PS4 And Xbox One: 9 Ways To Improve Every Future Game
9. Let Players Save When They Want
What is it about the interactive entertainment industry that makes it keep guessing even after its correctly answered the question? Its as though developers are forced to pass the good idea ball around, reverting to archaic and unquestionably worse alternatives with every toss. Sometimes they just throw the ball out the window altogether. How should we build our save system? they ask, ignoring the mountain of player feedback directing them to a single answer. Why not let players save wherever and whenever they want, thereby eliminating needless tedium from the experience? a lone voice cries out from the back. What? Player freedom? Ease of access? Saving time? Thats thats horrible! Someone get him out of here! the group shouts back. Ball, meet window. It is never a good idea to glue the player to their chair until they find the next save point. Its limiting at best and downright infuriating at worst to be unable to put a game down, to have your hand smacked when you reach for a necessary and basic feature. This isnt an issue of balancing difficulty via checkpoint placement; its much simpler. Whatever care-free world save-hating developers reside in clearly doesn't extend to the gaming population. Things happen when youre gaming: you get a call from a friend, you have to check on dinnerwhatever it is, you have to get up right now and you wont be back for a time. You therefore want nothing more than to save your game and get back to it later. Pretty please, developers, can all games let us do that?
A freelance games writer, you say? Typically battling his current RPG addiction and ceaseless perfectionism? A fan of horror but too big a sissy to play for more than a couple of hours? Spends far too much time on JRPGs and gets way too angry with card games?
Well that doesn't sound anything like me.
