1y ago

Why I Probably Hate your Favorite Video Game's "Awesome Story" (an incomplete list)

Your favorite game's "awesome story" merely goes through the motions when portraying conflict

The protagonist mulls over destroying the food supply of an entire town to gain some strategic advantage. The team pipes in: "Are we really doing this?", Alice asks; "I guess there is no other way," Bob sighs, and that's that. Once the deed is done the town mayor's elite guard chases the team and shouts: "You will pay for this!". The chase sequence is over. Total casualties: twenty people, and seventy thousand more in a month or so. The incident is brought up exactly once later in the game, where Alice notes that "we maybe overdid it blowing up that food supply". The game is full of this kind of stuff, and is hailed as "exciting" and "eventful".

Your favorite game's "awesome story" is carried by an episodic plot

This is a flaw so old and so pervasive that Aristotle complained about it: just one thing after the other. Oh no, we've got to hit the road! Oh no, the chariot broke. Need to get spare parts. Oh no, the nearby village is full of killer robots... Oh no, the killer robot repellent stocks are in the next village over... Oh no, the people of the next village over are starving and hostile... Oh no, all the emergency food rations have been claimed by bandits, and the bandit leader refuses to negotiate on account of the roadblock to the southeast, etc, etc, etc...

Now of course this is less of a problem if the audience is at least forced to concede "wow, that was some experience dealing with the chariot breakage", "wow, that was some experience getting the spare parts", "wow, that was some experience dealing with the killer robots". But in practice stories are often built this way in a futile effort to achieve a magic gestalt effect where a sequence of forgettable episodes is somehow more than the sum of its parts.

Your favorite game's "awesome story" is one of those pieces of 'environmental storytelling'

Imagine a person who claims that in terms of pure gameplay mechanics, walking simulators are generally superior to soulslikes. They explain that it's exactly the fact that walking simulators do not involve strategic decision making, hair-trigger reaction times, or skill with controller input, that makes them typically such a master class in mechanical design. Because you see, these things are all crutches, and the superior philosophy is for the game mechanics to engage with the player without relying on these crutches, as the typical walking simulator does.

This is what it sounds like to me when someone extols the virtues of the "amazing story" in a game where none of the characters have friends, families, conversations, goals, fears, or first names. At that point you're way past "less is more", you're practicing narrative homeopathy. I'll grant maybe the game is a compelling piece of art, and that's something different.

Your favorite game's "awesome story" robs the player of a basic sense of agency

It is generally not awesome for the player character to join a cult, agree to assassinate their boss's boss, cheat on their life partner, pick a side in a major power struggle, voluntarily inject themselves with an experimental nano-fluid, etc, without the player's consent.

Your favorite game's "awesome story" is a 5-hour affair fit into 50 hours

Half a book page's worth of plot. 4 sidequests, 10 errands, 80 points of interest, 3 broken bridges, 2 days of real time. Half a book page's worth of plot. Repeat.

Your favorite game's "awesome story" falls apart the moment you try to put yourself in any character's shoes and consider their supposed motives and means

There isn't a dull moment: backup plans are revealed, friendships are made and ruined, alliances are brokered and broken, bold gambits are attempted and thwarted. But wait, didn't Alice swear to destroy her father's company? So why did she agree to call in a favor with that elite mercenary unit last mission, when we decided to run a crucial errand that helped stabilize the same company? And where were these mercenaries back in mission 1 the moment things went south and we were surrounded by 30 armed bad guys? Also, isn't this the third time already that Eve's changed her allegiance? At this point the Nutella conspiracy that she is orchestrating goes, what, four levels deep, and she has been able to act perfectly and maintain the deception for each level so far until revealing the next?... "We will bypass the front security using this special security-bypasser that I have assembled for this mission", says Qarxas the alien; this useful contraption has never been brought up before, and will never be brought up again. See also: mind control, parallel universes, get-out-of-death-free cards and time travel. Of this, H. G. Wells famously said: "If anything is possible, nothing is interesting".

Your favorite game's "awesome story" at its core has, let's be tactful and say a pathological fixation on things as opposed to people

The story's central conflict is fundamentally and entirely about the nuke and the facility and the energy field and the virus and the organization and the protocol etc etc. The people are set pieces; at best they get to momentarily be people while caught up in all the above, at worst not even that.

