How Apple Arcade Got The No Man's Sky And Oxenfree Sequels


Nearly a year after its launch, Apple Arcade has grown its library of 60 titles to more than 130 stylish, familiar, and often contemplative indie games. This continues in stark contrast to most other gaming services that offer access to AAA games, but for Apple, it looks like it's going full steam ahead for Arcade with little apparent change, of course. The latest trio of new games showcase Apple Arcade's enduring strengths, and its development process provides insight into why we haven't seen the shift in direction toward adding more engaging titles to the library. Arcade, as reported in July. The three new games released in the last few weeks have come from well-known developers and publishers. The first to come to the service is even based on a very popular IP: Game of Thrones: Tale of Crows, an idle narrative game from Devolver Digital. The other two come from studios with similar pedigrees: Next Stop Nowhere was made by Night School Studio (Oxenfree), while The Last Campfire is from Hello Games (No Man's Sky). TechRadar spoke briefly with the teams from all three games to chat and discuss how they match up with what Apple has been looking for in arcade titles, and explain why the other games don't. Basically the three slower-paced games that rely on narrative, stylized visuals rather than fast-paced action and jittery response times. This makes them suitable for touch controls on iPhone and iPad, remote control for Apple TV, or mouse/trackpad on Mac (although all Apple operating systems support PS4 and Xbox One controllers, some subscribers probably don't). will not solve the problem). And the simpler controls make it easier for younger gamers to get started with the games — gamers, like kids or friends, who don't have to pay for games if they're tied to a subscriber's family plan. These are the existing benefits of Apple Arcade, but other tenets of the service have also guided the games.

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(Image credit: Apple/Devolver Digital) Game of Thrones: Tale of Crows, for example, was designed as an idle game before Devolver Digital approached Apple about including it in Arcade. But the service's no microtransactions allow game creator Jake Hollands to create it as a seamless experience without worrying about intrusive monetization alerts, and unlike other idle games, Tale of Crows has an ending. “The basic idea was to make it a 'healthy' idle game that takes that style of play and uses it in a way that can adapt to the player's life, rather than trying to maintain it. constantly hanging off the screen,” Hollands said. As a result, Tale of Crows is understated, even meditative, and taking place 8,000 years before the series' characters and events, we found it gave players just enough distance from HBO's divisional series while still retaining the flavor of its fantastic universe. And with the Telltale series of games canceled years ago, it's one of the only Game of Thrones media (aside from George RR Martin's bonus books) to be released for years. Exclusively on Apple Arcade, it's a win for the service.

Next Stop Nowhere is available NOW, exclusively at @AppleArcade! Time to hit the road and see the stars...Get it here: https://t.co/jqr84u9Ewb pic.twitter.com/JnFzBpkh5oAugust 14, 2020Next Stop Nowhere by Night School Studio, the second of the trio , is also unique to Apple Arcade, though it's fair to say that the developer's in-house style - flowing conversations while exploring to deepen the story, like The Pioneer from the indie hit Oxenfree and the sequel Afterparty - suits Arcade so well that it's not It's no wonder Apple welcomed Night School's submission for a new game. "I doubted enough that a premium game could survive in this world," said Sean Krankel, co-founder of Night School Games. But then the studio's first title to debut on PC, Oxenfree, came to iOS and reached a new audience. “Not only were we reaching art house and horror gamers, but now on iOS we're reaching creepypasta-reading tweens and a much broader audience. This space game we played would be a good choice. , especially if we don't need to cram into monetization hooks that, frankly, we're not good at. Krankel describes the 'space game' Next Stop Nowhere as a classic American road trip set among the stars, following the courier Beckett and his partner Serra as they drive a 'space Winnebago' through the cosmic expanse. search for the latter's son. The conversations and player choices change the plot arc, but it's easy to play on any Apple Arcade device. The only real change Night School has made to the design of the service? Have it players feel comfortable taking a break every ten minutes or so."Whereas for our other games you don't know when to stop, you just sit back and play for an hour, but it semi-intentionally made us feel like there really were chapter hats." Krankel said. In other words, bite-sized pieces, which are a hallmark of other Apple Arcade games, are easier to use on devices where owners multitask, switching between games and other apps.

