Will Halo Reach keep it clean?

I’ve been finding a lot of games rather less fulfilling lately, and embarked on a period of soul-searching in order to figure out why.

Perhaps as I get older, I thought, I view the hours spent gaming not as an amusing way to pass the time, but as time wasted as I edge towards my demise. Maybe I have begun to consider each unlocked Achievement less as a badge of honour, more of a Real Life opportunity missed. If I gathered up all of the hours spend gaming over my life and dedicated them to education and experience, how many languages would I speak? How many musical instruments would I play? How many people would I have met who might have influenced and enriched my life?

Then I realised it’s none of that foolishness. It’s simply because game-making folk are relying on unlockables instead of gameplay in order to keep people playing.

RPGs started the ball rolling. Gaining XP, levelling up and unlocking new items and abilities make people feel as though they’re moving forward and making progress. But in a single-player RPG, you’re still heading towards completion of the game. The end is always in sight.

Enter the MMORPG. Enter World of Warcraft. While not the first game to use this method, nothing has done it so successfully before. No one reading this needs to be told about the this game’s reputation for pulling people in and keeping them there. What keeps people online is the promise of progression. But while levelling up has always been the core of the RPG experience, it has now become a staple in many more genres, particularly when it comes to online gaming. Why? Because it works. It keeps people playing.

The example leaping to most minds here will be the Modern Warfare games. CoD4 was, and still is, rather good. The maps were well designed, weapons were balanced and it was fun to play. And players knew that when the yellow bar at the bottom of the screen filled up they would advance a rank. Perhaps a new weapon or enhancement would become available.

Following the success of this, Modern Warfare 2 was positively bloated with unlockables. Lots of perks, dozens of weapons and hundreds of callsigns became available to those who would put in the hours. Most people agreed that the maps, although more detailed, were flawed. Weapons were imbalanced and gameplay just became tedious more quickly.

And yet people are still blistering their thumbs to get the last few ranks and callsigns. Unlockables have become the crystal meth of the gaming industry. The design itself can be sloppy, the gameplay dull and imbalanced, but your customers will keep coming back for that next hit. How many people can honestly say that they would have continued to play games like Modern Warfare 2 and Bad Company 2 if all of the content was available from square one? Is it the fun of playing that keeps you coming back for more? Or is it the buzz you get from big thumping “You’ve been promoted” noises and the clack-clunk-click of your newly unlocked machine gun being cocked and loaded?

One notable exception thus far is Halo. So far, online gamers have had all weapons available to the from the outset, and I hope Halo:Reach keeps it that way. The games have plenty of longevity in single player, co-op and online, and they do it with good gameplay and design, not by using drug-pusher tactics. Sure, there will be a few helmets and whatnot to gain, but I don’t want to have to spend hundreds of  hours of my life just so I can access all of the content on the disc. Keep it old fashioned, Bungie; I like your style.

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