This might be the worst written game I've ever seen

and I'm only like 90 minutes in. And don't get me wrong, I actually enjoy the game (well, what i've seen so far) but....seriously? WHO WROTE THIS?

Mild spoiler alert, if you already fought some wolves you are good to go otherwise...well it's not really a spoiler but whatever. You have been warned.

So to summarise : After shipwrecking on some lonely island in the middle of nowhere Lara is (immediately) split up from her group for at least...12 hours I guess, maybe more? The last time they saw here was, when she fell into the ocean. Then (after some shenanigans) through a magical tunnel that leads her STRAIGHT to the other group (seriously, that tunnel starts like 5 meters away from Lara's first camp and leads directly to the camp of her friends, but whatever that's not the problem) she finally encounters what I guess is supposed to be her best friend, and how does Sam react?

"Oh Lara. You made it...*yawn*" Oh wow, no Sam please. Stop being so overjoyed. No, don't stand up, just sit down and don't ask me where I've been or why I'm bleeding. No, please don't tell me what happened to you either or where the rest of the group is, this weird creepy old man you somehow found somewhere on this island wants to hear some stupid myth you like to tell. Please go ahead, I'm just going to collapse a bit, no need to worry.

This scene....oh god this scene. And I'm normally not even somebody who cares about plotholes or stuff like that in games but wow, is this bad. She seems as excited to see Lara as a kindergardener discovering that his mum made him a sandwich, and the same goes for Lara herself. Nothing here makes sense, and it's just baffling. Where is the rest of the group, why did they leave you behind with this creepy old man?

As I said, the gameplay is enjoyable and obviously that's the most important thing but please tell me the writting gets a bit better latter on. This is just....amateurish...

PS: It's 5 in the morning here, so please excuse my sloppy spelling

Newsflash: Despite being the poster-girl for female video-game writers, Pratchett's daughter has only ever proven to be a mediocre writer.

Seriously, though, the story isn't an abomination or anything of the sort, but it's pretty middle-of-the-road and forgettable - and it has some quite odd pacing issues at times.

Hey, I didn't know Terry Pratchett had a daughter and that she wrote game stories. Cool.

Yeah I'm probably halfway through and it really isn't great. There is one moment that completely goes against some of the themes of the game just to provide a joke: The "Ugh I hate Tombs" line right after crawling through a mountain of corpses and not giving a shit about them

@zella: That one line in particular was sooooooooo dumb.

It's fine. I don't know. I wasn't expecting anything great. And it isn't. It's just fine. Which is good enough for me.

The other one that bothered me was when she was crawling under some houses in the shanty town and was complaining about the smell because she was walking through some muddy water. Only twenty or so minutes later, she's dropped in a river of blood, surrounded by hundreds of mangled corpses, and then witnesses a bunch of crazed cannibals devour some dude - and she says basically nothing about it.

@crysack said:

Hey man, muddy water really toughens you up.

Dries out your skin too.

Oh lord, the throwing axe cutscene might be the stupidest thing I've ever seen. I was railing through the rest of that story-segment and barely caught what was happening. Who writes something like that ? seriously...

I haven't played the game but they shown that scene during the QL, and yeah, the reunion of the group was so weirdly flat.

Hard to tell how much of the original story from the writer is there versus all the rewritten parts by possibly other people. Still will play it but will now expect that this has some written parts that are average at best.

I agree there is a lot of cheese...but like any other "Summer action flick" story isn't important, its the spectacle.

Apparently someone hasn't played diablo 3 yet b/c no one could sit through that mangled mess of a story and say anything else is worse. Haven't played tomb raider yet but from what i've seen, the story's just average which is fine.

Given the games I've played, I can only respond, "You should see the stuff I've played".

I've only ever seen a couple games with good writing. Portal and the Uncharted series. And that's not even great writing. It's snappy dialogue.

All the good writers are writing screenplays for movies, not writing for videogames. The way I see it, anyway.

Completely forgot about Rhianna Pratchett being the writer here. That solves a lot of my issues with the plot - now I remember that they hired someone who can't write for shit.

Yeah from what I've seen of the game at my friends place the writing is mediocre at best. Game looks fun to play though!

I can literally guarantee you it's not and if you really feel that way you should play more games.

Does anyone really care about the writing in tomb raider games? Look! Bewbs! Explosions! I quite like this game but Qtes suck dick and shooting feels weak. Story? Pffft

It's less the writing and more the direction/voice coaching. Mathias in particular was... bad.

