It depends what is meant by "storytelling". If it's about which developer is best at pretending they're making a movie, then I guess it would be Kojima, Rockstar, or Naughty Dog. If it's about developers who understand they're making GAMES and not movies and they utilize the strengths of their medium instead of downplaying them, then I would have to say Valve, From, or maybe Bethesda.
@brodehouse: In Baldurs Gate 2, a Forgotten Realms game, there's a largish quest centered around a dead god who died because he was forgotten - It's actually a central bit of the mythos. The setting story was that the Gods and people didn't have a reciprocal relationship, which led to all kinds of abuse. Eventually, head god Ao got sick of it, and after a period of messed-up shit going down, finally reordered the cosmos so that a God's power and influence was directly tied to the worship they received. That led to a pretty fierce competition for followers among the gods, which doesn't get focused on enough but it's in some of the better games- Baldur's Gate 2 and Mask of the Betrayer both have it. It's actually very central to MOTB- because of this, the gods have literally taken to sentencing the crime of non-belief with a punishment harsher than any of the hells- to be mortared into a living wall surrounding the City of Judgement for all eternity, and the plot revolves quite a bit around the Betrayer's Crusade and it's attempt to bring down the Wall of the Faithless (god that expansion is good). Planescape explores it a bit differently, though not technically Forgotten Realms - have you played it? I've noticed you're quiet on it - though Planescape takes it a bit further; in that universe, belief is required for anything to exist at all, including the gods. There's actually a whole trope for it on Tvtropes, and the example list is by no means exhaustive - God Needs Prayer Badly.
@towersixteen: Oh I'm big into Planescape: Torment, though I've only ever been maybe 10-12 hours into it, but in those 10-12 hours it manages to be more vibrant and unique than most games since. I was surprised too, because I had played a short adventure based in Sigil and I hated it, I thought Sigil was Setting Designed For GM's Convenience. Just throwing whatever they wanted from whatever book into one area. Maybe I was just being a hard-on about that GM.
I should actually say the same for KOTOR2, when I had originally played it I had quit 30 hours in near the end because it just gets so broken it became no kind of fun... but the ride until then was so good it didn't matter, that game was my GOTY (correction, it was #2, San Andreas was GOTY). I actually played all the way through it last January, the current edition available on Steam has apparently (perhaps allegedly) resolved all the broken shit that marred it in 2004.
I might have to put up with NWN2's combat to see that bit about ... essentially atheism in a fantasy setting. Or if not atheism, anti-theism. In worlds where the gods are present and active, I very rarely see anyone raise the point that maybe they ought not be. I feel like that would be the point I would raise, though I'm sure if I lived in a fantasy setting I'd spend more time campaigning against aboleths than Corellon.
I feel like that's more common than you're giving it credit for. Hell, it's a pretty big plot point toward the end of Xenoblade Chronicles. (Granted, that's a god saying it to another god, but the point's still the same.)
I feel like that's more common than you're giving it credit for. Hell, it's a pretty big plot point toward the end of Xenoblade Chronicles. (Granted, that's a god saying it to another god, but the point's still the same.)
Oh people say it to the evil gods all the time, everyone wants the evil gods to go piss up a rope, but how often do people look at "I'm Hralgafar, god of the hunt and of feasts!" and go "listen, maybe you should let mortals handle mortal affairs". People want those feasts. Hard to blame 'em.
I'd say that the good god gets it in Xenoblade, too, but the character giving it to the good god doesn't consider her a very good god. (Man, it's hard to make this sound good without spoiling anything.)
@brodehouse: It's even a bit more complex than that, because the Crusade is made of some strange bedfellows - the anti-theists are there, of course, but working alongside beings who follow gods like Illmater who, if not in actively in opposition to the wall, would not complain to see it fall (And I believe some are also in opposition). Indeed, your excellently written party includes both an anti-theist and a devout cleric of Illmater who defected from service to the God of the Dead due to disagreement with the wall, as well as people with other kinds of connections to the Crusade and the Wall. Forewarning though, if you do jump in- The game is an anticlimax. It's pretty obviously gearing up to you leading the Second (third?) Crusade, but I've heard that WotC stepped in and said, uh, no, you can't make a change that big to our tabletop game setting in your video game. So they had to change it too late in development to make everything match tonally. And then to add insult to injury, they went ahead and got rid of the wall without explanation when they made the jump to 4th edition soon after.
If you can stomach the combat, you should try to finish Planescape. Some of the later stuff is amazing: The Brothel of Slating Intellectual Lusts, the Hall of the Sensates, the stunning ending, but particularly the confrontation with Ravel Puzzlewell, which sits beside Kreia for me as the best things they've ever done. Interestingly enough the characters are very similar- a twisted, strong-willed, broken-souled, complex and relatable old woman with a hatred of the world and a heartbreaking fondness for the protagonist.
