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[Humdinger]

Games generally have bad writing. This is not a new take and certainly not one that needs large paragraphs to explain. Having said that, some games have serviceable stories.

Agreed, that's what I thought, too. Most games have bad writing. That's just videogame writing for you.

Occasionally, you'll get good writing, even for a game -- for example, TLoU, Uncharted 2. even Horizon Zero Dawn.

 

[Vick]

Agreed, that's what I thought, too. Most games have bad writing. That's just videogame writing for you.

Occasionally, you'll get good writing (for a game). For example, HZD or Uncharted.

And in even rarer occasions, you'll get good writing period. For example, The Witcher 3 or The Last of Us 2013/Part I.

 

[DerivedDataCache]

Imo what matters in games is the worlds they create. Not the (cinematic) story telling. Just watch a movie.

There are however some games that equal movies/tv shows. Like Death Stranding and Yakuza 0.

 

[Drizzlehell]

Did Alan Wake get mentioned in that wall of text anywhere? How did it fare?

It was alright when I played it back in the day. But that's Remedy. They have a very good sense of how to push the narrative both scripted and interactive, even if their games tend to be a bit overstuffed with text files. Plus any cinematic elements of their games tend to be very stylish and not overbearing so they get a pass from me if they want to show me a minute long cutscene because they're simply interesting to watch. They do so much more with them than just bore you with exposition in flat angles.

 

[Humdinger]

And in even rarer occasions, you'll get good writing period. For example, The Witcher 3 or The Last of Us 2013/Part I.

Yeah, the Last of Us part one was great. 9/10, great story/characters for a videogame.

I'd give Witcher 3 a 7.5/10. Clunky combat, boring open world. Wasn't keen on the story or characters.

 

[Jada_Li]

I enjoy story based and/or cinematic type games and hope there's more to come in the future. Some of the games I find entertainment in are:

Beyond Two Souls
Detroit: Become Human
The Order: 1886
Heavy Rain
The Quarry (Though replaying it the pacing is slow initially)
Man of Medan
House of Ashes
Little Hope
Resident Evil series and love the most recent ones and how it better captures the cutscenes like RE8's intro
Fallout 4
FFVIII
FFIX
FFX
FFXII
FFXV
To the Moon
Finding Paradise
Imposter Factory
Beyond Good & Evil
Horizon Zero Dawn
Horizon Forbidden West
Death Stranding
Cyberpunk 2077
Metal Gear Solid 4 (Watched someone play and only played a small part of it)
Metal Gear Rising Revengeance
Judgment
Lost Judgment (Though I didn't finish this yet)
The Witcher (Haven't finished it yet)
The Walking Dead series
The Wolf Among Us
Sleeping Dogs

 

[Drizzlehell]

Most writing for anything is generic to bad.

Maybe try picking up a book, then. Or watching a movie that's not capeshit or some mainstream CGI fest.

 

[Vick]

Yeah, the Last of Us part one was great. Shame they ruined it with #2 (tho I haven't played it, so can't say for sure).

They did, they absolutely did.

Aside from that though, game quality is unreal. Completely unmatched in his genre, and even more.

I didn't think Witcher 3 was all that great.

 

[-tetsuo-]

Maybe try picking up a book, then. Or watching a movie that's not capeshit or some mainstream CGI fest.

I have, thus my statement. Most writers are not good, across any medium.

 

[ChorizoPicozo]

I have, thus my statement. Most writers are not good, across any medium.

and making "good" shit ain't easy.

 

[Scotty W]

The truth is that a truly great story in a game is impossible IN PRINCIPLE.

Every game is about overcoming or accomplishing.

Now, there are some wonderful stories that are possible even within this framework. But great literature is always more than this.

To reduce the Odyssey to just a series of episodes to be gotten through til you get to the end is to destroy it entirely. To make Hamlet a story about overcoming hesitancy shows total ignorance.

Your toys will never be true art.

 

[ChorizoPicozo]

The truth is that a truly great story in a game is impossible IN PRINCIPLE.

Every game is about overcoming or accomplishing.

Now, there are some wonderful stories that are possible even within this framework. But great literature is always more than this.

To reduce the Odyssey to just a series of episodes to be gotten through til you get to the end is to destroy it entirely. To make Hamlet a story about overcoming hesitancy shows total ignorance.

Your toys will never be true art.

video games are a different medium.

