Lightning's world. Too much like a corridor?
Final Fantasy XIII. What should of been Square Enix's first and incredibly successful foray into the next generation systems found itself instead completely bogged down by criticism about the game's linearity, so much so that a lot of critics marked it down, citing that it was far too linear for it's own good.
Linearity. A phrase that, a few years back, wasn't even considered as something to describe a videogame. Can you imagine a reviewer of Crash Bandicoot back in 1996 saying that the game was too linear? No? Me either. Looking back, yes, the game was in fact basically running up or down one straight path, but did that make it any less fun? Again, the answer is no. So why, in modern society, is a linear game considered to be the devil's own evil at work?
I believe the main cause of this problem is a little something called an open-world game. Since the invention of these games, where the game world is incredibly expansive and allows the player freedom to explore it, the word linear has thus become the term of choice for describing games that don't offer this experience. How many times have you read a review for it to some point criticise the linear level design? I, for one, am becoming a tad annoyed with this term. Personally, I don't care if a game has linearity. A game is only as good as the developers behind it: look at recent games such as Final Fantasy XIII and Bioshock 2. Pretty much kept you on one straight path for the majority of the game, but it was still an exceptionally enjoyable thrill ride down the dreaded linear road of doom.
Open Worlds: Big and Barren
You could argue all you want that with the advances in technology we should expect open-world games to become the norm and that linear paths are something that should only be experienced in a by-gotten age. Take, for example, Fallout 3, one of the quintessential open-world RPG's that attained great popularity. I loved Fallout 3 - it was immersive and offered a huge game world with lots to do in. However, at the same time, reflecting back on it I realised that quite a lot of the game world was in fact quite empty, just dunes, random wandering enemies and the occasional barren tree.
Open World Shall Prevail. Resistance is Futile.
Linear pathways in games aren't there to keep the player limited, they are used by developers as tools to tell a much more compact story that encourages the reader to become interactive and be completely engaged by the plot. Square Enix director Motomu Toriyama has went on record saying the following about Final Fantasy XIII:
"In order to allow the player to become absorbed in the drama of the storytelling and the new and exciting world of Cocoon and be drawn to the characters without getting distracted or lost we have deliberately used a linear game design for the introduction sections so they can be enjoyed in the same manner as watching a film[/font]."
Sure, the game offered little in the way of exploration until the second half, but I still loved it and the story stuck with me much more. In contrast, Final Fantasy XII, which was incredibly open-world, I can't even recall what the plot was about, and I invested hundreds of hours into the gameplay. As Motomu said, they made the gameplay more linear for exactly this reason, they wanted Final Fantasy XIII to be more character and story driven and by the game's end I felt that all the characters were fully fleshed out with deep personalities.
Closing Thoughts
Linear, to me, isn't necessarily a bad thing. In fact, many of my favourites games over the past few years would nowadays be criticised of having linearity to the highest degree. I hope that through this blog several others will also feel this way and not buy into the norm of criticising linearity, instead realising that linear and open-worlds are two very different beasts than in their own way can succeed and should thus not affect how the other is viewed.
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