With Tell Me Why on Xbox Game Pass, Episodic Gaming has found its moment

Episodic gaming has always felt like an idea that was ahead of its time. For many players, it’s an exciting concept: story-based games, which you split into digestible parts that you can play over the course of weeks or months. But the realities of the game development and release schedule proved problematic. Like the studio behind Teltel Games, the episodic hits Wal King Dead And Batman, Struggling with the demand to release new episodes every month. Meanwhile, last year Life is fantastic 2 With chapters starting at an irregular pace being released every few months, it was excellent but difficult to continue.

But with the advent of subscription services like Xbox Game Pass, Episodic Games has finally found its moment.

I came to this realization while playing Tell me why On Xbox One, the latest release from French studio Dontnod, with the same team behind it. Life is weird Series. Exactly what we expect from the studio: a mix of reputation drama TV and the classic point-and-click adventure game. The players control two twins living in a small town in Alaska, they are wrapped up in the death of their mother and her secret life. It’s as emotional and resilient as the studio’s previous work, and also an interesting new superpower to play around with; The twins have a mental connection, which they can use to talk to each other and bring old memories to life.

The story itself is great, and I’ve missed it from the beginning. The first episode of Tell me why Launched on 27 August Gust with new chapters on a weekly basis. The third and final episode is out today. That excitement has proven to be particularly compelling; In the past, episodic games usually released new chapters every two or three months, making it difficult to keep track of the story. Usually, I wait until each episode is released and play it all at once. But with Tell me whyKnowing that a new episode would come out every week, I played a different game, diving in as soon as the next chapter came out.

It’s a model that fits particularly well with a streaming service like GamePass, which seems to be starting to get more and more like the long-awaited Netflix for games. The whole process is unified: I don’t have to worry about buying new episodes or keeping track of my savings. It all just works, so I can focus on enjoying the story.

Sales pitch for game passes, major exceptions to microfits have been accessed; If you subscribe, you don’t have to make a new purchase Halo Or Gears Game, because they are part of the service. But Microsoft has also done an excellent job of consistently creating game passes with a variety of different experiences. There are big online worlds like FateLike survival games Grounded, And like classic arcade titles BattleTods. Suffice it to say that micro .ft has become an important part of the next-generation strategy. When I finally buy an Xbox Series X, there’s a strong chance that I can’t really buy any games for it. I’ll just run things on the game pass.

Episodic games fit perfectly with this strategy. For one thing, it’s the kind of experiences you can play between small, big games. But their story-based nature also means they face a variety of subjects – and in turn, can appeal to new audiences – compared to traditional blockbusters. Dontnode has become particularly adept at this. The first two seasons Life is weird Difficult issues such as suicide and racism were covered in a way that was both direct and sensitive, a rarity in mainstream sports. Tell me why Trying to do something like this in terms of her transgender lead character. These types of games can be opened to new audiences as they are on a growing service like Game Pass.

Subscription services do not solve every issue with episodic games. Releasing new games on a weekly or monthly basis is still a huge undertaking for any developer; Tell me why The episode seems to have already been completed before it started, which could be a compromise. Other than that, though, they both seem fairly appropriate. As services like GamePass evolve more and more like their streaming television counterparts, games that combine TV-style storytelling interactions are beginning to make more sense. It took a few years, but eventually the industry caught on.