Repeat

One of the things I'm always fearful of when writing these posts is repeating myself. I know it's definitely happened, everyone repeats their loves, beliefs, and irritations to some degree, but never to the point of copy + pasting entire articles without realizing it. On the flip side to that however, repetition isn't always a sin.

Nine Inch Nails repeated the stylings of their most popular album, The Downward Spiral, for their 2013 release, Hesitation Marks. It captured the albums theme tone in one image. The whole thing is about looking back upon one's life, like entering a crime scene.

I'm not the biggest fan of MGS4. Who was after 2008? But it's repetition in Shadow Moses is one of the sequences that's stuck with people for years. Bringing back things from the past didn't just rekindle nostalgia, it echoed the very real experience of aging, of looking back at something once alive, bristling with life, now decaying in front of your eyes.

But truthfully, I'm not even thinking about this type of repetition.

It's merely one instance.

In a timeline where Max Payne 3's developers were given the John Wick license, I'd not only expect them to repeat that game's combat for John Wick, I'd encourage it. Because shooting is just one part of the experience. You can copy and paste the core-gameplay loop, while still adjusting the visuals, storytelling, progression, and structure to the point where the only thing a John Wick game and Max Payne have in-common, is the shooting.

Titanfall 2 iterated the original in subtle ways, yet the existence of a campaign immediately gave players an experience previously impossible, and the developer further brought an all new experience with the same weapons, engine, and shooting in Apex Legends. One that arguably saved the developer.

The issue with 2012 Need for Speed: Most Wanted isn't that it copied much of the design from Burnout: Paradise, if anything, exploring the world to find all new vehicles was one of its strongest components.

I guess I've been thinking about these things because today, while there's so many niches being satisfied, there's also a lot of games you just don't see very often anymore. Max Payne, Burnout, Mass Effect, for as much as originality might be discussed, there's an awful lot of people who want games like these again, and I believe there's plenty more ways for the core-gameplay of each to be presented in new, exciting ways.