Free Play: What makes a good video game?

I’ve been playing video games since I was little. My older cousin was the first person kind enough to provide me with a proper introduction to them, since my parents believed that I would get distracted from my studies — even though I was only six. He showed me his PlayStation 2 and the games he was playing at the time, mainly “FIFA Soccer 09,” “Yakuza 2” and “Call of Duty: World at War.”

Looking back, I honestly don’t know why he thought it was a good idea to show a six-year-old how to headshot people using an M1A1 Carbine and how to fight the Japanese mafia using arrays of combos. Nonetheless, I was grateful for this introduction to the world of games, however violent it may have been. 

For my seventh birthday, my father finally noticed that I genuinely enjoyed playing games and bought me a Nintendo DS. It was love at first sight. My bright pink DS was my best friend. I never went anywhere without it, even if it was just a quick trip to the grocery store, regular medical check-ups or my weekly tutoring sessions. “Mario Kart DS,” “Animal Crossing: Wild World” and “New Super Mario Bros.” were among the regulars that would greet my eyes whenever I would boot the console up. 

Now, a little older and with much better hand-eye coordination, I’ve moved on to playing mouse-and-keyboard PC games, ranging from First-Person Shooter games, Multiplayer Online Battle Arenas, action-adventure games, simulations and hundreds of other categories that I probably don’t know the names of. 

In time, my journey through video games came alongside the constant evolution of the complexity of games in all aspects, especially the art, music, voice acting performance, gameplay mechanics and narrative. Back then, whenever a new release on the DS came out, I’d probably see it in GameStop and buy it immediately. Today, it’s a little different. Every year, thousands of high-quality video games are released on multiple different platforms, fighting to be a bestseller on Steam and for a chance to be nominated for the prestigious Game of the Year award. 

I simply can’t buy every game I see in my Steam store — if I did that, I’d go broke. Now that I’m  older and (hopefully) wiser, I’d say I’m a little more selective about what games I choose to buy. In their own words, the Game Awards “recognizes and upholds creative and technical excellence in the global video game industry.” The annual show awards video games that deliver the best experience across all fields, including visuals, music, mechanics, narratives and art direction. The “Game of the Year” is the most important category — think of it as the “Best Picture” winner at the Oscars — in all of the Game Awards, and the winner is considered to take every category to the next level and deliver the “absolute best experience across all technical and creative fields.”

Last year’s “Game of the Year” winner was “Elden Ring,” an open-world action role-playing game that fantasy author George R.R. Martin helped develop. The game boasts incredible exploration mechanics, artistic and beautiful graphics, well-executed designs and notorious difficulty. While “Elden Ring” has been met with much critical acclaim, the game has also experienced a number of criticisms, as is the case with all video games. Most complaints are about poor PC performance, nontraditional user interface and user experience design and the lack of Martin’s writing style in the narrative. 

The sheer success, critical acclaim and popularity of “Elden Ring,” despite the lack of these key video game components — especially in UI/UX — prompted me to ask myself: What aspect of a video game actually makes me go, “wow, this is a good game?”

My answer? Replayability.  

I realized that replayability is the key aspect of every video game I’ve enjoyed — whether it’s a racing game like “Mario Kart,” a country-life role-playing game like “Stardew Valley,” a narrative-based adventure game like “Detroit: Become Human” or even an FPS game like “Valorant” or “Overwatch 2.” 

By replayability, I specifically mean the depth of replayability that a video game has to offer. Games can achieve this depth in several different ways: levels of difficulty, unique game modes, a variety of characters to play, new maps to play on, a number of weapons to use and assorted abilities or roles for each character.

The depth in replayability of all critically acclaimed and most popular video games is consistently astounding. Once you complete “Elden Ring,” you can choose to invade other players’ worlds, replay the main story by choosing a different route and narrative which leads to one of the six different endings or even create an entirely new character with new weapons to tackle bosses at even higher difficulties. The multitude of ways to play “Elden Ring” is the reason why you’re able to play the game over and over again without getting bored. 

There are only a few recognized games that are exceptions to this rule, which are story-based games that only have one or two different endings — think “It Takes Two,” “A Way Out” or “The Last of Us Part II.” These games are incredible, but for a different reason. Since they don’t have the same aspect of replayability that other games have, they will typically make up for it in other facets, such as the length of the game, different game modes or a multiplayer mode.

And speaking honestly? If I play a video game once and I don’t feel the urge to pick it up again, I do one of two things: I get a refund or it just sits idly, collecting dust in my Steam library.  

Successful video games excel at, among other things, possessing high quality and depth of replayability. It can be argued that graphics, level of difficulty, audio quality, music score, technical quality and gameplay mechanics are significant factors to consider when reviewing a video game. But replayability remains to be one of the most, if not the most important factor in determining the quality and excellence of a video game, as exemplified by the critically acclaimed and most popular video games in the modern age. 

Chloe Thien is a junior writing about video games. Her column, “Free Play,” runs every other Friday. She is also the co-chief copy editor at the Daily Trojan.