The editorial about story in gaming
This
one’s been a looooooong time coming. There’s been arguments over the merits of
games having stories or narratives for ages now, some saying that following a
plot makes a game that more investing (provided it’s good, of course), whereas
others believe that story should be told through gameplay and that games
shouldn’t really be movies. I personally fall into the former camp.
I
decided to write this article now instead of later because 2017 thus far looks
to be somewhat of a renaissance when it comes to storytelling in video games.
Games like The Legend of Zelda: Breath of
the Wild are creating new storylines based on a tried and true franchise, Horizon: Zero Dawn built an entire world
from the ground up with brilliant lore and mythos and a wonderfully likeable
cast, and Gravity Rush 2 broke
through its cutesy art design to create a surprisingly intriguing political
thriller.
Speaking
of Gravity Rush, let’s talk about
that one. The overall story in that game starts out looking pretty simplistic:
a town needs protecting, and you have the right gravity powers for the job.
However, very quickly do you learn that not all is right in this city. A
mission begins by instructing you to venture into the grimy underbelly far
below the floating islands to recover some materials stolen by a gang. But once
you arrive there, you learn that the gang only stole the food so they could
feed their families. Because they live so deep beneath the surface, they are
trapped in poverty and are abused by the local law enforcement corps.
It’s
a very interesting premise that definitely has shades of modern society woven
into it. You find out later on upon visiting the highest islands that the
people live there are spoiled rotten, with large fancy mansions and more food
than anyone could ever ask for, and yet they’re still unhappy. While the game
itself is far from perfect, the story does add a layer of complexity to it that
it would’ve suffered without.
These
new games aren’t the first time we’ve seen this medium create a big and
culturally relevant story. Undertale has
a story all about the virtue of kindness towards strangers as well as the
consequences of not treating others with love and respect. While it isn’t
explicitly explained in the game itself, the overall background story of Overwatch is about the results of what
essentially amounts to a race war and how it impacted the world and the
playable characters. Games overall have come a long way from “beat the boss and
save the girl”.
But
the question here is do games really need great stories? Plenty of successful
modern games like Shovel Knight are
content to have the story be more of a goal and little else, allowing their
stellar gameplay to shine instead. What’s the point in throwing in a story to
your game if the main draw is everything that isn’t a cutscene?
Well,
there are a few reasons. I’ve always seen the story as something alongside a
game’s graphics and music: more or less icing on the cake that is the gameplay.
Whether the icing is delicious or not depends on the game, but when a game
really pulls out all the stops and creates an excellent story on top of already
excellent gameplay, you’ve got an experience worth remembering. Even if the story
isn’t great, I’ve never felt that a bad story straight up makes a game worse. I
really enjoyed Mirror’s Edge Catalyst despite
it having one of the most laughably terrible storylines in recent gaming
memory.
Going
back to the Horizon: Zero Dawn example,
that game would’ve been perfectly fine if they’d just dropped you into the
world and said “explore”. But because they added the extra plots and subplots
about building relationships with the characters, learning more about the world
you’re in and uncovering the conspiracy about where the machines came from, it allowed
the game to propel itself to a whole other level. Yes, I enjoyed just running
around and discovering new things, but thanks to the story I had a new
appreciation for the world these designers lovingly crafted, elevating the game
to hopefully become a modern classic.
So,
yeah, a game doesn’t necessarily need a story to be great. There are plenty of
examples of brilliant games that have barely a shred of plot, and even a few
great games where the plot is so bad it actually improves the experience to
ignore it entirely. But when a game decided to take the storyline and combine
it with the gameplay to create a fully-fledged experience, or do it one better
and create a plot that’s culturally and socially significant, it allows the
game to be far more memorable than it would’ve been otherwise.
Song of the Week
La Danse Macabre – Shovel Knight
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