 

[Gamerguy84]

OK

 

[Danjin44]

I personally enjoyed stories in games like 13 Sentinels, NieR and Triangle Strategy.

 

[Vick]

The truth is that a truly great story in a game is impossible IN PRINCIPLE.

Every game is about overcoming or accomplishing.

Now, there are some wonderful stories that are possible even within this framework. But great literature is always more than this.

To reduce the Odyssey to just a series of episodes to be gotten through til you get to the end is to destroy it entirely. To make Hamlet a story about overcoming hesitancy shows total ignorance.

Your toys will never be true art.

This post would be outdated even in 1996.

Now it's just preposterous.

 

[Scotty W]

video games are a different medium.

And yet people are still asking for games to become literature.

This post would be outdated even in 1996.

Now it's just preposterous.

Ad hominem

 

[JimmyRustler]

I think that too many games nowadays try to make "interactive" story scenes. That's why we end up with so many walking sections and other boring stuff. If you can't do it meaningful and entertaining (like Uncharted for instance), don't it at all and just go back to the Gameplay/Cutscene/Gameplay/Cutscence loop we used to have.

 

[Mozzarella]

I have some points to make, i read your OP and heres what my thoughts and opinion on the matter.

- First, i definitely get you, in this time period of gaming we have a lot of gaming centered around telling a story through typical cinematics and dialogue exposition which makes it tiresome to experience for someone who is not into story driven games.
- Few years ago i was very into story driven games, and honestly i still like them but nowadays im growing a bit of dislike towards them because im getting tired of it and i am starting to appreciate level design, emergent gameplay and other methods of storytelling more.
- Dont take this personal but i think it is kind of moronic to equate and compare video game stories with films especially the top tier films with the likes of Scorsese who is considered top 10 director of all time material, thats nuts, if you keep going into games that are trying to tell a story through this medium with this kind of expectation you are bound to get disappointing all the time.
Story in games work differently, they work as a tool to immerse the player and connect you and the world they are trying to create through player agency and more immersive tools that you can control, if the game was 99% cutscenes then i would be totally behind your movies comparison but its not like this, i dont think anybody goes to games just for the story itself because if you only want the story and dont care about games then that person would be watching films, we have a lot of people like that in our daily life. So i disagree with the people who look at story driven games through this lens, some people even compare games with freaking classic literature lol, i met someone who was very angry that people liked Witcher 3 and said the story was bad because its not better than Shakespeare, Dickens and Tolstoy, lol. People think that just because you can read the best books of all time, then that means there is no need for you to read someone else story and enjoy a story in a different medium? ehh i dont really find that logical or entertaining at all.
- Story in games should serve as a motivation, it fills this void to give you a reason to care, a reason to do what you do, its not a bad addition, its certainly not the most important or the most valuable aspect to games since i stated earlier if its your most valuable thing then its better to look elsewhere although there are some exceptions and some games can be refreshing and pretty good.
So having a story is imo a good thing, it also doesnt need to be very good and deep, for it to be just there and to give me a reason to care and immerse myself is more than enough and job being done but that also brings me to the next point.
- Story in games should be judged based on the type of the game, a game that is trying to tell a story first should be judged on that, no matter how good the gameplay is, if you game is 80% story exposition through audiologs, lore or cutscenes or whatever then that story better be good, and good doesnt mean literally on par with Agatha Christie and Tolkien, it should be engaging and well written enough to serve as a video game story. Just in the same sense that your cutscenes should be good but again not literally on par with Kubrick, Nolan and Paul.T Anderson. Like a good well made cutscene is appreciated over a terrible one, a good coherent well written story is appreciated over a garbage one, depends on your personal criteria and standards.
Back to my point if the game is like 80% gameplay and 20% story, then it matters LESS how good the story is, but if the game is 20% gameplay and 80% story then it matter MORE.
I just finished Atomic Heart, and i think the gameplay is decent but the story was poor and in that game there's a lot of story, a lot of talking, a lot of audiologs and computer logs and monologue btw the robot and the main character, all this talk this means the story emphasis is big, there is a lot of story and attempt to make a story, so when the story sucks then that means the game takes a big hit, and my enjoyment of the game drastically goes down, despite its gameplay being good, but a game like Breath of the Wild which has good gameplay and like 80% of the time i was playing the game and the story is minimal and just an excuse to do shit, then it matter less how flawed it is.

