Very nice point you made, Steven. The universe details that go into games are extremely memorable and effective, yet they are underappreciated. When people clamor for better stories in video games they ask for better dialogue and plots, but overlook the gameplay actions and universe details.

I somewhat disagree. I loved Mass Effects story and the fact that my choices affect the world. Much like *spoiler alert* when you are conversing with the Rachni Queen through the asari corpse. Learning of a second tangent to the Rachni story and choosing their fate is pretty powerful stuff. I still haven't forgotten the cutscene when I released the queen and wondered if I really knew what I was doing. There was no throwing boxes or shooting a gun, there was just me, forging my own story by my possibly dangerous but merciful choice. That's what stays with me.

I remember the first Deus Ex where you made significant choices that weren't  dialogue options. For example, early on, you and your brother, Paul, discover that the organization you're working for is evil, so they send a bunch of Agent Smiths to aprehend the both of you. The agent's are incredibly hard, so Paul tells you to run. If you do, you later find his body in the morgue. However, you can stay and fight, and Paul will live through the rest of the game.

Although it doesn't really change the outcome of the game all that much, it was a cool aspect that I didn't discover until my 3rd or 4th playthrough, which completely changed that playthrough for me. It was also pretty cool to see this referenced in Human Revolution.

 

This is a great article. It's made me think a lot about why people play games and how certain games attract certain people. I do feel the need to write some sort of rebuttal however. In my article on writing in games, I sort of pigeonholed myself; I only talked about dialogue and story. This was perhaps an overly simplistic way but they matter a lot to me. What I didn’t mention was tone and world building with language. Full disclosure here, hopefully it doesn’t invalidate my article, but I’ve never actually seen a game script. I don’t know exactly how they work. I hope that they resemble a comic script or play but I’m fairly sure they don’t. My assumption is that in most cases a game is made, with a vague story in mind, then a writer may be brought in to fill in the cracks, round things out and make it into something of a story. I would love to be wrong about this.

Like I said, I didn’t mention tone or world building in my article and this was an oversight. Look at most screenplays or a play scripts and you’ll see that there’s a lot more too them than just story and dialogue. There are stage directions. Some of these are utilitarian and are there just to let the audience know where they are, but many go far beyond that. They set tone, mood and build basic blueprints for directors, actors, or in the case comics, artists to reference when they continue to create a world, a scene or a panel.

In screen writing, the first thing you learn is to tell a story through pictures. This is also a rule that comic writers have to follow. In most movies there are pages of text that the audience never reads and never hears. They do however see these words, they feel these words.

A little bit more disclosure here; I am a playwright, another fact that I hope doesn’t invalidate my previous article. There is nothing more fascinating to me than writing a script then giving it to a group of other artists to turn into a play. I am even more interested in finding ways to have the audience participate; help tell the story, to be a part of it.

This may be an idealistic view but I see games as collaborative storytelling. No other medium really does this, no matter how hard we try. All game participants are mutual creators. They are all responsible for what happens in a game, from the designers to the players, and I think writing should be a part of that.

I think it'd be great if a professional writer came into Deus Ex and wrote into a cutscene that your main character whips a giant vending machine at a random homeless dude.

I would like to extend this to good movie script writers or authors of popular franchises of books are also not the way to go.  Most of the time, these writers have no idea how to work within the framework of a video game and either don't do much to help the quality of the game or pace it entirely wrong.

Just a little addendum: "Bioshock's story does not occur when you find an audio log, but it happens when you pull the trigger of your shotgun and watch the light and shrapnel shred an enemy to bloody pieces. The players' actions and the resulting reactions in the game world dictate where the true narrative takes place."

It does, however, occur when you listen to the audio tape while walking through the subject's office, lab or derelict apartments, taking in what life was like for these characters in the past while rummaging through the ruins in the "present." It's not the most active part of the game's story, but it's important nonetheless.

I do take issue whenever games journalists talk about "story" as if it were another separate component like "graphics" or "controls." Story and narrative comprise many moving parts, including the player's interaction.

