Author: Myles Blasonato

Myles Blasonato is a passionate lead game designer with over 15 years experience working with some of the most talented people in gaming, involved with crafting experiences such as God of War, Heavy Rain, and Destroy All Humans. Currently, Myles is the Lead Game Designer at Blowfish studios working on the next generation of AAA Web3 games – https://www.blowfishstudios.com

Mechanical Foreshadowing: Teach The Rule Before The Test

Posted on by Myles Blasonato in Analysis, Blog, Game Design

A lot of difficult moments in games are not actually difficult. They are simply unexplained. The player enters a room, touches something they did not know was dangerous, and dies. A hidden sniper fires from outside the frame. A floor collapses without warning. An enemy suddenly becomes immune to the strategy that worked five minutes earlier. The game may technically be challenging the player, but the player is not being tested on understanding. They are being punished for missing information they were never given...

Rockstar’s GTA 6 Allegations Show The Industry Still Has A Trust Problem

Posted on by Myles Blasonato in Blog, News

Some games become so large that they stop being judged only as games. They become cultural events, commercial milestones, shareholder expectations, platform drivers, and industry measuring sticks. Grand Theft Auto VI is one of those games. It is not just another release on the calendar. It is expected to be one of the biggest entertainment launches in years, which makes the working conditions behind it impossible to separate from the final product...

Activation vs Construction: Why Pressing A Button Is Not The Same As Solving A Problem

Posted on by Myles Blasonato in Analysis, Blog, Game Design

A lot of games give players choices. The problem is that not all choices ask the player to think. Some choices are simply buttons attached to pre-designed outcomes. Press this to distract. Press that to persuade. Select this option to set a trap. Choose this dialogue line to resolve the scene. These interactions can be useful, readable, and satisfying, but they are not the same as letting the player construct an outcome through the world. This is the difference between activation and construction. Activation is when the player triggers a designed outcome. Construction is when the player builds an outcome through interacting systems. Both can look like agency from the outside because both involve player input, but the player’s relationship to the result is completely different. One asks the player to select a solution. The other asks the player to understand the world well enough to create one...

Game Pass Has A Value Problem, Not A Catalogue Problem

Posted on by Myles Blasonato in Blog, News

Thomas Mahler, developer of Ori and the Blind Forest, recently criticised the Game Pass model, arguing that the service could have worked if the catalogue had been strong enough to make players happily pay every month. His harsher point was that Xbox needed to understand what players actually want, rather than pushing out mediocre content like a factory. It is a brutal criticism, but it points to a deeper design problem: content volume does not create player desire by itself...

The Simulation Mask: Why Players Need to Become the Character

Posted on by Myles Blasonato in Analysis, Blog, Game Design

Most games tell players who they are. You are a detective, a soldier, a thief, a hunter, a wizard, or a survivor. The problem is that being told something and feeling something are not the same thing. A game can spend hours explaining who your character is through dialogue, cutscenes, lore entries, and exposition, but if the player’s behaviour never changes, the fantasy remains superficial. They are controlling the character, not inhabiting them...

Xbox’s Real Problem Isn’t Cost. It’s Focus

Posted on by Myles Blasonato in Blog, News

For the past decade, Xbox has been on a spending spree unlike anything the games industry has ever seen. Billions were spent acquiring studios. Billions more were spent building Game Pass, funding content, supporting hardware, and expanding the Xbox ecosystem across multiple platforms. Now the company appears to be preparing another major reset. Following an internal memo describing Xbox as "overextended", reports suggest studios such as Ninja Theory, Double Fine, and Compulsion Games may be facing closure or independence negotiations as Microsoft attempts to reduce costs and refocus the business...

The Simulation Compass: Why Players Need Direction Before They Need Freedom

Posted on by Myles Blasonato in Analysis, Blog, Game Design

One of the biggest myths in game design is that player freedom automatically creates immersion. It doesn't. Freedom only matters when players understand what they can actually do with it. This is where many systemic games fail. Designers spend months building interconnected mechanics, emergent interactions, and multiple solution paths. The systems are there. The depth is there. The possibilities are there. The player never sees them. Instead, they walk into a space, identify the most obvious solution, and move on. Not because they don't want to experiment, but because the game never taught them how to recognise opportunity. This is what the Simulation Compass solves...

The Summer Showcase Season Revealed Gaming’s Biggest Titles!

Posted on by Myles Blasonato in Blog, News

The Nintendo Direct, Xbox Games Showcase, State of Play, and Summer Game Fest delivered exactly what players hoped for. There were major sequels, long-awaited remakes, surprise reveals, and enough trailers to fuel gaming discussions for weeks. Social media exploded with reactions to Ocarina of Time Remake, Persona 6, Kingdom Hearts IV, Marvel's Wolverine, Resident Evil: Code Veronica Remake, and a host of other announcements...

Responsibility in Immersive Design: Why Consequences Create Meaning

Posted on by Myles Blasonato in Analysis, Blog, Game Design

Most games want players to feel like their choices matter, immersing them in a world where every decision has weight and significance. The problem is that many of those choices don't actually change anything meaningful within the game. You pick dialogue option A or dialogue option B, often leading to interactions that feel strikingly similar despite the initial differences in choice. You choose one path over another, venturing into distinct story arcs that ultimately converge at the same destination. You spend resources one way instead of another, believing that your strategy will yield varied outcomes. Yet somehow, the game quietly bends itself back into the same shape, leaving players questioning the impact of their decisions...

Technology Doesn’t Save Projects. Focus Does.

Posted on by Myles Blasonato in Blog, News

Brendan Greene's PlayerUnknown Productions has announced layoffs, cancelled further development of Prologue: Go Wayback!, and is downsizing its team while continuing work on its proprietary terrain-generation technology, Melba. The studio says the decision was driven by the costs associated with developing the technology, which is also intended to power its future MMO project, Artemis. On the surface, this looks like another unfortunate downsizing story in an industry that has seen far too many of them. But underneath it sits a problem that affects studios of every size. Sometimes the technology becomes the project...