In a bold statement, Fumito Ueda—a huge creative driving force behind ICO, Shadow of the Colossus, and The Last Guardian—believes games are playing it safe by refining existing game mechanics, rather than dev teams going out of their way to create new ones.
There’s no doubting Team ICO’s (later integrated into Japan Studio) impact on the game’s industry. ICO was a cult success that eventually landed the team the chance to develop Shadow of the Colossus. The Last Guardian followed later. ICO’s co-op elements, Shadow of the Colossus’ unique, real-time fights, and The Last Guardian’s sophisticated AI made each game a standalone sensation rife with innovation.
Not everyone is eager to reinvent the wheel, and Ueda believes this to be the case.
Ueda Thinks Games Don’t Need “New Game Mechanics Every Single Game”
In a translated interview with DenfaminicoGamer, Fumito Ueda was interviewed along with Keita Takahashi—director of the classic Katamari games.
Takahashi is directing ‘To a T,’ a narratively-driven puzzler. The developer had explained to Ueda about To a T’s nature: “No, I don’t have that many special mechanics.” Ueda thought it was good at the time, but clarified during the interview: “I don’t really remember why I said “yes” at that time, but I think it was probably because I thought that the age of mechanics was no longer the case.“
With many top AAA titles essentially regurgitating their content and offering incremental improvements on previous systems, Ueda thinks: “I don’t think we’re in an era where we have to offer new devices and new game mechanics every time.“
It might be my interpretation, but plenty of games are succeeding without the need to have a White Wolf painting its environment and enemies, you needing to scale many gigantic Colossi and defeat them, or maybe even simulating real-life music with plastic instruments?
Takahashi claimed: “That’s something that Mr. Ueda has been insisting on for a long time. I’ve been saying this since “Journey—It’s not the age of mechanics anymore.“
Has video-game innovation ground to a halt? Or does the likes of Balatro‘s roguelike deck-building gameplay show there’s lots of room to experiment? Let us know through the Insider Gaming forum. Tell us your favorite ‘innovative’ games.
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