Early access is something of a boon to games these days. It allows a potential buyer to see how finished a product is, help support the ongoing development of a studio, and provide vital feedback as a game’s bugs are slowly ironed out. It’s also a quick way to build hype— having a playable vertical slice of your game is guaranteed to get people talking about it, even if it’s only a few levels or the first act. Unfortunately, some take it too far.

Early access is great when the game is nonlinear— when there’s a lot of systems and the play experience can be different each time, or even when the moment to moment gameplay is varied inside the overarching narrative (we in the biz call these “micronarrative” and “macronarrative”)— but what about when there’s a set beginning, middle, and end? What happens when the story is the main part of the game and doesn’t tend to vary between playthroughs? There are plenty of games that do this (Scarlet Hollow, which tries to claim that the game is so long and branching that you’ll experience maybe eighteen percent on a complete playthrough, and Midnight Special, a horror point-and-click adventure that’s released recently in early access), which essentially ruin the story by getting people to play through it multiple times unfinished.

We’re already in an era where people are getting tired of playing through linear story games multiple times with marginal changes. Silent Hill f had its players play through the game twice to get the full story, only for a number of them to give up before New Game + because the story hadn’t changed that dramatically between their playthroughs. A lot of gamers are running low on free time these days, meaning they’re unsure if they’ll finish a game once, let alone multiple times. Add to this that a lot of narrative games run on discovery and surprise (especially horror games) and if you’ve already played the unfinished version with all the twists, chances are you’re not going to come back for the full version to experience the same twists but without the shock and discovery.

That isn’t to say there’s a perfect solution, as adventure games, narrative games, and yes, even horror games are among the batch that need the most attention and funding to be fully realized. It also means bad writing can be fixed quickly rather than facing a backlash at release. There are some positive points to fine-tuning a story as it goes.

It’s just also a severe handicap to the players who have paid money for a game they’ve now already played more than once, with a story that doesn’t change dramatically, that now just sits in their library. The possibility that perhaps better funding for indie games is a thing that should happen might fix this, but as of right now, unfortunately, there doesn’t seem to be an easy solution.

What do you think? Is early access a good idea for narrative games to work out the kinks, or should they play their cards closer to their chest and let players experience the story as a whole? Let us know in the comments, and on our Discord server! And as always, thanks for reading and hope you stick around.

The Boss Rush Podcast: The Flagship Podcast of Boss Rush Media and the Boss Rush Network

The Boss Rush Podcast – The Boss Rush Podcast is the flagship podcast of Boss Rush Media and the Boss Rush Network. Each week, Corey, Stephanie, LeRon, and their friends from around the internet come together with other creators, developers, and industry veterans to talk about games they’ve been playing, discuss video game and entertainment based topics, and answer questions solicited on social media and the community Discord. 

New episodes of the Boss Rush Podcast release every Monday morning on YouTube and all major podcast applications like Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Patreon supporters gain one week early access. 

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Featured Image: Midnight Special by Scared Stupid, inc