Storytelling in Video Games

I initially had a different idea about the blog post for March, but as I began formulating it I realized it needed more polish and a clearer direction. So that topic is going to be for another month!

Instead, since the past month I spent quite a bit of free time playing Elden Ring (in between chasing puppies and hating From Software for not having a “pause game” option), I will be talking about the unique storytelling of video games compared to any other artistic medium.

To be fair, there are plenty of games – still the bread and butter of the industry – that are structured as a completely traditional story and could easily have been a movie instead. Perhaps the best recent example that I’ve played being The Medium. Games like that rely heavily on a good narrative.

Masterpieces on the other hand absorb you into their world and tell a story sometimes almost separate from the plot. In some extreme cases, the main story arc might not even be that good, but the way the game is designed and can be explored goes beyond anything any other medium can offer.

The first time I remember being absolutely flabbergasted by just how incredibly unique games can be in this aspect was with Gothic 1 (and even more so 2). Piranha Bytes, a tiny team (comparatively speaking), took Europe by storm and cementing itself in many a player’s hearts. The main story was simplistic, but the plethora of secrets and details crafted into the game got me and many others coming back for more.

And of course, the current example of phenomenal storytelling outside of the norm (that I am still playing) is Elden Ring. This game probably needs no introduction, as the studio is famous by creating (or at least refining) a whole genre of games, “souls-like”. But with this one they truly took it to a whole other lever. It probably helped that George R. R. Martin has been involved – even though I have no idea to what capacity. The story in the classical sense is confusing and hard to keep track without watching lore videos on Youtube, but the whole experience is absolutely unforgettable.

With that in mind, I’m going to go over three concepts that help make stories in video games unique – and often hard (or nearly impossible) to replicate in another medium.

1) Choices and Consequences

This is perhaps the most obvious point. Even if you take some experimental concepts like Black Mirror: Bandersnatch, or, choose your own adventure books, there is no comparison just to how many different branching storylines a game can tell. If you’ve played at least a few games you probably encountered this simple dilemma: spare a character that wronged you or kill / imprison them?

Video games can be of course full of choices that are dumb and inconsequential. An example of it is games where a choice results in a single sentence changed in a dialogue. Or perhaps change the ending on the fly, with the press of a single button, where it doesn’t matter what you do through the entire game. I’m not even going to bother naming examples here, because they don’t deserve that.

Instead, there are games like Gothic, where a lot of the quests have alternative solutions to them. Often times the choice is between besting someone in a fight, or, gaining additional information through conversation and using that to get the upper hand. Obtaining the information necessary for a peaceful resolution often involves a convoluted series of events. In other words, finding the right clues and people to talk to makes me think of detective work. One of the best hidden secrets (in my opinion) is joining the Thieves Guild in Gothic 2, where you can easily play through the game without even knowing of its existence.

There’s also games with branching timelines and entirely different endings with their own implications – like Chrono Trigger. Now of course being an older game, the way different endings play out leave a lot to interpret up to a player’s imagination. If I’m playing a game that I have no desire to play through again I will typically look online for how many endings it has and try to get to the one that either sounds the most interesting, or, is considered “the main ending”.

And finally, there are games like Dishonored and Prey (2017) where even though there’s only a few different endings (and to be quite honest, they are not as different in its presentation as I had hoped), the whole environments change as you play. Especially noticeable in Dishonored with whole areas of the cities becoming more beautiful or slipping to hell.

Good games provide players with both obvious as well as hidden – but understandable / discoverable choices that can have you keep coming back even after multiple play throughs.

2) Unintended Game Interactions

Unlike the movies and books, with the complexities of video games (spaghetti code, look it up), it is possible that there are some “bugs” present. Essentially, unthought of possibilities or just plain oversights that result in the game behaving differently than intended.

One of the all-time classic examples of this is of course Gandhi in the Civilization series. Very simply explained, the aggression of the A.I. controlled opponents was codified as a positive integer number. And Gandhi, naturally, has it extremely low. However, when the game reaches the atomic age (with the bomb that was supposed to be a deterrent to all wars – heh), his aggression level drops below zero, causing the A.I. controlled Gandhi to become extremely aggressive and nuke the shit out of everyone. 10/10 working as intended.

In cases like that, an error can be embraced by the programmers and become the staple of a series. In other instances, bugs get fixed with successive patches. Unless something is gamebreaking or annoying I enjoy games being quirky and not perfect. Usually bugs make it funny.

The greatest example of unintended game interactions comes of course curtesy of speed runners. They are literally playing an entirely different game. Based on what it is, there might be certain parameters, or “categories” of speed runs. For example, in some games it might be possible to get “out of bounds”, i.e., out of the designated play area. And that might be considered valid for a certain category, while not for another. These decisions are made by people who participate in the speed runs and so not only are they playing the games their own way, but they’re creating a great community surrounding it as well. And watching certain speed runners absolutely break the game can be immensely entertaining.

Looking to the future, I fully expect games to have A.I. generated content. Meaning that we’ll very likely see (probably sooner rather than later), the developers create just a fragment of a story and then the computer intelligence will generate the rest. This will make for very dynamic quests and story arcs that will change depending on who’s playing it – and make it very unpredictable. All it takes is for a programmer forget to check a parameter and the A.I. will go wild, creating a quest that should not be possible – can’t wait!

3) Environmental Storytelling

Last but not least, there’s a uniqueness to video games that comes through environmental storytelling. Basically, in a book or a movie, you get presented with a scenery from a point of view. Even as the camera pans one way or another, the perspective is always limited from one direction. Now of course, your imagination can do the rest and fill in the blanks.

In many video games you’ll able to simply explore the very same scenery from different angles. I’m definitely using Elden Ring as an example here since it’s one of the best to date. As you begin the game, emerging from the catacombs, you can just pick a direction and go. Arriving to a valley through a narrow canyon will feel entirely different than jumping off a cliff, or following a beaten path. The same exact valley, but approached from different directions will have unique backdrops. From one way, you might be able to see a towering glowing tree, while from another, there’s a barely distinct tower hovering in the back, inviting you to explore it.

Depending which way you go first, your understanding of what’s going on will change. In other words, if there’s a goblin positioned to ambush you behind a wall, you can be the one ambushing it if you arrive from around – or above. This type of world-building of course works best with games that are either open world, or, have large locations to explore.

But even if that’s not the case, there can still be a ton of details packed in otherwise fairly linear experience. Take Half-Life for example. When things go South at Black Mesa, as you make your way through the complex, there’s a bunch of scientists who meet their untimely deaths at the hands of the aliens, the overall destruction, or even the military later on. Often times they’re tied to timed events, so where you look changes how you experience it. Just one such specific case is a scientist that’s barely holding on and asks for help. As you get into the shaft, you’re able to see him looking up, slipping. Or you can just hear him and decide not to look, to try and  sprint up to hopefully get there in time, only to hear his falling cry and then see him on the bottom. 

Making it Your Own

Contrary to movies, books and other forms of classic entertainment / art, games are more malleable. With respect to all of the three points I talked about above, games can frequently be played completely differently and arguably, there’s no right or wrong way to do it.

You can decide to attempt to play Half-Life without shooting any enemies (except boss fights / areas that you can’t transverse). You can play The Elder Scroll series just to read the books. You can, like me, attempt to defeat all the 226 bosses in Elden Ring (gotta kill them all, Bushido dignified, it’s the last stand of the Samurai!).

Essentially, there’s always room for making your own rules. Sometimes those are predicted by developers and grant you some sort of achievement, other times they can be uniquely your own. Video games, when done right, truly are a unique form of story telling.