We've all seen them, those generic fetch quests, kills quests, things that for a lot of people and a lot of different reasons tend to drag a game out and ultimately/eventually get skipped by the player with few exceptions.
Lately I've play two games with incredible side quests however. Quests so good that I actually wanted to clear them all out, even if what the quest had me doing was a repeated task I've already seen or done for hours before.
Those two games are: Spider-Man Miles Morales and Yakuza Like a Dragon. Both of these games have incredible side content to do and it all boils down to one key difference that many other games do not have. Great Writing. In Spider-Man quests are given to Miles via a phone app, these little sides missions lead to some great character building moments and city bonding situations between the people of New York and the new Spider-Man. Meanwhile in Yakuza you encounter side quests as you walk around the city, each quest a mostly self contained mini-story that builds on the world around you but also further flushes out the main character to the player.
None of these sides quests have you doing anything super different or interesting. Though in Yakuza a number of them do lead to unique mini games. But they all do a wonderful job of highlighting the importance of writing within any side quest.
This is a problem that not many games tackle very well for whatever reason, either the side quests don't get much development time and are shoehorned into a game simply to flush out the world and make it feel like there is more for the player to do, or an entirely different set of writers do the side stuff while the A-team creates the main arch. But what a lot of developers seems to fail at understanding is that without interesting side content, often times a game feels hollow and short.
We all make fun of Call of Duty games for how short they are, a 4-6 hours campaign at best that usually ends up being nothing to write home about. But what if between main story missions you can other secret Ops you could run to not only flush out the overall story, but also provide yourself rewards in game like special grenades or skins for use in the multiplayer. Then CoD's might be a different experience.
Even The Witcher 3 is a rather short game if you don't bother with any of the side content the game offers. Chugging through the main storyline could see you finished with that massive game in a few hours. But nobody ever realizes that because the side content is so good that people often forget they aren't doing critical path quests.
Another example of side content done poorly is when side content is half assed and strictly filler. Final Fantasy 7 Remake is my GOTY and the most played game I've sunk any real time into this year. However I'll freely admit to the side quests being dogshit. They are poorly written and lazily implimented, however they are very rewarding so the player is almost guilted into doing them which piles onto the bad feeling of shitty fluff that they cause.
Good writing is absolutely critical in all aspects of a game, but I would argue that side content must be even better than the main story in order to make a game feel like it was a full meal rather than a fast food shitburger.
So I wanna know what games you've played that specifically had fantastic side content. What games have the worse? And how do you separate the difference in your minds?
Lately I've play two games with incredible side quests however. Quests so good that I actually wanted to clear them all out, even if what the quest had me doing was a repeated task I've already seen or done for hours before.
Those two games are: Spider-Man Miles Morales and Yakuza Like a Dragon. Both of these games have incredible side content to do and it all boils down to one key difference that many other games do not have. Great Writing. In Spider-Man quests are given to Miles via a phone app, these little sides missions lead to some great character building moments and city bonding situations between the people of New York and the new Spider-Man. Meanwhile in Yakuza you encounter side quests as you walk around the city, each quest a mostly self contained mini-story that builds on the world around you but also further flushes out the main character to the player.
None of these sides quests have you doing anything super different or interesting. Though in Yakuza a number of them do lead to unique mini games. But they all do a wonderful job of highlighting the importance of writing within any side quest.
This is a problem that not many games tackle very well for whatever reason, either the side quests don't get much development time and are shoehorned into a game simply to flush out the world and make it feel like there is more for the player to do, or an entirely different set of writers do the side stuff while the A-team creates the main arch. But what a lot of developers seems to fail at understanding is that without interesting side content, often times a game feels hollow and short.
We all make fun of Call of Duty games for how short they are, a 4-6 hours campaign at best that usually ends up being nothing to write home about. But what if between main story missions you can other secret Ops you could run to not only flush out the overall story, but also provide yourself rewards in game like special grenades or skins for use in the multiplayer. Then CoD's might be a different experience.
Even The Witcher 3 is a rather short game if you don't bother with any of the side content the game offers. Chugging through the main storyline could see you finished with that massive game in a few hours. But nobody ever realizes that because the side content is so good that people often forget they aren't doing critical path quests.
Another example of side content done poorly is when side content is half assed and strictly filler. Final Fantasy 7 Remake is my GOTY and the most played game I've sunk any real time into this year. However I'll freely admit to the side quests being dogshit. They are poorly written and lazily implimented, however they are very rewarding so the player is almost guilted into doing them which piles onto the bad feeling of shitty fluff that they cause.
Good writing is absolutely critical in all aspects of a game, but I would argue that side content must be even better than the main story in order to make a game feel like it was a full meal rather than a fast food shitburger.
So I wanna know what games you've played that specifically had fantastic side content. What games have the worse? And how do you separate the difference in your minds?