You make some nice points, but I think a lot of people will disagree with you. What's wrong with a choose-your-own adventure storey if it's well written, laid-out, and acted?

I think that role-playing aspect of Mass Effect and Dragon Age are actually the best parts of those games. Sure the freedom isn't total, but it's enough to make players feel immersed and involved in what's going on in the narrative. Better yet, because those decisions have some impact on what you're doing when you control your character, the story begins to actually matter in context of the game. A lot of RPGs like BioWare's games would be much poorer without their writing.

Examples you made like Portal and Valve's other games are in fact more interactive with their narrative, but they are also limited on the scope of what they can do because we haven't figured out how to make carrying a conversation totally interactive and dynamic. The solutions we see in RPGs and adventure games are the best tools we have now and I think the system is perfectly fine for the time being.

More straight, linear action games like Uncharted or Gears filled with cut scenes have another problem. Yes they have good writers doing the dialogue and the cut scenes, but those writers have to work around the game that the designers have already made, which probably isn't meant to tell a story. Naughty Dog straight-up admitted they wrote Uncharted 3 around the set pieces. The problem isn't not having good writers, the problem is that those writers don't have very much control over the game itself. I think getting writers involved earlier on and more deeply in the process might change some things.

Some of the best games in terms of narrative came from people who were simultaneously well-versed in game design and writing. The best example I can think of is Prince of Persia creator Jordan Mechner who is also a screenwriter, and I think the results show in how Sands of Time played out. Fumito Ueda is a similar example. Sadly, game design remains almost completely divorced from writing and storytelling, and I'm not sure when that's going to begin to change on the whole.

Adventure games and RPGs are probably where that kind of interaction is most apparent, even if you do end up having to pick a bunch of text on a screen.

90% agreed, 10% on the fence. On that 10%: I still strongly feel a character driven story, even within a game where the player's actions with the game world *must* be part of that story, there's still something to be said for sound writing, the sort of writing you find in any top grade narrative. Characters finishing their arcs, acting according to their established personalities and the established world, etc.

A recent example of how good writing has nothing to do with making a game good is Kingdoms of Amalur... If any name is synonymous with Fantasy Writing it's RA Salvatore, but then the game tried to major on combat, which was alright, and art, which was colorful. The writing, while very Salvatore-ian, is not very compelling placed against the backdrop of a video game.

Meanwhile 15 million (?) people are registered to play League of Legends, which literally has nothing to do with story (unless you really want to dig).

I love the article. This is actually why games don't necessarily need good writers to save them. I still enjoy the ridiculous moments in Fallout 3, where I can cause as much mayhem as I want.

The game style really determines the importance of the script. For instance, the Lunar series uses a massive amount of comical dialogue. However, the player will not ever hear these jokes unless they talk to every NPC twice.

Not every game needs a great writer though. Multiplayer battlers such as Battlefield 3 have a horrible story mode. In spite of its flaws, it has an amazing multiplayer mode. I still love all the moments where I could destroy every single building just to find one enemy soldier. It engages the player by letting them experience the fight in jets and vehicles, or with big rocket launchers.

I still wouldn't mind a game with great writing though. Sadly, I can't find enough great writing unless I play a good JRPG. Or a point-and-click adventure. Oh well.

Great article!

With how diverse and unique video games have become, I think there's a place for Mass Effect's dialogue trees. I can't wait to see how my choices affect the story in Mass Effect 3.

But even though I don't think every video game story has to be presented the way you envision, I feel that, more often than not, following your way of thinking results in the most memorable moments in gaming. I hope that Left 4 Dead never has a traditional story tacked on to it because what makes the game so special and enthralling is that every campaign you tackle is different and tailored around the way you play the game via the AI Director. Hearing a horde approaching while you limp to the safe house with what little life and ammo you have left is something unmatched by most modern games.

If you haven't yet watched it, I suggest checking out Egoraptor's Sequelitis YouTube episode on Mega Man X. It reinforces what you've talked about.

Again, nice job!