It has happened to you before. You are cruising along the first hour of the game you picked up and the option finally appears. Long gone are the singular, “Talk to …” mission or “Move to this area” objective. You are finally tasked with continuing the story or delving into the notorious side mission. An excursion that will either heighten your enjoyment or bore you with busy work. While other elements can spell for success or failure, the allure of a side mission is paramount.
Classifying Side Missions
A side mission or quest serves multiple purposes. Objectively, they are tasks to provide extra experience points, loot, and locations to the player. Fundamentally, however, they serve as a vehicle for engagement for the game world’s depth. According to Master Class, “Side quests are implemented to help connect the player to the world, introduce them to characters, and help them discover locations.”
Side missions are common to RPGs (role-playing games), looter shooters, and MMOs (massively multiplayer online game). Finding side missions in games like Uncharted or Viewtiful Joe is nonexistent because it would disturb the narrative. A genre where you can control a character’s views, appearance and decisions is perfect for extra content. While in MMOs side quests lean toward “fetch quests,” it serves as a good initiation to explore new areas. RPG side missions, on the other hand, serve a bigger picture.
Side Mission Progression
Normally, initial side missions serve as tutorials to educate the players on the difference in mechanics. Fishing, cooking, driving, or fighting different enemies are all fair game. Down the line, side missions cut the hand holding as the game progresses. The main story serves to ramp up the story’s stakes while the optional quests pass for difficult knowledge checks. However, these types of challenges do not go unrewarded (most of the time). The prospect of obtaining a fresh outfit or powerful abilities to increment a player’s levels can justify the extra work.
What Makes a Side Mission Dull?
Nonetheless, testing the player is not enough to make a good side mission matter. In fact, optional quests can come off as dull if not done properly. If the mission is not a test or interesting, then it becomes contrived with hollow rewards. Grinding side missions for extra levels is a sound strategy, but I would hardly call it fun.
The worst offense an optional mission can commit is to force itself during the player’s roaming. While I enjoy the Yakuza series, it is a massive offender of this concept. The open streets of the action RPG leave plenty of question mark symbols to identify the optional missions. The problem stems from said symbols sometimes automatically thrusts you into an unwanted wacky situation. Taking part of these silly missions are fine but better off as a choice. Distracting the player before a main mission or scouting the area comes off as odious.
How to Recognize a Good Side Mission
While showing off different facets of the world is exciting, what makes a side quest stand out? The key is emotional investment. While the main plot can drive players towards the end goal, it always depends on the interest. Side missions are similar, yet their relevance relies on the interest towards both sub-plot and the reward. It also grants the player more gratification for following through their curiosity.
The biggest compliment one can give to an optional quest is, “I have to see it through.” Instead of level/loot grinding it transforms to being hooked on a side character’s personal development. The Persona series comes to mind because in conjunction to your main party, you are also given additional characters for interaction. Progressing their story and playing an active part in solving their issues makes for exciting pastime. After completion, the optional mission that you took on a whim circles around to improving the overall playthrough.
Conclusion
In short, side missions can make or break the game. They can provide fun, emotionally rewarding stories in the game’s lore while providing exciting new abilities. On the other hand, not all optional missions grant such interest and fall under tasks to complete for leveling purposes. Depending on the game, side missions’ issue more depth outside the main storyline. Juggernauts like Grand Theft Auto, Yakuza or Mass Effect would be dreary if the end goal was the sole focus. A good side mission matters because it invests the player in other developments outside the completion of the game.
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