Bethesda games have always been behind the curve when it comes to graphics, though they’ve always had a good excuse. Their games are set in huge open worlds, dense with NPCs, physics objects, and cheese wheels. What they have lacked in raw graphical fidelity, they compensated with aesthetic style.
Update: Hopes for a new TimeSplitters are dead once again. While sad, this essay is still worth reading for its exploration of what might have been and its commentary on the gaming landscape in general.
In an interview with USGamer, David Doak, co-designer behind GoldenEye, Perfect Dark, and TimeSplitters, said that TimeSplitters was conceived as a “social experience”, similar to Fortnite. He spoke of the series’ aesthetic and gameplay variety, exaggerated characters, and comical tone. The intent behind these features, he explained, was to create a game (and later trilogy) that supports casual, varied, upbeat fun with friends, free of the seriousness and competitiveness of most other shooters.
The objective of a shooter is to get kills. Even when an objective isn’t explicitly focused on this end, getting kills is usually at the top of gamers’ minds.
But should it be? You may ironically find shooters more enjoyable if you focus less on shooting and more on surviving.
Prioritising survival will change the way you play shooters forever. It may also make them more enjoyable for you than they’ve ever been before. Here are a few reasons why.
Daydreaming is fun. I’ve been a daydreamer since I was a kid. One of my favourite forms of daydreaming is coming up with ideas for games I’d love to play.
Below is my idea for a big new mode for GTA Online. It’s basically a full-priced game unto itself. I don’t expect Rockstar to make anything like it or even read this post. But I had fun writing it, and I honestly think my idea would make for an awesome game. It’s fun to think about it, even though it will never happen.
Have a look, see what you think: