AAA Games Should Look Toward Kena: Bridge of Spirits' Length

As most AAA titles on the market are upward of 30 hours in length, it's nice to see a brief game like Kena: Bridge of Spirits and its price tag.

[Vizigoth04]

I’m going Ember Labs is one of those studios that Sony works with for the next 2 to 3 games and turn out to be a great partnership much like Housemarque. Picking up Kena: Bridge of Spirits day 1!

[neomahi]

I hope its that way but Im getting a feeling its not. Ive been hoping Sony sees their potential and quality and fights to keep the game on PlayStation. I dont know, maybe its Ember Labs that isnt interested in an acquisition just yet and maybe havent had to ask Sony for anything. Who knows. Would be a shame to lose them to Microsoft, Sony has that sort of guiding wing. Who knows. Would be in Sonys best interest to keep this talent on their hardware but maybe Sony is already at work, theyve seen talent and quality and are working on an acquisition. They bought Entwined and Concrete Genie dev really fast.

[bouzebbal]

“As most AAA titles on the market are upward of 30 hours in length, it's nice to see a brief game like Kena: Bridge of Spirits and its price tag.“

Sorry but this sounds like an idiotic comment to me.. I would prioritize a great 30hour long game at full price over 5 hours anytime at half price every time..
how is it nice? -_-‘

[BehindTheRows]

Yeah, I could see Sony acquiring them

[neutralgamer1992]

bouzebbal

I think it's time for the industry you have clear definition of what is AAA Blockbuster game and what is AA budget title. With so many indie developers the price market has kind of gone all over the place. if you look back around the PlayStation 2 and Playstation 3 days and same for Xbox and Xbox 360 we had the mega publishers but we also had those publishers that were making AA games for $40-50. Now it seems most publishers are only interested in AAA games

Ask yourself this how many of these 30+ hours you speak of games are really high end quality content? How many of those same games could benefit greatly if they were maybe 25 to 30 hours but more focused on quality of the content. Ubisoft for example makes games which are 50 Plus hours but most of them are the same rehash over and over again with the same mechanics in the same features

I would happily pay full price for a game which is 15 hours but it's quality of content and isn't trying to prolong it's playtime by offering a lot of fetch quests

Ratchet and clank is perfect example of this. It's a full price game that you could 100% in 20+ hours but the time you spend in there is well worth it and you don't feel like insomniac are taking advantage of your time

[LightofDarkness]

Agree with the sentiment, but AA titles were wiped out for quite a long time during the 360/PS3 era because the cost of development sky-rocketed. So many studios closed because one failure or mediocre product would sink them. It wasn't until the end of that cycle and mostly the beginning of the PS4/XBO era that things stabilised enough for AA to return, thanks to simpler development tools and more straightforward, X86 based hardware.

[brewin]

I thought ratchet was way too short. New Game plus is cool, but it felt like as soon as I was really getting going I was just getting to the end. Ratchet could have easily been double the size at least especially for the $70. You guys are being brainwashed to pay more for less game. As good as ratchet was I still don't think it's worth $70 that's a good $40 game easily.

[Sciurus_vulgaris]

A lot of AAA titles are 10-15 hrs in length. Especially AAA games that aren’t RPGs or open-world. I don’t think Kena’s playtime needs any special praise.

[Game-o-holic]

Well put. The playtime seems pretty normal. The game looks great, write articles about that.

[alb1899]

This game looks beautiful, I'm very interested.

[NeoGamer232]

Ya, we have to be careful not to build it up or knock it down at this point. Proof will be when we get a lot more gameplay or when the game actually ships.

[Atticus_finch]

This game looks very promising. I can't wait.

[NobleRed]

Hopefully there's a disc version day one.

[northpaws]

I like this game and will get it day one, but I don't get why people would prefer games are short and something you can finish in one weekend.

I personally wants games to be 30-40 hours long at least.

[stupidusername]

I only get time for about 5-15 hours playtime each week, so I if a game takes 30-40 hours to beat or more, I usually won’t be able to finish it because something else I want to play comes out, or it’s going to take me months.
But we are all different, and diversity in game lenght is good imo. We need both short and long games.

[northpaws]

but if a game is enjoyable, wouldn't you want it to last longer, afterall, we "play" games, you get the enjoyment while you are playing it. Unless a game is not fun and you simply don't enjoy playing anymore, then I agree shorter is better.

Anyways, I agree with what you said, we need both short and long games, just sharing my point of view.

[MIDGETonSTILTS17]

It’s gotta be tough as a game director to plan out the amount of content for your game.

[neomahi]

Finally, a female lead character thats not lesbian, trans, whatever.

I havent heard anything about this game going gold or being able to pre-order it. This had better not be a Limited Run game. I want a physical copy of this game. Sony, youre the publisher? Better get on it.

[Seafort]

Ember Labs is the publisher and developer.

This is an Epic Store exclusive on PC so Epic would have given Ember Labs a lot of money to stay exclusive for a year at least and pay for development as well as guaranteed sales.

It's coming to PS4/PS5 but Ember Labs is publisher there as well it seems. Nothing to do with Sony.

[sourOG]

It doesn’t matter how long the game is if the pacing is right. Those games where you look up and it’s been 3 hours without realizing it lol. Those games could be 500 hours long and it wouldn’t matter.

[oof46]

Huh? There are a ton of "short" AAA games.

[PunksOnN4G]

IDK.... TBH this post to me sounds like an excuse???? Let alone... Kena not the end all be all game ITS OK. Thats about it. After playing it multiple times in beta... its not as good as everythings u can take this how u will..

[JEECE]

Lol this article says TLOU 2 takes 50-60 hours on average. I played through it in 25 hours, and while I could have explored more in Jackson and on Seattle Day 1 (Ellie), I certainly wasn't blazing through.

[KillBill]

"video games are too long." - sorry but gamers purchasing games are not asking for games to be shorter. If I want a limited entertainment value then I would watch a movie. The idea we as gamers today don't appreciate longer play time then whomever is making the claim is just not your average gamer. Regardless if we finish the game or not we want the value to be there. We are not looking for short game purchases at full retail cost. Sure they charged only $40 because of the length and that helps justify this title but that is not what most gamers want, as the article suggests.

[Einhander1971]

Doesn't bother me in the slightest, quality over quantity every time. I'm not interested in playing 60 + hours of a bore fest.

[Rainbowcookie]

Its too long , no its too short, for gamesnto be taken as an artform let the artists decide. Nobody ever said you know that Van Gogh needs more ear... except EA they would sell the ear as DLC 🤣

[DOMination-]

lol.. this is not a AAA game.

It's a relatively small budget indie title from an animation studio who are making their first foray into gaming projects. It's the exact opposite of the definition of AAA.

[Rimeskeem]

This with GoT expansion is a nice 30 hours of (hopefully) amazing content!

[Flewid638]

Based on the footage, this is more of a AA looking game to me. Still getting it, just not in denial about what it is.

[brewin]

I'm from the era of 80 hour RPGs in the regular. I'm cool with short games too, but no, games should not be shorter just because one promising looking title is.

Ill always appreciate the value of 80-100 hours games. Many of those are designed to beat the main story in 20-30 hours and it is the side content that allows the player to draw that many hours out of it. Skyrim for example can be beat in 20 or so hours, but most who played it did so for 100 or more hours.