I like story in games, a lot of my favorite games have engaging stories in them, i dont think having a story is a minus, even if the story is not literally better than War and Peace lmao.
So just having a story that feels engaging, meshes well with the world, makes me care about what is happening, is not written very terribly with awful plot threads and mistakes and characters that make me remember them and care for them, a worldbuilding that feels alive and has depth, entertaining dialogue which keeps me listening and sometimes makes me draw choice and consequences to see them shape the story and the world around me, that kind of story in games adds to the experience and i like it.
Obviously, a lot of games fail at this, because its not very easy to do, in case a game fails at this but without trying then its fine as long as it falls on other aspects that can make up for it, but if a game is trying to go for that and it fails then thats a bad game in my book.

 

[TheThreadsThatBindUs]

Sadly, it seems so many gamers focus on the games they DON'T like playing over the ones they do, for some silly reason.

This so hard.

If folks here, spend less time bitching about the games they don't want to play and instead actually used that time playing the games they do, they'd probably enjoy their gaming hobby....

...like some of us are doing.

 

[Roni]

The first one is that most video game writing ranges from generic to bad, with extremely rare cases of something that's actually worth your time.

And the second is that it takes far too long to get to any meaningful story beats so if you're looking to engage in a a game primarily for its story, then usually you have to wade through a lot of mind-numbingly boring grind called "gameplay".

Now, to break down those two reasons a little bit, let's look at the first part of my argument - the bad writing. Maybe I'm just not playing the right kind of games but I swear, I can't remember any brand new game that I picked up in the last 3 to 5 years that wasn't a remake or a remaster and it would have a truly engaging and memorable storyline. Most of it is either severely lackluster or just painfully generic and forgettable. And when I write "good story", I really mean it. Try to find me a fucking Goodfellas of video games in terms of writing and execution of the story, and I will kiss you because I would love to play that game. The closest comparison that I can think of right now is perhaps Mafia, however, you need to remember that 1) Mafia was a remake of game that was already praised for the quality of its storytelling (but not so much for its gameplay), 2) it's still nowhere near as good as even the most lacking Scorsese films. So there you go, storytelling in vast majority of video games tends to be severely underwhelming, at least for me.

Now, that's not to say that there aren't any games that tell a decent story. I could think of a few examples from recent years that I could give some praise to. But the problem in most of those cases is that it takes far, FAR too long to actually get to the good parts, to the point where you almost wish you could just watch a movie or a TV show based on these ideas instead. Which ironically is exactly what happened recently with The Last of Us TV show. I've been putting off replaying the game (specifically it's remaster/remake) because I just didn't want to wade through hours of mediocre stealth gameplay just to watch a couple of cutscenes that are the actual highlight of the whole experience. Therefore, I was delighted that I could just watch this new adaptation instead, and finally enjoy the story in a proper live action format. I realize that this makes me sound like I just hate gaming but that's not the case at all. I just grew to dislike games that pretend to be movies. And, at the same time, I enjoy games that are actual games. You know, ones that have good and engaging gameplay and utilize the medium's unique strengths to tell a story in an interactive (and not cinematic) way. Or, you know, just provide me with a playground to be the hero of my own stories instead, which is what video games should be doing. I mean, dude, on most days when I get off work and want to zone out, I usually spend a few hours flying a space ship around the galaxy in Elite Dangerous, which for most passive observers would seem like the most boring thing in the universe, but I find it enthralling just because it's my story in this unpredictable virtual world. However, if I decide to sit down and engage in a game that sells itself as this incredible gem of video game storytelling, and then I end up mashing buttons for 3 hours and actually start thinking about doing laundry just as I reach the next boring expository cutscene starring planks of wood as main characters, then I generally start to question the tastes of modern audiences who think that this shit is any good.

Can we start this discussion with a few more examples of what you consider a good story? Both in movies and games.

You mentioned Goodfellas and Mafia, but that's a very short list.

Also, the easy difficulties nowadays come with explicit descriptions that often contain something like "for those that just want to experience the story". Have you given that a try?

 

[RaduN]

Games like JRPG’s, MGS, WRPG’s have always had hours and hours of dialogue. Games like GTA too.

The cutscenes and dialogue are the last of MGS's strengths when it comes to storytelling.

