Most games these days are released as either one finished piece at a final price or at an earlier stage at a reduced price. But occasionally – as with the newly rebooted Hitman trilogy – a finished game is instead divided into pieces and sold separately over a period of time, resulting in a sort of TV/Video Game hybrid wherein players experience shorter segments of gameplay over a long period of time. Could this style of release pose new creative opportunities for games, and if so, what might they be? Does a game have something to gain by releasing in this way?
Is this like the Mass Effect trilogy, 3 games with an overarching story and characters? I am a bit confused by the term episodic game trilogy. – Sean Gadus4 years ago
Agreed with Sean’s point. The biggest culprit in this broad category would be sports games from Electronic Arts (FIFA, Madden et al.), which have yearly releases. – J.D. Jankowski4 years ago
A good game to look at that attempted a sort of television/gaming hybrid was Remedy Studios "Quantum Break," which incorporated actual episodes that responded to a player's choices in the game. It's a very unique approach and not one that I believe worked very much in it's favor -- the characters that showed up in the television segments did not make an appearance in the actual game, which led to a big disconnect and stops the momentum of the experience dead. The applications of this formula should be expounded upon, but it should actively affect how the game itself plays rather than vice versa. – Runestrand4 years ago