Wanna know the hardest part of having a group of gamer friends, and being married to one? Finding a game we all can enjoy. One members LOVES RPGs, my wife loves shooters, I love session based games and strategy games. So how do we solve our issue? Simple. Open world shooters. They are perfect for what we’re looking for. Most have RPG like elements giving it a feeling of progression, a large number are first person shooters, and they are games where you can just hop in for an hour then shut it down without any sense of commitment.
That’s what it boils down to; Commitment. With a story based multiplayer RPG, you’re forced to go through a story which honestly takes away from the experience. Let’s just take a moment to assume you are into a story, you have to contend with friends talking on the mic during cut scenes, one player maybe running off away from the group, one player being a loot goblin, and one player who literally stops the flow of the game to look at the architecture and scenery. It simply takes away from the experience.
So, where does this leave us? No story open world games. Now, you might think that it sounds boring over all, but allow me to poke your memory. You remember the original Red Dead Online? No, not from Red Dead Redemption 2. The ORIGINAL from back in the day. You were just given a gun, a horse, and no direction. You could go to all the various towns, get in a shootout with another gang of players, get in trouble with the law and try to escape, and even go fight the Mexican Army. You could do all of these epic things without the slightest interference from a narrative. It was incredibly fun, and holds up even today.
That’s what turned me off the Red Dead Online. It was too similar to GTA Online. It has this amazing world to just explore, but the quests you have to do with randoms were just horrible. It took me away from this wild west world, and instead had me struggling to keep up because one guy was just sprinting killing all the enemies. That’s not how shootouts work. I haven’t played it since it came out, so hopefully this isn’t the case anymore. If not, please let us know!
Some games perfect for players looking to just hop in for a few hours? Well, remember we are console players here at 101 Militia Gaming, chill with the PC master race stuff. Conan Exhiles, 7 Days To Die, DayZ, Rust, Ark (sort of…), Minecraft, and Terraria. All of these awesome games drop players in these ever expanding worlds and just allows them to enjoy the world presented to them, not a forced narrative. The best experiences I had in multiplayer games are the ones where me and my friends craft out OWN narrative. It makes everything so much more immersive, and more much more fun to experience.
You may or may not agree with this discussion, and that’s 100% okay! We all have our own opinions, and we should express them. If you and your group likes games with a strong narrative, that’s awesome! You guys should enjoy that! For me, it takes away from the overall experience. One thing we can all agree on is that the little things that randomly happen outside the story, like on your travels, are the memories you remembered. The funny banter you have after killing a group of enemies, begging a friend to help you craft an item, heroic last stands with your squad. It’s things like that you’ll remember.
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