Strength of Stories: Gaming Is Becoming Less about Pure Fun and More about Narrative
Video gaming began with the desire to create gameplay that could make people smile, and interact with technology like they had never done before. Genres developed, from simulators to platformers, from first-person-shooters to role-playing games that connected thousands of people across the world. It is hard to argue that we have not reached peak performance in some of these categories, and that people are getting bored with them. Is is now the case that people want more from their games than exhilarating, heart-pounding, Michael Bay explosion-fests? I believe it is.
If we think about the ‘Call of Duty’ series, with a game released every year without fail, a game which changes little. The multi-player is popular, albeit formulaic, and the single-player usually involves shallow, hyper-masculine characters trying to kill somebody bad. They’re fun, but once you have played ‘Call of Black-Ops: Modern Duty 253’, you have played them all. People buy the new ones because everybody else does — guaranteed money maker for Activision and a large burning hole in the pockets of millions — but they’re not ‘memorable’ games.
But is the tide turning? Are people sick of endless guns and yearly releases? More and more games are being developed with a compelling narrative. “We conquered gameplay, so now we must conquer stories!”, developers and gamers cry!
I have just finished ‘Life is Strange’, which if you haven’t played, stop reading this, buy it, and play it right now. ‘Life is Strange’ recently won the BAFTA for best story in a video game, and completely deserved it. This was a story about love, loss, friendship, choice, and consequence, one which is hard to let go of. This is the game which prompted me to write this, as it transcended the quality of what I have been playing for quite a while. I could not stop being attached to these characters and their story in a way that games rarely achieve.
I also recently played and completed ‘The Witcher 3: The Wild Hunt’ — most people’s 2015 Game of the Year — certainly mine. It was another gameplay rich adventure, but one which crafted a strong story too, with characters that everybody managed to love or hate, in great extremes. On top of this, the recent popularity of Telltale’s games like ‘The Walking Dead’ or ‘The Wolf Among Us’ have shown a true desire from developers to explore characters as well as gameplay innovation.
Back to ‘Life is Strange’, though Telltale has inspired the creation of more narrative driven adventures, based around a lot of clicking and walking (that’s not an insult, they do it very well), and their stories, especially ‘The Walking Dead’, are incredibly powerful, ‘Life is Strange’ did things in a new way. Storytelling in this game is different, despite the game revolving around young adult girls, not a second of the game was sexualised, not a second felt like it was not entirely believable in the context of the characters. The game dealt with difficult subjects, ones almost never looked at in the art, becoming incredibly dark near the end, having a lasting effect. The story and characters are so relatable, and feel so real — so real in fact, that ‘Life is Strange’ can stir up feelings you never believed a game could. Episode Three of the game handled its narrative very differently to other video games have in the past. In fact, I do not feel any game I have every played has tried to do it so differently. That was something that locked me in to the lives of the characters in a way that normal narratives cannot do in video games.
I even felt like my choices mattered, which is refreshing after the rather messy ending of the ‘Mass Effect’ trilogy, as with either of the final decisions, you do feel like each decision and impact you have made on Max and Chloe’s world now hangs in the balance, even if the impact of them cannot be felt once you make that final choice. This is hard to do, as the game’s endings, even the final episode in its entirety, do not show all the side-characters for long, and few of them are seen in the ending cut-scenes, but somehow you know you counted, even if, like me, you choose the selfish ending. When that final song plays, you wish it was not over, and I am not ashamed to admit I was in tears for long beyond the closing credits.
Soon, I feel, people will no longer speak of gameplay as the make-or-break factor for their game budget, or even longevity, but the value of the stories told. I think this is where games are truly destined to head, towards something which allows them to go beyond, and transcend, what is possible in films, in a TV series, even, dare I say, the beloved novel. Not to make them superfluous, but so they are equally valued as the medium that I believe has barely shown its potential to inspire us. One day maybe, I will forget Chloe Price and Max Caulfield, but if I do, I look forward to being told their story again, tears and all.