The Last Campfire ❤️SwitchPCMacPS4XBoxiOS/Mac/AppleTVOut Now pic.twitter.com/yqKbMlqGYFA Aug 27, 2020 The trio's latest new Apple Arcade game, Hello Games' The Last Campfire, isn't exclusive to the gaming service: it launched in all modern consoles and PCs the same day it hit Arcade. But the game was designed with mobile in mind from the start. Prior to No Man's Sky, the studio grew on its standalone Joe Danger platform games, eventually releasing Joe Danger Infinity on iOS in 2014. Hello Games' Steven Burgess had approached the iOS version of Joe Danger and cobbled together an idea for another game while the studio was working on the hit No Man's Sky. Apple approached Hello Games in 2018 to request titles that might be suitable for Arcade, and the end result of those discussions brought Burgess' project The Last Campfire to the game service. It may not be a coincidence that Apple chose a game that had integrated touch controls from its inception. “We wanted the commands to feel native, so we started with touch controls from day one – the first versions five years ago were on ipad and iphone,” said Sean Murray, co-founder of Hello Games. The game supports controllers, of course. , and after decades of use, gamers have the muscle memory to navigate with physical gamepads, but not so much with touchscreens."We started building the game around what felt intuitive. We wanted it to feel like you were touching the screen and turning a lever." In The Last Campfire, players control Ember, who is wearing an adorable robe, through a series of puzzles and lush environments to bring them home. The mood, Murray explained, was like wandering through the woods and then trying to get back at dusk. With intuitive touch controls, stylish visuals, and a resonant theme, The Last Campfire feels iconic to many of the titles Apple has chosen for its gaming service. As Murray recalls the 2018 meeting when tech giant Apple Arcade explained: “They wanted high-end, creative, native device experiences,” Murray said. But, of course, all that can change.

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The future of Apple Arcade

These three games represent the present of Apple Arcade, but not necessarily its future. Apple approached the studios behind these three titles at different times in 2018, with the service going live in September 2019, and these games coming to Arcade in recent weeks. In other words, we haven't begun to see the shift in strategy that Apple reportedly made in mid-April, when it cut some slated title contracts for the service (including some in mid-April development), according to a Bloomberg report published in July. The tech giant reportedly felt that the cut games would not be appealing enough and that Apple would pursue Arcade titles like the famous Grindstone that would hook gamers and keep them coming back. Anyone who's played Grindstone can attest to its commitment: the new puzzle game is all about killing enemies of the same color in sequence to rack up big combos, with plenty of items to spare. But anyone familiar with free-to-play games can see how easily Grindstone could include in-app monetization – there are in-game gems and consumable health items that feel tailor-made for players to purchase. real money. It's so obvious that it feels like the game would have launched with in-game purchases if Apple hadn't called. In other words, some of what's so appealing about the Grindstone gameplay loop largely overlaps with the addictive loops that free-to-play games implement to lure players into spending real money on in-app purchases. Nothing is stopping Apple from adding more games to Arcade that use those game loops to keep players subscribed to the service without betraying Arcade's no-monetization policy. But that seems to go against Apple Arcade's philosophy of ``creatively designed premium experiences'' that define Game of Thrones: Tale of Crows, Next Stop Nowhere, and The Last Campfire - games that, like many of the solo titles that they make up Arcade's library, they involve solo experiences that are slower, more meditative, and lack a Grindstone-like engagement loop. It's hard to say how far Apple can deviate from this model, especially since it took two years for these games to reach Arcade after the tech giant came close. It may be months or years before the service finally adds the kind of compelling games you're looking for. In the meantime, we're likely to see more games following the original version of Apple Arcade, and making Apple look like it's staying the course.

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