For some reason sequels are extra eager to walk into this trap, thinking the energy field and the virus are what made the original so compelling, so this time let's have the story revolve around 3 energy fields and 8 viruses. Actually what made the original so compelling was the distraught scientist who worked herself half to death on a vaccine and got all the players to root for her because hey this is just like that time they pulled 3 all nighters in a row on that project. Unfortunately the sequel kills her two minutes into the intro, so as to establish that virus #6 is not fucking around and everyone is in really serious danger this time.

Your favorite game's "awesome story" is just a bunch of jerks speaking in riddles over and over

Come, friend; it's time that all questions be finally answered, and all mice go back to their holes, and the mighty be brought low. Or were we ever friends at all? Are you going to surrender to these doubts or push through, like a mother pushes through when she gives the gift of life? Can we break free of the past? Can we forge a future? Have you stopped to consider whether we should? What price are you willing to pay to make that happen? Can you tell the difference between good and evil? Truth and fabrication? Competent prose and whatever the hell this is?

68 comments

I agree that video game narratives are, on average, way worse than in other media, but... This post is like a script for a CinemaSins video on an entire medium. There's a conversation to be had about the quality and originality of storytelling in video games and why gamers are so quick to praise mediocre narratives, but I dunno if glib one-paragraph summaries of "types" of video game stories (with no examples!) do much to advance that conversation.
- There’s a conversation to be had about the quality and originality of storytelling in video games and why gamers are so quick to praise mediocre narratives,
  No, there's really not. This is just a condescending way to disreguard someone else opinion on a piece of media or writing you dislike. The simple answer is just that thehly legitimately thought it was good.
  I'm so tired of people acting like they're some keepers of "good" content because they have the nonsense notion that media/writing is obectively good/bad. Want to talk about a film you just really liked online? Nope, it's "objectively" bad writing, therefore you have terrible taste for liking it (or get called worse). I was hoping discussions like this would be better here.

I feel like it would've made sense to include some real examples. Otherwise this just reads very.. made up? :'D
Not sure how to explain, but the simplistic nature of the stories you use as examples make the whole text feel a bit like an angry strawman argument even though it probably makes some good points.
- yeah it's kind of a weird post with the way it's all worded. framing it in a "why what you like is wrong" way probably hurts it more than anything. it doesn't invite discussion and is more or less just a ranting if you're not giving examples.
  it's not like anyone here is trying to force someone to like the same games they do and the first thought I had after reading was "okay..."
  Personally I like all sorts of storytelling as long as it's involving topics/genres I'm interested. Lovecraftian setting? inject it into my veins. stories about realistic depictions of depression and suicide - sign me up. There's not a singular formula that all my favorite games need to adhere to - why would anyone want all their story structures to be so rigid and similar?
  Anyways one of my favorite games, probably my overall favorite, is Control. It does a lot of 'show, don't tell' while also having an incredible amount of world building there for you to engage with if you're interested. The setting is like they tailor-made this for my interests. So pumped for the other games coming out in that universe
- It's like a TV Tropes page without the examples.
- Yeah.. I kind of.. don't get the point of this post.
  Ok, so.. you don't like a bunch of stuff. Examples?
  And what do you like? No game stories at all?

This reads like dialogue written for the "pretentious writer" friend character trope who is always shitting on other peoples' work but hasn't ever had any success with his own in every B-list Hollywood meta comedy: smug, confident, completely wrong, and utterly without purpose or substance.
- Yes, there was an odd vibe here I couldn't pin down, I think you found it.

My favorite game's awesome story made me feel things, and I like it for that

I'd say this is the result of someone asking ChatGPT for "rage bait post for a video game forum" but it has too much insufferable personality to be AI generated

