InsaneBear

Feature: Should games tell stories or build worlds?

Or in other words, should games narrate or immerse? We all tend to get so caught up in buzz-words and hype that we rarely stop to think about what we’re really getting vs. want we really want. It may seem like a strange thing to ponder at first. Why not just do both? Well, ideally that’s what games should be doing, but there are very few that actually manage to do this well. So let’s take a few minutes to examine the pros and cons of each side here.

I recently wrote a fairly negative review of Red Dead Redemption that a friend of mine took issue with. I think the root of our disagreement is that he’s happy with Rockstar’s methods of disjointed gameplay and narrative and I’m not. I’ll readily admit that Red Dead Redemption features some fantastic writing and characters. I just hate the fact that all that cinematic presentation has absolutely nothing to do with the actual game. When you break Red Dead down to the fundamentals, the story its gameplay tells is uninspired, repetitive, and boring. Player actions have no effect on the world. The only story we can tell is “Cowboy needs to shoot people to get what he wants.” Anything else we try to create on our own is thrown out the window the second the next cut-scene rolls.

Where Rockstar’s latest succeeds in the gameplay arena is in the majestic playground we’re dropped into. Quite simply, the vast frontier of Red Dead Redemption‘s game-world is one of the most magnificently dynamic and organic settings to ever grace video games. Simply exploring the world is a reward in itself. That may explain why I was so in love with the treasure hunting challenges, which tasked the player with recognizing the crudely drawn landmarks on their treasure map and finding that location in the game-world without any hints. For me, the best part of the game was the thrill I got out of roaming the great outdoors and appreciating the beauty of mountain tops intersecting a starry sky. For once, I didn’t want to fast travel through the world–I valued the journey more than the destination.

Now if we step back and re-examine our question for a moment, what I have described above is clearly an example of immersion. Rockstar created a world so engaging that just being in it was fun. The same can be said for games like The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, Shadow of the Colossus, or Assassin’s Creed. When the mere act of exploration is fun, then a developer has succeeded in creating an immersive world.

Another thing that all of those games happen to have in common is that they don’t feature particularly strong and definitive narratives. For the life of me I can hardly remember the main story-line of Oblivion (although it had some masterful side-quests), SotC‘s narrative strength was in its unobtrusive simplicity, and all the interesting plot points of Assassin’s Creed took place in a secret Templar corporation’s holding block for test subjects. I’m not saying that these games had bad stories (far from it)–I’m just saying that they require more player input than traditional narratives in order to flesh everything out.

So back to Red Dead Redemption for a moment–rather than ask the player to assist in creating John Marston’s adventure by examining the game-world and interacting with it, Rockstar chose to feed us a traditional cut-scene driven narrative. This approach does a better job of soliciting defined emotional responses from players and building universally recognized characters. Franchises like Halo, Gears of War, and even Mass Effect have utilized this cinema-influenced method of story-telling to great effect. Sure, the worlds of these games may be nice to look at, but I rarely find myself just frolicking about for the pure appreciation of the world’s mysterious behaviors. I suppose one could argue that Mass Effect‘s immersion takes place in the depths of NPC interaction and conversation and that the exploration of different moral stances and their consequences is the fun of the game, but I could also argue that that interaction is restricted enough to be considered a mere extension of the directed cinematic. My point is that the strong narrative direction of these games comes at the price of player freedom in the the world. It’s hard to be immersed in a game when it constantly restricts your actions.

Now I realize that I may not be explaining myself all that clearly. This is a nuanced and delicate subject. But I suppose I would define an immersive game experience as one that sucks me into its world with nothing more than the interactions of its world’s systems. I want to be in these games because their game-worlds feel alive. They’re alive with or without me and when I interact with them, they react accordingly. Stories can be told in these worlds without any words ever being spoken. These worlds thrive on imagination. Traditional cinematic game experiences engage us with developed characters that demand empathy. The stories they tell vary little from player to player but they make up for that linearity with reliable emotional payoffs.

My issue with Red Dead Redemption is that it tries to combine these two schools of thought and fails. The game is populated by two different stories–the player’s story and the character’s story. The player’s story is told through their interactions with the organic sandbox of the wild west. The character’s story is told through the authentic writing of carefully directed cut-scenes. In my eyes, this schizophrenic narrative is tragically being hailed as an advancement for the medium of video games. For comparison’s sake, let’s look at a few games that actually have advanced story-telling in video games.

BioShock‘s world of Rapture was and still is one of my favorite places to explore. The authenticity of every nook and cranny begs the player to simply explore for the sake of seeing another world and its mysteries. Watching a Big Daddy protect a Little Sister regardless of your actions brings the ecology to life. When you decide to interrupt this ecology it reacts accordingly. The world is fun to be in because it’s alive. But the greatest success of this masterpiece is in the way it weaves it’s authored story right into the organic world. I never felt like I was being force-fed a linear story in BioShock because the story was symbiotic with the world. Characters were developed through audio diaries–relics of the crumbling world discovered through exploration. Villains moved about the same Rapture as the player, even if they were always out of reach. The way in which events played out in the world allowed for directorial control without obtrusive player restriction. Whenever you couldn’t do something or go somewhere, there was always a logical explanation provided through the clever writing. Most of all, nothing ever felt forced. Every character meshed with the world and every event flowed seamlessly with player actions. BioShock should be held as the gold standard for the merging of immersive gameplay and engaging narrative.

But my all time favorite game is hardly the only one to accomplish this feat. Portal, Half-Life 2, Deus Ex, Fallout 3, Batman: Arkham Asylum, and more have all succeeded in blending the two goals in one way or another. The common thread is that in all of these superb games (relatively speaking, of course), the developer manages to guide the player through a directed narrative without inexplicably restricting said player’s choice or interaction. The player is free to explore the world and form their own narrative strands without invalidating the author’s story. Some games do this by putting you into the role of a defined character. Other games offer guidance from NPC characters. Some react to player actions. Others turn to the blanket of mystery. But all of them do it right. Red Dead Redemption, on the other hand, does not.

Please share your thoughts in the comments. Which type of game do you prefer? What are your favorite examples of perfect combinations? What are your examples of games gone wrong? Am I missing anything in my analysis? Let me know!

Author: Cody

Tags: bioshock, cut-scenes, feature, immersion, insanebear, mass effect, red dead redemption, story-telling in games