How much obligation do sequels have to recap previous entries?

[Dalisclock]

So while browsing articles on Assassins Creed Odyssey, one in particular mentioned how the whole Animus thing isn't even explained to new players anymore, which got me thinking, not only about the AC series(granted, I've been playing Syndicate for a week so it's been on my mind regardless) but also about games as a whole.

With plenty of series going on for years and/or decades at this point, the newest game in the franchise might be 15 or so games removed from the first one. In some series, this really doesn't matter. Mario doesn't have a plot to speak of so playing older games is more about appreciating the evolution of the series then seeing every iteration of Mario vs. Bowser(or Wario/Wart/Whoever). Zelda does have a cannon timeline(s) but only in a very broad sense and otherwise every game is more or less standalone(Sure, there's a few where the same iteration of Link shows up in more then one game but nobody really cares if you play Link to the Past after Links Awakening). Final Fantasy, for the most part, each entry is more or less self contained with only shared elements and the occasional shoutout to the larger series(Dragoons being named Highwind, Cid, etc).

OTOH, then you have series like Metal Gear where most of the games are in a rather tight continuity with the same characters showing up over and over again and events being referenced all over the timeline(lots of call forwards to other MGS games in 3, despite a lot of these events not happening until decades later) and goes all over the place with this, with a few of the games working more or less on their own with no real knowledge of the rest of the series are needed(MG2,MGS,MGS3) and other games where previous games are heavily referenced(MGSW,MGSV,MGS2,MGS4) and only sometimes are you given any real backstory(MGS4 pretty much chucks you in the deep end and expects you to be caught up).

Assassins Creed seems to hit a weird point in all of this, where games can be more or less Standalone and yet, so many of the games intertwine heavily with each other(For example, Rogue ties together plot points from 3,4,Freedom Cry and Unity) and while the Modern Day storyline has swung wildly back and forth on this. Sure, Shaun and Rebecca are still showing up, but if you didn't play any of the Desmond games(1 through 3) their importance won't be clear. I never even considered the Animus question because I did play the early games and they did enough handwaving of those games back then I was kinda glad they stopped trying to explain it(I did have a coworker try to explain to me that Syndicate involved time travel and I couldn't dissuade him from this no matter what I said).

That being said, what do you think is the appropriate amount of recap any sequel should have to do rather then assume any given player has a fairly decent grasp of the general series plot/characters?

 

[Casual Shinji]

That's a very broad question with loads of different proper ways to do it. If we're talking about story focused games I don't think you can expect a sequel to completely bring newcomers up to speed. You are after all making the sequel to follow up on the original for the reason of continuing the story. But then you have series that span in the 6+ games and I think you're just shit out of luck, because you can't expect the developer to recap the previous games with every new entry, and you can't expect a newcomer to play through hundreds of hours of gameplay just to finally get to the popular new game everybody's talking about.

I don't know if Assassin's Creed falls under any sort of continuity in regards to the Animus, as nobody really cared for that since day one, and Ubisoft has gently tried to phase it out. They couldn't just write out out all together since it's too tied to the setting, but they've definitely tried to make it more and more something you don't need to concern yourself with.

 

[KingsGambit_v1legacy]

I've had conversations about this and I will use the Final Destination movies as an example to illustrate a similar point. The main hook of Final Destination (FD) is that one character has a "vision" of impending doom, escapes a gruesome death with a handful of others who then start dying mysteriously one by one as Death comes back to claim the ones he missed.

Now in the first film, it's an incredible phenomenon and the characters don't understand what's happening at first. The vision is a thing of inexplicable wonder and a major focal point as they discover that Death is not only coming for the survivors, but coming for them in the same order in which they *would have died* had they not survived the initial disaster. So we have a unique premise and characters behaving as they logically would given this premise.

Then in the sequels, the protagonists also each have a respective vision and avert disaster, but this miraculous turn of events is barely acknowledged, let alone subject to any of the storytelling. They just got straight on with the deaths (fun and inventive as they may be). Now these are standalone stories...I think in all the films there was one single returning character who was only a minor character on their return. As such, given these are isolated phenomena, the characters do not act believably in the face of evidence of the supernatural.