While MGS always had the most impressively directed cutscenes in the industry (easily on par with the big budget Hollywood efforts), it's the intricate marriage between the themes, gameplay design, setting, lore, 4th wall beaking, that is the biggest accomplishment in terms of storytelling.
This is imo, the kind of story that will never translate well to film or TV, exactly because of this complex usage of the specific strengths of the gaming medium.

 

[CGNoire]

I used to like cutscenes in 2004 while Kojima was still in his prime but since then all we get is shit tier scenes directed bye wannabe hollywood rejects who are deluded enough to think there on that same level.

 

[CGNoire]

I like stories in games.
Sure they aren't nearly as good as the best books, movies or TV shows but I still enjoy them and I think they can enhance games.

Gow 2018 isn't as good as Goodfellas but I sure as hell liked the story and characters more than most blockbuster movies from the last 10 years (which, to be fair, is like 90% Marvel), I enjoyed Spiderman Ps4 more than those awful Tom Holland movies, I think the Mass Effect trilogy was better than anything Star Wars or Star Trek have put out since like the year 2000, Triangle strategy had me more engaged than the last couple of seasons of GOT and I'd rather re experience Nier Automata and its unique take on the "what if robots had feelings" plot than the last 3 awful seasons of Westworld.

Your gonna have to Inform me and many others Id rather on what was special or even engaging about GOW 2018 story?

 

[Cyberpunkd]

I agree with both however the second argument - games take too long to get going - is a result of people demanding dozens of hours from their ‘investment’ of $70. You cannot say ‘our game is balls to the wall action for 10 hours straight’ because you will get toasted for game length.
So devs are padding to inflate the count, and people like me with money but little time need to slog through all the BS.

 

[Vampire On Titus]

There's a lot of games with great stories, but only me and three other people play them.

https://www.neogaf.com/threads/adventure-games-thread-2022-we-can-use-these-things-together.1628970/

Thanks for being one of the other three, buddy.

 

[Hobbygaming]

This so hard.

If folks here, spend less time bitching about the games they don't want to play and instead actually used that time playing the games they do, they'd probably enjoy their gaming hobby....

...like some of us are doing.

Those 'gaming sucks' threads are the worst

 

[FunkMiller]

Yeah, the Last of Us part one was great. 9/10, great story/characters for a videogame.

I'd give Witcher 3 a 7.5/10. Clunky combat, boring open world. Wasn't keen on the story or characters.

Witcher 3’s story is very good for a video game fantasy story, but pretty average when put up against other fantasy novels.

It’s made to look far better than it probably is in reality, because it’s compared to other video game rpg stories, which are usually fucking dreadful.

 

[3liteDragon]

The games I tend to play have good story and good gameplay not one or the other

Exactly. The best games from Sony fit in that description. God of War, TLOU, Uncharted, Ghost of Tsushima are among those that combine great gameplay with really strong storytelling. I love those games. Of course, those types of games are not for everyone and that is fine.

Fact is that every person on this forum could create a "Why I grew to dislike <insert game/type/genre/whatever>" thread. I'm just glad the industry is diverse enough to give most everyone something they will enjoy playing.

Sadly, it seems so many gamers focus on the games they DON'T like playing over the ones they do, for some silly reason.

Those games are (were) limited to certain platforms however, so you have to consider a large portion of GAF's exposure to "narrative driven games" is devoid of its best examples.

Even if, in theory, the best "narrative driven game" I can think of when it comes to writing and narrative is The Witcher 3, which is in fact quite awful when it comes to gameplay mechanics.


Really? Shouldn't be too hard to figure out how such a narrative came to be.

It is funny however how it immediately falls entirely apart once you mention the competitive multiplayer portion of ND games still being popular after 10 years for TLOU and 7 years for Uncharted.

Took the words right out of my mouth.

 

[mrmustard]

Sometimes i like story-driven games like Road 96, Pentiment or Return to Monkey Island. I either want 100% story or 90-100% action. I don't like mixtures and that's why
i don't like fps or action games with exaggerated and walk + talk + cutscenes. It often feels put-on with bad and boring dialogues.

 

[Rhazkul]

Video Games don't need to be interactive movies because they are...Video Games....I can't stand games that focus heavily on narrative and story. The Witcher 3 was a snoozefest for me - imo it's extremely overrated.
Most played games for me are all "gameplay-first" type of games. WoW, Binding of Isaac, Warframe, Diablo 2+3, CSGO, Dota 2...all excellent games without a story.
Right now i am playing MGSV - and the cutscenes are putting me to sleep. The gameplay is amazing, so i keep playing the game until the brown afghan desert bores me to death.

