Video Games, since inception, have been driven by a single simple formula – immersion through believable narrative. Narrative forms have changed over the years, as developers and designers felt the need to break from the mainstream, and create a narrative that will successfully engage the gamer as well as build up his interest for what is to come. Gameplay mechanics and quests/free-roaming abilities/puzzles have almost become secondary to what narrative can achieve out of a title. Examples of how an innovative game fell because of its poor focus on narrative are abundant. As I can recall a name that had so much about it in the first sequence but did a terrible job in presenting that story in continuity – Crysis 3.
While Super Mario Bros started with a single narrative direction, i.e. to save the real Princess locked away somewhere, gameplay and mechanics have come a long way. With modern day gameplay techniques, such as extensive RPGs and QTE based challenges, narrative has taken a slightly longer route in determining the means and end of a game, and at times it’s a glamorous display of what modern day CGI can cut out. But are inspirational dialogues and cutting edge CGI the only means to direct a gamer to a plot and hook him to the rest of the story? Or are there other alternate ways to tell a story? And even if there is, how does narrative change its shape?
When I played The Unfinished Swan last year, I was mind blown. The way that game conveyed a complicated subliminal plot along with a game narration was pure spectacular. As Monroe, the boy protagonist in the game, you were given an ink blotter and everything to explore within the game. Mission cues were highlighted with a distinct yellow paint and by sprinkling paint over the spaces, you would unravel story cruxes (like excerpts from a children’s book), narrated by the female VO in the title. Developer Giant Sparrow was often playing with our minds, making us take a step further to unravel the next page from this spectacular tale.
To hide storytelling inside levels is one of the greatest achievements of the gaming industry. It doesn’t require the developers to spend countless hours to carve out the perfect gesture detailing or the actors to master the best Mo-Cap acting. The level designer needs to understand the purpose of the game, stand with all its virtues, and seamlessly allow the gamer to experience everything first-hand. Narrative Designing, as the industry calls it, is a purist blend of storytelling, level designing, lead designing, art and coding. Whether you are talking to a strange blacksmith in the Undead Burg in Dark Souls, who pities your hollow self and laughs every second, or encountering Khajit wizards at the College of Winterhold in Skyrim, narrative designing often becomes a key tool for compiling an exhaustive RPG.
There is a certain structure of narration that best suits every game. For RPGs like Final Fantasy, Dark Souls or even Skyrim, it is the inventory, character class and the innovative items that often take the story forward. Before even you realise it, every loot, every super power or every time you face a new enemy, often leads you through a playable narrative. Next time when you encounter the same, your brain automatically draws out the solution from the experience you gained previously. AI form of Narrative is prevalent in games where expedition is the key. In Naughty Dog’s The Last Of Us, you couldn’t kill a clicker just as you would kill a runner or a stalker. If you were casually roaming around Tamriel in Skyrim, and you would hear the initial drum roll of Jeremy Soule’s Dragonborn theme, your brain would automatically direct your eyes’ perspective towards the sky. Because that, according to Skyrim’s narrative display, is the red alert for a dragon sighting.
When you discover items in Skyrim or Dark Souls, chances are that these random loots would often stand for something greater than what you can imagine. When you pause the game and read about it, you would realise that you have acquired the motherlode. Modern age stealth games, Dishonored and the newly revamped Thief, have often triggered the greed button in gamers by asking them to step out of the main road and take a hike, for that extra bit of information, and that detour itself would be a journey through peril and a mini adventure in the making. Narrative often shifts the story and quests back and forth, and that little bit of detailing (even if it’s not a stepping stone for the storyline) becomes the sole reason. Taking the Black Armoured Knight in the Undead Burg of Dark Souls may be your shortcut to hell, but on completion it yields you a unique defensive ring that you can use for the rest of the game, and that, is spectacular Narrative Designing.
Let’s go back a few years and see how narratives actually began. Unreal Tournament (1999), the game that perhaps has the biggest share on how FPS shooters evolved over time, had a narrative cum intro that quickly faded into that epic intro theme accompanied with the menu screen. Besides that, the only bit of narrative was the in-game commentary and the mission briefings in the Assault Mode. While the commentator screams “RAMPAGE!” or “ULTRA-KILL!” you have a distinct grin on your face, saying “F yeah!” In complicated mission based games such as Wolfenstein and Hitman: Codename 47, the missions would be neatly briefed by a third person and the rest of the narrative (or a gist of it) would be displayed while the game screen loads up. Racing games never really depended on the storytelling effort; they would rather set their horses free when it comes to action and adrenaline. But with EA Games’ Need For Speed: Most Wanted (2005), narrative took a serious role for driving the kick of the game forward. Every Most Wanted Driver you beat in the game showed in great detailing how you are moving up from being that Mr. No One to being a tough guy. And didn’t you spend 5 minutes at a stretch just looking at the Cop Records?
