How Tomb Raider RISES Above Traditional Quest Design
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- čas přidán 3. 07. 2024
- Quest design in video games can be a tough puzzle to crack, often leaving us with either linearly designed levels with little room for player freedom, or sprawling open worlds that feel like they're full of nothing. What's more is that traditional quest design can start to feel stale and uninspiring when developers repeat the same templates over and over again.
But Rise of the Tomb Raider manages to avoid all of these pitfalls, resulting in some of the most well thought out missions in recent memory. Its blend of linear objectives that progressively introduce variety and its semi open world design that allows for free flowing exploration provide players with plenty of engaging moments that never feel overused or overdone.
/ leepgaming
0:00 Intro
1:49 Tomb Raider's Place in Modern Quest Design
3:37 Barrier 1: Overuse of Quest Formulas
4:53 Barrier 2: Lack of Variety
7:26 Barrier 3: Boring Traversal
9:10 Barrier 4: Disruption of Flow
10:56 Barrier 5: Illogical Objectives
12:41 Applications in Other Games
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#tombraider #riseofthetombraider #leveldesign #gamedesign #leepgaming
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If you want to check out the full breakdown of Phendrana Drifts from Metroid Prime that I mention at the end of this video, you CAN!
Check it out here: czcams.com/video/vQbopcosVaU/video.html
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Another great video, I'm so happy I found this channel!
It's just such clear, concise commentary with such clean production. If I ever decide to create and design a video game of my own, I'll be coming back to these videos. Unbelievable.
That's really cool to hear, thank you!
A-plus video! Would love more Tomb Raider!
Can't wait for Metroid! Also would be cool a video about beautiful games that are plagued by horrible sections.
Oh the Metroid video is an older one, so you can already check it out!
czcams.com/video/vQbopcosVaU/video.html
Good shit. I agree
I remember liking the first Tomb Raider reboot.
The second one, I guess this one? Eh.
The story was awful. The gameplay was alright but the world felt meh to me, and I didn't want to stop to do any of the side BS. I just did the story and then felt done with it.
Yeah to be honest I could barely tell you much of anything about the story in either game. I think that was consistently the weakest part of these titles so I can definitely understand someone bouncing off this one if that's an important factor for you. I did think they did a great job with the world though as far as making distinctly different areas despite the whole game basically taking place on top of a snowy mountain.
I'll have to disagree here, especially concerning the break of flow, because that Kiteszh section in the game definetly breaks it.
Lara is on an urgent quest to get to the Divine Source before Trinity blasts through the ice cap and beats her to it, yet you're forced into a yet another semi-open world playground.
Sure, you can just follow the main quest, get to each trebuchet, bring down the gates and continue that way, but to me, and many other people, Tomb Raider is hugely about exploration, so we're primed to explore every nook and cranny of the area, find as many documents, collectibles as we can, do the ''optional tomb raiding'' etc. So eventually you start to feel bogged down in this area and the sense of the story's urgency has come at odds with itself.
A counter argument could be "just leave it for post-game", but that pretty much confirms the problem of the game's design and it's compatibility, or lack thereof, with the story it's trying to tell. I want to experience as much as i can as i progress through the game's main campaign, not post.
However this issue isnt unique to Rise of the TR, 2013 reboot had this problem aswell, and one could argue Shadow of the TR fairs even worse in this regard. Overall i dont think this semi open-world approach was that intuitive in this trilogy, there was too much filler. I liked Tomb Raider more when it was more linear and focused.
Hey thanks for the thoughtful comment. I think the point here is that you're not forced into a semi-open world playground, and in fact can treat it as a linear section of the game if you want to. If you're feeling bogged down by this area, it's your choice to let it go and move on. I agree though that you're taught and incentivized to not do this and instead spend some time exploring, so I can understand the dilemma there. This is an issue with a lot of games where players are given more and more things to do and find even when it might not be in their best interest.
I tend to be the type of player who does the nook and crannying at the beginning of the game but will gradually taper off that approach as things go on, so by the end of the game a lot of those things just don't interest me anymore. Because of that, this design feels like a pretty solid compromise between the different types of players who want one or the other and it works well throughout the course of this game.