“They poison the minds of players” The director of Fallout New Vegas warns against a very widespread feature, it is “an error” according to him!

Game news “They poison the minds of players” The director of Fallout New Vegas warns against a very widespread feature, it is “an error” according to him!

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Fallout New Vegas director doesn’t like this feature

Unless you are particularly passionate about video games to the point of dissecting the smallest details (or making it your profession), not all players necessarily think about the impact that the different, most basic features can have. of a game. Among them, we find for example the save progress. Long impossible for technical reasons, it has gradually made its way to becoming an absolute essential in the industry. However, even today, not all games use saving in the same way. There are automatic saves, checkpoints, and even of course manual backups to name just a few examples. Recently, however, the creator of Fallout New Vegas created a little controversy by questioning the benefit of manual saves:

Manual backups are a mistake.

They’re the chicken nuggets of video games: they provide some comfort but are bad for you and poison the players’ minds.

Suffice it to say that no one expected such a position from Josh Sawyer which, apart from Pentiment, has implemented manual saves in each of its games. However, even if he does not develop his point of view further than that, we can easily understand it by thinking a little. Whether Fallout: New Vegas or in Pillars of Eternity, Josh Sawyer has long been used to creating role-playing games. And in role-playing games, bad things can happen to you that you didn’t necessarily foresee. With manual saves, simply reload your game a few minutes before, and now you know what to expect and how to avoid it. An abuse which reassures many players, but which prevents them from living with the consequences of their actions and therefore, which prevents them from living the experience desired by the developers.

That of Dishonored neither, but it brings a little nuance

In the comments of Josh Sawyer’s Tweet, many players express their disagreement by recalling that manual saving also allows players to take risks that players would never have taken otherwise. According to some, they would not take advantage of half of the available features if they could not try them with peace of mind knowing that they could go back if something went wrong. A debate which in fact does not date from today, since we already heard about it at the time of the climax of Baldur’s Gate III last year. But among the supporters of Josh Sawyer’s position, we find a certain Raphael Colantonio, father of Dishonored and Prey:

I don’t disagree, but I let the players choose how they want to play. Some people just can’t live without it.

Ultimately, his position is essentially the same as that of Josh Sawyer since he too had left manual saves in his games. Further, he adds that according to him, the abuse of manual saving ruins the gaming experience since it “breaks the difficulty” and developers “do not make games based on the principle that players will reload their game every time they miss a move ”. However, he admits that those who do might simply not play the game if they were prevented from doing so, and that they still manage to enjoy the game even if it is not the way that the developers would have wanted it. An interesting debate which is likely to come up several times in future games, such as for example at the time of the release of Dragon Age: The Veilguard provided that it also allows manual saving.