA budgets and AAA sized studios working at the edge of photo-realism in rendering. While there are still some left, numerous studios that once made games in the 20-40 USD range have been decimated by the throes of an economic downturn and increased levels of automation creeping into the game dev space.
There is also a widening budgetary gap between indie games and AAA games. One so large that any AA studio left standing after all that has happened is essentially an indie studio now. Whether they like it or not.
When it comes to Frontiers Reach I’ve always pitched the game, and studio, as indie. Not because of the size of the project, but because of the size of the budget involved with making the project. The whole budget for Frontiers Reach is less than 60,000 USD cold hard cash across 4 years and that’s almost exclusively for software licenses, some assets, and a bunch of voice over. Everything else, the artwork, the game mechanics, and back end running everything and saving your progress. That was all done by myself. Bringing in guest developers to work on different parts and pieces to fill in the gaps where my knowledge was lacking. Even with the assistance I’ve still got 7000+ hours of development time into FR.
So when people ask me about what makes Frontiers Reach standout against the competition like Star Citizen, War Thunder, Everspace, and No Man’s Sky, I always come back to the same conclusion.
I don’t have the money, time, or interest in destroying my personal health enough to even bother trying to compete with those other games. I have certainly felt the pressure in the form of other people comparing Frontiers Reach to other games. But the reality of the matter is that there is no money for FR to be anything other than a niche space/flight combat game. Nearly every direction that I could expand in, is barred by a budgetary limit I simply do not have the resources to overcome. And that’s ignoring the fact that the game is already much larger than it was initially planned to be. Features like the Warmap and Uncharted Worlds were added to increase the content offerings using existing tools and components. Very little in the way of new features, code, or menus needed to be added to facilitate those additions. The Warmap for instance uses all of the exact same scripting tools, art, and NPCs as the main story missions.
So when I think about why someone should play Frontiers Reach over a game like Star Citizen, this is what I have concluded.
In Frontiers Reach, you’re not going to be doing, a lot of nothing. No spending 30 minutes traveling between locations. That’s a fancy loading screen with your vessel moving between major locations as you watch the stars fly past the screen. And then launch into a sector in your starfighter where you will run a mission, or explore the sector at your liesure.
You will be spending a lot of time in combat. This first game in the series is laser focused on space and aerial combat because I want a focus on vehicles, particularly flying vehicles, to be a staple of the series. Even in the earliest of days for FR development and design there was always a focus on flying machines.
Additionally a retro aesthetic is what you get when you dive into Frontiers Reach. If you like me are tired of looking at Star Wars or Bladerunner and things that are desperate to be Star Wars or Bladerunner; then you are probably remembering the older and more obscure scifi worlds and universes out there. Terran Trade Authority is one such universe that comes to mind. Along with Trigan Empire for you more seasoned pilots hailing from Europe.
Frontiers Reach is also a story driven game. Always has been, and always will be. There are of course opportunities to engage in exploration and even shoot some space rocks for game currency, but the driving force is always going to be story. No mindless gameplay loops that end up turning into a grind. We don’t do really want to do that here. And on a personal level, I hate that type of gameplay.
No, out here on the frontier we are almost the exact opposite of the modern AAA, blockbuster, billion dollar “next big thing” game.
In almost every sense of the word.
Till next time pilots, happy hooning and fly dangerously!