#Your favorite game’s “awesome story” robs the player of a basic sense of agency
It is generally not awesome for the player character to join a cult, agree to assassinate their boss’s boss, cheat on their life partner, pick a side in a major power struggle, voluntarily inject themselves with an experimental nano-fluid, etc, without the player’s consent.
Right, so...please tell me a narrative medium that allows this. Somehow movies, books, comics, manga, and literal storytelling all get a pass on this?
I can sort of nod along with everything else, agreeing that there is some truth in the spewing. This statement is so pants-on-head foolish that every other assertion you make gets dragged beneath the water and drowns with chains made of the last page of shitty choose-your-own-adventure book. And for that level of strength in the chains to work, those assertions have to be pretty crappy.
Sorry, but no medium of media allows for agency. I don't care if you have some of the best writing in a game (whether that means Planescape: Torment, Baldur's Gate II, Disco Elysium, whatever), or if you want to go with the old choose-your-own-adventure books, but there is ultimately little to no player agency. If you want player agency in a game, you have one choice, and it isn't a video game: TTRPGs. Even ChatGPT can't match what a good GM can do, because they can allow you to break the mechanics of the game or add mechanics on the fly to fit what a player wants to do. A GM can literally respond to something a game creator never imagined within seconds. I want to see Planescape or Disco Elysium react to a player doing something they thought of that the game creator didn't imagine. Buuuulllllshit. Player agency my ass.
Also, as the OP obviously fails to mention any games that he thinks is worthy of being an 'awesome story', I'm calling this as a troll/bait post.

I don't need complete agency and freedom to enjoy a game. I don't play games like Red Dead Redemption and The Last of Us expecting to create my own story; I play them to be immersed in a beautifully written and preformed narrative.

People who don't like anything are incredibly boring, in my humble opinion. Imagine putting all of this effort into an essay about why other people shouldn't like the things that they like. I think a lot of people mistake being a contrarion for being an intellectual.

why i hate your beehaw post: it's carried by episodic discussion points

I think it's long past the time that we kill dead the notion of The Player = The Player-Character

Tell me your parents never read stories to you, without telling me your parents never read stories to you.
- I was thinking first year media studies at uni.

your examples are so weirdly vague I think this post would get a proverbial "mega-boost" from some actual examples of video games.
And I can agree with a few of these but some of them seem so weird. Like, assuming that an episodic story automatically means each episode is self-contained with 1 major conflict is a really archaic way of thinking about episodes. In television, that all but died out in like 2002. And a fixation on things as opposed to people is actually what makes a lot of dystopic writing great. The removal of the "self," can lead to a feeling of nihilism and can lead the viewer to appreciating how much of the world has lost its life.

Honestly being dismissive of these concepts as trite rather than recognizing the implicit value of tropes as a means of conveyance for a good story reads as contrived criticism attempting to convey an understanding of media broadly.
Tropes don't make a story ineffective. Simple story structure doesn't make a story ineffective. Contrivances don't make a story ineffective. Did a story make you feel? Did it make you think? It did it's job. This is non-constructive at best and an active effort to not understand media at worst and I'm really not sure what you're trying to even get across given you gave zero examples of productive, fruitful storytelling that is more worth engaging with.

I'm gonna have to hard disagree on environmental storytelling. Not every story needs to be about a set of characters. Some stories are all about worldbuilding and mystery and discovery and that's okay. It's also okay if you hate those kinds of stories, but calling it "narrative homeopathy" just because you hate it is dishonest and arrogant. Some of my favorite books take place over generations with characters coming and going all the time and none of them really having any kind of narrative arc at all, but the story still ends up being one I enjoy. Does that not count as a story at all to you?
- This point in particular seems to be conflating the terms "story," "plot," and "narrative," and treating them as synonyms. We often use the terms interchangeably without issue because people generally understand what's being talked about, but the differences matter on deeper critical examinations. A story is a sequence of events, plot is how those events relate to one another, and narrative is how it's told (the accounting of story and plot itself). Environmental storytelling is often very light on direct narrative, which seems to be the criticism here rather than on story or plot. These games often have a lot of story, it's just not told through a more traditional form of narrative.
  
  Environmental storytelling
  This one is so often used to complement or enhance other forms of storytelling that pulling it out on its own seems so disingenuous in the OP. It can add so much richness to a story.

Whoa. It's like I'm seeing clearly for the first time in my life. You've opened my eyes and I will now immediately stop enjoying things because you, for some reason, feel so weirdly insecure about your own tastes that you felt the need to write, like, 25 paragraphs (that I absolutely did not read) seeking validation from internet strangers.
Really though. What was the goal here?

Strawman

What games are you talking about? I think this would make more sense if you used examples to illustrate your points here.
Also, lots of these problems arent sounding like stuff I encounter in well-written games.

