ANDYou know a game matters when even the release of a short playable demo is the most exciting and talked about event of the week. I’m referring, of course, to the Resident Evil 4 remake, a 20-minute portion of which was made available for free on PlayStation, Xbox, and PC last Thursday. The response has been euphoric, both from newcomers and veterans of the original 2005 version. Fans are already discovering hidden mods and weapons, and even modding it. Expectations for the full release are high.
I reviewed the game 15 years ago, and I can confidently say that what made Capcom’s horror sequel so special still works in its favor years later, in our age of vast open-world adventures. And that is flow. For many years, game designers have sought to give players the experience of flow, as defined by psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, who referred to this as getting so involved in an activity that nothing else seems to matter. The activity, he pointed out, did not have to be mechanical or repetitive: the flow state is about achieving a higher level of skill and concentration and, through mastering these elements, experiencing relaxation and happiness.
If you play the game regularly, you may have felt it yourself: a period of time where you achieve total immersion, where your actions are completely intuitive, and where everything just feels perfect. Tetris is the perfect example, a game so attuned to the concept of flow that fans would see shapes fall when they close their eyes, a phenomenon later dubbed the Tetris Effect.
Resident Evil 4 is not an easy game, however, when I played it for the first time, I wasted a lot of time on it. Reviewing the remake earlier this week, I sat down at 7pm to play for an hour, when I looked back at my watch it was 1am. The game achieves this phenomenon in a number of ways, and this goes for the original version as well. . The map is essentially linear, so you don’t have to make constant navigation decisions, but you don’t look linear, so there are often pathways to split off and extra rooms to look into, which means you have to constantly interact with the space. You don’t quit. The large sets, like the village and the canyon, are designed to feel open through their vertical structure: you can often go on the ground or climb onto rooftops, you can pick off enemies from a distance, use explosives or stealth. The design structure almost always presages where you are headed. Through the gaps in the walls, or by looking a little further, you see things like doors, corridors, groups of enemies, continually signaling that danger and opportunity lie ahead. Resident Evil 4 is designed like a detective novel, each chapter ending on a cliffhanger and therefore constantly demanding.
Combat is also designed to keep us alert and thinking. Each interaction with an enemy is different but readable: they have varying abilities, weapons, and behaviors, which they almost always point out clearly, and their environments guide their approaches in interesting ways. On top of this, you basically have three interconnected fighting styles: melee, knife, and gun, which you need to fluidly switch between depending on the proximity and location of the enemy. Once you slow down, you enter the zone, masterfully taking out hordes of monsters. Sure, plenty of other games do these things, but in Resi 4, the animation, architecture, and challenge balance so perfectly that you find yourself absolutely trapped in a perfectly choreographed cycle of movement, discovery, and engagement.
As much as I love open world games, they don’t achieve this in the same way. Assassin’s Creed titles, for example, constantly bombard the player with decisions: you get main quests, side quests, and optional tasks and quests, all served up at once as a sort of digital buffet. Even Elden Ring, which blends freedom and narrative in interesting ways, essentially gives so much space and time that moments of actual flow are fleeting. Flow is as much about moderation as it is about skill and action.
That’s why, in our age of vast explorable universes, linear narrative gameplay will always have a place. Resident Evil 4 is a masterpiece of imagery, constriction, and semiotics. Like Super Mario, it teaches you the rules gradually, tests your learning, and then lets you master what you’ve learned by facing off against unlikely monsters. The possibilities inherent in its grueling, fetid spaces are limited, but they’re what keep you moving. One of the most wonderful things about video games is the feeling that you are one with a difficult set of systems, that the challenge is in fact an opportunity, and that you master a limited set of options.
It will be interesting to see how big open-world games this year, like The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom and Starfield, look to bring us back into the fold. For now, Resi 4 reminds us that creating moments, through great combat controls, controlled encounters, and great environmental storytelling, is worth many square miles of explorable terrain. Sometimes you just have to go with the flow.
what to play
Since horror games are all the rage right now, I recommend you play ride of the year, from the brilliant Simogo studio in Malmö. It’s available for PC and Wii U, but I like the iPhone version (£3.99 on the App Store). It is a surreal rural horror adventure based on the Swedish folk practice of walking through the woods on specific nights of the year to meet supernatural beings and learn about the future. The visuals are beautiful and the spooky atmosphere is all-encompassing.
Available in: PC, Mac, Nintendo Wii U, iOS
Estimated game time: more than 10 hours
what to read
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Strange news from the world of movie-game tie-ins: according to Varietythe team-based online horror title dead by Light (above) is being adapted into a film by Blumhouse (Malignant, Paranormal Activity and Annabelle) and Atomic Monster (The Conjuring, M3gan). Dead By Daylight is a pastiche of slasher movie tropes and features several cinematic assassins, including Freddy Krueger and Michael Myers. So it’s a movie of a game built from many movies. What could go wrong?
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Television critics are getting involved in the discourse around the big hit last of us ending, 10 years after the original game sent a paroxysm of pain, shock and anger through the PlayStation community. We’re going to see a lot more interaction between TV and gaming, so now is a good time to revisit. Wired’s Historical Look in the transmedia concept.
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IGN has the transcript of an interesting discussion between veterans game designers hironobu sakaguchi and koji igarashi. It is about the rise and fall of Japanese games and how they contrast with Western titles.
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Nintendo is closing its Online stores for 3DS and Wii U coming out at the end of this month, so you need to get in quick to secure some great games before they’re gone forever. Polygon has a guide on how to use the storesand Kotaku has a list of titles you should take. Mario and Donkey Kong: Minis on the Move and Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney – Dual Destinies are essential!
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what to click
question box
This week, Matt Francis on Twitter asked:
“With stories in games much more than one thing, it should [we really be able] skip difficult sections of the games to let you experience the rest? books, television and movies don’t stop midway unless you can pass a test to continue. That percentage of games that many players do not see?”
Dara Ó Briain made this very point in a stand-up routine a few years ago, comparing the difficulty of a video game to a movie that stops midway and testing viewers on whether they had understood the themes before they were allowed to continue watching. Of course, games are not linear media: whatever narrative content they contain, are games first. It’s certainly true that only a fraction of gamers make it to the end of a challenging title. A CNN report five years ago suggested that only 10% of players complete games, but the numbers I’ve seen are closer to 20%, which is still a minority.
Many games now offer dynamic difficulty settings, which respond to player behaviors. And the Uncharted series started a trend of having non-player characters offer clues to the player when they spend too much time solving a puzzle, even though many people find it intrusive. As the industry improves on accessibility in general, ways must be found to support players who can’t or won’t spend years fighting a seemingly indestructible boss. I love the fact that the new version of Resident Evil 4 has what would traditionally be called “easy mode”, but which the developers have dubbed “assisted mode”. lots of extra ammo and health drops, but most importantly the playful element is maintained. It’s a subtle change in language, but it comes with a change in attitude and philosophy in recognizing that challenge is subjective and everyone deserves to have an enjoyable experience.
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