Phil Hansen has an excellent remark about limitation: “We need to first be limited in order to become limitless.” This statement encapsulates everything that limitation has to offer the game industry.
Despite its nature, the limitation has served as an accelerator countless time. Because limitations and barriers have built on one another, some opportunities have arisen that only keen eyes can detect.
So, keep reading this article since you may agree with us, and you’ll see how these aspects pave the way for creativity.
Obligatory Limitations
Metal Gear Solid established the stealth genre, and game designer, Hideo Kojima, quickly discovered that he could create a great game despite the technical restrictions of the 1980s. Enemies in Kojima’s action game take advantage of dynamic AI and attack the main characters several times. Such a thing was technically impossible given the hardware of that time. So, Kojima decided to create a title in which the main character can avoid encountering enemies as much as possible.
After several decades, it was time for another effective creativity to emerge. Silent Hill 2 made extensive use of a fully 3D setting, which was unusual at the time of its launch. On the other hand, Resident Evil utilized some pre-rendered environments to avoid processing issues, and the camera angle was also locked. However, Silent Hill 2 developers were resolute in their work.
Silent Hill 2’s terrifying fog was developed for the same reason. The hardware on which the game was to be released was incapable of displaying depth of field while running 3D environments in real-time. That’s why the development team included foggy environments, allowing the software to render minute details in each zone. The series’ foggy environment may be one of the main reasons why we know it’s an outstanding horror game.
Optional and Selective Limitations for Game Developers
However, not all these creativities are the result of imposed constraints. Do you recall the original Resident Evil 4? The introduction of the camera on the shoulder in the fourth version impacted the course of the franchise and all third-person shooter games.
Valve also has an intriguing way of determining limitations for nourishing creativity. Unlike other first-person shooter games, Portal was limited to puzzles, and Valve promised not to shoot anyone. In this manner, the best puzzle game arose. Nowadays, an increasing number of games attempt to improve their genre by setting such optional limitations.
Pixelated graphics are also one of the purposeful limits that allow the developers to focus on the mechanics and gameplay rather than the aspects of the game that require so many resources. You can imagine how much room has been made for the birth of fantastic indie games like Celeste, Terraria, Dead Cells, Stardew Valley, and even Minecraft.
Limitations in the Most Important Decisions!
Nintendo has a lengthy history of adopting such an attitude. This corporation realized in 2000 that expanding the power of its hardware would not allow it to compete with its competitors. Instead, it created hardware that, while outdated in the eyes of its competition, was suitable for exciting gameplay ideas.
A similar philosophy was utilized in the development of the Wii and Switch, allowing this Japanese corporation to recover from the failures of the Game Cube and Wii U. For example, when it was released, the Switch Console had weaker hardware than the PS4 and Xbox One. However, it was portable, and you could take it with you wherever you go, detach it from the controller, and play it and enjoy it on the smart TV at the same time.
This portable console hosted various games that, when developing, Nintendo prioritized limitations so that creativity could flourish, and the most fun gameplay of all time could be displayed. Super Mario Odessey does not have realistic graphics, but it is perhaps the most versatile in terms of genre mix. The Legend of Zelda: Tears of Kingdom doesn’t have the best technical aesthetics, but it has the most depth of any open-world game. Animal Crossing: New Horizons’ intricacies will not surprise anyone when it is released in 2020, yet millions of people were so immersed in it during the COVID outbreak that many still see the passage of quarantine time as a miracle.
Limited and Unlimited All at Once!
We can learn why the first statement of this article is correct by delving into the development stories of some of the games and decisions. That is, people can limit some points to allow for other endless decisions to appear. The development of Limbo and Inside for Danish game studio PlayDead is as if PlayDead was about to enter the realm of fantastic personal projects. The type of product that one always has in mind and begins developing no matter how difficult it is.
However, Playdead Studio limited itself to creating something that is both high quality and artistic, both entertaining and fascinating, and both meaningful and everlasting. The studio’s thoughtful brains decided first to create worlds in which the characters can proceed with the story without even a single dialogue or monologue; this decision reached the artistic design in the next stage; Limbo was designed completely in black and white, and Inside was designed in dark colors. Nevertheless, the development team doesn’t apply any limitations to the audience’s interpretation of the story.
In these works, anything you could imagine was done with an open mental model, and even Inside benefited from a mystery ending. This allows the players to form their own opinions on the game and its occurrences. Players can put themselves in the shoes of the main character and try to figure out what kind of exchanges have occurred in silence.
Going Towards and Beyond Infinity!
As a result, some games have been limited due to various technical issues. Some game developers set restrictions on their games. On the other hand, Certain games such as the ones we reviewed are a mash-up of unlimited bounds and possibilities.
All of this leads us to the point when we dare to present a peculiar idea. The idea is that it is often beneficial for video game makers to limit themselves. Exactly at this time, serious limits can prompt them to consider some secondary alternatives. Solutions that are no longer cliché and have been used rarely in similar games, allowing us to appreciate them more easily.
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