Rockstar on Episodic Content and “Big” Games
Games are getting larger and more movie-like these days, with most games offering a single play-through experience rather than focusing on the replayability factor. Keeping that in mind, Kotaku asked Rockstar, the developer of GTA, about big games and how it all relates to the upcoming release of Grand Theft Auto 4.
Surprisingly, they view the game as being more of a ‘world’ rather than a single, consistent storyline. In fact, the developer draws comparison with Metroid Prime, stating that “if you lose your concentration… you can’t get back into it again,” whereas in GTA 4 you are jumping “into a world [and] not necessarily a storyline.”
The representative also talks about episodic content, saying that the exclusive content for the Xbox 360 version of the game will be “an experiment” since the company doesn’t think it is worthwhile to pump out episodes.