In the past I’ve talked about how much fun it can be to follow a long running series of games. It can be a truly magical experience sticking with a series for years and years, watching the game’s story and characters grow before hopefully hitting a satisfying end. However, something that has become a bit of a trend in gaming last generation into this one has been long running single games. Games that are continuously supported instead of simply making a sequel. These games are generally referred to as live service games and while they have existed for ages with games like World of Warcraft, they only started really becoming a wide spread thing during the PS4 generation and have continued since. As I was saying before, live service games are meant to exist and grow for years with content being constantly added. And while that can be both a positive and negative depending on how the developer of the game goes about it, I want to talk about how supporting a single game for so long can have a lot of joys and a lot of woes at the same time.

Let’s start things off with talking about the woes! I’ve only kind of recently gotten into playing some live service games so while I understand the joys, I am more familiar with the woes. The main problem that comes with adding on new content to something so long running is the fact that while it can get more people looking at your game it can also get lots of people to turn away from it that much more before even considering getting into said game for that new content. Let me explain a bit since this does depend heavily on the game in question that you are adding to.

For some games, adding new content will very easily draw more people in. This is the case with fighting games in particular. Adding in new characters is always a great way to draw in new players or players that have dropped the game. A new character can change a lot of things up with a play style unique to them that might speak to players that didn’t enjoy the rest of the cast. A new character that has a flashy design can also draw in lots of new players who just like the look of the character compared to the rest of the cast as well or they weren’t even aware of the game before since none of the other characters shown caught their eyes. It’s a shallow reason but it’s also a reason I’m guilty of personally so I can’t say it’s not a good tactic! The reason why this works so well for a fighting game is because it isn’t hard for a new player to get into the game. To play that new character that drew them to the game to begin with all they have to do is get the game and the character. No long story mode or anything to work through, no leveling up your character to make sure they can experience that content without having to grind for hours. The ease of getting to the content that got them to take notice of the game is the biggest factor here. Beyond buying the game there’s basically no hoops to jump through! But the same cannot be said about certain other long running games, namely MMOs.

MMOs, or Massive Multiplayer Online games, have to be where this woe hits the hardest. Seeing a super cool new expansion for something like Final Fantasy XIV can be rough for someone who’s never player the game. This is because you will generally have to play multiple hours of an MMO that you had no interest in before this expansion, grinding for levels and gear so you’re good enough to finally play the one part of the game that actually drew you in. While I’m sure this isn’t too bad for some people, especially if they end up enjoying said MMO, it can be a deal breaker for someone like me who will just turn away from the expansion altogether. Because all I can see is that grinding, those hours I need to play just to get to that one bit of content that actually interests me. And while some MMOs will offer boosters that instantly give you the levels you need to play this content along with some gear, that can also have problems too. Namely the fact that if I just jumped into a game like Final Fantasy XIV and skipped all those levels, I’m going to have no idea how to suddenly play this super powerful character. I’ll have no idea how any of my attacks work or how to properly use them. And I certainly won’t have any idea of what’s going on in the story! Which is an aspect of Final Fantasy XIV fans seem to really enjoy. This ends up making it feel like these big expansions are just for the current players or ones that dropped the game recently. And while that isn’t exactly a bad thing, it really makes it hard for someone like me to even fathom getting into the game. It would be much easier for me to jump into a sequel rather than trying to get through all this content.

This problem isn’t exclusive to just MMOs though, it can very much affect games without long story lines or lots of grinding. Games like one I have some actual experience playing. That game being Dead by Daylight.

I’ve talked about it before but here’s just a quick run down of how Dead by Daylight works. It’s an asymmetrical multiplayer horror game where four players are Survivors trying to escape by repairing generators located around a map and one player is the Killer trying to stop them from doing that. The way the game has continued to grow for the seven years it’s existed is by adding in new Survivors and Killers as well as new maps and some game play elements. The new game play elements generally come in the form of new perks. Survivors and Killers can equip four perks each that can drastically change up their play style. That being said, Survivors are generally all the same. The only difference between them is their looks and perks, and that really means the only difference between them is their looks since Survivors can share perks between each other. Every Survivor can use every kind of Survivor perk. The same goes for Killers too, they can share perks between each other, but the big difference for Killers is that they are all unique with how you play them as each have their own powers and abilities. For example, the Trapper has bear traps he can place on the ground to hopefully catch Survivors in while the Wraith can turn invisible to move more quickly before becoming visible again to attack Survivors. Both can use the exact same perks, like a perk that allows you to break down doors faster or another one that has the game tell you when two or more Survivors are working on repairing a generator together, but they will always be different when it comes to their powers. And this is where Dead by Daylight runs in to it’s problem of adding new content. The Killers are only getting more complex.

