Only Keighley’s Bards

A Retrospective on Best Narrative category at the Game Awards

Best Narrative or “best story in a game” is a category only started with the Game Awards. It’s among the categories focused on particular crafts, all in an effort to make TGA look like “game Oscar”. In many ways, the humble title of “bard” fits the role story plays in video gamse. I mean Greg Kasavin being the story guy at Supergiant, yet his title has to be “creative director” just so he can leave his fingerprints on those games.

David Crowther has the habit of calling a mystic playwright William Shakespeare “Billy the bard” or just “the bloody bard” in his History of England podcast. Long before that there is the Odyssey. While we associate the title with “grand adventure” nowadays, the epic poem’s own grand adventure part does not get going until Odysseus got very emotional by a bard’s tale. Said bard’s tale is a simple one about how Hephaestus caught his wife Aphrodite and her lover Ares in a gold net. Yet the telling is so vivid that the big O goes “Hot damn! You should spread tale of my journey, bard!” (Do imagine George Clooney in O Brother please.) Thus, the ancient epic enters into things better-known: escape the Sirens, tricking a Cyclops, one day trip to the Underworld and so on.

So, let’s see the kind of bards that convinced Keighley’s Odysseus to go “Hot damn!” shall we? It’s interesting to me that this last decade had seen your truly gradually losing faith in video game narrative while the Keighley’s were still hyping it up.

2014 Valiant Heart: the Great War

(More convincing to Keighley’s than South Park: The Stick of Truth, the Walking Dead: Season Two, the Wolf Among Us and Wolfenstein: The New Order.)

I suppose one cannot accuse Best Narrative of being “participation award for indie” when the very first one was given to a Ubi joint. While Valiant Heart might be considered “indie” by the fouled-up standard of 2020s, back then “big corporations’ less expansive endeavors” was still a thing. And this one is hell of a thing.

2014 was the hundredth anniversary of World War One breaking out and history podcasters were having their field days. Then there is this point-and-click adventure game with art work that can be imported directly into a child book about WWI. Due to the rating, one cannot except those trenches looking like bloody hell on earth, but the game’s tear-jerking ending does criticize the madness of war hash enough.

Cynically speaking, the very first Game Awards did intend to get on the “legit” train with this award I would imagine. It did beat a South Park written by the creators with interactivity in mind, 2 Tell-tale game and one meathead shooter with surprisingly good world building. The New Order is almost the polar opposite to Valiant Heart, it’s Man in the High Castle with Nazi atrocity depicted graphically. It might win if the show was still supported by Spike TV, but Keighley on his own got other concerns.

2015 Her Story

(More convincing to Keighley’s than Life Is Strange, Tales from the Borderlands, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt and Until Dawn)

Well, this one is among things in my Steam library that I never found the time nor incentive to boot up. Maybe I never will. This live-action footage viewing hit of 2015 popularized the saying “The game is not over until you are satisfied” and raised the question “But how would I know when I am satisfied?” Guess it’s the novelty that made this one win? It did go up against not one, not two, not three but four more or less “choose your own adventure” things. Well, one of those had also thrown in a servable action game for free and won the big one.

2016 Uncharted 4: A Thief's End

(More convincing to Keighley’s than Firewatch, Inside, Mafia III and Oxenfree)

As far as looking into the Game Awards Youtbue channel goes, 2016 was the first year when nominee announcement appeared as a video weeks before the ceremony. The show certainly kicked into its hype fest high gear and never back down again. An expansive looking thing winning Best Narrative is just one of symptoms.

Going up against 2 powered by Unity indies that got by on writing alone, a word less experience and an expansive looking thing also playable on Microsoft’s platforms, Uncharted 4 Among has demerits that yours truly would disqualify it for. The shooting out of a jail part with the other Drake? It is revealed to be utterly bullshit made up by the other Drake. Fuck Neil Drukmann for pulling this shit! Some poor bastards playing on higher difficulties might die over and over again there, good sir! You do not get to make segments like that into utter bullshit, pal!

2017 What Remains of Edith Finch

(More convincing to Keighley’s than Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice, Horizon Zero Dawn, Nier: Automata and Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus.)

It is the only time when something winning the Keighley’s made me into play it. Well, that and Giantbomb’s GOTY deliberation. What Remains of Edith Finch winning in 2017 not only made me play it but also sold a digital copy of Unfinished Swan from PSN Store to me. Played US on a Vita in the day and went through WROEF in the night.

Looking at the nominees, one cannot help but think that WROEF won the participation award for indies that year. Both NieR Two and Wolfenstein Two played into that first Trump blues. Hellblade and Horizon were both pretty new things from experienced developers. But I guess by the end of the days, WROEF’s various mechanics not burning people out gives it an edge.

2018 Red Dead Redemption 2

(More convincing to Keighley’s than Detroit: Become Human, God of War soft reboot, Life Is Strange 2: Episode 1 and Marvel's Spider-Man.)

Back in the Spike Video Game Awards days, Rockstar was favored by the Keighley’s. Or just their games were since the company never won Studio of the Year. The Game Awards days do not seem so simple. 2018 was one of those years when Keighley’s lip was almost glued to Sony’s ring with “Dad of War”. But with categories like Best Narrative, Keighley’s still gets to pat some old favorite on the back.