My immediate choice is Remedy. Max Payne 2 has one of the most resilient stories I've played through.
By that I mean the complexities of the plot (character secrets, misdirection, general mystery) are ALL explained with no hand-waving of loose ends. That BY ITSELF is incredibly rare in video game stories.
In media res openings can be a cheap way for a story to appear more interesting than it would otherwise, but it's used perfectly in Max Payne 2 to misdirect you just enough to keep the ending a surprise, while also setting up the larger tone and themes of the game: the "fall" symbolizing Max's continued depression, mourning of his family, the guilt he feels for his attraction to Mona Sax, and the overall dread with his descent into progressively worse situations from which he feels there's no escape. And the ending line of narration in that game is one of the simplest but most effective cathartic character resolutions I've seen. Max Payne 3 did not go where I wanted it to, but the ending of MP2 was so satisfying that it didn't matter too much.
What sets Remedy apart from other writing-heavy developers is that they take their story seriously, but not themselves. They break the fourth wall many a time, but they never let those moments compromise the integrity of their story or characters. When Max realizes he's in a video game in the first installment, it's while he's hallucinating during a drug overdose. The joke works, but the integrity of the scene still holds.
Remedy deals in some big ideas, particularly in Alan Wake, where they explore the concept of creative expression by having a supernatural force directly tied to that concept as the central premise of the game. There are lots of stories about writers and writing (write what you know and most writers only know writing) but Alan Wake used that trope in some really interesting ways; and most importantly, the story remained internally consistent, with all the twists and supernatural events being in line with the established rules of the central "Dark Place" conceit.
And perhaps most importantly, Remedy never forgets that they're making a GAME, and they weave ambient story-telling (details in the level design) with traditional cutscene-exposition with equal aplomb.
I would actually offer Rocksteady as another contender for seamlessly fusing gameplay with narrative, with the opening of Arkham City being a prime example. It's slick, entertaining just to watch, but it also serves as a tutorial (a fun one even) while effortlessly establishing the game's premise and characters with a great economy of time.
I might say Valve since they've sort of made their name on storytelling. It was the secret sauce of Half Life and Portal and even their primarily multiplayer games, TF2 and the L4Ds, have managed to squeeze in amazing amounts of narrative and personality in either update flavor text or writing on the wall and good light dialog about pills. Yeah. As I write this I think I will say Valve. Valve it is. Valve is a solid ass choice.
I would also say that there are a lot of other games with fucking amazing stories but I feel like you don't get as strong a body of work with those options as with Valve.
I feel like that's more common than you're giving it credit for. Hell, it's a pretty big plot point toward the end of Xenoblade Chronicles. (Granted, that's a god saying it to another god, but the point's still the same.)
Oh people say it to the evil gods all the time, everyone wants the evil gods to go piss up a rope, but how often do people look at "I'm Hralgafar, god of the hunt and of feasts!" and go "listen, maybe you should let mortals handle mortal affairs". People want those feasts. Hard to blame 'em.
This is also the entire attitude of many of the Megaten games, except for instead of in a fantasy world, it's the protagonists usually telling both YVWH and the demons to piss off and let humanity tend to humanity's needs. It's actually such a rigid fomula in that seires that I'm sick of it- The weird, judeo-gnostic hybrid YVWH-Demiurge is always stupidly evil, always exists because of humanities need to believe in something and rely on it, always opposed by the more-sympathetic-but-still-evil demons, and the protagonists always get the option to tell both sides to piss off. It's so goddamn fomulaic in that series it's tiresome.
If you can stomach the combat, you should try to finish Planescape.
Not a matter of stomach, I was stomaching it until it just became too hard. Probably made it harder on myself by speccing for intelligence. I had just got Annah. I've read the synopsis and the big events though, so I'm not completely missing out. I watched the cutscenes for when Tony Jay is speaking, because Tony Jay is a straight up killer.
If you can stomach the combat, you should try to finish Planescape.
Not a matter of stomach, I was stomaching it until it just became too hard. Probably made it harder on myself by speccing for intelligence. I had just got Annah. I've read the synopsis and the big events though, so I'm not completely missing out. I watched the cutscenes for when Tony Jay is speaking, because Tony Jay is a straight up killer.
My suggestion to be get the easy to use hack tool, start a game, set all your stats to a billion and just go through for the rest of it.
For some reason I found the story telling in Enslaved super compelling. Ninja Theory are very hit and miss but when they get it right they seem to be good story tellers, just not so good at making games.
