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[mortal]

Do Gamers Want Slow-Paced Games Like Death Stranding?

I absolutely do!

Maybe it's age, maybe it's having played thousands of games over the course of my life.
I'm at the point where I also crave games with a premise that isn't a power fantasy or being a badass.
For me, it's very similar to watching films. Even though I enjoy a good action blockbuster, I don't want every film I watch to be an action blockbuster.

 

[Fbh]

Slower paced is fine, but it often gets mixed with stretched out or padded out games

 

[Kokoloko85]

Not all the time but I found it amazing and had to platinum the game. Loved it and my game of the year

 

[DarthPutin]

I really like just exploring, finding new areas, interacting with NPC etc. So yep, definitely there is audience for this.

 

[just_like_that]

if its not boring like death stranding then sure

 

[jasondefaoite]

Just completed the DS story (yet to platinum) as I only bought it when the PS5 upgrade was available ... and honestly I loved the game.

 

[MrA]

Easy answer yes some , variety is awesome more types of games is better than less

 

[CitizenZ]

Creativity should never be limited

 

[Irobot82]

Hell yes more please. One of the best games I've played in the last few years.

 

[Ghost of Caelid]

Yes, diversity in the AAA games is good. Everything doesn’t have to be frantic high energy action games. Death Stranding isn’t a game for everyone and that’s okay.

 

[Halo is Back]

Slow/slower games - Yeah sure.

More Death Stranding? - Er no.

My thoughts exactly

 

[MiguelItUp]

I think gamers just want good and immersive games, be it they're fast or slow. I think Death Stranding's appeal went further than it just being "slow" though, and that's why it wasn't for everyone. Though I personally loved it.

 

[BigBooper]

Sure I joke with my brother about how much I love boring games.

 

[cr0w]

I think so, yes. Personally, Death Stranding is the type of game that I'm almost genetically hard-wired to hate, given that I just don't "get" Kojima and really haven't liked any of his output over the years. I ended up loving the shit out of it though, because at the end of a long work day I could sit down with the game and just relax while I walked across a pretty goddamn amazing landscape, dropping off packages or whatever. It's one of the most calming games I've ever played.

 

[SEGA_2012]

I am not a fan of slow paced games but i loved Death stranding, it is a masterpiece.

 

[WhamBamThankYouMaam]

Some players do.
Some players don’t.

 

[taizuke]

I’m playing the DC version at the moment and to be honest the game is only really slow paced at the beginning, before you get a ton of gadgets and every road takes you into mules with guns and vehicles.

Also the feeling of isolation lasts until you connect the area to the chiral network and get jump ramps, roads, signs and holograms everywhere.

Don’t get me wrong, I really love the game but I’m not sure it’s the best example of slow paced game. The beginning of it (where everything is mysterious and you have no weapon) is my favorite part so I think there’s a niche for this kind of atmospheric games.

I agree. I'm currently playing it too and once things get going (which is relatively quick) i find myself always doing something. Whether is planning routes, constantly spamming the Odradek button to scan the terrain, grabbing chiral crystals, grabbing cargo, grabbing other people's cargo, creating structures, using structures, upgrading structures, doing multiple orders at once, farming materials, recycling materials, donating equipment and materials, optimizing the placement of the cargo on Sam, choosing the right equipment for the mission, watching out for rough terrain, striving for perfect deliveries, fighting MULEs or avoiding them, avoiding BTs, repairing vehicles, reading mail, taking care of BB, sleeping, and a whole other plethora of things you can do in this game, ect.

On the surface is simple. Get from point A to point B. But, saying it's so much more than that would even be an understatement.

As for the OP's question, i too love the beginning of Death Stranding. While i enjoy doing all those things i listed sometimes is nice to have moments where you don't have to worry about anything else other doing one task. That being said, while i enjoyed Kena: Bridge of Spirits i feel it's too simplistic for a somewhat large portion of the game and it isn't until much later that the gameplay becomes more engaging. There needs to be a balance. Death Stranding i think is a great example of that when it comes to gameplay that is... Story-wise... I can't defend it. lol

 

[kyliethicc]

Sure.