As you add new things to any game, you obviously want them to get more complex and detailed. After all, if things stayed the same it would get boring for players who have stuck around for so long. Dead by Daylight is the first live service game I’ve ever really gotten into. It’s the only one I consistently come back to when I’m either bored and have nothing else to play or when a new update comes out. With those updates being new Killers or Survivors, and more often than not both. And while these updates don’t make it nearly as hard to jump into for new comers as updates for an MMO do, it can still be tough when it comes to new Killers especially now that there are so many of them. As I was saying before, new Killers tend to be more complex than the last adding in new gimmicks and ways to play. This can make it difficult for new players trying out Survivor as they have to try and learn how to play against each Killer on the fly. I experienced this myself but I really got to see how tough this can be when playing with my friends Matt and Ray. With so many unique Killers it can be really frustrating when you just start learning how to deal with one only to go up against a completely new Killer that basically has you learning to play an all new game. And again, this isn’t nearly as hard as playing through an entire MMO, all you have to do in this instance is just play enough to recognize what to do against each Killer, but it can be pretty daunting to know you have to learn how to play against 34 Killers! Meaning if you miss a few updates, you’ll suddenly be juggling trying to learn how to deal with all these new Killers and gimmicks when you just want to get back into the game smoothly.

However, while Dead by Daylight showed me how continuously adding content can make it rough for new players to jump in, compared to just making something like Dead by Daylight 2, it also showed me how great and fun all this content can be for players that stick with it!

Dead by Daylight has gotten to the point that it is so much more complex than it originally was at launch, as I was saying before, but that doesn’t have to be a bad thing! Getting to experience a game evolve and grow over time is honestly pretty awesome, and more importantly, pretty fun! While each new Killer makes the game more complex it also makes the game that much more fresh. As someone who plays both Survivor and Killer, I’m always excited when a new Killer is announced. I get to look forward to seeing how it is to play against them, what interesting strategies will be needed to survive against them, and I get to be excited about actually playing them too, getting to see what makes them so unique compared to the rest of the Killers. Chucky for instance has been a lot of fun to play as and against. It does help that he feels like one of the most balanced Killers in ages, but still!

These kinds of content updates can breath a lot of new life into these kinds of games. Like I was saying for new characters in a fighting game! And just like how these updates make it much harder for new players to jump into an MMO compared to something like Dead by Daylight, they also can be that much more exciting for players who have stuck with said MMO for so long.

I can only imagine how cool it must feel to have played an MMO for years with just a single character. That character would have been through so much, experienced so much! The attachment to that character, and by extension that MMO, is something you can’t get with most traditional games. While you can very much get attached to characters in long running series like Solid Snake in Metal Gear and Kiryu in Yakuza, it’s a very different kind of attachment to a character you made and grew for months or even years! At that point they are basically an extension of yourself. Not only that, just think about the connection you can form with other people in these games. That’s kind of the big draw of guilds in games like Final Fantasy XIV and World of Warcraft. And it’s this kind of experience that can really only come from when a single game last this long. Sure you could argue that playing every sequel to a big multiplayer game would have the same result but I don’t think that’s the case. By having one game last this long, it feels far more like one shared experience. Especially when you’d most likely have to start over with a new character each time a sequel came out. With these kinds of MMOs, you don’t have to do that. You can continue to play as that very first character you made years ago. You can’t get that with a sequel.

All of this is why it’s hard to argue being for or against these long last games. At least in terms of getting more content over just making a sequel or something. There are lots of joys and woes that come from making a game like this. Originally I would very much have scoffed at the fact that a game like Final Fantasy XIV, that has been going on for more than 10 years now, is still getting content over a sequel. While I can’t imagine ever getting into the game myself knowing there is so much content to get through, and especially if I was just wanting to play the newest expansion, I can’t bring myself to scoff at the fact that is has existed for this long and continues to do so. Dead by Daylight showed me the value there is in sticking with games like this and supporting them so that they can grow more and more. Experiencing that evolution is like nothing else in gaming. And I wasn’t even there for the start of Dead by Daylight either! I can only imagine what playing the base version of the game compared to what it is now is like.

So while it can be very understandably terrifying to think about jumping into a game that has been going on for years, I’d still say give it a go. It’ll be a struggle for sure, but if you’re really that interested in the game it’ll be worth it. Not only that, better to get in now before it grows even more! If a game has made it as far as Final Fantasy XIV and Dead by Daylight it probably won’t be stopping any time soon. And most importantly, you’ll get to experience that growth of the game. Which is honestly the most fun part of these kinds of games…

But those are just my thoughts, what are some of yours? Do you play any long running games? If not, what’s holding you back from giving one a go? I’d love to hear your thoughts so don’t be shy!

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