Between 1995 and 2015, Namco owned a patent that prevented any other games developer from including a playable minigame on a loading screen. This move effectively ended what might have become an art form all of its own, as innovations like Invade-a-Load (1987), a tape loader for the Commodore 64, allowed gamers to play Space Invaders while their main game was booting up.
Lockpicking
Outside Namco products, loading screens quickly became lonely places, with pictures and game hints taking up what could have been valuable entertainment space. The sad fact is that only a few franchises, such as FIFA, Rayman, Assassin’s Creed, and Bayonetta, ever picked up the mantle laid down by Invade-a-Load. That’s not to say that the minigame died, though. The concept actually became overused to a fault.
A good example involves lockpicking. Bethesda’s chest-opening skill in The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, since reused in Fallout 3 and 4, and in The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, was the epitome of fun for five minutes. Having to crack a lock that doesn’t want to go made for some increasingly frustrating moments throughout Oblivion’s extended runtime. It got all the worse when you inevitably ran out of lockpicks.
Yet, you don’t have to go far to find people who remember the experience fondly. This affection for lock and vault opening is also apparent in titles like Sophie’s Safecracking Simulator, which was released in 2021, and in the Action Bank slot at Buzz Bingo. The latter title is a 5-reel, 20-payline slot that places the player in the role of a bank robber tasked with finding five golden vault symbols.
Visibility
Despite a heritage going back decades, then, it’s worth wondering if the minigame has finally worn out its welcome. The idea of including an original card game, such as in The Witcher 3, Fallout: New Vegas, and Final Fantasy VIII and IX, seems to have faded with the rather unimaginative inclusion of poker in Red Dead Redemption II. However, the popularity of fishing as a virtual side-hustle has only increased.
So, what gives? It may be that minigames have not so much disappeared but become less detached from the main experience. For instance, as titles that include things like fishing, building, farming, fighting, trading, gathering, dating, and various opportunities for discovery, it wouldn’t be unfair to call the Stardew Valley, Minecraft, and Animal Crossing franchises a loose collection of minigames rather than a singular experience.
While Grand Theft Auto includes plenty of smaller activities to pass the time with, too, it has much more defined objectives than any of the previous three games - as did Red Dead Redemption II and the two Final Fantasy games mentioned earlier. This shift towards a more seamless inclusion of minigames is a net good for gamers, as collections of distinct minigames on the Wii, for example, rarely reviewed well.
Overall, the success of minigames is dependent on their implementation - but don’t be surprised if they continue to lose some of their visibility.
