In the Age of Binging, Let’s Look at Why Episodic Games Matter

For fans of television, it often feels like the weekly release format is on the way out. For a period of time, “water cooler” shows (shows that draw in a large audience at once so people the next day discuss the events around the water cooler in their office) were a hot commodity, but within the last decade and a half or so, there’s only been a handful that really captured the zeitgeist of event television, those primarily being Lost, The Walking Dead, and Game of Thrones. Since then, with the rise of Netflix’s original series, binging has become the new normal for many people that watch TV and the water coolers are a lot less crowded. The gaming industry has seen some similar changes also with the decrease in episodic games, but this format definitely has some merits.

Through the early to mid-2010s, there was a definite shift in the gaming world among certain developers, as a handful of creators looked at the episodic format as a means to tell their stories in a more compelling fashion. As games like Life is Strange and Hitman have now moved away from the episodic nature of their releases, and with the dismantling of Telltale Games, this format that was experimented with has now seemingly vanished from the gaming space. However, with all the problems that this format might have brought with it, there were a number of outstanding features that it helped bring forward.

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In the game industry, Life is Strange is the latest series to pivot towards a more conventional release. This becomes more understandable, and one has to wonder whether it was publisher Square Enix or developer Deck Nine that was the one behind the decision, or possibly both. With a new developer taking the reins of the series following DONTNOD’s exit after Life is Strange 2, the latest entry, Life is Strange: True Colors, was released as a full game back in September. Although this time it was separated by chapters, fans wouldn’t have to wait almost a whole year from the first episode to the last to jump in if they wanted the full experience.

It’s just a fact that many, if not most, gamers aren’t used to the episodic format that TV has utilized for so long. Many people might make the point as to why these games aren’t being released as early access titles if they aren’t “complete”, even if the episodes that are released are clearly in a finished state. Out of all the games in the series, Life is Strange 2 utilized this type of release format the best, although at times that episodic release schedule appeared to act as more of a hindrance than a positive for some, as episodes were usually released about every four months. This was after the original Life is Strange, which saw all but the final episode releasing on a schedule of about 2 months in between episodes.

Life is Strange 2 really drove that storytelling technique home even further simply due to how the game was structured thematically. With Sean and Daniel’s journey being one that was centered around an escape from Seattle, life on the run, and a “road trip” to Mexico, the way each episode took players from different cities and states along the West coast of the United States fit the bill perfectly for an episodic release. The developers had time jumps in between episodes, and during that time, Sean and Daniel were doing their own thing, and the player would later end up reading about it in Sean’s journal.

Outside of the obvious fact that these months in between games allowed for the developers to shape and assemble the story and game in a positive way, for titles like Life is Strange, these long periods between episodes allowed these games to breathe. This was especially beneficial for a heavily story-focused series like this one. Just like any great TV show that aired in a similar fashion, audiences were able to speculate as to what would happen in the next episode, and wonder how and if past choices the player made would end up having severe consequences later down the line.

For a game series like Hitman, IO Interactive took the reboot of the franchise in a bit of a different direction. Also published by Square Enix, it’s a series that’s consistently praised for its level design and the sheer amount of creativity that it allows for. Its first game in the soft reboot of the series saw IO leaning into one of the big selling points of the franchise, as they continued to tap into the creativity of its fanbase.

Because of the massive levels and multitude of ways that the developers allowed players to eliminate targets and go about approaching these complex situations, it provided a superb sense of replayability. Because of that, as audiences waited for these new episodes to release, it let players master levels in ways that you might not normally experiment with. It gave a greater appreciation for the work that IO was putting into these maps and encounters, as exploring them became more engaging as you weren’t looking to immediately move onto the next map. Shifting away from the episodic nature that the first game utilized made it lose an element that was otherwise incredibly welcome.

These episodic games would also allow for a greater connection to the community for the developers. But, that’s not to say it was always the easier path, as oftentimes developers found themselves up against harsh deadlines that the community was acutely aware of due to past release timelines. In any case, it’s a release format that has seemingly gone to the wayside in a time where Netflix and binging has almost become the norm for many. As a storytelling device, it’s a tactic that can be utilized in a great way that is otherwise often overlooked.

Though Life is Strange was the latest high-profile release to drop the episodic format, it could be said that Telltale Games was the one to really bring it into the spotlight. Though they had utilized it before in games throughout the 2000s, it finally garnered mainstream attention when they would end up releasing the first episode of The Walking Dead in 2012. It’s interesting to think if this game was more palatable for some since it was coming from a preexisting franchise where issues and episodes were commonplace, as the TV show at the time was already extremely popular, and its comic book counterpart had already been running for a long while. Following alongside Clementine and Lee’s tumultuous journey over the course of months as you wait to see what would happen on the latest episode is a feeling that’s not replicable in a traditional release format.

There’s also the fact that due to their release schedule for a lot of these games, episodic titles often end up missing a lot of potential game of the year conversations. Some outlets find it difficult to discuss games released in this way because it might not necessarily be “complete”, in a similar way to all the early access games that we saw a few years ago like Fortnite and Player Unknown’s Battlegrounds. The Walking Dead and Hitman definitely seemed to be outliers in this regard, as all episodes ended up releasing within the same year during an 8 month period.

There’s a clear shift in the world of television when it comes to how people consume media, and though for a time games saw a change in the other direction, it definitely feels as if the episodic experiment has lost many of its greatest contributors. Though these titles certainly won’t be the last to utilize this, it’s clear that many gamers want what they know, and would rather not wait the months in between episodes that it often takes to finish. In a time where streaming studios and traditional channels experiment with release schedules, it appears that there’s definitely a place for each. Though it appears to be vanishing from the world of video games, for the time that it was present, it acted as an incredibly engaging storytelling technique.

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