This post was way to broad and generalized to foster an actual discussion. Many assumptions are also made about interactive storytelling which bely OPs attitude towards an entire form of narrative media.

Soooo... you're telling me there's a game whose story you really love that avoids all these tropes completely? Hmmm... How about Stardew Valley? The premise isn't entirely unrealistic (leaving a boring corporate job for a dream hobby farm), the story unfolds on its own, you get to decide who you side with, who you become close to and hang out with. Or perhaps you only enjoy franchises that have volumes and volumes of lore behind them to make up for game campaign plots that are too straightforward (Lord of the Rings, Starcraft for example).
Or (like me) your favourite games have little to no story at all. American Truck Simulator, Bloons TD, Age of Empires, Satisfactory, Cities Skylines, Transport Fever are a bunch of my favourite games to play.
If you believe everything you wrote in this post, you are quite hard to please. A game's plot can't be too straightforward, yet any surprise twist seems shoehorned in the game. Telling the story through the environment is walking simulator, telling the story through quests is MMORPG Simulator, telling it through Textboxes/Cutscenes is Reading Simulator. Someone hiding something about their character until later in the game is unrealistic, being taken for a ride in a fantasy world is "losing your basic sense of agency".
Are you playing to try to have fun, escape real life for a bit, or are you playing just to tell people you beat the game? I like games over films and books because you are part of the action and the story, but it's also part of the game design how far your choices ultimately take you in the world, sometimes they affect everything, sometimes it has no bearing and you're doomed with what the game has in store.

i think there's probably some good points in here. however, the presentation you've chosen here makes it difficult understand what those points are (i thought these critiques were about the same game / genre of games at first, but i'm thinking they're now probably separate critiques about different styles of storytelling); especially since each point probably deserves its own post, along with named examples of games where you've encountered this
but i think there are some critiques in here worth mentioning, things like "it's difficult to find games where your actions have a lasting impact and don't just resolve the obstacle in front of you; while still having compelling gameplay". or "sequels commonly don't understand what made the original popular". these are good, compelling critiques of things that happen in video games. this also allow people to recommend games that maybe address those complaints or maybe don't
unfortunately, it's hard to have that discussion right now because it currently boils down to "stories in games are dogshit". and i mean, i can empathize, even if i don't necessarily agree. maybe you just needed to get it off your chest, which is cool. hopefully this feedback helps you if you want to have a more in-depth, nuanced discussion about this later

In all honesty it seems you just hate stories and I mean thats ok because gameplay, ascetic, and community are all features that become reasons for people to love games and usually its a combo of multiple different features that cause that game to be a favorite but why are you being condesending about basic plot lines? A good story needs a template in order for it to grow into something more and i honestly cant think of a book that doesn't fall into these catagories even "House Of Leaves" falls into it IIRC
Yes tropes exist and can be a sign of bad writing but, tropes can be done extremely well and create more then what was there before which is a sign of great writing.

Very entertaining post. Would love to know the titles of the games that inspired these categories, but not a bad idea to keep those to yourself.

I also feel similar to many other commenting folks: that if you have avoided the "hahaha look at me, i don't like things, that makes me so intellectually superior to you normies who enjoy anything" tone this could have been a good discussion. Also, we have tropes beacuse us humans share a couple of things in common, that we want to express and connect with. It's the human that shines through these tropes, and at the end of the day, they're tools that could be used well or poorly, but narration has tropes, just like wood is made of trees

Sounds like somebody's never played Disco Elysium.

I think it’s great that you’ve fostered a discussion where no one’s really angry, but there’s definitely confusion. I have a rough idea as to what you’re referring to, but without concrete examples of games, this seems more like a well-intended but uninformed rant that needed more time in the oven.

So what games do you like?

I would have liked some examples.

This post begs for a list of games whose stories avoid most or all of these traps.
I'll start with an easy one: Disco Elysium.

Did you have chatgpt help you write this? It is too incoherent and filled with weird fluff to even get proper feedback.