Kotor 2 wasn't finished and it's story was broken as a result, NWN2 was okay, MOTB was awesome but had a fucking rushed and anticlimactic third act, Alpha Protocol was admittedly sweet, New Vegas was good but not great. I've never played Dungeon Siege, I admit. What there warrants such high praise? I mean, Planescape was phenomenal but that was a long time ago.
Kotor 2, even broken as it was, makes a very good case for being the best piece of Star Wars fiction ever written. Not that that's particularly high praise or anything, but it was pretty well done.
Personally, I don't think there have been any exceptionally well-written games since Torment.
Who wrote Deathsmiles? Whomever wrote that isn't the best. I am not a story snob so my answer will seem like a joke but it really isn't, it's the story I enjoyed the most so far.
The Final Fantasy XIII Saga, is my fav so far, I like most stories to be honest, I am not hard to please in that department.
Hmm...The Last of Us is fantastic but I wouldn't call the storytelling in Naughty Dog's past games all that great, to be honest. I probably would have said BioWare but then Mass Effect 3 happened.
Telltale would probably be my pick. Has anyone even said them yet? What the hell is going on in this thread?
As for Storytelling I would say Naughty Dog and after that a long while nothing else. They maybe have not original ideas or stories but the way they present these and their characters is just brilliant.
have to agree. They give every character an edge or a quirk.
i'm gonna second this, because they developed the weirdness of gameplay behavior into a fascinatingly detailed undead curse in an intriguing world, with me as the star and not some nolan whatever the fuck.
Except the part where you read the developer interview and Miyazaki and Co. pretty much say multiple times that most of the lore was derived from the art. In other words: they drew a dude; he looked cool; they made up a backstory to why he looked the way he did, and kept it ambiguous. Interesting? Definitely. Amazing story telling? No.
I'm sure I won't catch flack for this comment.
I don't know, i think most storytelling comes from random little things that are then furnished with characterization and plot. an exception would be something like the core idea of The Last of Us, which is truly inspired (and a one-off, not likely to be repeated), but in execution it's a very big ask to overlook how many people you kill during the unfolding of that story, whereas the souls games deal with that issue with true panache, equally inspired.
it's the end result that matters, i'm sure shakespeare doesn't have noble origins for half his stories, and half the time they came from things someone shouted in a pub.
Dark Souls tells its story in a way that only a game can, and so I'm going to give From the edge here. The Last of Us was amazing, but it was a traditional narrative with gameplay in between. I'm not knocking it, I love the game, but I'm more impressed by what From has done completely withing the confines of gameplay and setting. It's such a different experience.
My immediate choice is Remedy. Max Payne 2 has one of the most resilient stories I've played through.
By that I mean the complexities of the plot (character secrets, misdirection, general mystery) are ALL explained with no hand-waving of loose ends. That BY ITSELF is incredibly rare in video game stories.
In media res openings can be a cheap way for a story to appear more interesting than it would otherwise, but it's used perfectly in Max Payne 2 to misdirect you just enough to keep the ending a surprise, while also setting up the larger tone and themes of the game: the "fall" symbolizing Max's continued depression, mourning of his family, the guilt he feels for his attraction to Mona Sax, and the overall dread with his descent into progressively worse situations from which he feels there's no escape. And the ending line of narration in that game is one of the simplest but most effective cathartic character resolutions I've seen. Max Payne 3 did not go where I wanted it to, but the ending of MP2 was so satisfying that it didn't matter too much.
What sets Remedy apart from other writing-heavy developers is that they take their story seriously, but not themselves. They break the fourth wall many a time, but they never let those moments compromise the integrity of their story or characters. When Max realizes he's in a video game in the first installment, it's while he's hallucinating during a drug overdose. The joke works, but the integrity of the scene still holds.
Remedy deals in some big ideas, particularly in Alan Wake, where they explore the concept of creative expression by having a supernatural force directly tied to that concept as the central premise of the game. There are lots of stories about writers and writing (write what you know and most writers only know writing) but Alan Wake used that trope in some really interesting ways; and most importantly, the story remained internally consistent, with all the twists and supernatural events being in line with the established rules of the central "Dark Place" conceit.
And perhaps most importantly, Remedy never forgets that they're making a GAME, and they weave ambient story-telling (details in the level design) with traditional cutscene-exposition with equal aplomb.
I would actually offer Rocksteady as another contender for seamlessly fusing gameplay with narrative, with the opening of Arkham City being a prime example. It's slick, entertaining just to watch, but it also serves as a tutorial (a fun one even) while effortlessly establishing the game's premise and characters with a great economy of time.