Obviously it's shorthand...fans of the films will know the score and so rather than spend the time to explain something explained in previous films, they just get on with it. But the downside is that this change is for "out of universe" reasons. The storytelling and characters are compromised for reasons outside of the story.

In the case of AssCreed, it could just be that it's such a design-by-committee product whose endless nature sadly dictates no actual storytelling can take place and so to stay "safe" they just tell standalone, unrelated stories and give odd references just to remind people that the latest one takes place in the same universe. If a story has no end, then there can't be any drama or tension, there can't be any consequences. I haven't played them since Ezio, good enough game but they could have ended it. But no, they want an annual cash cow, and so The Ubisoft Game came to be.

 

[Gethsemani_v1legacy]

Obviously it's shorthand...fans of the films will know the score and so rather than spend the time to explain something explained in previous films, they just get on with it. But the downside is that this change is for "out of universe" reasons. The storytelling and characters are compromised for reasons outside of the story.

In the case of AssCreed, it could just be that it's such a design-by-committee product whose endless nature sadly dictates no actual storytelling can take place and so to stay "safe" they just tell standalone, unrelated stories and give odd references just to remind people that the latest one takes place in the same universe. If a story has no end, then there can't be any drama or tension, there can't be any consequences. I haven't played them since Ezio, good enough game but they could have ended it. But no, they want an annual cash cow, and so The Ubisoft Game came to be.

Let's look at your FD example, which applies to a lot of cash grab/fanservice sequels, through a positive lens: The suspense of the first FD movie is that neither the characters nor the viewer really understands what's going on. The revelation that Death is an actual entity that is coming to collect is actually the major reveal of the movie, with the order of deaths being an important part of the reveal. You can't do this reveal again in the sequel, because return viewers (who will make up the vast majority of sequel viewers) will already know the deal and it won't have any emotional punch. In fact, the reason people will return to a sequel is because FD promises a very specific kind of horror movie: elaborate deathtraps in mundane environments. A return viewer will want more elaborate deathtraps (either in quantity or quality, maybe both), not a rehash of the conceit and a reveal scene where the reveal is something they already know.

Games are pretty similar. I played every AC, except Rogue, up to Unity and followed the story with a sort of amused disinterest. I and the other group of return players would not have wanted a rehash of the Animus, the Assassin/Templar conflict etc. in every game. In fact, most of us cared very little for that and wanted to get on with our sandbox in a historical setting. So Ubisoft did the smart thing and scaled that stuff back. Sure, at 12 years in there will be plenty of players of this major blockbuster franchise that hasn't played the first games, but Ubisoft has also made sure that the entire premise of reliving DNA-memories is so pushed into the background that not knowing the overarching story doesn't matter.

In effect, this is a pretty smart way to go about it. AC is known for its large historical sandboxes, just like FD is known for its elaborate mundane deathtraps. You are not really expected to pay attention to the conceit of DNA-memories or Death collecting his dues, because those are the plot excuses to deliver what the player/viewer really wants.

 

[Dalisclock]

Obviously it's shorthand...fans of the films will know the score and so rather than spend the time to explain something explained in previous films, they just get on with it. But the downside is that this change is for "out of universe" reasons. The storytelling and characters are compromised for reasons outside of the story.

In the case of AssCreed, it could just be that it's such a design-by-committee product whose endless nature sadly dictates no actual storytelling can take place and so to stay "safe" they just tell standalone, unrelated stories and give odd references just to remind people that the latest one takes place in the same universe. If a story has no end, then there can't be any drama or tension, there can't be any consequences. I haven't played them since Ezio, good enough game but they could have ended it. But no, they want an annual cash cow, and so The Ubisoft Game came to be.

Games are pretty similar. I played every AC, except Rogue, up to Unity and followed the story with a sort of amused disinterest. I and the other group of return players would not have wanted a rehash of the Animus, the Assassin/Templar conflict etc. in every game. In fact, most of us cared very little for that and wanted to get on with our sandbox in a historical setting. So Ubisoft did the smart thing and scaled that stuff back. Sure, at 12 years in there will be plenty of players of this major blockbuster franchise that hasn't played the first games, but Ubisoft has also made sure that the entire premise of reliving DNA-memories is so pushed into the background that not knowing the overarching story doesn't matter.

