Games should let you skip to the end

People often want games to be more like movies, but many games are way too long to conform easily into that comparison. Instead, games are better matched with television or other episodic content. While there may be one overacting storyline, there are many smaller stories to follow in a game, much like TV. In a movie it is easier to keep track of a little detail earlier in the film since there is less information overall. Conversely, games need to repeat important information, or else the player will likely forget something that happened 5, 10, 20 hours ago.

For the most part, we are in control of watching a television series. We can watch from the beginning to the end, we can skip episodes, we can decide to only watch certain episodes, and we can even decide to skip to the final episode. Games, for the most part, only allow us to go from the beginning to the end. Some games allow us to skip around after we have gone from the beginning to the end. Why not allow this option from the start?

The new Call of Duty game recently made news when it announced its plans to unlock the entire single player story. On the recent Conference Call, the basic argument was that it was all right for Call of Duty to do that, since single player campaigns in that game are considered an afterthought. However, it shouldn't be allowed in a more single player focused game, such as Bioshock or Dishonored. I disagree. It should be up to the player whether to go through the episodes sequentially or not. If the best part of Dishonored is "Lady Boyle's Last Party" which appears in the middle of the game, then I should be able to skip that mission, just like I can watch "Blink" without having to watch the previous nine episodes of Doctor Who Season 3.

What's the harm in unlocking the entire single player experience as soon as you install the game?

I pretty much agree with you. I get the idea of authorial intent and all that, but a game is a lot more like a season of TV than a movie in structure, so being able to skip through if you want makes sense. I'd never want to do it deliberately myself, but I don't see the harm in allowing it.

But there have been a number of times I've caught a mid-season episode of a TV series and decided to start from the beginning. Games are a little different because you don't just 'catch' an episode, but skipping to "Lady Boyle's Last Party" might give one the impetus to actually go the whole way through the game for the context of those events, especially if you're uncertain whether you want to drop 8 hours into something based purely on recommendations. Maybe more people would play through the slow start of Bioshock 2 if they were able to get a taster of the quality of the game later on.

"Wow this book is really, really long. Am I ever going to finish it? Screw it, I'll just read the last page"

Pretty much sums up this idea. I'm no author but I'm pretty sure that if there were a way to prevent people from reading the last page until they were there, 90% of authors would do it (if not more).

Much like a video game, or serial TV show, the creators want to take you on a journey from A to B to C to D to E. Not from A to B to screw it let's jump to E. Lady Boyles Party is great because of the build-up getting there, because of what you experienced on the way to that point. In Bioshock, Andrew Ryans confrontation works because of what occurred on the way there.

Oooh. Commenting in the Conference Call thread I just recalled Arkham Asylum. F*ck that game right in the ear. If devs are not going to allow you to adjust difficulty then they need to allow you to skip.

RooksGambit wrote:

"Wow this book is really, really long. Am I ever going to finish it? Screw it, I'll just read the last page"

I know a few people who read the last page of a book before deciding if they want to read it or not. If they couldn't do that then they wouldn't read the book at all. It's a bit strange to me because I'd rather go on the journey myself, but I'm not about to tell people how that can and can't engage with a medium. It doesn't affect me or the author that they choose to do that.

Interesting. I think it depends on the type of game. For a CoD game, unlocking everything right away makes a lot of sense. I can see that being a solid design choice. For an RPG or exploration based game - not as much.

Way more games could use a feature like being able to skip to the end - but as a design decision it don't see it working for every game - and in some cases it would flat out diminish the design intent.

Also, there are fundamental differences between games and book and TV shows as mediums - just because you can skip to the last page in a book or watch a midseason episode of a TV show before the first one doesn't mean all game should follow suit. Games are different beasts.

I didn't catch the call, but was the "new" Alone In The Dark brought up? As I recall, it had an episodic structure that let you skip the episode. (I haven't played it myself, though.) Alan Wake was very much structured like a television show ("episodes" that started with recaps and ended with a fade to black and a song) although I don't think it let you skip ahead.