I assume this is your first game?

The dialogue in 99% of games is generally terrible.

There are a lot of fantastic premises out there, but almost universally, developers aren't able to deliver on them in any believable, or meaningful way.

Sounds like you need to play more games.

The writing is fine.

If it makes you feel any better, I'm replaying Red Dead Redemption and want to give whoever wrote it a good throttling.

But yeah. Videogames.

@abendlaender: If this is the worst story you've seen, you really need to widen your game experiences. Used copies of Prey are super cheap now, maybe try that? Or some sweet Turok x360.

It seems like a good story in the service of creating a solid game with well established characters (if you grab the extra info items). Not so sure what would be expected otherwise? There are a decent number of books, movies, and other games that don't really measure up to what is on offer in Tomb Raider. Buy yeah, it is structured in such a way that it is also a single player game......

Writing in video games is a pretty low bar. If you expected better, I think you need to reexamine your priorities.

This was sure as hell better than any other Tomb Raider game's writing. I really enjoyed it, especially a lot of the end game stuff with the undead samurai and mystic queen.

Forget the cultists, I want to eliminate that Reyes woman.

I hope you weren't surprised. you could smell the reeking stench of the plot and dialog on this game from 14 months away.

Silly internet hyperbole.

Just give Lara her twin pistols (I was raging when she gave one to Sam) and send her off alone in the next adventure.

Worst written game? Apparently someone hasn't played 25 to Life.

But she's hot, so it's okay.

?

Yeah...her image on wikipedia was misleading.

So?

OK, I'll be the voice that stands out from the crowd on this one. I'm (supposedly) 52% through the game and...

I am enjoying Tomb Raider. It's pretty fun.

...maybe you guys should listen to this real quick.

@toowalrus:

Good counterpoint.

sonic adventure is probably not written as well and I bet there are games that are less well-written than that

so suck on THAT

Yeah, like Final Fantasy 8. The worst written game of all time.

You know what, Final Fantasy 8 probably actually IS the worst written game ever. I tip my hat to you.

I finished the game yesterday and I enjoyed it as well. It's pretty fun and enjoyable, just the story part is pretty mediocre and the writing is, well...not good. But serviceable.

Well.....no I haven't. Should I check it out? Sounds pretty good to me :D

I didn't say it's the worst story, just the worst writting (at least for a pretty high profile game). I think there is a slight difference, the story itself is...alright I guess, nothing special (I was kinda disappointed how it ended, that was pretty stupid). However I stand by my point that this was one of the worst written scenes I have encountered in a videogame in a long, long, long, long time.

Still my game of the year as of now. The story and plot are so laughable yet the gameplay, action, scripted sequences, graphics and climbing mechanics are so mother fucking stellar and refreshing. And that's all that matters.

By the way the writing doesn't get better later on, it remains absolutely ridiculous, it gave me a fantastic few laughs :D

I'm only maybe 30-40% into the game. The writing is serviceable. It didn't strike me as the worst written game ever. Not memorable certainly, but its fine so far.

While hardly laughable there are a few weird moments. They of course have nothing to do with what a lot of people knock the game for (the narrative vs. gameplay aspect) but as you said just some awkward writing. For me the biggest moment was when you save your friends and they end up on the other side of a chasm, and you're left in this burning, exploding temple and exclaim "I'm gonna go save so-and-so" and your friends basically say "ok see ya.." That was my most incredulous moment where I thought, wow no one is going to at least protest or offer to help? No? Just cool, go back in that burning building we'll wait for you back at the camp?

So yah sometimes it feels like they just needed to keep the action going and the writer(s) couldn't come up with a believable segue so they said fuck it - cause anyone playing through these scenes must have had the same reaction. While not as jarring I had the same issue with the situation mentioned in the opening post where Sam just says "oh hi you made it" like I just made it to a party through some traffic as opposed to surviving a violent ship wreck.

Still the gameplay is really great and the combat keeps getting better and better. Stabbing arrows through peoples faces doesn't get old, especially since Lara is so frail that it feels so satisfying to kinda outmaneuver the bigger bruttish enemies.

I'm so bothered by how stupid the female characters are. Come on Lara is a brilliant Archeologist that talks and acts like a High School girl. This is so stupid.

Hyperbole!

@ectoplasma: It is actually stated that while highly intelligent she is very inexperienced and obviously quite a bit younger here than in previous titles. I didn't find anyone to be really cringe worthy although Sam is probably the most air headed one.