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All of The Darkness II is like that. It jumps from action-packed-event-to-action-packed event, rarely bothering to take a meaningful breather. I never got a chance to settle into the world or feel like I was part of something larger because, before the game was even done setting up its pins, it was already screaming at me to knock them down. And then the credits rolled after about five hours, and I looked back and realized that I had no idea how many in-game days or weeks had passed over the course of that story. The whole experience was disjointed and choppy, dashing madly for the finish line and blatantly ignoring my desire to stop and smell the roses.
The Darkness II is hardly the only game that deserves to do time for its crimes against time, though. Skyrim, for instance, bases its entire existence on the idea that you'll eat, sleep, and breathe it for days or even months – probably at the slowly fatal expense of eating, sleeping, and breathing. And yet, even as in-game years fly by, nothing changes. Seasons stagnate, cities neither rise nor fall, and the world's inhabitants may as well be starring in Groundhog Day. It's jarring, to say the least – less like a living world and more like the occasionally writhing corpse of one.
And I'm only singling out Skyrim because it's a recent and relatable example. Truth be told, I can count the games that put detail into the passage of time on a single hand, and one of them's a farming simulator. And that's a damn shame, because the few who've opted to buck this industry-wide trend have given gaming some of its most memorable moments and worlds.
Mafia II, for example, may not take home an Originality Award for its plot and characters, but its world was a brilliant slice of 1940s nostalgia. So – given that the game's sort of called Mafia – you commit some crimes, get your hands a little too dirty, and wind up behind bars. Until 1951. When you finally emerge, the world's a different place. Car models, music, fashion – nothing's the same. It reminded me a bit of Shawshank Redemption, but less horrifically depressing. More importantly, though, it filtered old-timey Chicago through a brand new lens, lending it an entirely different personality.
Then there's Dragon Age II, which – in spite of all its flaws – did an excellent job of conveying changes in culture, race relations, and politics over the course of roughly a decade. Sure, the structure of Kirkwall – and, in many cases, people's freaking clothes – remained largely unchanged, but DAII still deserves credit for tackling social issues in a believable manner, both by way of interesting allegories (Mages vs Chantry echoes battles for both gay rights and racial equality, for instance) and marked change over time. And while the player wasn't exactly the catalyst for a lot of that change, other games – like Microsoft's Fable franchise – have used the passage of time to demonstrate the direct consequences of your choices.
And finally, let's not forget To The Moon. It narrowed its focus down to two people but widened its net to fit an entire lifetime. It also made me cry.
Most games, however, seem content to leave this rich vein of potential quite a bit more than six feet under. Whether it's thanks to a torrid love affair with constant Hollywood-style scene cuts or sheer, willful ignorance of time's ability to alter anything other than the little numbers on the calendar, games constantly leave time out of the equation. Unless every game developer on earth is secretly Han Solo frozen in carbonite, there's simply no excuse for this. Everyone ever in the history of history has experienced time. And the above examples barely even scratch the surface of its potent possibilities within games. So let's stop wasting time. Standing still is boring. Let's move forward.
Comments are closed on this article
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February 29, 2012 at 8:51pm
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February 28, 2012 at 8:16am
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FKSSR
February 24, 2012 at 1:13pm
Great article, though I think that there are substitutes for time. I'm finally getting around to Metro 2033 right now, and while I have not spent a considerable amount of time in the world or with the people, I do feel a connection. This is partly due to the slower pacing, but it's also due to the characters that are largely believable and the world that seems to be living around me. I have not seen any changes to the world yet, but I am given a sense of how it has changed before through the characters and narrative voice-overs.
bling581
February 24, 2012 at 10:38am
"Skyrim, for instance, bases its entire existence on the idea that you'll eat, sleep, and breathe it for days or even months – probably at the slowly fatal expense of eating, sleeping, and breathing. And yet, even as in-game years fly by, nothing changes. Seasons stagnate, cities neither rise nor fall, and the world's inhabitants may as well be starring in Groundhog Day. It's jarring, to say the least – less like a living world and more like the occasionally writhing corpse of one."
Unless you ramp up the time ratio I have a hard time believing that you've played Skyrim long enough for more than a few years to go by. What do you expect to see change in that short amount of time? Believe it or not there are some events that occur in the game that are based around certain dates such as holidays and other events. The Elder Scroll games may lack apparent change in the average game day, but each game represents different periods of time on a larger scale. Could they have done both? Yeah, but I find that lore is more important to the game experience then being able to visual see change as the days go by.
t.y.wan
February 24, 2012 at 12:19pm
Like the time when someone killed a dragon in the middle of a city, or assassinated a person in the middle of city square...
Yet, people walks by everyday for "game time" months, like a dead insect.The wait function is really wtf... they must have known people hated to wait 30secs at a time just for some dude to show up at the right time, ingredients to respawn... Vendors to replenish products from their asses and maybe gold as well (like in fallout3 and New Vegas).
bling581
February 27, 2012 at 10:51am
"Like the time when someone killed a dragon in the middle of a city, or assassinated a person in the middle of city square...
Yet, people walks by everyday for "game time" months, like a dead insect."Perhaps that's a bug? The dragon corpses always despawn for me.
Yeah, I agree that the waiting is tedious, but what else would you suggest? They have to manage time somehow. If you're trying to make several days go by instead of a few hours try using the console codes. You can change the timescale as much as you want. Set it at 1 for real time, or make it 1,000,000 and watch months fly by in a matter of seconds.
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February 27, 2012 at 9:51pm
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CatherineMcClarey
February 23, 2012 at 2:56pm
Tunnels & Trolls: Crusaders of Khazan (New World Computing, 1990) did pay some attention to the calendar: your party couldn't buy food on one day each week ("Fastday"), and one of the 2 weapons which could kill the main boss in the game (Leotra'ah) could only be used during a specific 5-day period at the end of each game year. King of Dragon Pass (A-Sharp, 1999 (Windows/Mac), 2011 (iOS) does have characters growing up, aging and dying over the course of the game, as well as definite seasonal restrictions on what activites can be done when. Sid Meier's Civilization series, however, is the one game I've played myself where the whole look of the game environment changes over time, as learning certain technologies propels your civilization into the next era.
Ghok
February 24, 2012 at 12:21am
I remember when I first got Grand Theft Auto 4 and was really into it, I'd come home, make dinner, then sit in front of Niko Bellic's TV and watch it while I ate. Then I'd go drive around and do missions for a few hours.
