Bosses at EA Games are looking ahead and reveal that future games from the studio could be directly influenced by player interactions through the use of fan theories. Everyone remembers the sometimes ridiculous fan theories from ABC’s TV show Lost, but just imagine if the creators had listened to the fans and actually brought them to life on the series.
Although the gaming industry continues to move into bigger and more ambitious games, many titles are yet to fully embrace the nature of open-world gaming. This year’s God of War and upcoming titles like Insomniac’s Spider-Man, Red Dead Redemption 2, and Fallout 76 look to be some of the biggest games ever, but there is still a sense that players are stuck with a linear storyline.
Speaking to Polygon, EA’s Motive Studios founder Jade Raymond revealed how developers are only just beginning to scratch the surface of next-gen gaming. Addressing the popularity of fan theories, Raymond said that upcoming EA titles could be directly impacted by the buzz created by players themselves:
She went on to use Game of Thrones as an example, imagining a gaming world where the most popular characters could be killed off at any moment thanks to the way fans interact with the world:
“There’s always all the fan pages [speculating about] what’s really going on, what’s really happening, right? How do you create enough different layers of possibility, but still leave the blanks there, where you can kind of, in some cases, based on what players are doing, just do the most shocking thing. But in other times, kind of let the most popular idea win. So maybe if there’s passion for, and this has nothing to do with our game, but just as an example, aliens [appear], why not go with that and let the community have a baby win, and hey you guys were right, it was aliens and [the players] sort of co-write in some ways.”
Although there have been fan theories on how the likes of Thor and Odin could come into play in God of War 5, the relatively limited nature of a game’s story mode doesn’t allow time for speculation or creating an ongoing story arc. That being said, Rocksteady’s Arkham games were littered with Easter eggs to set up future games, so perhaps EA could expand those sorts of ideas into a collaborative storytelling experience?
“Let’s say you have a traditional faction system and let’s say players are really gravitating towards this one family, and they’re the most beloved. If you really want to shock the community the most, those are the ones you plug in to kill off — based on who players are really interacting with.”
EA is currently busy working on its own open-world Star Wars game, but there is still no news on Motive Studios’ mysterious new franchise. While E3 2018 may have seemed like the perfect time to announce the cryptic project, Raymond is currently keeping her cards close to her chest. Whether Motive’s “new” game will employ any of the above mechanics remains to be seen, but at least the ideas are there.
Fan theories have become a big deal with shows like Thrones, The Walking Dead, and Westworld being helped and hindered by them in equal measure. While Westworld execs have spoken out about how fan theories have ruined some of the show’s biggest surprises, there’s no denying that they have also given some great publicity to the HBO series. In contrast, the world of video games is yet to tap into the hype of fan theories (for now). It certainly sounds like EA could be one of the first publishers to break the mold and raise the bar when it comes to a more immersive way of connecting players to their game.
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Source: Polygon