I'm in much the same boat. I still like the AC series(even though it really is a GTA style skinner box) of but overall Assasin-Templar Conflict has pretty much been shown in universe to be a forever war and Ubisoft will never show any appreciable progress as long as the prospect of regular(annual or otherwise) releases are profitable. Not to mention we already know that in the Present Story-line the Templars already run everything while the Assassins occasional get away with small guerrila style victories, so pretty much everything Ezio, Conner, The Frye Twins, etc accomplish ultimately come to naught.

And yeah, at this point, there's no point in repeatedly trying to explain the animus since it's all but acknowledged to be a plot device to play around in historical settings and gives some explanation of some of the wierder, video-gamey elements of the series. That and the "Winners write the history books" conceit.

 

[KingsGambit_v1legacy]

On the original question asked, I personally prefer to see sequels tied into their predecessors. A series should be linked by more than a shared universe, but in the world of games and films, where actors want to move on, demand more money the more important they become, where stories as I said before should by necessity have an end then I understand starting new stories in the same world.

CSI shows are an example of that. I don't watch them but know there was a CSI, CSI Las Vegas, CSI New York and CSI Miami. All share a universe and even a formula, but have a different cast and and story arcs. This is a reality of TV and fine. In the case of AssCreed, they exist for gameplay, not story. It's a known quantity that people who like The Ubisoft Game can get to play the newest version of The Ubisoft Game. I expect the developers know that they aren't writing a story, they're creating an open-world with busywork and so it's less crucial.

One example where I found it jarring was Dragon Age. Dragon Age 2 was a numbered sequel, so you would think that it would continue the story from Origins. However not only did it have nothing to do with either the story or the characters, it was a completely different game as well, with the party-based combat traded in for an offline-WoW style game. It was so jarring, so rushed and so repetitive that it was hard to believe it was the same developer, let alone the same franchise. Inquisition went even further, retconning almost all the world's lore and cultures, reinventing the gameplay a third time and also having a story that's not only separate from 1 and 2, but even ignores the ending of 2, which suggested Hawke would be the driving force behind it.

ME: Andromeda garnered a lot of criticism (justly) for how it retoconned so much of Mass Effect lore. It was also an example of a game existing for gameplay first and story written by people who either didn't know, didn't care or didn't like what came before. They even retconned the phenomenon that gave the series its name, the "mass effect", with ships now entirely capable of not only FTL, but intergalactic journeys without relays. This shows a lack of attention and is an awful way to design a game, let alone a sequel/side-quel, particularly in a series noted for its storytelling.

Sequels IMO could be one of two things: direct continuations of the prequel, continuing the adventures of the same characters immediately following on from or shortly after the prior game/film. Alternatively, a story set in the world but a separate story to what came before, preferably with respect to at least the lore, rules and history of what came before. Andromeda and Inquisition were awful sequels (whatever one might say of the individual games (they both sucked)) because they ignored or retconned what came before and had little else in common. Final Destination films were fine, neither bad nor great because while they stayed thematically true, the characters didn't behave as they would had the story taken place in a vaccum.

The three LotR films/books, the original SW trilogy, these stories flow from one to the next. The sequel continues the journey of our characters from prior chapters and do so with respect to them, the overarching plot, the world they inhabit, etc. I think it's sad that these things never last but all things must end. Wheel of Time spanned 14 gargantuan novels, while Eddings's Belgariad spanned ten (two quintets). They continue the same story in the same tone, the same characters but I think they can only work if the story has end point.

AssCreed will never end, ergo it can never tell a proper story. It can tell some short stories, each standalone with little impact on the rest or the whole, and for some, that's enough.

 

[ebalosus]

That's a very broad question with loads of different proper ways to do it. If we're talking about story focused games I don't think you can expect a sequel to completely bring newcomers up to speed. You are after all making the sequel to follow up on the original for the reason of continuing the story. But then you have series that span in the 6+ games and I think you're just shit out of luck, because you can't expect the developer to recap the previous games with every new entry, and you can't expect a newcomer to play through hundreds of hours of gameplay just to finally get to the popular new game everybody's talking about.

