Half-Life and Quake have chosen completely different paths.
It abandoned the design of maintaining high-speed movement to some extent, and instead incorporated a large number of strategic designs.
Both approaches have their own advantages and disadvantages, and there is no unified paradigm for evaluation.
However, given the current hardware and style, choosing to continue down the path of Quake would not be a problem.
This intense sense of exhilaration and the "arcade feel" brought about by the ultra-fast game pace has always been gamenova's forte.
Just like in " Hotline Miami ".
Therefore, the design of the "plot" part is very particular.
After explaining A's situation to Will, Lin Lixin looked at Hideo Kojima beside him.
What use is a director in a work like this?
Actually, it has quite a significant effect.
When the first Quake was created, Hideo Kojima had just traveled from Japan to this land.
At that time, he had just graduated, had just gone through a low point in his life, and had just managed to become a beggar at Konami. There was really not much he could participate in on this level of project.
Quake, on the other hand, is a highly "geeky" work.
The two programmers, Lin Lixin and Carmack, completely let go and treated it as a technological experiment.
They also brought in a group of computer graphics professionals, including Ben Gorcy.
The entire development process of Quake can almost be seen as the development process of the " Quake engine ".
Therefore, this game has absolutely no "consistency".
You can see things everywhere that are created on a whim.
Sam, wielding the ever-evolving level design tools, let his imagination run wild, while the art outsourcing team drew whatever came to mind.
Lin Lixin and Carmack buried themselves in writing BSP tree binary space partitioning code—things that were purely algorithmic.
The entire project team was neither formal nor unified; they were essentially working independently and without any connection to each other.
Three years later, Gamenova has grown into a behemoth.
A mature industrial system is no longer the small workshop model of the past. The existence of a "general director" like Hideo Kojima can solve this problem very well.
Seeing Lin Lixin give him a look, Kojima immediately understood, nodded slightly, and took the initiative to speak:
"I understand. While Quake is technically remarkable, it lacks a harmonious and unified theme and feels too fragmented."
He adjusted his glasses slightly, glanced around at everyone, and continued...
"This time, we should do what ' Myst ' did: decide on the world first, then design the levels."
Hideo Kojima was not in charge of the Myst project.
Instead, it was entirely the responsibility of three directors: Lin Lixin, Spielberg, and Lucas, along with Infocom, a professional Adventure game studio.
In terms of series composition and style design, the golden duo of Spielberg and Lucas are absolutely unparalleled.
However, although Kojima himself was not involved, he studied many of the ideas in the work in depth.
"First, we define the world; then, we design the levels using a reverse engineering approach."
He was very fond of this design pattern.
How do you design a world that, while fantastical, feels real at first glance—there's so much to learn about it.
Weapons, enemies, and map styles are designed around a specific worldview.
Even the UI is designed to align with the world-building.
In this way, with a clear central theme and setting, everything can be kept consistent.
Only by doing this can you avoid feeling overwhelmed when facing various elements in the game, both between and within different levels.
It's like a work of art made by welding together a bunch of metal parts.
With a work of art that is cut and shaped from a single piece.
The visual effects are absolutely different.
Natural, fluid, unified, and harmonious.
Instead of piecing together materials from various sources.
"That's right."
Lin Lixin gave a knowing smile. After Kojima finished explaining his thoughts, he slowly took over the conversation:
"So... what are your thoughts on the plot of Quake 2?"
Upon hearing this, Kojima's eyes lit up.
Do you have any thoughts of your own?
That would be wonderful.
Even now, he still fondly remembers Metal Gear Solid, one of Gamenova's early titles.
Limited by the capabilities and capacity of the consoles at the time, as well as the nature of arcade games, he felt that there were far too many areas for improvement in that generation of Metal Gear Solid.
However, Lin Lixin kept saying that he needed to wait a little longer and never put the project on the agenda.
I have so many good ideas I want to include, and so many personal psychological projections I want to project onto this great work.
Hideo Kojima pursed his lips and parted them slightly.
However, before he could utter the first word, his expression cooled slightly.
His gaze swept quickly across the crowd, finally settling on Lin Lixin. Their eyes met.
Hideo Kojima gently shook his head.
"What's there to say about the plot?"
"Oh? What do you mean?"
Lin Lixin raised an eyebrow, as if he already had the answer in his mind, and asked Kojima's question in response, looking just like a seasoned old straight man helping to smooth things over.