I think that to make this work, you'd need a game structured a certain way. "Blink" works as an example of a skip-to episode because most of Doctor Who, that episode included, is pretty self-contained; once you know the basic premise of the show, understanding what's going on in an episode rarely requires knowing any history. Some TV works like that; some doesn't. You wouldn't skip to, say, the Red Wedding in game of Thrones, or the reveal of Laura's killer in Twin Peaks, and have a very good idea of what is going on.

Other narrative-heavy games have tried different things to make sure the narrative is accessible to a wide audience who might not have the skill or interest in a challenging game. Mass Effect went with adding very easy difficulty levels. Some games have adaptive difficulty. I imagine we'll see more that let you skip ahead (with a story recap) in the future. On the other hand, especially with the advent of trophies/achievements/etc., I'm sure we'll continue to see competitive games for people who are interested in that kind of thing.

Speaking on a personal level, I'd like to see features that let you "skip ahead" but only after a certain number of failures or something. I don't trust my own willpower, and I suspect I'd miss out on a lot of satisfaction by giving up too early.

I do agree that the narrative structure of television is in some ways closer than movies. However, the focus on action and spectacle means the visual language of film has more to offer. Games can borrow from both as well as developing their own unique structures and languages.

Ignore this. I am an awful human being who double posts.

Reminds me of the Princess Bride Wedding Scene. "Skip to the end....Man and wife say man and wife!"

Skipping to the end is only viable for some styles of games. I can easily think of a few examples where it's a stupid idea.

Super Meat Boy? Skip to the end of that, and all you'll be doing is dying endlessly because you haven't built the skillset to deal with the end. This is the case for most games where skill mastery is a key component of the ongoing experience. Sure, there's some scope for skipping forward to some degree to allow for players who master the skill curve faster than the game is calibrated for.

The Walking Dead? Skip to the end and you miss the narrative payoff, which has been slowly building over all 5 episodes. This is the case for games where the narrative delivery is the key component of the game.

Ah, this was the question I asked to the Conference Call this week

I kind of think it can work in some respects, if you wanted to make a game with minimal story in it, but it would maybe set back a lot of game story writing if it became more common. I, personally, like to progress gradually through everything, I absolutely hate spoilers. I know why it makes sense for a game like COD, where the single player is worked on a lot but always ignored, but would it work so much for a game like the Batman Arkham game? Gradually getting new abilities is a great reward in those games.

Yeah it definitely depends on the game though I disagree with the Super Meat Boy example. Skill based games like SMB should allow you to go to any level in the game. You're not missing out on story and won't be confused if you skip ahead, sure it will probably be too hard but that's your choice.

I don't think it would work for BioShock. It would be like skipping to the end of Fight Club and trying to figure out why he's fighting himself.

mrwynd wrote:

Yeah it definitely depends on the game though I disagree with the Super Meat Boy example. Skill based games like SMB should allow you to go to any level in the game. You're not missing out on story and won't be confused if you skip ahead, sure it will probably be too hard but that's your choice.

I don't think it would work for BioShock. It would be like skipping to the end of Fight Club and trying to figure out why he's fighting himself.

On the other hand, allowing you to skip ahead in games/movies like these would let you experience the twist quickly, then watch the build up to for the first time. Saves you time/effort on rewatching to figure out how things led up to the twist. As someone who rarely rewatches/plays entertainment anymore, I could appreciate this.

The only instance where I see unlocking all levels failing completely is in games where past decisions affect future outcomes. That said, I see it ultimately as the designer's choice. It's up to them to decide how they'd like their audiences to experience the game. Authorial intent and all that.

mrwynd wrote:

Yeah it definitely depends on the game though I disagree with the Super Meat Boy example. Skill based games like SMB should allow you to go to any level in the game. You're not missing out on story and won't be confused if you skip ahead, sure it will probably be too hard but that's your choice.

Yeah, I kind of go both ways on that one. On the one hand, if you skip the level when such-and-such a new mechanic is introduced, you might have no idea how to deal with that mechanic when it's thrown at you with the training wheels removed in later levels.