I don't know if Assassin's Creed falls under any sort of continuity in regards to the Animus, as nobody really cared for that since day one, and Ubisoft has gently tried to phase it out. They couldn't just write out out all together since it's too tied to the setting, but they've definitely tried to make it more and more something you don't need to concern yourself with.

Mostly this, if I'm being honest. It really depends on how connected a sequel is to previous entries, with direct sequels in terms of story (Back to the Future -> Back to the Future part 2, for example) not needing much of a recap, because the assumption is that you've seen the original thus are already up to speed on what's what.

For sequels that involve a time-skip, but are still a continuation on what came before story-wise (think Mass Effect 2 or Starcraft 2), then a minor blurb at the start to catch people up is a good idea.

For sequels that are more or less set in the same universe, things can go multiple ways. At the very least they should describe the setting and what's going on in order to catch up older fans and inform newer fans. Using Assassin's Creed, you should inform the audience that "there is technology to enable people to relive ancestors due to information buried in their genetic code, and that this technology was developed by one side in a secret war to gain the upper hand," with the rest of the information being available in-game should those interested want to learn more.

In all, I think the core issue is what audience is the developer trying to appeal to: well-informed fans that already know what's what, and can jump in with little trouble? New fans that may need their hands held, or who may not particularly care for the history of the series? Both?

 

[Saelune]

Depends on the context and intent of the game. I cant imagine the AC series expects anyone to be fully 'up to date' on their series anymore.

It depends on if the series is a direct continuation, how long it has been since the last entry, how different it is from the last, and how complex it is overall.

The Elder Scrolls doesn't need to recap you because each game is stand alone. The lore is there to find out for those who care, but you can play just Skyrim and be fine.

ACII recapped ACI, but I think it was fair to, it literally starts right when ACI ends. But I cant even imagine what the plot is now with AC...I dunno, 12?

Some games just require you to have played the first. Having played Bioshock 2 recently...that game is only meant for people who played Bioshock 1, and if you haven't, you shouldn't play it until you beat 1. It doesn't even recap you much at all.

 

[KingsGambit_v1legacy]

I still like the AC series(even though it really is a GTA style skinner box)

Just to point out, they aren't skinner-boxes as the term is commonly used. Shadow Warrior 2, Borderlands 2, Diablo, these use "skinner boxes" or operant-conditioning to keep players playing. The core gameplay loop consists of pushing buttons and having colourful loot-splosions in response. That isn't the same as completing a level or whatnot, it doesn't dictate the second-to-second loop. Just mentioning it. Although for all I know AssCreed 27 could well be a random loot generator so there's that.

Let's look at your FD example, which applies to a lot of cash grab/fanservice sequels, through a positive lens: The suspense of the first FD movie is that neither the characters nor the viewer really understands what's going on. The revelation that Death is an actual entity that is coming to collect is actually the major reveal of the movie, with the order of deaths being an important part of the reveal. You can't do this reveal again in the sequel, because return viewers (who will make up the vast majority of sequel viewers) will already know the deal and it won't have any emotional punch.

That is all true and the point I was making. The difference however comes by being a standalone story with a different cast. Had the same protagonist from 1 returned for 2, then the *characters* would not have needed the phenomena explained. But it was different characters and while the audience doesn't need the central conceit explained, the *characters* do.

While there is that one returning cameo and I believe one news article referencing an earlier film, beyond that the main phenomenon was handwaved or ignored. The first one set a high standard because it told a believable story with a cool premise and inventive deaths. As much as I loved the sequels (and I do), they failed in the story dept because the characters didn't act as believably. It's an in-universe compromise made for out-of-universe reasons.

I would liken to mechanics in games that exist because they're games, not because they're believable. For example, X-Ray Vision in Mafia 3 is inauthentic and ruins immersion, whereas in Deus Ex: Mankind Divided it works. In the former, it exists solely for gameplay reasons so the player can see thru walls where the protagonist should not be able to, whereas in the latter it exists because Jensen is augmented and installed a praxis kit to upgrade his optic augmentation. In one case it belongs, in the other it doesn't.