"I don't think Quake needs a particularly large or complex story."
Sam looked slightly surprised when he heard him say that.
After all, the Kojima's native language is not English, so its people are inherently slightly inferior to these people in terms of accent and expression.
At that moment, Sam heard his words as meaning something like...
" Quake doesn't do justice to my sophisticated story design."
It was almost like a provocation.
It's important to understand that this project was something they had high hopes for. Especially John Carmack, who worked on the precursor to Quake, Quake Wolfenstein 3D, from the very beginning of his time at Gamenova.
For him, this was "the most important work," equivalent to SimCity for Will, Civilization for Sid Meier, and Metal Gear Solid for Hideo Kojima.
Thinking of this, Sam glanced out of the corner of his eye at Carmack, who was sitting opposite him.
Unexpectedly, Carmack showed no anger; instead, his face lit up with surprise, his eyes shining brightly, as if he had found a kindred spirit in a beautiful mountain stream.
"That's absolutely right!"
Sam was just thinking when Carmack exclaimed and slammed his hand on the table, standing up abruptly.
"That's what I think too. Stories in games... are like... like stories in porn—they're supposed to be there, but they're not actually that important!"
Although the words are crude, the principle is sound; however, this particular statement is indeed a bit too crude.
However, this rough analogy is surprisingly apt and vivid.
This is what Carmack was thinking, and what he was pursuing.
Plot?
What a load of rubbish! Everything should give way to gameplay! If he were to choose the "most useless job in the world," it would probably be the guys who translate subtitles for pornographic films.
They actually timed and subtitled every single line in the two-hour-plus film, even though hardly anyone would actually watch it.
Faced with his sudden outburst, Kojima didn't say much, but simply nodded silently.
An excellent director must also learn to comprehensively evaluate the content distribution and pacing control of a work based on its overall tone.
A good supervisor is one who only focuses on producing their own content.
Kojima desperately wanted the world to hear what was going on in his head.
But not now.
At least Quake can't do that.
Just as Lin Lixin just said.
"Players won't stop to admire your masterpiece; all they need is to keep shooting and watch the monster explode into pieces and blood everywhere in front of them."
Kojima believed that this was the answer Lin Lixin wanted to hear.
Quake is an engine-driven game. For it, the plot is more of a means to bind players to some tangible expectation than its core element.
Its existence should be like that of the enemy AI that Will is responsible for.
It was right there, but nobody noticed.
Why did the main storyline gameplay of the original Quake feel disjointed and chaotic?
Besides the inconsistent style, each level is completely independent, and finding the exit with different styles is also key.
These levels, designed on a whim, severely disrupt the player's flow state.
"We need a little bit of plot, but not much, just enough to connect each level together."
Hideo Kojima said, adjusting his glasses, as he mentally visualized a simple factory.
"For example, the protagonist's mission is to defeat the final boss. To achieve this goal, we must keep moving forward, starting from the moment we land."
He imagined a protagonist.
Just like in Metal Gear Solid, they landed on the outskirts of the enemy base.
The only difference is that this time the protagonist is so overpowered in terms of technology that stealth becomes meaningless. All that's needed is killing and advancing.
"For example... if the enemy has a heavy Daimon that they can't open, we'll go repair the power plant; if the enemy has a shield, we'll go deactivate the shield..."
It doesn't require a complicated design; everything is a step-by-step "guide."
That's right. Rather than a plot, it should be more like a guide, a chain of clues.
Its purpose is to give players a clear direction to move forward, so they don't feel like puppets being manipulated.
Each level begins by dropping you into a scene and then letting you start killing.
With such clear, linear goals, actions become much smoother and more natural, and there's a greater sense of "freedom."
Just like the interconnected mystery clues in " The Myst ".
Hideo Kojima was absolutely amazed when he was learning it, and he couldn't sleep well for several nights in a row.
This kind of interconnected design is truly remarkable in a linear work.
It's continuous and natural; the plot is real and there, but it doesn't feel like watching a story with unnecessary "red tape."
While retaining the purest thrill of killing, it also gave the game a true core. As for the rest...
That means he's in his comfort zone.
Environmental narrative.
Although there won't be an overly complicated story design, he can present all the small details, the things he hopes to convey through the game, in the form of environmental narrative.
This is achieved through map layout and element placement.
It's like setting up a studio on a film set.