It felt like a good example, becuase if you are a savant, blasting through one level after another is super quick - you wouldn't really be saving yourself a lot of time by skipping to the end. And given that it's a score-chase kind of game, you still have the satisfaction of blowing your friends off the leaderboards as you go.

I really wish Dragon Age Inquisition had a skip-to-the-good-bits mode. Even playing on easy, it's a good 70+ hours to slog through for maybe 15 hours of worthwhile story and character content. Mass Effect 3's Story Mode was genius for this. I don't mind having the nightmare modes out there for people who want them, but if I'm playing the game for the second or third time to see different story arcs, I don't give a damn about picking f*cking elfroot!

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I do games when they do offer a skip when multiple fails occur. Not that I'd ever use it, but I think it's good to let everyone enjoy the game, no matter what their skill level. I played God of War III recently on hard mode and saw the option come up a few times, and I thought it was a good idea.

Well played, Gravey. Actually, honestly, if games could find an in-world justification for letting players skip ahead... very few narrative heavy games would have this, but, more than a few let you at least skip tutorial levels in character.

For Mario Bros skipping ahead makes a lot of sense, because an experienced player (who always has to start at 1-1 like everyone else) might want to get to the harder parts quickly.

The designer in me has a knee-jerk negative reaction to the idea, for this reason:

Jonman wrote:

Super Meat Boy? Skip to the end of that, and all you'll be doing is dying endlessly because you haven't built the skillset to deal with the end.

But after a moment's reflection, I don't think the answer is "don't let the player skip to an arbitrary point." The answer is "educate players so that when they end up in this situation they blame themselves rather than the game."

Also, any challenge-based game should include some kind of recognition/achievement/trophy for not using the level-skip function, because the satisfaction of earning one's progression is a real thing for a lot of players.

Ultimately, I don't think a level-skip function should be included in all games. But if a game doesn't include one it should be a conscious design choice rather than the assumed default.

Vargen wrote:

Ultimately, I don't think a level-skip function should be included in all games. But if a game doesn't include one it should be a conscious design choice rather than the assumed default.

I think I can agree with this. I would rather it be opt out rather than opt in. For instance, I was enjoying my time in AC: Black Flag, but the game eventually became a slog. If I wanted to find out what happens at the end, I either had to keep playing or go to YouTube (which has it's own issues). The game is designed to replay sections, so it would seem easy to unlock that from the beginning.

It certainly does not make sense for some games, but if narrative is the focus, then I think more flexibility should be afforded to the player.

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The sense of progression in games is just too important to take away. Imagine playing Super Mario World with all the paths and levels unlocked instead of beating them, finding secret exits, and discovering the world bit by bit. Do you remember how cool it was when you beat Chocolate Island and the giant Bowser head rose out of the sea and beckoned you to challenge the final world? Or how about discovering Star Road's Special Zone? Ah, Tubular.

And that's just for a simple 2D Platformer with clearly defined levels and no character progression. How do you skip to the end in The Witcher or, well, any game with character progression or nonlinear gameplay? It just wouldn't work and even if it did it would completely ruin the game.

Although, with that said, I'm fine with games giving the player the option of skipping a level after failing too many times. I also like a logbook that reminds you of the story and your current objective. My 18 month break in the middle of Tales of Symphonia could have ended badly without that feature.

If the developer was to give the player the option to skip ahead via chapter select or some kind of "wimp mode" (Mario's invincibility leaf, Metal Gear's chicken hat, etc), how does that detract from the experience of anyone who wants to play through the game linearly?

I'm a storyline tourist gamer. I've definitely had games where I was invested in the story, but hit some kind of gameplay wall that kept me from being able or wanting to keep playing. I was still interested in how the story came out, but couldn't. I'd have loved to have an option to either skip ahead or go into some kind of super easy mode to get the rest of the story I wanted.

The counter argument is that having the option there somehow detracts from the experience. My argument is that not having it there meant that my experience hit a hard stop. Then I wonder how having the option, but not using it, detracts from the experience? In the case of Call of Duty's level select, there's nothing stopping anyone from playing through them in order and getting the exact same experience as before, so why's it bad that it's there?

It all depends on the game.