In another film example, it would be similar to Luke Skywalker finding out that Vader is his father off-screen and later having him or another character mention the relationship as tho it was already established lore. While the SW trilogy is different that the movies were direct sequels, the concept is the same. Shorthand liberties taken with the story for film-making reasons. I think FD films are fantastic for what they are, one of the best teen horror franchises, but the way they handwave the vision and Death is noticeably detrimental to the story. Most people can ignore the flaw, and that's fine if making something second-rate, like AssCreed, is enough.

 

[Dalisclock]

When the ongoing narrative thread is vital to understanding the current story, it wouldn?t hurt to at least have a cinematic or story board in the menu somewhere, regardless of the players? familiarity. It just helps to flesh out the production value.

That doesn?t really apply to something like SoulsBorne though, where everything is cryptic and meant for the payer to uncover themselves. Or other games series where the plot is primarily there to serve the gameplay.

 

[KingsGambit_v1legacy]

That doesn?t really apply to something like SoulsBorne though, where everything is cryptic and meant for the payer to uncover themselves. Or other games series where the plot is primarily there to serve the gameplay.

This is fair, but as you say it's because in these games the story/lore comes way after combat, boss mechanics, area design, weapon balancing, etc.

But it does raise a different point. The Souls sequels were "faithful" to their predecessors insofar as gameplay is concerned. Where Dragon Age 2 was a complete departure from Origins, DS2 and DS2 captured the essence or "soul" (boom tische) of what made Dark Souls great. They were more of the same, with some innovation and upgrades but IMO, crucially were themselves fantastic standalone. Any one of them could be taken separately and hold up as great games. Your example is fair, but I think the Souls games were true to the earlier titles thematically and mechanically.

It could be that AssCreed is somewhat different since the Animus and future plot were essentially a framing device for the past sandbox shennanigans. It began by having Desmond bring back skills and knowledge from his genetic memories or whatever they called it, but since the franchise will never end, neither can the story. Templars and Assassins, like Alliance/Horde, Sith/Republic, etc will always be in status quo.

 

[Moriarty70]

When the ongoing narrative thread is vital to understanding the current story, it wouldn?t hurt to at least have a cinematic or story board in the menu somewhere, regardless of the players? familiarity. It just helps to flesh out the production value.

That doesn?t really apply to something like SoulsBorne though, where everything is cryptic and meant for the payer to uncover themselves. Or other games series where the plot is primarily there to serve the gameplay.

Probably the best way to handle it.

As for the AC series, I look at it like Dr. Who at this point. It's an ongoing story where each new version should have just enough exposition to keep new players on track and not lost in the world. It's maybe one of the few things I like about Codex's replacing lore heavy manuals in games. Use them for the background so veterans can dive in and ignore the stuff they know.

 

[Dalisclock]

When the ongoing narrative thread is vital to understanding the current story, it wouldn?t hurt to at least have a cinematic or story board in the menu somewhere, regardless of the players? familiarity. It just helps to flesh out the production value.

That doesn?t really apply to something like SoulsBorne though, where everything is cryptic and meant for the payer to uncover themselves. Or other games series where the plot is primarily there to serve the gameplay.

Probably the best way to handle it.

As for the AC series, I look at it like Dr. Who at this point. It's an ongoing story where each new version should have just enough exposition to keep new players on track and not lost in the world. It's maybe one of the few things I like about Codex's replacing lore heavy manuals in games. Use them for the background so veterans can dive in and ignore the stuff they know.

I never played AC much outside the original, and even that was only a few hours. I think that ?universe? it could benefit from something like what MGS did with the database [http://www.metalgearsolid.net/database]. It?s a lore-fiend?s dream come true, and the digital wiki version is still on PSN I think. I can only imagine if they made one for the SoulsBorne series.

 

[KingsGambit_v1legacy]

I never played AC much outside the original, and even that was only a few hours.

The original was boring and tedious and not a good game. AC2 however was vastly superior and a bona fide good game. This was the origin of The Ubisoft Game back before every game they made came out the same, but AC2 did almost everything right.

In the present, Desmond and the girl were keeping him in the Animus as long as they could so he could learn what he needed to learn and bring past knowledge into the present day. There was a present day Templar plot and Desmond was instrumental to that. Now that's about it for the present day and it's great how it was. In the past, unlike Altair who was a terrible protagonist, Ezio was an actual character. We begin with him as a flamboyant, cocky youth, racing on rooftops for fun and pulling pranks. But then shit gets real when his family are killed and he barely escapes. Already we have an emotional connection to the protagonist, unlike Altair.

