It seems safe to say that no two players explore a game in the exact same way. There are players who may ignore side quests, only pick those they deem most interesting, or do them all first. There are some who blitz the main campaign, ignoring other markers on an open-world map. Obviously, this doesn’t account for other player tendencies like checking out the scenery, using photo mode, and so on. However, a recent patent from Sony could suggest that its games may better adapt to how someone plays a game.
It should be noted that just because a patent is filed does not mean it’ll manifest, as several companies including Sony often do this to protect potential ideas. While this may be the case, if this patent worked as described, it sounds like it could be a major boon for players.
As seen below, the patent identifies the golden path taken by players. This can mean the best path with the best gameplay, story, rewards, and secrets, but many players also have a personal golden path. The patent then identifies how the player goes about this golden path, as well as determines the player’s location on it. It will then generate dynamic side quests—not necessarily the same or similar to Skyrim’s radiant quests—based on player positioning on the golden path and player activities on said path.
In general, it seems if the player completes a few of X but ignores all of Y, the game will intermittently offer players more of X and less of Y to retain engagement as they progress through the game’s campaign. This would be determined by where the player’s at and likely a catalog of potential events, happenings, and more based on the game world. As long as the side quest generation was unique (or as unique as could be) and didn’t amount to random escort of fetch quests, the patent does sound promising.
All of this will be based on an individual players’ metrics, which also include how players approach the main story quests, the exact inputs, the exploration of the region (like a city in Skyrim), and an approximated engagement score. The quest generation depends on the overall engagement score, so if a player seems to be slowing down, changing tactics, or overall not engaging as well as they were, the game offers them something new.
The overall goal is to maintain and/or enhance how deeply a player engages with a game. It’s an interesting idea that could customize each player’s gaming experience and offer a new method of exploring side quests in a game. Unlike the open-world formula of scattering activities around a map and letting players just dive through them at their own leisure, this method would ensure that side quests are offered and customized for the player.
Sony was granted this patent on May 24, 2022.