Rapid Release

The stated benefit of releasing the follow-up to Half-Life 2 in episodic installments was so the developer could push more content to the consumer, quicker. That only held through Episode 2, but that's not what I want to discuss here. Valve's point was they could release short episodes, perhaps 1/3 length of a "real" game, every few months to keep gamers involved in and excited about Half-Life. Not to mention selling three episodes for $20 yields $60 revenue versus (at the time) a standard retail title selling for $50.

The biggest value to Valve, however, was unstated at the time: they were not developing true sequels; the game engine and, indeed, the vast majority of gameplay code was not changing. Graphics slowly improved via minor rendering upgrades (note these are ongoing for the Source engine from many related titles, e.g. Left 4 Dead 2 and Team Fortress) but aside from that, developers were creating new maps, story events, voice acting, and other content. The Episodes are not true sequels, and that's not necessarily a bad thing. We don't need a new engine with every new game, right?

With Dead Island: Riptide due out April 23 from developer Techland and producer Deep Silver, this discussion has arisen once again. It's a bit soon for a sequel; many gamers were expecting a new game either this fall or early in 2014. Early 2013 is a real surprise to me. It shouldn't be surprising, then, that I recently discovered Riptide is not a full sequel. In fact, the developers are referring to it internally as Dead Island 1.5 rather than 2.

Is that necessarily a bad thing? I don't think so - not for a newer developer like Techland. They needed a release within two or three years of the original Dead Island launch. By keeping the same game engine they have been able to produce such a release in time. According to the available gameplay footage and screenshots, the graphics are largely unchanged. My hope is that they at least devoted enough effort to the engine and gameplay mechanics in order to clean up some of the quirks that plagued Dead Island. The loose movement and abhorrent menu interfaces, at least, deserve some attention.