Ezio's story is a perfect vehicle for exploring medieval Florence. The setting is superb and they captured the spirit of the city really well (I've been there, they really did). We were invested in Ezio and his quest for revenge, we hated the villains and the story and character development both unfolded really well. In the end we have an incredible plot development that was mind-blowing how brilliant it was. Don't know if you care about spoilers for it at this point, but just in case:

Spoiler

Ezio meets a superior being, can't remember if they were supernatural or extra-terrestrial, but they explain some important things to Ezio and leave a message for Desmond with him, much to his puzzlement. It was so bloody clever, it was one of the best story hooks in any game of its day. This being knew Desmond would someday be observing her meeting with Ezio and planted a message only he could find. It was such a memorable and dramatic moment, absolute genius, I cannot praise that storytelling enough.

Sadly, after that it became base management and sending out junior assassins on assignments. I understand Black Flag was popular because of the naval aspect, but that's by the by. AC2 wrote a great protagonist in Ezio, his story impacted the present day Desmond story and the Desmond story progressed. What they could have done was have a third game where the events give Desmond the last pieces he needs to resolve the present day conflict and bookend a trilogy with a memorable story. But it's a yearly cash cow and you can't have a story with consequences if it never ends. Hence they've probably given up any pretence of trying to have a coherent story or continuity.

 

[Dalisclock]

But it's a yearly cash cow and you can't have a story with consequences if it never ends. Hence they've probably given up any pretence of trying to have a coherent story or continuity.

Right now there's kinda sorta plot about Juno uploaded her brain before the Toba Catastrophe that doomed the precusors who made all the cool Clarkes 3rd Law "Magic" stuff and Desmond was forced to let her loose onto the internet to activate the big world saving device that Precusors didn't finish in time for the last Solar Flare.

And that plot has been sitting there for a couple of games now. Everything else is you being some random person data-mining for the Assasins/Templars. Though apparently Origins/Odyssey introduced a lady doing it for personal research. Occasionally it's for a precursor artifact but it really doesn't matter at this point.

I never played AC much outside the original, and even that was only a few hours. I think that ?universe? it could benefit from something like what MGS did with the database [http://www.metalgearsolid.net/database]. It?s a lore-fiend?s dream come true, and the digital wiki version is still on PSN I think. I can only imagine if they made one for the SoulsBorne series.

MGS kinda does this on a game by game basis. MGS had summeries of MG and MG2, Peace Walker and MGV had brief "The story so far" cards at the beginning of their respective games(and the audio tapes helped fill this in a bit). Ground Zeros is kinda wierd here because on hand it gives you a quick summery of Snake Eater and Peace Walker just before the Intro movie starts, but then goes into Miller and Snake talking about Paz, Chico and Cypher, which were only introduced in Peace Walker(Miller was in MG2, which most people never played, and was being impersonated in MGS). Hell, the whole bit about Paz being lost at sea was from the "True" ending of PW, when you fight a boss battle with her in a Metal Gear while J-POP blares over the soundtrack.

Soulsborne already has wikis colloating a lot of the cyptic lore bits but so much of that is open to interpretation that I'm not sure how much an offical recap would help, unless FROM put together a compedium/lore book of sorts, which honestly would be kind of awesome.

 

[EvilRoy]

That doesn?t really apply to something like SoulsBorne though, where everything is cryptic and meant for the payer to uncover themselves. Or other games series where the plot is primarily there to serve the gameplay.

This is fair, but as you say it's because in these games the story/lore comes way after combat, boss mechanics, area design, weapon balancing, etc.

But it does raise a different point. The Souls sequels were "faithful" to their predecessors insofar as gameplay is concerned. Where Dragon Age 2 was a complete departure from Origins, DS2 and DS2 captured the essence or "soul" (boom tische) of what made Dark Souls great. They were more of the same, with some innovation and upgrades but IMO, crucially were themselves fantastic standalone. Any one of them could be taken separately and hold up as great games. Your example is fair, but I think the Souls games were true to the earlier titles thematically and mechanically.

