“But so many creators use games as a powerful storytelling medium, or as a tool for education and communication of ideas even for esports.”ĭr Shell agrees. “There’s still a tendency for people to dismiss them as frivolous playthings for children, or ultra-violent power fantasies,” Dr Powley concludes. However, both see certain issues holding video games back from a greater socio-cultural impact, most notably due to the stigma many people still carry about the medium. He also praises That Dragon, Cancer, which leverages the unique, immersive nature of gaming to tell the story of a child diagnosed with cancer, alongside the highs and lows experienced by their close family. He adds that narrative in games has recently experienced a dramatic change, specifically targeting “society’s more challenging subjects” a standout for him is Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice, which successfully challenged the perception of people with mental health problems as “classic, Joker-style “insane” antagonists. It's not all about tech games like 'Hellblade' continue to push the boundaries of gaming narrative. He says: “ The Witcher 3 and Red Dead Redemption 2 combine high-quality graphical content with vast, playable environments that allow the player to decide against achieving goals, and just wander to find their own chosen purpose, developing stronger relationships with characters than ever before.” He praises Half-Life: Alyx for showing how VR can tell stories in “highly immersive worlds” Animal Crossing: New Horizons demonstrates how “games can be both a social phenomenon and a form of escapism, which is especially needed in these times.”įor Dr Shell, it’s the ever-growing freedom that modern AAA games offer. While we’re still waiting to see what the future brings, both experts see the current generation of games pushing the boundaries in countless different directions.Īlongside praise for Main Assembly’s unique and incredibly educational approach to creative problem solving, Dr Powley notes how Control and Death Stranding show that mainstream games can “rival cinema as a storytelling medium”. How gaming is changing the world right now “Integrating more AI technology into this is an active field of academic research, and I hope we will see some of that research influencing commercial games in coming years,” he adds. “ Terraria is a prime example of what’s possible for this generation while level structure may be constrained, new levels can be produced using evolutionary techniques.”Īt the moment, this procedurally generated content is “essentially very sophisticated random number generation,” Dr Powley says, but he’s excited for what the future will bring for both developers and gamers. “There’s real scope for AI to procedurally generate content, reducing studio time and adding replayability,” Dr Shell adds. GettyĪI will, however, be used to reduce development time. Making those characters more realistic, and giving them more nuanced interaction with the players, opens up a lot of possibilities for new types of gaming.”ĭevelopers may soon start using AI to generate entire worlds in next to no time, experts believe. There’s still great scope to enhance the virtual characters that inhabit those worlds. “We’ve reached a point of diminishing returns when it comes to graphical fidelity, which has driven a lot of advances in gaming technology up to now. “But understandably, studios don’t want games to have emergent behaviour from AI games would start to evolve outside of their concept.”ĭr Powley believes there’s still room for improvement. “AI is already massively incorporated into gaming, though at the moment the nature of games design and gameplay requires it to be constrained,” Dr Shell says.
If we’re to see a real impact on gaming experiences, both professors believe the role of AI will be bigger than most: not just in the games themselves, but during the development process. As such, Dr Powley believes that “we shouldn’t expect a truly major technological step” developers will instead “continue to incrementally improve technology.” “This isn’t intended to sound pessimistic,” he emphasizes, “it’s more a reflection that games technology is already quite mature.” In particular, he believes gradual upgrades to graphics, AI, mobile technology and internet infrastructure will combine with “creative and artistic possibilities”. Like many other technologies, haptic sensors are being tested. Haptic feedback could be used to simulate the feeling of guns, making FPS games more immersive than.
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