Take-Two Interactive CEO Strauss Zelnick appears fairly proud of this 12 months’s Mafia: The Old Country. In a brand new interview, he stated the comparatively quick and linear semi-open-world motion recreation proves that a number of gamers will purchase video games which are centered, not tremendous bloated, and provide a very good story. And boy howdy, as somebody who loves a pleasant weekend single-player recreation, I’m very completely satisfied to listen to that.
In a recent interview with The Game Business newsletter, Zelnick talked about a number of the successes Take-Two has had over the previous few months. It seems Borderlands 4 isn’t promoting in addition to anticipated, which the CEO blames on PC points and says he expects it to do properly in the long run. On the flipside, Mafia: The Outdated Nation, a unique recreation revealed earlier this 12 months by 2K (an entirely owned subsidiary of Take-Two), truly beat inner gross sales expectations. In accordance with Zelnick, it proves that folks need well-made, narrative-driven single-player video games.
“What we suspected was confirmed,” Zelnick instructed the outlet. “Which is just…if you give consumers a great narrative experience that’s a lot of fun, somewhat contained, and at a fair price, then you can have the perfect result.”
Keep in mind when every thing wasn’t a live-service factor?
Launched in August and developed by Hangar 13, The Outdated Nation is smaller than previous Mafia titles, solely takes about 11 hours to finish, has no on-line parts, and launched at a decreased value of $50. It’s additionally the type of recreation we don’t actually get anymore from AAA publishers like 2K: a big-budget, solo-only, linear action game that lacks a number of replay worth or in-game purchases. Again within the PS2 and even Xbox 360 eras of gaming, this was fairly commonplace stuff. Not a lot anymore.
Nonetheless, as Zelnick factors out, there may be positively a requirement for some of these video games. I feel lots of people don’t have the time to dedicate to the newest massive on-line hit, nor can they make investments 200 hours into some large open-world RPG. However a 10- to 12-hour action-adventure recreation with some nice cutscenes, good writing, and no bullshit? Yeah, that’s interesting to lots of people, myself included.
Hopefully, Mafia: The Outdated Nation‘s success can be used as a blueprint for Take-Two, and the publisher can greenlight similarly sized projects at its various studios. And we can play those games while we wait for Take-Two’s juggernaut, Grand Theft Auto 6, to finally release one day. Eventually.
