One of the most controversial topics in the gaming community in recent years is whether developers can play the games they make. A recent decision by CI Games, the developer of Lords of the Fallen 2, has accidentally reignited this controversy. Officially revealed that the team specially hired 8 senior Soulslike players to directly participate in game development, hoping to create a work that is more in line with the expectations of Soulslike players through the perspective of players who truly love “Dark Souls” and “Elden Ring”.
Instead of looking for consultants, just invite players into the company!
CI Games stated that these new members did not simply participate in testing, but directly joined the development process to help the team understand the experience and design details that soul players really value. From the official point of view, instead of guessing what players want behind closed doors, it is better to directly find the people who know this type of game best to work together.
After the news was exposed, the first reaction of many players was not to discuss “Lords of the Fallen 2”, but began to point the finger at the entire game industry. Someone left a message saying: “Wait a minute, you still need to play the game before developing the game?” In recent years, many masterpieces have caused controversy due to the disconnect between the design concept and the needs of the players. Therefore, “the developer does not play the game at all” has almost become a fixed line for players every time.
What hurts the most is not the criticism, it’s that players think it’s rare!
In fact, CI Games’ approach is not a revolutionary initiative. In theory, people who develop racing games will study racing games, and people who make RPGs will study RPGs. It is only natural. But when players see that “looking for Soul-based players specifically to make Soul-based games” has become a selling point worthy of publicity, many people’s first reaction is: So what are other companies doing?
Perhaps this is why this news suddenly went viral. What everyone cares about is no longer that “Lords of the Fallen 2” has found a few players, but more and more people are beginning to wonder whether the reason why some games overturned is that no one cares about what players want to play from the beginning.