Occasionally
a game comes around that surpasses all expectation. Such games become
phenomenal, smashing genre conventions and presenting critically-acclaimed,
excellent mechanics that other games scramble to replicate. I like to call such
successes ‘bottled lightning’ games, as these titles tend to hit at just the
right time and scratch just the right itches that make such phenomena
practically impossible to feel ‘for the first time’ again.
One
example of such a game is Minecraft; in a games industry that at the time was
dominated by linear action experiences and cutscenes, this game created a
unique mix of survival and free-form creation unlike any other experience at the
time. The true measure of the game’s bottled-lightning status was in its
imitators; Minecraft clones became a dime-a-dozen; before it went
multi-platform, developers raced on consoles to have their own ‘Minecraft-like’
experience to capitalize on the game’s immense popularity by presenting
near-imitations. A renaissance of sorts happened in the genre of ‘survival
games’ (a genre I’d argue didn’t so much exist pre-Minecraft), where hunger and
thirst meters, as well as the mechanic of crafting from gathered materials,
became commonplace in the market, even in games where it made no sense.
With
Minecraft being a billion-dollar product nowadays, and therefore the
go-to-target of hipster scorn, it’s easy to forget the game’s early status as a
pioneer that launched many modern trends we see today. Like it or not,
Minecraft indeed bottled lightning. Who doesn’t remember the unique feeling of
discomfort and newness as they launched the game for the first time, and how
exciting the community was when they were discovering and re-telling every
little legend and myth that formed around the game? It’s impossible to recreate
that feeling in the game today; to play Minecraft for the first time again is
impossible.
Dark
Souls exists in a similar vein to Minecraft, and achieved widespread popularity
in a similar, albeit less extreme way. As mainstream RPGs, such as Skyrim,
became perceived as being simplified and ‘too easy’, and with the industry suffering
from a perception of being ‘dumbed down’ to fit with an increasingly mainstream
audience, Dark Souls came along as a punishing, opaque experience that offered
deep, complex systems and a high barrier to entry. The game was a celebration
of everything that had, up to now, been accepted tropes of videogames being so
niche. As a phenomenon, Dark Souls gained notoriety rather than outright
affection at first, as a difficult game accessible only for a certain kind of
gamer and unapologetic of that fact. But as an industry trend, Dark Souls was a
bona-fide cult hit, and it was undoubtedly helped by its unique flavour of
gameplay that was rare to see in the games industry.
Arguably, Dark Souls was
the only game of its kind to truly strike its own unique formula that has been
difficult to replicate, even for its sequels from the same company; for all the
love Dark Souls II and III get, most fans now agree that the original Dark
Souls is undoubtedly the quintessential experience of its gameplay. Even the
game that preceded it, Demon’s Souls, doesn’t quite scratch the same itch. Dark
Souls is certainly not without its imitators, many of which are excellent
games, such as the sublime Japanese mythology-inspired Nioh.
This
leaves the problem of how to bottle lightning a second time; how does one
follow up such phenomenal success with the weight of expectation? Fans would arguably
want a sequel which would bottle lightning a second time and so uniquely feel
new and exciting to play. But the sad reality is that this is, by definition,
impossible to achieve with a sequel. Even if it succeeds in being so unique
that it becomes its own phenomena, much like how Dark Souls did with its
following-up from Demon’s Souls, a quitter hit that didn’t quite match its
successor’s dizzying heights, it’s arguably because that game is so uniquely its
own that it is instantly set apart from anything else. Instantly a game like
this would set itself apart from its predecessors. Such games may bottle
lightning in their own way but not their original inspiration’s lightning. So
maybe the best way to approach such sequels and follow ups is not to expect
this to happen and instead be happy creating new and interesting
interpretations of the lightning formula; arguably, Dark Souls has already found
some success in doing this with its sequels and with Bloodborne. Its sequels
are successful and well-liked by critics and present interesting takes on the
formula their predecessor founded. While not quite the same as playing the
original, sublime title, what these games do is create unique interpretations
of their own that make for great videogames.
Bottling
lightning may be something to aim for, but for audiences to expect the same to
happen with follow-ups to the game would be foolish; a Minecraft 2, for example,
would probably not nearly be a successful venture because it wouldn’t go off on
quite the same tangent that Minecraft did and scratch the unique itch in quite
nearly as impactful a way as the original. But instead creating new formula
that expand on and interpret gameplay in new ways is still a worthy aspiration
for any sequel and can sometimes be its own bottled lightning.
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