Love Death Stranding and Red Dead Redemption 2.

 

[Outlier]

Slow paced is not the problem. It's when the ramp up to the climax ends up being lackluster.

This was how I felt after playing Days Gone (PC), but Death Stranding was even worse.

 

[IDKFA]

Some do. Some don't.

We all like different things. Variety is the spice of life.

 

[hyperbertha]

Once you get all the tools, death stranding becomes a different game. It was really memorable building all those roads and ziplines to make travel as effective and quick as possible. I would love more unique different games like this.

Agreed. Its stressful at first but it rewards you for effort, like all good games. Kojima is a master at addictive gameplay.

 

[rofif]

I kinda have a feeling who didn't play Death Stranding in this thread...
The game gets kinda busy. It's just that you are not shooting all the time but it gets really involved

 

[brian0057]

Slow and methodical games? Absolutely.
From Hideo Kojima? God, no. His writing has the subtlety of a wrecking ball.

 

[TheGodfather07]

Agreed. Its stressful at first but it rewards you for effort, like all good games. Kojima is a master at addictive gameplay.

absolutely. i wouldnt have put in over 100 hours otherwise. the gameplay loop was addictive and relaxing to play.also, the balls on kojima and sony to make a game like this when they could have just played it safe. we need this so much in the gaming industry today.

 

[Boneless]

Breath of the wild and Red Dead Redemption 2 are slow paced, Death Stranding is SLOW AS FUCK

I did not know a game could be slower than RDR2.

 

[Bryank75]

I do and I would actually prefer no ghosts and a focus more on optional human enemies, like the camps. Just get that combat feeling like MGSV and it's all good.

 

[NeoIkaruGAF]

I really don’t get walking simulators and games where vistas are the best reward you can get for exploring. I liked Breath of the Wild because it was amazing at constantly giving you objectives. A new landmark to reach, a new Korok puzzle, a new shrine, stuff to pick up, monsters, ambushes... your attention is always being titillated in BOTW.

For RPGs, text is better than VA for me. Text is interactive, makes me want to pay attention and can tell much more than the average spoken dialogue aping poor cinema.

I want games to give me something to do. Not as hectic as Doom Eternal maybe, I’m probably too old for that shit or I’m just too old to care to git gud at it. But recently I booted up Hellblade on Game Pass and hoooo boy. I was literally falling asleep at that 5-minute non-interactive intro with ASMR dialogue. When even speedrunners have to get through 13 minutes of a game before pressing any input that isn’t “run forward/climb ladder”, that’s a game I’m not interested in.

 

[Danjin44]

My problem with Death Stranding is putting celebrities as characters. I know most people don’t have issue with it but for me it pulls me out of the experience.

 

[Tranquil]

For me it's about balance, I like slow paced sequences mixed with some action. Death stranding was just too boring.

 

[TheThreadsThatBindUs]

Death Stranding was fucking lit!!!

So a resounding yes! More games like this please.

Currently playing Subnautica Below Zero, which is a similar pace. More a focus on survival and build-crafting than combat. Absolutely wonderful and enthralling gameplay loop.

 

[PuppetMaster]

I love Death Stranding's gameplay!

Really its no slower than something like skyrim where the parts I enjoy are just walking and talking too.

 

[arvfab]

your attention is always being titillated in BOTW.

Really? I fell more often asleep from playing BotW than some visual novels when playing in bed.

 

[Indyblue]

As a gamer myself, I want slow, fast, medium, long, short, cinematic, arcadey, 3D, 2d, 4k, 60fps, racing, fps, action, adventure, puzzle, sports, strategy, turn based, multiplayer, single player games. I like them all. The more variety, the better.