Boardgames don't need stories to be fun (Monopoly, Scrabble, Trivial Pursuit etc), and the same applies for Video Games. If you are playing a game for the story, you picked the wrong medium.

 

[DenchDeckard]

I brisked through the post, but after platinuming God Of War Ragnarok..I completely agree OP.

Great gameplay, destroyed by the feeling of the need to have over extended, over acted cutscenes for a story that ultimately fits on a napkin....but is stretched over hours of un needed scenes.

Hopefully devs realise this stuff is destroying games and just focuses on the great gameplay.

 

[Kokoloko85]

The cutscenes and dialogue are the last of MGS's strengths when it comes to storytelling.

While MGS always had the most impressively directed cutscenes in the industry (easily on par with the big budget Hollywood efforts), it's the intricate marriage between the themes, gameplay design, setting, lore, 4th wall beaking, that is the biggest accomplishment in terms of storytelling.
This is imo, the kind of story that will never translate well to film or TV, exactly because of this complex usage of the specific strengths of the gaming medium.

Yeah it wouldnt translate well to TV/Film. I loved the codec moments in MGS and the cutscenes. MGS 1 was ground breaking in that department. It really felt like something new and different, and was done well in my opinion. But its not for everyone

 

[Shits_McGiggles]

Modern Games development is quite paradoxical. Developers have this desire (potentially out of a misplaced feeling of inferiority to movies/TV shows) to create story-drive narratives as they grow older, yet the people they hire to write these stories are often the refuse of the entertainment industry. They are only hired to fulfill a quota, either self-imposed or mandated by the corporate overseers.


They are those who have failed to create anything of value in their previous endeavors (i.e. there are many individuals who were formerly YA authors who have been hired as video game writers), and merely come into the video game industry as ungrateful refugees. They are convinced of their own superiority, yet are completely incapable of writing characters that aren't a reflection of their own dogmatic beliefs, with worlds that are as poorly thought out as said beliefs.


So much money is wasted on state-of-the-art motion capture technology for complete mediocrity. If the industry wants to continue to treat writing as a dumping ground for hiring quotes, then I think the industry would do itself a favor by focusing on gameplay rather than trying to funnel 10s of millions into what amounts to a Game Developer's midlife crisis.

 

[Drizzlehell]

This so hard.

If folks here, spend less time bitching about the games they don't want to play and instead actually used that time playing the games they do, they'd probably enjoy their gaming hobby....

...like some of us are doing.

Just because I have an opinion and would like to share it in a discussion doesn't mean that I hate gaming as a whole. Stop thinking in binary terms. This is such a stupid argument anyway. "Bitching about games they don't want to play?" Well have you considered that maybe I do wanna play them, and I just found some aspects of them to be lacking and would like to have a discussion about it? I know, it's a crazy notion, I'm sorry you had to hear all those nasty things about your precious games. I hope you'll feel better soon.

 

[Drizzlehell]

no one is forcing you to engage with them.

criticizing story-driven games because they focus on narrative is like criticizing gameplay-driven games because they lack story.

Nah, that's not what I was saying. I'm saying that most story driven games have bad writing or ruin potentially good stories with unnecessarily bloated gameplay. This is NOT the same as disliking games because they have a story, full stop.

 

[Big Baller]

Yes I hate most of Sony's recent output.

 

[Drizzlehell]

Some reason game makers put so much effort into this, when a lot of gamers just want to play games. Just to prove this, the most played games (online games with different modes, big open world games, or games with a repetitive hook to it) are games people play the most even though they got zero story or some traditional find and kill the king boss. They arent replaying a SP narrative 9 hour game 10 times in a row. People are either one and done, or they dont even bother beating the game in the first place.

I'm not sure if I would totally agree with this, to be honest. A good story will keep me coming back to replay the same game many times, even if it's a short one-and-done kind of experience that you suggested. But a bad story can keep me from even finishing a game once, even if it's a very similar type of game.

