A hobby I'd once devoted so much time to was being slowly stolen from me–not by a lack of interest, or even from the growing responsibilities of life–but rather by the industry itself. Despite having greater financial agency as an adult, I found myself buying games in the same numbers I did as a child.
Suddenly the shelves were filled with games that looked startlingly similar–dark and "edgy", full of greys and browns, and either another first-person military shooter or another post-apocalyptic dystopian story. Gaming underwent a massive shift as publishers tried new, different ways to profit off their multi-million dollar creations, and those new ways had a direct effect on my interest in gaming. But on the way to picking up Playstation 3, something strange happened. As a child, I spent countless weekends and nights after school enthralled by the Playstation, Nintendo 64, Dreamcast and more, and there are still memory cards filled with saves that have dozens of hours of work on them. In my case though, it's been less a case of growing responsibilities as it has been my being completely out of sync with the gaming industry. It's ability to allow players to game in bite-sized bursts means it's tailor-made for the busy schedules of moms, dads, or just the average adult swamped with responsibilities.
Arguably, this is the reason portable gaming is doing so well. Life, rather than waning interest, becomes the real reason people play fewer games. As we age, our responsibilities grow in number and gradually become more time-consuming: homework becomes more demanding in college, and then after we graduate, work, spouses and children drain ever more of our time until the even the idea of gaming every night becomes a distant memory. The question is: have wire and glass powers be fully discarded, or maybe they're just waiting for their turn in some sort of DLC? Sucker Punch already mentioned that they might consider additional content after the Paper Trail, so you never know.One of the largest problems many gamers have as they get older is actually finding the time to engage in their hobby. You can check out what could have been in the gallery below. It would make sense that her ability would be the one imbued in all the troops. Augustine's concrete ability more and more became the only obvious choice. Surprisingly glass was a strong contender, but eventually proved too difficult to master. Wire proved way to hard to control, paper didn't convey strength and security. All the plant and organic abilities made people uneasy. It's proved harder than you might imagine. They needed something visually strong, easy to train, and versatile. They experimented with a number of abilities.
It might surprise you to know that the DUP wasn't always made up of concrete conduits. One of the audio logs that you can collect has a DUP informant reveal the following: Sucker Punch actually justified the choice of Concrete over wire and glass in the story itself ( mild spoiler ahead, so if you didn't play the game, don't read on). To top it off, the artwork also shows exactly how the powers could have been used, from caltrops dropped on the ground, to shield, walls and even reflecting bullets to negate the use of cover.