Linear Games Are "Going to Suffer" In Current Market, Far Cry 4 Dev Says

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Alex Hutchinson says video sharing services can in fact work against linear games.

 

The rise in video-sharing services such as YouTube and Twitch means that linear games are "going to suffer," according to Far Cry 4 creative director Alex Hutchinson. He says in a new interview that those video services will in fact work against linear games, in that people who stream or post videos of those games will only be showcasing how repetitive they can be.

"I'm really interested in emergent games and where that's going with video sharing and Twitch," Hutchinson said in an interview with OXM. "I think linear story games are really going to suffer in the modern marketplace."

"They're already super high-quality, and we're already seeing their audiences migrate to the big, open-world games," he added. "If I open my friends list and see everybody on the same mission, doing the same thing... I think that's nowhere near as strong a sales pitch as opening your friends list and seeing 40 people doing completely different things."

Ubisoft has previously spoken about Far Cry 4 as something of an "anecdote factory"; a game that, due to its open-world and non-linear nature, will lead to "watercooler moments" of people sharing stories about what they did that often vary significantly from player to player. Far Cry 4 does have an overall narrative, but Ubisoft has stressed again and again that players will get to explore the world of Kyrat in the way that they want to.

It's not surprising to hear Hutchinson offer such emphatic praise for open-world games. After all, admiration for open-world games is seen all the way to the top of Ubisoft. CEO Yves Guillemot has said that Ubisoft iscommitted to making open-world games because "We think that gamers want more freedom." And due to its sprawling network of studios across the globe that can collaborate on projects, Guillemot contends that Ubisoft is one of the best publishers in the business to deliver open-world games on a regular basis.

Far Cry is just one of Ubisoft's open-world franchises. Others include Watch Dogs, Assassin's Creed, andThe Crew, among others.

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