I recall quite a few early mobile games, and even some pc games, that allowed you to do a few selective level skips though their campaign, and if you go back and do the levels that you skipped, you can earn the credit back to skip later (and I believe you had to at least try a mission once before you could skip it). The most noteworthy game that I recall doing this was X-Wing Alliance. I don't recall which campaign mission it was now, but there was one mission I could not do because you had to wait to attack some friendly fighters that would turn against you and then destroy one or two things you were trying to protect. I was able to skip that and enjoy the game for several more hours thanks to that ability.

And, to speak about games I will never beat because there is no way to skip, I will have to echo mrwynd's sentiments there, I will never end up beating Super Meat Boy because, a game where almost the whole thing is doing levels that were less than a minute so things weren't too frustrating, then expecting you to defeat Dr Fetus, and get out of the level with Bandage girl, in a 3+ minute marathon, I just simply gave up.

As for skipping straight to the end of a title, I suppose I am against doing this in games if there wasn't so much filler upon filler in games these days. How many identical locals need to be liberated before something else unlocks to progress? How many more minutes do I have to survive a horde mode before the game says, ok you can go, and then your character dies/is knocked out on the next cutscene?

People will probably hate me for doing this, but perhaps there should be some way to skip around and play whatever you want in a game, once you have owned a game to a certain length of time. Or play a game with a cheat code or something so you can at least go though the level progress and see what happens so that you at least see and experience the game at some level. As for my rational behind this one, how many of us have play all the way though any game with the word Doom in the title and not use the god or clip code at one time or another?

I'm actually fine with it, with some caveats.

First off, a lot depends on why you want to skip ahead. It may be that you don't actually want to skip to an arbitrary point in the game, but you want some other effect.

For example, System Shock had four separate difficulty settings:
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You can turn off the story and play it as a combat game, turn off the combat but make the puzzles harder, and a bunch of other combinations. This seems perfectly reasonable to me, albeit a lot of work for the developers to pull it off.

Plus, of course, there are many games that don't have a linear timeline to skip around in. Civilization has an advanced start option, but I seldom use it because building everything up from scratch is usually the point, and it'd be less interesting to skip to a modern era where you had no prior relationship to the civs on the board. The game isn't built to be that much fun if you stick in one era. I'm sure that hasn't stopped people from making mods though.

But let's focus on actually allowing you skip around in the missions of what would otherwise be a linear shooter-type game. I think the reason that people tend to have a visceral reaction to this and similar suggestion is that for players who are looking for a challenge, having even an optional way to bypass an obstacle undermines the point of playing the game. Trying and failing and eventually overcoming is the whole point of playing the game.

Obviously this doesn't apply to all players, just a subset of them. And even then, only some of the time. I usually skew a bit towards the challenge side, but the only reason I finished the original Half-Life was because I used a cheat code in Xen rather than continually reloading when I fell off a ledges with no ammo. It turned the last act of the game to briefly-glimpsed mush (though the final boss fight was still hard). But I was able to finish the game and see the end of the story, which is what I wanted at that point.

I still think that games should be more open about the ways that players can play them. To me, it only makes sense that we should explore the possibilities of non-linear, hypertextual structures rather than pretending that a game needs to be like a movie.

I think the catch is that the design of the game needs to take the alternate ways of experiencing the game into consideration. Just hacking a skip button into an ordinary game probably will result in a sub-par experience, but a game built with it in mind has more leeway to actually make it a good experience.

Just in this thread I can see some different motivations for wanting more control over the game:
1. You've played it before, just installed it on a new computer, but only want to jump in and play your favorite levels. (Fortunately for me, Thief modders have revealed ways to do this.)
2. You're really into the story, and enjoying the combat, but there's just this one setpiece or minigame that you can't seem to get past. (Especially annoying when it's a minigame out of nowhere.)
3. There's a lot of grinding and busywork going on, but you just want to play the rest of the game. Particularly a problem when a game has a larger system composed of little chores, or thinks it needs MMO-style kill ten rats quests, or has aspects of a simulation without automation--like mixing the ingredients in the early Ultima games.
There are probably more. All these have different solutions, which may or may not be mutually compatible.