Well, what you said. ahah That was a great exposition of your thoughts, and there is a little bit of detail here and there that complete my opinion on the subject of storytelling.
@frankfartmouth: There's a lot of environmental storytelling in the Last of Us too. Like the story of the guy in sewer, and what happened there. Also it conveys some sense of Joel's state of mind and character through the brutality of the combat, though I admit that's more of a stretch. But Dark Souls (an amazing game that is better than Last of Us, if you can compare things like that) is TERRIBLE at story telling. Its story is great, its lore is amazing, and the art is simply incredible, but they portray the story, maybe in a way that can only be done in a game, but not in a way that is beneficial.
I really like the way Double Fine does storytelling, they have a way of making you feel like you are playing your favorite Saturday morning cartoon or Jim Henson movie or something and that is just really cool to me.
But Dark Souls (an amazing game that is better than Last of Us, if you can compare things like that) is TERRIBLE at story telling. Its story is great, its lore is amazing, and the art is simply incredible, but they portray the story, maybe in a way that can only be done in a game, but not in a way that is beneficial.
I would argue that not letting the story get in the way of the game is beneficial. would you really prefer it if they started shoveling it at you the way bioware does? it would ruin it. this way it's there if you want it, but it allows for the fact that you don't actually need it, which is true of all games at the end of the day, telltale, if you insist on not making a distinction, excepted.
are you ever going to get to the point where you tire of the souls' story? i'd say it's unlikely.
and bioware's? happens for me around the third or fourth line of dialogue of playthrough number one.
Rockstar can but a lot of their stories have filler and it ruins them to a degree for me, like Mexico in Red Dead and the entire main plot of LA Noire was bad but loved the individual stories within missions or the departments.
Persona Team knows how to write a story that speaks to me, has a lot of humor and emotion but can get really serious and tense.
I'm gonna go with Team Ico, even though I'm not liking the story of The Last Guardian as much. I generally prefer game stories that are simple and don't interfere with the gameplay much, yet give motivation.
@hh: what I'm saying about Dark Souls is reading item descriptions to uncover plot is not fun. No, I don't want From to turn their game into something Bioware would make, but when a lot of people say, "uh, what?" When the game ends, there's a problem.
I think it's awesome that games can be in your face with their plot, like Naughty Dog, or can be completely subtle, like with Papers, Please. That's part of what makes games an amazing medium. But Dark Souls does a terrible job of conveying pretty much everything about itself. I like mystery as much as the next guy, but I'm not going to spend time reading hundreds of item descriptions just to speculate a plot out of them.
I know Dark Souls has some apparently rich lore, but I certainly wouldn't say From Software are good story tellers by any means. In fact I would say they're terrible story tellers, because despite my comprehensive explorations the only reason I know Dark Souls even has a story is because people told me it does, and because a few characters keep getting brought up in the load screens that disappear too fast for me to finish reading. If someone told me a really good story by whispering it to me from across a football field I would have to call them a bad story teller as well.
@hh: but when a lot of people say, "uh, what?" When the game ends, there's a problem.
I disagree entirely.
2001 A Space Odyssey, Mulholland Drive, Lost Highway, Naked Lunch, even Spring Breakers, all these works end with parts of the audience going "uh, what?", does that mean they employ bad storytelling? not at all, they are in fact examples of advanced storytelling, where the audience is given credit to work with suggestion and not be spoonfed every step of the way, where the storyteller is not trying to land a point, but instead trying to provoke individual interpretations. and if parts of the audience don't appreciate that, well equally there are parts of the audience that are turned off by the kind of obviousness that teams like bioware employ.
so it's important not to confuse obscurity with "terrible", i mean most of us here are adults right? we can handle it right? and we want games to move on from cliches and tropes and mass-market pitfalls, don't we? i'm not saying all developers should strive for this, but From, having pulled it off, certainly shouldn't be criticized for it, even if it's not your thing.
For some reason I found the story telling in Enslaved super compelling. Ninja Theory are very hit and miss but when they get it right they seem to be good story tellers, just not so good at making games.
To be fair, Enslaved is adapted from one of the most popular classical works of Asian literature ever written, so they didn't just come up with this on their own.
@hh: I definitely wouldn't put those films in the same category as Dark Souls, especially considering Dark Souls' plot is actually easy to understand, they just made it so that you wouldn't see it. Unlike Mulholland Dr, which tells its story incredibly well, but it's also incredibly complex and deep, and requires multiple viewings to come close to understanding. The difference being with Dark Souls it requires multiple playthroughs to simply notice the story.
Edit: And actually I would compare the ending of 2001 to Dark Souls, but I also don't hold 2001 (except for the middle section with HAL) in very high regard.
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