Saturday Morning Gaming: Handholding Theory in Video Games

After playing Elden Ring for a week, I wanted to play God of War (2018) again in preparation for God of War: Ragnarok.

Lemme tell ya, there are two *EXCEPTIONALLY* different philosophies for the game and jumping from the one to the other gave me whiplash.

As I said last week: Holy cow! Compared to Elden Ring, this game is on rails! And there’s so much exposition! They come out and just tell you stuff!

Dear friend Fish asked: Is it “Elden Ring has ruined the experience” or more “thank the gods they’re actually TELLING ME what I need to do!”

And that made me try to put a finer point on it:

It’s more that I’m noticing how very little Elden Ring holds your hand and how very much God of War does.

You want to look at something? Tough noogies, the guy is giving a speech and you’re going to listen to it.

The map in Elden Ring doesn’t tell you a whole lot. Mostly where you’ve been. The map in God of War? It will tell you how many side quests you’ve left unfinished, how many collection quests remain, and how many of the little things you’re supposed to be collecting you’ve missed. You know whether or not you’ve 100%ed an area.

There is none of this “wait, there was a mine under the bridge behind the bushes? And it had a talisman that would help protect me against flame? AND THE GAME WOULD ONLY LET ME KNOW IF I DID STUFF LIKE GO BEHIND THE BUSHES UNDER THE BRIDGE?!?!?

Lemme give a gameplay example:

In Elden Ring, you will drop off a ledge to land on the ground below and if the drop is too high, you will die. There are areas devoted to you doing some light platforming and, if you miss your jump, you get to start over!

In God of War, they clearly mark where you are supposed to be dropping down. No, you don’t get to drop down somewhere else. You get to drop down HERE or else you get to keep walkin’.

Some of the puzzles are designed around how to get to the other side of a room when, if you could drop down at will, you’d have solved the puzzle in seconds!

Not bad, just different.

This was while I was still playing GoW (2018) and I pretty much stand by that. The game has the philosophy that Kratos is passionate but not overly stupid and so he just wouldn’t drop down over a cliff that would end up killing him. If Kratos is going to die by jumping over a cliff, it’ll be because he deliberately *CHOOSES* to jump off of a cliff. None of this “I pressed the wrong direction on the joystick” dying.

At one point in God of War (2018), you find a horn. Atreus asks if you can blow it. You explain “no” because you don’t know what it does. Atreus complains about how you guys run around pulling levers and pushing buttons all wily-nily. But the horn does not blow until the game says “okay, *NOW* you can blow the horn.”

Elden Ring? That game would have let you blow the horn. And if somebody shows up that you’re not ready for? Well, maybe you should have learned what the horn did before you blew it. NO WE’RE NOT GOING TO TELL YOU WHERE TO LOOK TO FIND OUT MORE ABOUT IT

I suppose that if I were to make a comparison between RPGs it would be between a game that gives you regular choices early on in the game and a game that offers only the illusion of choice.

A good example of the former would be Fallout: New Vegas. You have the option of joining up with 3 different factions (and a 4th option of chosing “none of the above”) and that will seriously impact how you play the game. Do you believe in the NCR? Do you believe in Caesar’s Legion? Do you believe in Mr. House? None of the above? Seriously, if you have a different answer for each of those, that’ll change how you react to the various quests in the game. It’ll change how your followers interact with you. And there’s even a “secret double agent” way to play that will allow you to stab your current faction in the back and jump to another one. (It can get pretty convoluted.)

While the Telltale games have a pretty solid way to give you the illusion of choice. Meet a guy. A powerful guy. A *CORRUPT* powerful guy. He extends his hand. Do you shake it? He makes you an offer. Do you take it? He explains his relationship to your parents. Do you believe him?

Well, he gets shot dead at the end of the chapter. Every single choice the game offered you was pretty much worthless except that it changed how you *FELT* when you saw the corrupt guy catch a bullet.

Well, when it comes to Elden Ring vs. God of War, they both have an overarching storyline where you’re going to start at Point A and wander towards Point B and die multiple times on the way there. The difference is that Elden Ring lets you (makes you) discover the story as you wander from your starting point to finding out that you should have used a walkthrough and God of War comes out and says “okay, go left” and then it gives you a cutscene explaining the world.

The narrative for Elden Ring emerges. Like, you open a chest and it’s a teleport trap and you find yourself in a mine in a place approximately one jillion miles away from the furthest you’ve thus far wandered, the story hits you and tells you “now you’ve got to make it to a safe spot”. God of War, by comparison, will have a cut scene. “WE’RE TELEPORTING!” “WHERE ARE WE GOING?” “FAR AWAY BROTHER!” and you land in a new place “Where are we?” “We’re back in Unobtainiheim!”

Well, in Ragnarok, it’s even worse. Every section has a running commentary from your companions. “Maybe try the lift!”, the game will prompt you after 5 seconds of not trying the lift. “We need to freeze that water!”, your companion will say as you exit the boat. The game may have puzzles but, don’t worry, it’ll explain them to you before you have a chance to walk around and look at them yourself.

The story? The story is pretty good (but it feels rushed) AND NOW WE’RE GOING TO GET INTO SPOILERS FOR GOD OF WAR (2018) AND GOD OF WAR: RAGNAROK! HIT THE BACK BUTTON IF YOU DON’T WANT TO SEE THEM!

At the beginning of God of War: Ragnarok, Freya shows up and she expresses displeasure at how you are still not dead. Part of the tutorial for the game is getting away from Freya. Fair enough. She was exceptionally good to you in God of War (2018) and you repaid her kindness with violence against the one person she begged you not to fight. Shortly thereafter, Atreus has a much beloved pet die in his arms. “This is BS”, I thought. “They’re cheating.” *THEN*, after some light exploration, they have you meet Thor. AND THEN THEY HAVE YOU MEET ODIN.

God of War (2018) mentioned Thor and Odin a *LOT*. Like, a lot a lot. Much of the stories told as you were taking the boat from this place to that place involved Thor or Odin and sometimes both. They never showed them to you. You never met them. They were total mysteries and then, in Ragnarok, they fling them at you before the end of the first chapter. The pacing is gone, the exploration hasn’t even really started, and, suddenly, you’re meeting characters that you spent the last game wondering if you’d ever meet.

Welp. Here they are. You don’t even have to work for it.

And I suppose that that is the difference between the philosophies of the two games. Elden Ring says “you pretty much have to work for everything… whether it’s through exploration including the caves under the bridges or whether it’s through googling a walkthrough…” and God of War says “we’ll bring it to you, don’t worry about it. Here’s an *AWESOME* cutscene.”

And… yeah. The cutscene is amazing.

But I can’t help but notice that I didn’t have to work for it.

So… what are you playing?

(Featured image is THE PUNISHMENT OF SISYPHUS, photo taken of a Greek Vase in the collection of Staatliche Antikensammlungen, Munich)