Case in point - Bioshock vs Atomic Heart. Both games share some similarities in gameplay styles and storytelling methods, but when I was eager to replay Bioshock many times, I barely even got through the first third of Atomic Heart before dropping it out of boredom. One of the key differences between those games is that Bioshock masterfully uses its gameplay and environments to tell a truly fascinating story of Rapture, while Atomic Heart feels more like a hodge-podge of retro futuristic ideas stitched together without any deeper meaning behind them, and in order to dish out its story it just keeps drowning you in endless stream of voice over exposition that masquerades as conversations between annoying main character and his robotic glove. And while Atomic Heart occasionally shines through with some interesting ideas (like those weird voices that you hear when swimming through polymer), as a whole it's just a really dull and derivative experience that doesn't offer anything new or unique enough to keep me interested.

And honestly, most of my favorite games are story driven and I love to play through them numerous times. It's also why I love to rewatch my favorite movies. They're just so good that I want to relive the experience and maybe even pick up on the things that I've missed out on my previous playthroughs.

 

[Yoboman]

Somebody want to explain the logic jump of how you start off a thread complaining about lack of good story in games and then complain about one of the few remaining Devs/publishers actually placing and emphasis on it and who consider narratives important?

Its like making a thread about how bad movie modern movie and TV stories are then ranting about Christopher Nolan and Vince Gilligan

Yeah let's ignore than Bioware haven't put out a good narrative game since 2014. Valve stopped making single player games. Rockstar on a game per decade timeline. Take2 shut down Irrational Games. Konami fired Kojima.

The problem isn't Sony excelling at their style of story telling, it's that everybody else is failing or just chasing the GAAS train

 

[freemandos]

A common problem because priorizing cinematic presentation above using videogame language as a narrative medium. There are games using its medium to tell stories better:
Return to the Obra Dinn
Gorogoa
Pathologic 2
Nier Automata
What remains of Edith Finch (and I’m not a walking simulator fan)
From Software games
Darkwood
Journey
Undertale
Disco Elysium
Lisa the Painful RPG
Inside

They cannot being well translated to other mediums without losing a good part of its narrative essence or themes (if not all).

If we decide look for games with more time:

Deus Ex
Silent Hill 2
Portal games
Stanley Parable (same with Edith Finch)
Alpha Protocol ( It’s a very flawed game though)
Braid
Ico
Papers, Please

And I liked tLoU (more part 1 than 2) and LOVED Mafia 1 for example, don’t take me wrong. But I cannot take seriously the popular statement of improving videogames like a narrative medium= only aping movies. It needs more than that. Unless we are talking only from a business (not artistic) point of view, of course. High production values and “cinematic” presentation always sells.

I remember when Fahrenheit/Indigo Prophecy and Heavy Rain were supposed to be the future of adventure games and videogames as a narrative medium in general. Yeah, replacing puzzles or any good gameplay design with poorly implemented controls and QTEs, being good part of them pure filler, TERRIBLE writting and lack of player’s agency.

 

[KXVXII9X]

I used to like cutscenes in 2004 while Kojima was still in his prime but since then all we get is shit tier scenes directed bye wannabe hollywood rejects who are deluded enough to think there on that same level.

Idk. The Last of Us seems to be getting really good buzz on HBO. People who haven't experienced the game really love it. And apparently that "Hollywood reject" Josef Fares won game of the year awards with It Takes Two which also got good praise. I would also say there are a handful of videogame stories I enjoyed more than a lot of Hollywood movies like Yakuza Like a Dragon. It is all subjective though.

 

[Zekra Dezivad]

If you are an exceptional writer you don't usually write for videogames. Also in videogames we don't have many adaptations from other media. You could see a movie or a TV series based on a book from a grat writer, but when it comes to videogames we don't see many interactions with books. Maybe it's just because in videogames companies wants to own the original IP in order to exploit it in years, I don't know.

 

[CGNoire]

Idk. The Last of Us seems to be getting really good buzz on HBO. People who haven't experienced the game really love it. And apparently that "Hollywood reject" Josef Fares won game of the year awards with It Takes Two which also got good praise. I would also say there are a handful of videogame stories I enjoyed more than a lot of Hollywood movies like Yakuza Like a Dragon. It is all subjective though.

I agree to TLOU being a rare exception.

 

[ClanOfNone]

A common problem because priorizing cinematic presentation above using videogame language as a narrative medium. There are games using its medium to tell stories better:
Return to the Obra Dinn
Gorogoa
Pathologic 2
Nier Automata
What remains of Edith Finch (and I’m not a walking simulator fan)
From Software games
Darkwood
Journey
Undertale
Disco Elysium
Lisa the Painful RPG
Inside

They cannot being well translated to other mediums without losing a good part of its narrative essence or themes (if not all).