Still, the lips of Keighley’s were just glued to Sony’s ring that year, were they? Neither a David Cage joint nor some Marvel corporate paste has any business to be discussed in term of story. But I guess a hype-fest like the Keighley’s would just embrace them warmly.

2019 Disco Elysium

(More convincing to Keighley’s than A Plague Tale: Innocence, Control, Death Stranding and The Outer Worlds)

Disco Elysium has the MOST story in that year in more than one way. This “looking for fuckers to talk to” game is dense with text. More importantly it feels emotionally draining, as one person after another talking about their sorry lot in life. It’s basically my fucking job! I do not get to whack fuckers in my fucking job so, I would prefer that kind of activity in video games, DE!

And this would be the first time nor the last time that Keighley’s disagree with Science Fiction and Fantasy Writer Association, as Keighley’s nominee Outer World won Nebula for best game writing that year. While I have not played through it, I would say that Outer Wilds was snubbed by the Keighley’s obsession for expansive looking stuff…

2020 The Last of Us Part II

(More convincing to Keighley’s than 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim, Final Fantasy VII Remake, Ghost of Tsushima and Hades.)

The Game Awards 2020 is unique in more than one way. It is the only one (by 2024) not held in a crowded theatre. Also, it is still the only time when writers’ names were read out loud by Mr. Geoff Keighley himself in the year's nominee announcement video. I do wonder if Mr. Keighley thought this was easy since the winner was written by a duo while 13 Sentinels and Hades both had solo writers. But when you look at Tsushima and the first installment of FFVIIRE trilogy, reading out the whole narrative teams could not fun. Well, Mr. Keighley had not done so before and is unlikely to do it again.

Anyway, LOU 2, heh? The game won a shit load from Keighley’s in 2020. One cannot help but feel Geoff Keighley saying the following to “Neil Drukmann’s” Naughty Dog: “Look! VGX 2013 was a shitshow and I am personally sorry for the snub back then”.

As for yours truly, fuck you for making mushroom zombie into this Robert Kirkman style never-ending boil plate survivalist wank fest bullshit, Naughty Dog! Here in miHoYo’s country of origin, novellas had been written with mushroom zombies that did more, from the fungus taking over digest system rather than cerebral to the bloody thing trying to build a calculating machine. And fuck you for planning to do the same Hollywood looking shit to space opera!

2021 Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy

(More convincing to Keighley’s than Deathloop, It Take Two, Life Is Strange: True Colors and Psychonauts 2.)

I has been facing a paradox since 2012. Mass Effect Shepard against Reapers trilogy reached a not-quite-satisfying end that year, and things started to market themselves to me as “Mass Effect with [INSERT MARKETING CATCH HERE]”. Yet, none of those caught on.

A full decade later and as my itch got scratched by the Legendary Edition, Edois part of Square Enix got it last hurrah in Guardians of the Galaxy. And I just could not even bother especially after most of my leisure time in September was sunk into Tales of Arise. Oh, not to bury the lead here but “Marvel’s” just gross me out these days. Apparently those corporate fucks over at Square Enix have as little incentive to invest in such endeavors as I have.

2022 God of War Ragnarök

(More convincing to Keighley’s than A Plague Tale: Requiem, Elden Ring, Horizon Forbidden West and Immortality)

One has to wonder if Rockstar whispered the following to Sony and its Santa Monica division back in 2018: “You might the king all hail to now. But when they find another king to hail to, you will walk away with participation awards just like me.” I mean that is what happened in 2022.

Of course, Mr. Christopher Judge went on and on after getting his trophy for acting in this one. Full performance capture being an edge of Sony Prestige title over Fromsoft works. Guess A Plague Tale and Horizon as franchises just have to settle with their modest commercial success and no trophy for Keighley’s As for Immortality, sorry darling, apparently TGA do not ever bother to pretend that they care about indie titles.

2023 Alan Wake 2

(More convincing to Keighley’s than Baldur's Gate 3, Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty, Final Fantasy XVI and Marvel's Spider-Man 2.)

For Geoff Keighley the journalist, one individual excising authorship over expansive looking video game is the kind of story he like to tell. “Looking for video game auteur” excuse my French. Even with TGA joining the hail to Baldur’s Gate 3 as the king of 2023, one up-his-own-ass writer would still get his due. Well, BG3’s narrative does require a lot of player input to appear interesting I guess.

2024 Metaphor: ReFantazio

(More convincing to Keighley’s than Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth, Senua's Saga: Hellblade II and Silent Hill 2.)

Metaphor has done many aspects of narrative better than Persona 5, but it winning in 2024 still feels like Keighley’s apology for not even nominating P5 back in 2017. Overall, Metaphor not able to tackle modern day anxiety makes it far less memorable. I put Persona 5 Royal down in December, 2023 and some scenes are still vivid in my mind. I put Metaphor in October, 2024 and there is only general impression of “Yep, they did not fuck those trope up too much”. By March, 2025, it would be interesting to see if Nebula and Hugo would look kindly on this one or not. As for me, this might not the last straw on me caring about narrative in video game. If this is your best, then your best would not do, video games. I just won’t take it!