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The Problem With Episodes: Where is LostWinds Chapter 2?

Posted by John Constantine

Looking at the game design zeitgeist through the lens of GDC, you can start to get a clearer image of what videogames are going to be like in the next decade. More small games, more downloadable games, more mobile/iPhone games, more user generated content. This is the way of the future. It isn’t a future unique to GDC 2009, though. These have been the trends dominating futurist industry discussion for five years running. We know it’s the future, dag nab it! Enough. Let us talk of the past.

One design trend that everyone and their Commodore 64-programming uncle was talking about just three years ago was episodic content. Episodes! This is how big games will be delivered from here on out! Wave of the future, by gum. Gabe Newell and Valve were the poster children of the episodic games movement. They’re also the poster children of how well that movement has worked out. Almost two full years on from Half-Life 2 Episode 2’s release and Episode 3 is nowhere insight, and this trend has been emblematic of episodic gaming as a strategy across the industry. Telltale Games have managed to create multiple episodic series, namely Sam & Max and Strong Bad’s Cool Game For Attractive People, but they’re the sole developer to deliver true episodic content and not larger games supported with smaller downloadable appendixes.

David Braben’s Frontier Developments never billed LostWinds, WiiWare’s finest offering to date, as an episodic franchise, but they may as well have. The game, for all its quality, is very brief and can be finished in three hours or less if the player doesn’t get lost in its maze of a world. It also ends with an explicit “To Be Continued” screen promising that a second chapter in Toku’s adventure soon. Eleven months after LostWinds release, Frontier hasn’t even mentioned its continuation. Whether its because of business concerns or some other reason, it’s very strange that there hasn’t been so much as a peep out of Frontier concerning its development. What gives? I thought the idea of bite-sized, downloadable, sequential-narrative based games was that they came out quickly!

I admit it. I’m just impatient.

Previously on Where Is?:

Shadow Hearts
SSX
The PSP
Hydrophobia
Prototype
Shuichi Sakurazaki, Creator of Ninja Gaiden
Yasunori Mitsuda

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Posted Apr 01 2009, 05:00 PM

Filed under: john constantine, where is, wiiware, gabe newell, telltale games, david braben, frontier developments, half-life episode 3, strong bad’s cool game for attractive people, Lostwinds, sam & max, lostwinds 2

Comments

RoboSheep said:

Oh believe me, you're not the only one waiting for a new lost winds game.

April 2, 2009 12:12 PM

about the blogger

John Constantine, our superhero, was raised by birds and then attended Penn State University. He is currently working on a novel about a fictional city that exists only in his mind. John has an astonishingly extensive knowledge of Scientology. Ultimately he would like to learn how to effectively use his brain. He continues to keep Wu-Tang's secret to himself.

Derrick Sanskrit is a self-professed geek in a variety of fields including typography, graphic design, comic books, music and cartoons. As a professional hipster graphic designer, his recent clients have included Nerve, Pitchfork and MoCCA, among others.

Amber Ahlborn - artist, writer, gamer and DigiPen survivor, she maintains a day job as a graphic artist. By night Amber moonlights as a professional Metroid Fanatic and keeps a metal suit in the closet just in case. Has lived in the state of Washington and insists that it really doesn't rain as much as everyone says it does.

Nadia Oxford is a housekeeping robot who was refurbished into a warrior when the world's need for justice was great. Now that the galaxy is at peace (give or take a conflict here or there), she works as a freelance writer for various sites and magazines. Based in Toronto, Nadia prizes the certificate from the Ministry of Health declaring her tick and rabies-free.

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