This whole list just feels like a needless attempt to judge games stories by the standards of older types of art.
Different forms of media require different storytelling conciets to best fit them, films, TV, novels, comics, etc all have different techniques or shortcuts to play to their limits, why should games be any different. They have to present an interactive element to the player alongside their story and that will require conciets to get to those points.
Gaming is its own art form and a relatively new one in the grand scheme of things. Let it develop its own language rather than judging it by the past.
- "Awesome story" is always going to imply "for its medium." You'd never compare the story in "The Strawberry Roan" to "The Telltale Heart," or Telltale to "David Copperfield." There's a story painted on the Sistine Chapel, but it's character development is abominable compared with "Pride and Prejudice."
  You can't tell a story in a game without the player's participation. If the game has a plot, the writers have to force the player into actions that advance the plot. If the game has character development, the character may have to make choices the player wouldn't. OP's right that games do have more tendency to rely on ex machina solutions, or have narrative/character inconsistencies. I mean, how many times will you gleefully murder legions of minions, only to have an agonizing dialog over whether to spare their super-villain overlord? But people like the mechanic of going full murder hobo, and you've got to balance fun mechanics with philosophical interludes. Or vice versa.
  The alternative is a completely freeform simulation, where every NPC has some scripted responses to every possible player action. That's two complete stories based on whether the player chooses not/to murder his boss's boss, another where he agrees to, but then betrays his boss instead... And what if he overthrows the assassin lord after/before he meets the mages' guild? That kind of 'choices matter' game has been a dream as long as RPGs have been around, and you just can't do it. It's what sets tabletop RPGs apart from computers.

You literally have no idea what my favorite game is.

Sounds like a summer blockbuster to me. :p

For some reason sequels are extra eager to walk into this trap, thinking the energy field and the virus are what made the original so compelling, so this time let’s have the story revolve around 3 energy fields and 8 viruses.
Side note, but this perfectly describes why I liked the first John Wick, where the world of the assassins is an interesting background element, and hated the sequels which are exclusively about the assassins and their weird rules and traditions

Lol I really hope this is the biggest troll post ever.

Meanwhile... me unashamedly promoting FFXIV to absolutely anyone or anything with a pulse and a computer.

What video games do you think had a good story then?
- I can't think of a story focused game that fits any of these points... has OP played many story driven games before?

Nope, wrong on all counts, but thanks for playing.

the fact that its taken me more than 2 minutes to find out which one my favorite game is really doesnt do your point ANY favours

You will never convince me that going into Bioshock blind isn't one of the greatest storytelling experiences ever.
- To be honest, I don't remember 90% of that story. The opening is great (but that's more the setting than story) and the final twist is amazing, but everything else is a blur.
- I could never get into Bioshock for some reason. I started playing it twice, but just never felt super engaged or intrigued. Which seems really weird to me because I love a compelling story and that game has a reputation for being a great story. Maybe I just haven't been in the right mood and need to give it another shot.
  
  Depending on how many hours you played, you might not have reached the point that gave it that reputation. I absolutely loved the story already, including the characters and the environment of Rapture, but there's a certain point in the story where it gets taken to a new level.

This is a fair take. However, stories in games (for the most part) are no different than cheap pulp novels, romance fics, or the twenty billion christmas romance movies: you know what you're getting and it's not super in-depth. Sometimes I do want to turn my brain off for a story. I won't pretend it's good, but I still enjoy it.
- #notallgames
  Seriously though, I know you said "for the most part," but I just want to emphasize that there are absolutely story-focused games out there. Games I'd even describe as downright literary, where the entire point is to tell a compelling story and explore some heady themes. One recent one I played like this was Pentiment, which explores some really interesting history and has a lot to say about religion, community, fallibility, family, etc...
  And, I mean, lots of other people have already mentioned Disco Elysium and I could write an essay about it but anyone who hasn't played it should just watch this Jacob Geller video instead.

Oh wow, kudos for sitting down and writing this piece out. Damn, that's a long post.
But seriously though, all I could think of when I "skimmed" through the text was that you got too obsessed with the building blocks of a story and realised that you are critical towards that they're all the same shape and/or made by the same material. So you stand very close to the wall and squint instead of backing up a few paces to get a good view of the actual construct in it's entirety.
Relax and just be happy that we have the luxury in this day and age to appreciate gaming as a medium. Or don't, whatever makes you happy :)
- I really like this point. If you look closely most churches are built with bricks and wood, but still create beautiful structures. As I was reading through the list I was thinking a lot about games that did points good and badly. Tropes are tropes for a reason (check out OSP trope talks if you want break down on how specific tropes can be used well or poorly)

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