While Grand Theft Auto, Red Dead Redemption and Borderlands all allow players to sink their teeth into experiences for hours upon hours of story, Take-Two (the parent company for studios 2K Games and Rockstar Games) may find a different approach in the future.
Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick spoke with GamesIndustry regarding the length of their future releases and how post-launch content releases could initially make longer titles shorter in duration.
“It’s possible that the ability to deliver content on an ongoing basis for a long time after an initial release of a hit would mean that perhaps that initial release wouldn’t be as long in terms of number of hours of gameplay as previously had been demanded in a world where that was all you were getting.” – Strauss Zelnick,Take-Two CEO
While games like GTA and Red Dead Redemption provide lengthy story duration and minimal single-player focused DLC, according to Zelnick that could all change in the future. The Borderlands franchise has always seen its share of post-launch single-player DLC – and that’s not changing with the upcoming Borderlands 3 release – so perhaps Take-Two would push for Rockstar Games to adapt to a similar formula.
As of this writing, there’s been no announcement for a new GTA and we shouldn’t expect a new Red Dead title for a while. However, it is possible we could see some sort of single-player DLC release for Red Dead Redemption 2 later down the line.
Zelnick also commented on shorter titles could allow for developers to release games with a shorter window in between titles. With the most recent GTA title releasing almost six years ago, an eight year gap between both Red Dead Redemption 1 and 2 and Borderlands 2 and 3, as well as a substantial gap between Bioshock Infinite and the present, Zelnick would like to see this enduring trend between releases end.
“I don’t see it expanding further(…)In fact, I would expect in many instances it may compress(…)And we believe in resting titles as a great thing. I was a real outlier 12 years ago when we said we don’t think it makes sense to annualize non-sports titles, and now most people would agree. But I think eight years is probably too long.” – Zelnick
Whatever the case, on one hand we would love to see Take-Two titles (as well as other major video games) hit the market with a less than five year window. But on the other hand, would sacrificing story length or perhaps promoting more paid DLC be worth the shortened wait time?
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Source: GamesIndustry