This is a great list, though I was not really a fan of Undertale. Pathologic 2 and Disco Elysium in particular were amazing narrative experiences where choices really matter and "right vs. wrong" is a giant Grey area.

Darkwood was amazing for it's sound design and atmosphere. Felt more dread playing this 2D pixel game than I ever did playing any other horror game.

 

[MagiusNecros]

Lemme know when we get a story driven game that is Legacy of Kain quality. I'll wait. Thanks.

 

[Drizzlehell]

I have some points to make, i read your OP and heres what my thoughts and opinion on the matter.

- First, i definitely get you, in this time period of gaming we have a lot of gaming centered around telling a story through typical cinematics and dialogue exposition which makes it tiresome to experience for someone who is not into story driven games.
- Few years ago i was very into story driven games, and honestly i still like them but nowadays im growing a bit of dislike towards them because im getting tired of it and i am starting to appreciate level design, emergent gameplay and other methods of storytelling more.
- Dont take this personal but i think it is kind of moronic to equate and compare video game stories with films especially the top tier films with the likes of Scorsese who is considered top 10 director of all time material, thats nuts, if you keep going into games that are trying to tell a story through this medium with this kind of expectation you are bound to get disappointing all the time.
Story in games work differently, they work as a tool to immerse the player and connect you and the world they are trying to create through player agency and more immersive tools that you can control, if the game was 99% cutscenes then i would be totally behind your movies comparison but its not like this, i dont think anybody goes to games just for the story itself because if you only want the story and dont care about games then that person would be watching films, we have a lot of people like that in our daily life. So i disagree with the people who look at story driven games through this lens, some people even compare games with freaking classic literature lol, i met someone who was very angry that people liked Witcher 3 and said the story was bad because its not better than Shakespeare, Dickens and Tolstoy, lol. People think that just because you can read the best books of all time, then that means there is no need for you to read someone else story and enjoy a story in a different medium? ehh i dont really find that logical or entertaining at all.
- Story in games should serve as a motivation, it fills this void to give you a reason to care, a reason to do what you do, its not a bad addition, its certainly not the most important or the most valuable aspect to games since i stated earlier if its your most valuable thing then its better to look elsewhere although there are some exceptions and some games can be refreshing and pretty good.
So having a story is imo a good thing, it also doesnt need to be very good and deep, for it to be just there and to give me a reason to care and immerse myself is more than enough and job being done but that also brings me to the next point.
- Story in games should be judged based on the type of the game, a game that is trying to tell a story first should be judged on that, no matter how good the gameplay is, if you game is 80% story exposition through audiologs, lore or cutscenes or whatever then that story better be good, and good doesnt mean literally on par with Agatha Christie and Tolkien, it should be engaging and well written enough to serve as a video game story. Just in the same sense that your cutscenes should be good but again not literally on par with Kubrick, Nolan and Paul.T Anderson. Like a good well made cutscene is appreciated over a terrible one, a good coherent well written story is appreciated over a garbage one, depends on your personal criteria and standards.
Back to my point if the game is like 80% gameplay and 20% story, then it matters LESS how good the story is, but if the game is 20% gameplay and 80% story then it matter MORE.
I just finished Atomic Heart, and i think the gameplay is decent but the story was poor and in that game there's a lot of story, a lot of talking, a lot of audiologs and computer logs and monologue btw the robot and the main character, all this talk this means the story emphasis is big, there is a lot of story and attempt to make a story, so when the story sucks then that means the game takes a big hit, and my enjoyment of the game drastically goes down, despite its gameplay being good, but a game like Breath of the Wild which has good gameplay and like 80% of the time i was playing the game and the story is minimal and just an excuse to do shit, then it matter less how flawed it is.

I like story in games, a lot of my favorite games have engaging stories in them, i dont think having a story is a minus, even if the story is not literally better than War and Peace lmao.
So just having a story that feels engaging, meshes well with the world, makes me care about what is happening, is not written very terribly with awful plot threads and mistakes and characters that make me remember them and care for them, a worldbuilding that feels alive and has depth, entertaining dialogue which keeps me listening and sometimes makes me draw choice and consequences to see them shape the story and the world around me, that kind of story in games adds to the experience and i like it.
Obviously, a lot of games fail at this, because its not very easy to do, in case a game fails at this but without trying then its fine as long as it falls on other aspects that can make up for it, but if a game is trying to go for that and it fails then thats a bad game in my book.