It could be that AssCreed is somewhat different since the Animus and future plot were essentially a framing device for the past sandbox shennanigans. It began by having Desmond bring back skills and knowledge from his genetic memories or whatever they called it, but since the franchise will never end, neither can the story. Templars and Assassins, like Alliance/Horde, Sith/Republic, etc will always be in status quo.

As much as I love the DS games, I think they get a bit of an easy pass on being consistent with previous games, simply because of the complexity and cryptic nature of the story. DS2 and DS3 both upended story elements that were both hotly debated or accepted as the 'correct' interpretation when DS1 was our only reference, but since we were always working on limited knowledge and unreliable narrators you can't claim DS3 retconned something. Introducing the lightning king might have altered the general understanding of our dear sunbros tragic journey, but it didn't necessarily invalidate or overwrite anything presented in DS1 because anything presented can be interpreted only as filling in gaps.


To the general question of the thread, in terms of games I expect to get a refresher at least every console generation or engine upgrade. There is enough time between those that I think its reasonable to expect that not everybody has played the full run to now, or that they no longer remember the whole deal. Recaps don't need to be a big godawful cutseen or boring chapter, but at least a callback and a mention would help. "Gordon, when the incident took place at the black mesa compound and you moved through the structure, the rest of the world was in chaos...".

I really feel movies have significantly less of a right to recaps. I don't think the LOTR movies need a recap at the start, because by virtue of what you are seeing it should be reasonable to expect you have seen and generally remember everything that has happened up to now. That is, a multi part sequel with the end goal announced at the start should not require those. If it does, it may indicate that the important bits of previous movies wasn't memorable enough to carry the sequel. In another strain of the same idea, once we start talking multi part series with only tenuous connections (slasher flicks are a great example of this), then we have already accepted that the story is not a critical element to the situation. Nobody needs a recap on Jason's past, because we didn't care the first time, because that wasn't what the movie was even about.

The only real departure I feel is reasonable cinema is the new brand of movie that spans a universe - I'm sure most of the movies that make up the MCU are good, but I don't have time to see them all and I still expect to be able to enjoy Avengers which may well call back to any or all of those. In that case a recap of given bits of stories is fairly reasonable if only because I doubt all but the most avid fans know every movie inside and out, and so the rest of us might need a hand.

 

[Hawki]

I never played AC much outside the original, and even that was only a few hours. I think that ?universe? it could benefit from something like what MGS did with the database [http://www.metalgearsolid.net/database]. It?s a lore-fiend?s dream come true, and the digital wiki version is still on PSN I think. I can only imagine if they made one for the SoulsBorne series.

https://assassinscreed.wikia.com/wiki/Assassin%27s_Creed_Wiki

https://metalgear.wikia.com/wiki/Metal_Gear_Wiki

https://darksouls.wikia.com/wiki/Dark_Souls_Wiki

https://bloodborne.wikia.com/wiki/Bloodborne_Wiki

You're welcome.

I'm sure most of the movies that make up the MCU are good,

In my experience? 33%

 

[Dreiko_v1legacy]

It depends on what type of sequel it is. If you have a direct sequel and you plan on having stuff from the first game matter a lot then you wanna recap some of it though how you do it can vary from an early recap to a sporadic recap drip as the game unfolds.

 

[Squilookle]

I'm on the fence- while I do appreciate a good recap in heavily story based sequels, well made games that have nothing to do with their precursors are far easier for me to get into without bothering with the series from the start, like Assassin's Creed, Just Cause, Mass Effect etc.

 

[Dalisclock]

I'm on the fence- while I do appreciate a good recap in heavily story based sequels, well made games that have nothing to do with their precursors are far easier for me to get into without bothering with the series from the start, like Assassin's Creed, Just Cause, Mass Effect etc.

Wait, do you really need to know anything about other games in the Just Cause series? I only played 2 but I didn't even notice it had a plot, let alone a reason to care about the previous entry.

I agree it really does depend on the context. Vital plot points needed to understand this entry(when applicable) should at least have some kind of recap(even if it's just part of an in-game database or optional conversation) but otherwise wiki summaries and recap videos exist.