We need proper Hubs back for 4!
Nothing would be sweater then having hubs back for Clems last season. Recently TT games have been getting shorter and shorter. Season 1 took me 13 hours, Season 2 took me 9 hours and season 3 took me 7 hours. If TT are serious about wanting to end her story with a bang then they should pull out all stops for the season. This means less fully cinematic experiences where we have no time to stop and breath but actual time to stop and breath. The closet we got in season 3 was episode 1 and in season 2 we had episode 3. But both paled in comparisons to Season 1. If TT want my money they are gonna have to prove that they are listening to feedback and go back to their roots and ditch what they are currently doing.
Checking steam stats I've seen that their recent games have been selling less and less which I would imagine would be the same for other consoles. Surely they will see this as the need to stop and understand what made them popular and in a sense Rich in the first place and hubs is one tick off the list.
Hubs allow for players to really get to know all the different characters that are introduced and to connect and relate to them. We didn't get this in season 2 and 3 so it was hard to connect to the gracias because everything was moving at a superhuman pace. We liked people like Kenny because we got to sit down and speak to him and understand things from his side as well as other characters. It helped establish our bond with Clem as Lee which is something that hasn't happened at all for the past 2 seasons. I'm not going to buy the final season unless I see TT actually make amends and show that they will listen to the criticism they receive because if we get a season 3 again then I will not be buying any more TT games for a long time.
TLDR: We need hubs back, they allow us to connect to characters and create bonds. Something which isn't possible with the recent seasons.
Comments
Agreed. Pretty much the only interactive objects in season 3 were the ones we needed to complete a task like the car jack, jumper cables, medicine etc. Season one's hubs focused more on storytelling and exploration with voluntary activities like pushing Clem on the swing that helped with character building and bonding.
I think it is kind of a mixed bag. If they bring back the hubs like Hershel's farm – where you can walk around and interact with the characters and find out more about them and, if you don’t want to, you can just move on with the story –, I’m 100% onboard and fine with it. Bring it back.
However, if they will just add hubs where you do an amount of simple tasks and that have the sole purpose of stretching the runtime of the game, I would prefer not. Usually these only break the flow of the narrative. If these tasks don’t add anything to the characters or to the story (like if, for example, you can find an important item that could be necessary later, but won’t if you don’t look around), they can be done in a cutscene.
It would be great, I really liked S1 where you had to look for clues in Ep3, or when in S2 they were all by the camp fire and you could walk around at talk to people. Something I missed in ANF. Yeah, hopefully they will make more of these in S4. It really does make you more attached to the characters in the story. Something I did not feel while playing ANF.