Well, okay, fair enough. I should point out that I don't necessarily make the comparison to movies to say that games should be exactly like that. It's just that movies are the closest proxy for comparison, in that they're also an audio-visual experiences with one key difference being that movies aren't interactive. But in general, what I mean when making this comparison is to point out that I usually get a lot more satisfaction out of movie storytelling that video game storytelling, so it's more about what you get out of it rather than how exactly it is presented. When I experience a good story, it can be really thought provoking, it can affect me or engage me on an emotional level, and just be an all-around immensely fulfilling experience. I can get all of that out of movies way more consistently than from video games. In video games the ratio of games with a truly satisfying narrative element (regardless of how its told) is extremely low, while movie industry is capable of churning out quality experiences multiple times every year.

Can we start this discussion with a few more examples of what you consider a good story? Both in movies and games.

You mentioned Goodfellas and Mafia, but that's a very short list.

Also, the easy difficulties nowadays come with explicit descriptions that often contain something like "for those that just want to experience the story". Have you given that a try?

In video games? A few examples that come to mind:

• Bioshock Infinite
• Silent Hill 2
• Star Wars: Knights of The Old Republic
• Metal Gear Solid
• The Stanley Parable
• Portal
• Mass Effect Trilogy

Interestingly enough, none of those games came out in recent years so go figure...

As for movies, shit, I could go on forever. There are so many. But the thing about them is that even the stuff that's typically considered as the lowest form of entertainment, such as capeshit, can reach such incredible heights that many games could only hope to achieve. Movies like Captain America Civil War or Avengers Endgame are both fantastic, and they're just "dumb comic book movies". And there's a whole world of cinema out there that can provide great experiences on a much more consistent basis. Even just last year there was a number of films that I thought were great. Movies like The Northman, Top Gun Maverick, Everything Everywhere All at Once, Nope, or Men, just to name a few. Comparably I thought that there were maybe like two video games last year that had something interesting going on in terms of storytelling. Both of which were indie titles because you'd be hard pressed to find a triple-a game with a decent story these days.

 

[mxbison]

I think people are too harsh on video game writing.

It's hard to write a good story. Most books and movies also have bad stories, you just never hear about them. Thousands released every day and just a handful become somewhat popular.

You also movies with bad stories which become hugely popular and successful like Spider-Man No Way Home. Imagine Insomniac writing such garbage for their new game, they'd probably get a lot of shit for it.

 

[Hendrick's]

I would be happy if games stopped trying to tell traditional stories altogether. Get rid of cutscenes and games instantly become more enjoyable.

 

[mrmustard]

This so hard.

If folks here, spend less time bitching about the games they don't want to play and instead actually used that time playing the games they do, they'd probably enjoy their gaming hobby....

...like some of us are doing.

And if we all ask for a perm ban and stop talking about games, we would have even more time for gaming.

 

[TheThreadsThatBindUs]

Just because I have an opinion and would like to share it in a discussion doesn't mean that I hate gaming as a whole. Stop thinking in binary terms. This is such a stupid argument anyway.

No it isn't. Why? Because this:

"Bitching about games they don't want to play?" Well have you considered that maybe I do wanna play them, and I just found some aspects of them to be lacking and would like to have a discussion about it?

...is the height of disingenuity. The narrative of narrative-driven games isn't just "some aspect of it", it's the whole fucking point of those gaming experiences. So no, you don't actually want to play them. You just want to bitch about them, since you'd rather they don't exist.

The issue here is that you suffer from FOMO insecurity and entitlement. You think that every game should be made in a way that is tailored to what you like.

Guess what?... Not every game is made for you... Baffling, I know right?!?

It's clear from the diatribe in your OP that you don't like narrative-driven games. We get it. So play something else! We're in an age now where there is so much diversity in games that you can easily find something else that fits your personal tastes.

So instead of bitching that something you don't like shouldn't exist, which only serves to the detriment of others who do like those games, you should just focus your energies on games you do like and want to play.

 

[Kev Kev]

I'm not sure story was ever that important to me. I just want it to be serviceable. Stories these days feel too layered and convoluted, like they are trying so hard to make something deep and impactful, but I'm just skipping cutscenes by the end. Same with graphics, as long as they are decent then I'm happy.

Fun gameplay and great feeling controls are far more important to me these days.