 

[Flutta]

Death stranding 2 when?

 

[DeepSpace5D]

Death Stranding is a great game to relax to and carry out deliveries, I love it for that.

But I can haul ass as well with level 3 Speed Skeleton, zipline setups, and built roads.

 

[b0uncyfr0]

Nope

 

[JoeyWestSide]

I'm a no. Just played through The Medium. The story was OK but being too limited on walking / running speed drives me insane. The dual world aspect was cool but the concept may have worked better in a game that isn't a walking sim.

 

[Beer Baelly]

Walking simulators are dead

 

[SSfox]

Not everyone necessarily want the same thing. Ever though about this?

 

[Fare thee well]

I don't personally know about Death Stranding, because I have not tried it. I will say this though. Games used to have nice quiet moments; places that felt like taking a breath. I look at media today and I think people are afraid of silence and the fear of actually hearing their inner thoughts. Yes, sometimes a boring game is just boring, but I recognize this other problem with so many things. Media now has this insane need to fill every gap of sound.

It says a lot about the times to me.

 

[Bkdk]

There will always be someone wanting it, though I hated it. I am a very traditional gamer, give me blood, boobs, good looking chars, a power fantasy story that I eventually become the most powerful entity and choose the fate of the game world and I’m happy. I just finished smt5 and those puzzles in one dungeon make me furious.

 

[Yoboman]

I think the real problem for Death Stranding is that being a fedex guy is dumb and doesn't appeal to anybody

You could do the same gameplay concept but you're a runner delivering messages in WW2 or something and it would be a lot more appealing on the surface

 

[Captain Toad]

Lots of people played it. Many considered it a GOTY contender. Many hated it.

Not everything is for everyone. It has an audience. That's all that matters.

 

[Alan Silvestro]

whywecanthaveboth.gif

 

[TheInfamousKira]

I'm probably an anomaly in the demographics, but I usually take everything at a snail's pace, reading every bit of lore, and even walking most of the time, only running in a situation where it's logical or I'll get a game over based on my tortoise like tendencies.

It's partly for appreciation of atmosphere/setting, and partially because I game to relax, and spacing out and thinking about dinner tomorrow night or Christmas presents I need to get while I travel from A to B is part of the magic for me.

So slow paced is fine by me.

 

[AmuroChan]

Not all gamers like the same kinds of games.

 

[Kiddo Cabbusses]

Slower paced is fine, but it often gets mixed with stretched out or padded out games

I think it might be a good idea to critically analyze some examples of good "slow-paced gameplay" vs. "artificially stretched or padded out gameplay".

Fire Emblem's a good series to look into in this regard; it's clear that starting from the GBA games, IntSys was trying to figure out ways to make gameplay go faster in what is normally a very slow-paced tactical RPG. On the SNES games, there were long periods where you could do nothing but sit and watch the AI enemy slowly make moves; the GBA games streamlined the AI so that the enemies made moves a lot more quickly. They also sped up certain animations (Most notably, they reduced the amount of map animations so that "animations off" actually sped up combat, instead of just having chibi sprites battle for nearly as long as animations on), and reduced the scale of maps so that events on a scenario progressed more quickly. They weren't satisfied with this, though, and made a more significant pace-changer in the DS Shadow Dragon by having a button that allowed the player to just skip all the motions of the enemy phase outright and just cut to whatever player characters they killed or, if that doesn't happen, whatever the final result of the phase was. I personally LOVED this addition and glad it's something that stuck into later games, and it's one I sorely wish could be retrofitted into the SFC Fire Emblem entries, over any other possible QoI improvement. And unlike things like casual mode or waifu culture pandering, it's generally a non-controversial addition. Of course, it begs the question, is making a player watch an enemy phase "padding"?

 

[Dr Bass]

Some do, some don't?

I don't get the point of this.

 

[teezzy]

I want turn based JRPGs

 

[ripeavocado]

Yes please.