Could These Video Games Have Handled Poker Better?
Poker is an old game that landed in the United States in the 19th century and has since become a key part of our culture.
Poker has evolved and developed, it’s been the subject of legislation and controversy, yet it is still going strong. When you think of a card game played in a bar or casino, poker comes to mind first. It’s America’s card game, but you can only play it legally in a handful of states. It’s a game of contradiction, a blend of luck and skill, and one showing no signs of waning in popularity.
That makes it perfect for implementing into video games. Because it is easy to play and most people understand the different rules and variants, it brings something to video games that other minigames cannot. For instance, The Witcher 3 had Gwent, but it took a while to learn; Ubisoft has Orlog in their recent Assassin’s Creed game, again something which took a while to learn. However, if you drop a poker game into your title, it’s an immediate draw, instantly known by many players.
That doesn’t mean that simply throwing poker into a video game works. Developers must consider context and get the game right regarding their backdrop and setting. We see poker used time and again in video games, but do developers always get it right?
Here are three top titles that included poker and an assessment of whether they did it well.
Table of Contents
Red Dead Redemption 2
Rockstar gets poker just right in their blockbuster hit Red Dead Redemption 2. It is set in the Wild West, where poker spread in popularity around the turn of the century. That makes their use of the game critical to scene setting and a strong gameplay component. They use the most popular poker variant, Texas Hold’em, which means gamers can try to use a combination of skill and chance to help them win. The gameplay was fluid, and you could even try to cheat the house, making this a perfect example of how to portray poker in a game.
GTA Online
Unfortunately, the same developer managed to fumble poker in another of their big titles, Grand Theft Auto V. A basic variant, Three-Card Poker, appears in their online section of the game and at first glance, that works. After all, it is a modern casino and a quick table game commonly found in casinos in three-card poker, entirely based on luck. However, implementing Texas Hold’em would have given players the chance to use skill, a far more attractive proposition. What is incredibly frustrating is Rockstar got it so right in Red Dead Redemption 1, so they knew how effective Texas Hold’em was as a variant. This was a missed opportunity.
Watch Dogs
Ubisoft loves a minigame; we’ve already talked about Assassin’s Creed, and their popular Far Cry games also have poker. Ubisoft tends to release a franchise, improve upon it and then stay in the game far too long; that was the case with Watchdogs. It was a PlayStation 4 release title and had a strong poker game. Playing as a hacker, you could look at other players’ cards to win a hand, which seemed to work well. Sadly, subsequent games dropped the poker, and the developer suffered. The same happened with Far Cry; the third game had poker and was great fun, but the recent release, Far Cry 6, failed to raise the stakes.
