Ex-Interplay dev: Games have been dumbed down

Most agree that games are easier than they used to be. But one developer reckons modern games have been dumbed down so much that they appeal to the “lowest common denominator”.

Matt Findley, president of inXile entertainment, is that developer. “There was a time many years ago when it was okay to have really difficult puzzles that just stopped the player,” he told journalists at Bethesda’s recent Gamers Day event in France.

“You’d be playing along and you’d hit a brick wall and you had to figure things out or the game was over. Gaming has obviously changed a lot since then. To be fair we’ve had to dumb games down to the lowest common denominator just so that everyone can always play.”

Findley, who along with PC game legend Brian Fargo worked at now defunct publisher/developer Interplay, aims to bring hardcore dungeon crawling and puzzle solving back with the dark fantasy co-op action game Hunted: The Demon’s Forge, due out next year.

And this is how he’s doing it: “By coming up with this concept of having a critical path that is free of boundaries and having all this sense of exploration and secret discovery that’s off of the critical path, it allows us to make games a little smarter again.

“We can make those puzzles as challenging as we want because it’s something that’s optional to the game player. It’s not on the critical path.”

In France we saw a few of Hunted’s puzzles in action, and pretty complicated they look indeed. The elf girl has to light her arrows on fire and then fire them at braziers, and the big burly bloke has to push large objects. Some of the puzzles even require the two characters work together.

For loads of new screenshots for Hunted: The Demon’s Forge, due out on the Xbox 360, PS3 and PC, head over to our game page. We’ll be previewing the game soon.

Do you agree with Matt Findley? Do games appeal to the lowest common denominator? Let us know what you think in the comments section below.