With most of the AAA games banking on cutting edge CGI for its major gameplay narration and the advertising approach, it is hard to miss out some of the best cutscenes – the most common form of narration in video games. Uncharted’s big bang cutscenes accompanied with its protagonist Drake breaking into acrobatics is one way to look at it. Almost all of EA/DICE’s Battlefield missions start with a cutscene from the battle scene, often scoping down on the sandbox available to you inside the mission. Splinter Cell: Blacklist often made the Paladin, the airship of the Fourth Echelon, the hero in terms of storytelling, succeeding its predecessor in the Mass Effect Series. The major parts of the talking happen within the ship, and when you jump into action, you have minimal cutscenes to set one level apart from another. One of the most glorious CGI led narrative style is often owned by Santa Monica Studios’ God of War series, wherein epicness precedes a memorable showdown, when you play the role of the fictional Greek hero – Kratos.
But the question is, do we really need cutscenes to tell us what to expect? Can it be a seamless narrative design that often takes us through myths and histories? Or can it be something totally different? Is language that important in realising the true emotions in a video game – a visual medium? The answer is, yes we need them, if they present to us a story or a plot that matters, in a way it moves us. I would cite the example of The Death Of Sarah in The Last Of Us in this regard, or when Ellie runs and hides inside a cottage and Joel rages at her for bringing out his past.
In titles such as Grand Theft Auto and Saints Row, wherein the player is always out in the streets and most of the missions are based on utilising the open map to the maximum, there is hardly time for a cutscene. To add to that, there are tons of side quests who would complain of a proper cutscene too. Rockstar Games introduces a very natural way of educating the gamer about what has happened or is to happen, through on-the-go chit chat. That’s how Niko’s life history was spilled out when he was driving Michelle in his cousin’s car for the first time. And that’s how you learn about John Marston’s past as a most wanted outlaw when you are riding your horse out of McFarlane’s ranch. Rockstar Games makes everything easy with this format, as this is not only natural but also effective, as you can choose to select a certain narrative while you are heading for a specific mission.
Here’s more of the crazy narrative style example, as owned and projected by the one-man army Lucas Pope’s 2013 creation – Papers, Please. The indie game benchmarks seamless storytelling via missions. Each immigrant hands over his papers, along with crucial documents, based on which you have the prerogative to allow him a pass or hinder him from entering Arstotzka, a fictional Soviet country during times of war and political uprisings. The immigrant’s documents, the way he tries to convince you why he should be allowed indoors, and the outburst each time you deny someone from entering the country, leads the game forward. What’s more, the stats collected at the end of the day and the morning paper builds more to this otherwise conceived boring indie game. People who have loved Papers, Please have loved it from top to bottom. And the way the game convinces you to make mistakes or change hands is an absolute phenomenal form of storytelling minus cutscenes.
Keiichiro Toyama’s iconic Silent Hill series rubs shoulders with spine chilling horror sequences and loads of discovery. And discovering artefacts and factoids often prepares gamers for that obscenely horrific sub plot. Horror, in my opinion, is all about the build up and becomes a little futile when you introduce absurd demons and ghouls. Silent Hill reaches the untouchable fame because of its immersive discovery led narration. That in itself gave rise to a different league of video games, that is again bechmarked by the 2013 indie game, Gone Home. The game that starts with an eerie rainy night setting turns into a psychological thriller by the end of it. And the whole game is nothing but a house, and hundreds of information that you can scavenge in the name of notes, letters, audio logs and other kinds.
Simogo’s DEVICE 6, the handheld masterpiece, is probably the extent of which narrative can change shapes and dictate gameplay, and come on top of everything. Your hunt for exploration will shake hands with words, cues and a unique gameplay to give you an experience that you can never shrug off your shoulders.
I’ve often regarded Quantic Dreams as a game changer when it comes to AAA games. Loved every bit of Heavy Rain and consider Beyond: Two Souls to be a serious underachiever in the year of The Last Of Us vs GTA V. Their games are iconic representations of how Mo-Cap can change the perspective of a game into a movie. And did I forget that the gamer takes over the narrative in almost all their titles?
Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons, Starbreeze’s fame to the BAFTA is not only a fresh way of gaming, but has a unique point of view when it comes to hardcore narration. It will make you cry, laugh, drool on the cinematics, with its unique phonetics driven narration. While no work of art can reach an epic level without the mention of a new F words, Brothers convinces gamers that “There” means “Ata” and “Here” means “Ta”.
And as there are over hundred such examples of how narrative can be changed and altered to give the best gaming experience, most of us are still buying games out of that sheer cutscene wherein Character #1 rips apart Character #2’s gut with a heavy dialogue sequence or a gun fight. The real question is, with so many unique forms of storytelling in the market, the Narrative Designing, the Ludonarratives, will we still choose games over its standard but beautiful cutting edge narrative cutscenes? What is your way to immerse in a title? Write to me below.
