Large-scale open-world or open-zone RPGs are meant to give you freedom. Freedom to do things how you want, to tackle things in (mostly) whatever order you like. Or even skip a load of stuff if you just want to mainline the story. They offer different ways to complete objectives, sides to take, and difficult choices to make.
But I seem to be developing a habit of delaying the story as much as possible in case I miss something in case there is some hidden thing that’s really cool. I have this feeling of wanting to get the perfect playthrough where I don’t miss a single interesting thing. It’s happened with Baldur’s Gate 3 and that’s partly why, even after 180 hours I haven’t finished my playthrough. And it has been happening a bit with Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2.
In the case of BG3, I’m now in the final stages of the game, wrapping up the individual stories of my companions – some of which I have already finished. But there is still this feeling that if I continue with the main quest, I’m going to miss something and get the ‘wrong’ ending that I want. I’m not even sure what ending I’m working towards or how many versions there are. However, I still want to make sure I have the right one for me. With each act I scoured the zones making sure to complete as many quests as possible, being sure not to miss things I’d heard about. Having said that, I know that I have missed things, but I have tried to do as much as I can.
One of the problems I have is that when faced with a decision that will impact the direction the story might go, I want to try and get it right or the right outcome as I see it. Multiple times during my playthrough of BG3 I would reload parts so I could redo conversations if I felt like I wasn’t satisfied with the outcome. At times I would even look up what the result might be for choosing option A or B and decide which one sounded better for my playthrough. It’s a weird feeling of not wanting to make the wrong decision even though there aren’t meant to be any wrong decisions. RPGs are meant to be about immersing yourself in the role you have chosen and rolling with the punches. Not having a 2 nd try if you fail a speech check.
I think part of the reason for this is, I know that I don’t tend to replay video games very often. Meaning, I know that when I’ve finished BG3 it will likely be a very long time until I even consider playing it again. After all, Mass Effect was one of my favourite ever video game series, but I’ve only ever played through it once. The chances of diving back into BG3 are remote.
I’ve noticed that the same mentality has crept into parts of KCD2 as well. A few times I wanted to make sure I don’t miss something early on or make the wrong choice that has an unforeseen outcome. This isn’t helped by the plethora of videos pumped out by gaming channels that tell you how to get ‘the perfect start’ or ‘don’t miss these important early things’ or ‘how to get started’. I don’t tend to watch them, because of spoilers… But the temptation has got the better of me at times. I don’t really want to watch them, but at the same time there’s a small part of me saying “What if you miss something super important or really cool”. I annoy myself with it. At times a video game might not even be out yet and we start to see these click-baity titles telling you how to play the game or what you mustn’t miss.
I’ve been trying not to worry too much about it with KCD2 and I think the fact that I’ve not installed the mod allowing you to save anytime has definitely helped. Because sometimes if I think something could’ve gone differently, it might be half an hours gameplay I have to redo and I just can’t be bothered with that. Weirdly I didn’t really like this feature in the first game. But with the sequel I do think it’s definitely making me just carryon regardless of the outcome or if there’s some quest I might’ve missed.
This quest for the perfect playthrough and to tick off everything major has hindered me when playing some video games. It seems like the more choice you have the more I worry about missing something. That being said, I am trying to break that cycle and just enjoy the ride no matter how wrong it may go.
-Will
Interesting take, I remember when ME and DAO came out one of my close friends and I agreed a general principle of the first play through without spoilers or being forewarned being the ‘authentic experience’ and the one we would carry over into the sequels. Kinda made it more fascinating to try and make the ‘best’ choices but living with the consequences of the actions.
I annoy myself doing it, but I’m trying to just go with the flow as much as possible with KCD2. I don’t remember doing it when I played games like ME in the past though. So not really sure when I started to happen…