Future games must have multiple protagonists

[or1]

[edit]removed

Edited May 31, 2013 by GTA564

[GrandMaster Smith]

I think I'd honestly rather have multiple cities than multiple protags in VI. But then again I need to first see how the switch mechanics play out.

 

 

One thing this could work really well with would be Red Dead 3.. a game set in the midst of the wild west, you and your crew go about robbing trains and banks switching back and forth amongst the chaos. Before I even heard of the multiple protags in V I thought it'd be really cool if for RD3 they told a story from two perspectives, one of the outlaw gunslinger and the other of a bow shooting native American. Making their story intertwine would be fascinating and would just be expanding on what V's doing.

[ALeSsAnDrO]

I think I'd honestly rather have multiple cities than multiple protags in VI.

This.

 

Multiple protagonists add a lot to the story, but once you're done with it, you'll wish there was a new city somewhere.

[The New Blueguy]

He means freely switching multiple protagonists as anchors of part of the same story in an OPEN WORLD game. It's easy to do the typical Internet pessimist bit and generically boil a bunch of games down to their lowest common denominator. Of course there are many games with multiple protagonists and even playable antagonists at that. Now how many of those games allow to freely jump from character to character as YOU see fit using whoever YOU want whenever YOU want and doesn't hold your hand through each person's point of view?

[wwinterj]

He's talking specifically about the switch mechanic, not just multiple protagonists. It's all about the way it's implemented, I mean, who can see multiple protagonists in something like CoD anyway?

This. GTA 3 created the open world sandbox games that are standard these days and I believe V will rise the bar even more with this mechanic. Naturally multiple protagonists isn't new as GTA has had it before but in the style V is doing it that's a first and something some games will follow.

[BlackNoise]

[uPDATE] Following the publication of this story, a Take-Two Interactive representative reached out to GameSpot to clarify Zelnick's comments. The company said the spirit of Zelnick's talk was that future games must deliver innovation to suceed in the market and that his example of Grand Theft Auto V using multiple protagonists was an example of this.

 

source

[ChrisMathers3501]

Halo had this.

 

You played as Chief and sometimes as the Arbiter.

and so does Cod MW3

Ah, I knew somebody'd beat me to the punch.

 

Thing is though is that Call of Duty has ALWAYS had multiple protagonists, and it's been out for TEN YEARS.

 

I know you butthurt-susceptible types go for your pitchforks every time you hear "Call of Duty" but just because Grand Theft Auto DOESN'T make a new game every year doesn't mean they don't have almost as many games in the series. Call of Duty's good, just nowhere near AS good as GTA. There, I said it. Suck it.

What does that have to do with anything? He was basically making the point that other games have had multiple protags for years, why all of a sudden does this idiot think new games now have to have them simply because V has them?

Huh? Oh, the guy brought up Call of Duty, that's what. Totally on topic.

 

Uh, what were we talking about again?

 

Oh yeah! Protagonists. Actually no. Most games did NOT have multiple protagonists, at least not before CoD. And by protagonists, I mean player characters, not main characters, not even ones that follow you around from start to finish.

 

And no, I agree, most games do NOT need multiple protagonists. CoD kinda does. But Grand Theft Auto does NOT need multiple protagonists. However, that's WHY GTAV is going to be so great. They could have just made the game about Michael. But they didn't. They gave us Michael, Franklin, and a badass psycho hillbilly ex-military pilot named Trevor because they love us so damn much.

[meson1]

[uPDATE] Following the publication of this story, a Take-Two Interactive representative reached out to GameSpot to clarify Zelnick's comments. The company said the spirit of Zelnick's talk was that future games must deliver innovation to suceed in the market and that his example of Grand Theft Auto V using multiple protagonists was an example of this.

 

source

Nope. I didn't get that. Try writing it bigger and in a brighter colour. Can you make it flash too?

[Member#1]

 

games will need to have multiple protagonists to succeed

Don't think so.

[ALeSsAnDrO]

games will need to have multiple protagonists to succeed

Don't think so.

Of course not.

 

Games with multiple, switchable, characters, have existed for decades. This is only new to younger gamers.

I still think it's the right thing to do for R* to try and keep innovating, but this is not by any stretch revolutionary as the open-world sandbox driving/shooting mechanic was.