‘Devil May Cry’ Creator Thinks “User Experience” More Important To Video Games Than “Pretty Graphics”
While the wider video game industry now unfortunately consider ‘realistic graphics’ to be a significant indicator towards a given title’s quality, Devil May Cry creator Hideki Kamiya believes this outlook is antithetical to the medium’s purpose of providing players with unique – and especially fun – gameplay experiences.
The storied Japanese director, whose other stylish outings include Resident Evil 2, the Bayonetta and Viewtiful Joe series, and Astral Chain, offered his thoughts on the current video game ecosystem while speaking with Famitsu alongside Screen Juice dev studio founder Felix Schade, whose original shape-shifting-centric rougelite Morbid Metal is nearing its 1.0 release, regarding their respective approaches to action game development.
As machine translated by DeepL, at one point asked as to “the key points you emphasize when creating action games”, Schade took the lead and declared, “Creating something players will enjoy is the most important thing.”
“For [Morbid Metal], we were particularly focused on the combat elements. Action, speed, diverse combos, and the character switching mechanic were non-negotiable points. Also, for everything we put into the game—action, characters, story—we place the utmost importance on whether it looks cool.”
Agreeing with this sentiment, Kamiya then recalled how player consideration led to one of the Resident Evil series’ most memorable quirks:
“I understand. When I was making Resident Evil at Capcom [Kamiya served a system planner on the first game before being tapped to direct the sequel], we faced a problem with the original PlayStation’s specs: moving to another room inevitably caused a 6-second loading screen.
“If we left it as is, players would stare at a black screen for 6 seconds every time they moved rooms, which would ruin the game. So, we racked our brains and came up with a solution: during the load screen, we only displayed the door model and made it open with a loud clang.
“User experience is truly the most important thing. Thinking about how to avoid ruining it is fundamental to game development.”
Following this brief trip down the zombie-infested memory lanes of Racoon City, the head of the recently established Clovers dev studio turned to more broadly expand on his assertion, explaining “Another thing is, when making a new game, I consciously aim to invent and incorporate mechanics that can only be experienced in that specific game.”
“For example, in Bayonetta, we added ‘Witch Time,’ where dodging enemy attacks slows everything down. In Okami, we included ‘Brush Stroke,’ where drawing with a brush affects the world around you.”
Met with praise from Schade, who beamed, “That’s impressive. I feel like there’s less of that unique, inventive fun in games these days,” Kamiya then
“Just having pretty graphics doesn’t really grab me. As a player myself, I still want that heart-racing feeling from an experience you can only get in that specific game.”
Drawing his thoughts to a close, Kamiya admitted, “There’s no such thing as a convenient idea like, ‘If you think about it this way, ideas will come.’ You have to approach it with the mindset that you must create something you can’t experience in other games, and just keep thinking, ‘What would be unique and interesting for this game?'”
“If you keep thinking about it, at some point the game gods descend and give you an idea. It’s the same cycle every time.”
