Story in Games

David Jaffe, the creator of God of War, is ditching story games. (Yes, I know; it's old news) He declared that he has "...really lost interest in making any kind of game that does not fully and only embrace interactivity in the most purest sense." He doesn't want to tell stories with his games anymore.

For those of you that haven't played God of War, it has one of the best stories I've seen in a game. It is based (albeit loosely) off of ancient Greek mythology. Perhaps I'm a bit biased because I love Greek mythology. The opening cutscene reveals an event that happens later in the game. The player passes the location where this event will happen at least once during the game, and the anticipation builds each time the player's journey takes them back closer to that location. It has excellent pacing and the gameplay begins in media res. Kratos (the protagonist) is somewhat of an anti-hero. While anti-heroes seem to be the trend in video games, Kratos pushes the archetype of the anti-hero to an extreme that most games don't match. He's not out to save the world - he just wants revenge.

Whether or not story belongs in a game depends on the game. For example, I don't need a single page of back story to enjoy Tetris. The story of the original Doom can be articulated in a sentence or two -- You're a marine killing zombies and demons on Mars. However, a game like Day of the Tentacle or Gabriel Knight is uninteresting without a story; they are story-driven games.

Depending on execution, story can either help or hinder gameplay. In Dreamfall, interactivity was sacrificed for the sake of story. Dreamfall was the first game that made me angry when I beat it. I suffered through my characters' poor decision making skills to get to an endgame that consisted of walking short distances between cutscenes. Not only that, but the game ends giving the player a feeling failure rather than accomplishment. It is merely a setup for a sequel. Cliffhanger endings may work on television shows, but they aren't a good way to end a game.

On the other hand, story enhances the gameplay of Trauma Center. I find most timed puzzles boring, but the story of Trauma Center: Second Opinion kept me motivated and gave me a reason to keep playing. I kept wondering "Where will the story go from here?"

If we put a story into a game, how should the story be structured? Some of the best stories of all time have been linear stories such as the Odyssey, the Iliad, the Poetic Edda, Lord of the Rings, and The Tempest. A linear story can be entertaining. I find myself, and many others, returning to the stories that move us. A good friend of mine reads the Lord of the Rings again every year. So why don't most games with linear stories have as powerful an affect as a medium that has traditionally been both linear and non-interactive?

I think it's because the bulk of video game stories are hackneyed. They pale in comparison to Poe, Thoreau, Chaucer, Shakespeare, Hawthorne, etc.

If you take too much control away from the player, you frustrate and alienate them. For example, Dreamfall angered me when I beat it. However, if you give too much control to the player, then you frustrate the development team. A branching story in which several decisions have a significant effect upon the story can increase the content exponentially. More content usually means a longer development time and a bigger budget. Fable has two endings which hinge on a single choice after the final boss -- an evil character can get the "good ending" and vice-versa. Deus Ex has three endings which all hinge on how the player chooses to complete the final level. Chrono Trigger has 14 endings (15 if you count Lavos killing the party and destroying the world) that change depending on the player's actions and when they defeat Lavos. Star Ocean 2 has 86 endings that are determined by the characters' emotional attachment to one another, which is altered through the course of the game through choices in the story and actions in battles.

Is it overkill to have 86 endings? How about 14 endings? Deus Ex and Fable detached the ending from the rest of the story. While that worked pretty well in Deus Ex, it broke the cohesion of the story in Fable. Chrono Trigger and Star Ocean 2 connected both the story and the gameplay to the ending, which ultimately makes the player feel that they co-authored the story.