Currently there is a strong push from a vocal minority of game designers to advance the technocratic medium of computer games' storytelling capabilities.

Designers such as David Cage (Heavy Rain) have been very outspoken about their passions and desires for a narrative equivalent to film and literature.

However, games have always told stories, a lot of them have told stories well, and a lot of them evoke the emotions of the player. Most of these stories are fairly similar because most developers design their games with accordance to genre and not some crazy, spontaneous idea.

Designers have worked mostly on the stability and integrity of the game language (Controls, Perspective, Environment) to improve the player experience, and in parallel have perfected telling the story of the warrior, the soldier, or the super-being. The player is this victorious warrior character. On that journey you feel frustration at losing, ambition to succeed, joy at victory. You want to protect the character because they are the key to your success within the game.

Another designer, Paul Cuisset, (Of Flashback fame) has recently stated his intent to put the player into a different story. Like David Cage he is sick of the abundance of gun games and careless violence. His current game, Amy, focuses on the dilemma of a young girl with learning difficulties and mysterious powers.

I think what Cage and Cuisset (Both of French origin) have in common is a desire to borrow from film and literature in order to gain the required experience to write deep characterization and compose carefully orchestrated scripts that the player experiences; in doing so they wish to evoke deeper emotions, most prominently sadness but also fear and perhaps some more subtle feelings.

Personally speaking, my problem with adventure games, and 'post-adventure' games such as Heavy Rain, is that they tend to sacrifice player agency in favour of the story of the character. When I play Heavy Rain I feel like I'm playing a game that is trying too hard to pretend it's a film.

There have been attempts by other developers such as Bioware to integrate multi-branching dialogue trees, but the storytelling techniques and visual presentation in many of that studio's games tends to feel stilted and mechanical. You get quite a lot of choice but often at the price of everything else. Bioware games strike me as cheesy B-movies contained in aging genre tropes.

I often believe that Nintendo tells the best stories, largely because they have the most experience with the medium and they know the ins and outs of world design and how to create compelling experiences for the player. Super Metroid, Zelda: A Link to the Past, and Super Mario World remain some of the most expertly constructed game narratives that never sacrifice play.

However, is there a compromise between the Heavy Rains and the Noby Noby Boys? Between the Cinematic script and the total sandbox? More importantly, is there a language that exists that is capable and stable enough to leverage a composed work with the whims and instinct of the player?

I believe there is at least one game today that does that.

Shadow of the colossus is a game that tells the story of a character with no character. Yet we do see his motivations and ambitions, and we do follow his path. He talks very little but has a voice. Somehow it's as if we are already the character even before the game has begun – there is no apparent disconnect.

When beginning the game, we're shown the path the character, wander, has taken to get to make it to the point where we can take over. Even though we're watching a cut-scene we can still move the camera around and zoom in. Player control is not sacrificed

The story is simple, which is key to the success of Colossus. The boy has a girl whom he wishes to bring back from the dead. He has traveled far to a foreign land that seems different...Magical even. He makes a mysterious and somewhat blind pact with the Gods of that land, because there exists a possibility that the Gods can bring the girl back to life. From this moment the player is generally set free. They understand the motivation and the goal, but there is a core mystery that compels the player-character relationship. Answers are hidden.
 
  

It's very beautiful that the cut-scenes transition seamlessly into gameplay in the same way that Wander transitions into the player. It feels kind of like a film that you're playing but also like a legitimate interactive experience.

You can move around freely once the initial cut-scene fades, and your horse awaits you. The important thing to note at this point is there are no camera cuts or annoying tutorials, or any further dialogue. You are left to roam about with your horse and explore the land and the interactions you can have. The beauty of this is that there is a whole map that is open right from the beginning with no process of unlocking needed. It's similar to Miyamoto's play worlds, but it feels like a natural and real environment made of stone and earth. It's not as abstract and irrational as Super Mario World; it feels like a living painting that you can explore and experiment in before you take on the mission that you've committed to – killing the colossi.

Seamless cut-scenes introduce each Colossi, enhancing the film-like feel while not getting carried away with it. These are the scripted elements in the story – the confrontations with the monster. Even though these are scripted the core interaction (Clinging) and the free camera movement with no cuts to gameplay keep the action centered around the player and keep the player in that world. Each contest with the monster is messy and feels like murder. Players tend to react in similar ways, and feel guilt and even remorse at slaying the creatures. Each successive kill makes the narrative feel more heavy and has a great build-up to the final fight.

After killing the Collossus another mysterious cut-scene concludes that episode. Wonderfully, as Wander you can move around right up until you are stung with the weird black tentacle that renders the character unconscious, bringing the player neatly onto the next segment. This very delicate handling is key to the game's internal logic and creates a sense of clarity and trust.

While do not share your opinions on Bioware games , I did sincerely enjoy your article. Not having played Shadow of the colossus   my personal favorite game story is that of portal  and its sequel .

While do not share your opinions on Bioware games , I did sincerely enjoy your article. Not having played Shadow of the colossus   my personal favorite game story is that of portal  and its sequel .

 @just_nonplussed: 
I agree with you on Bioware games. I really enjoy them, but the mechanics are definitely not natural in a lot of cases. The whole ending of Mass Effect 2 felt extremely contrived to me, which was unfortunate. I'm not hating on the game though, it's still one of my favourites of last year. I just recently finished The Witcher 2, which has a similar dialogue system to the Bioware games, however most of the choices you make in that game felt more natural and at times not that apparent.
 
I think that it's a very tough balance to strike, especially if you want to present the player with a lot of choice. It's the debate of when a game is still a game - Limbo is a good example of this. Personally, I feel that games are interactive entertainment - interactive being the key word here. So anything that you can influence in any way is a game, but some people don't agree with this. 
 
In my opinion, Blizzard is the holy grail of the gameplay side. They don't focus on the story anywhere near as much as the gameplay, which gives their games incredible longevity and that's really why people love them. Neither their stories nor the way they tell them is very good, but that doesn't seem to matter. And here I come to the point that, most game stories, even the ones that drive the best games, are kind of rubbish. If you made a book or a movie out of them, they wouldn't be interesting at all. They are frequently very cliche and designed to drive gameplay. I think this shows in the fact that we frequently get excited for the way that a story is told (very cinematic cool moments, great dialogues and so on), rather than the content of the story itself. 
 
One game that stands out in my memory in terms of story is Max Payne. The delivery in that game is incredible and I don't think that having moral choices or something like that would have improved it - on the contrary, it would have come off as a tacked on feature to enhance the gameplay.
 
Despite the drawbacks, I am all for games like Heavy Rain though. They are at the very least very unique and it's stuff like this that takes the industry forward. We can't stay on the same tropes all the time (I haven't played SotC since I don't have a PS2, but it seems that this game is also very unique). Basically, I hope that the industry will mature together with it's audience and won't just push out the equivalents of hollywood action films year after year. 

 And here I come to the point that, most game stories, even the ones that drive the best games, are kind of rubbish. If you made a book or a movie out of them, they wouldn't be interesting at all. They are frequently very cliche and designed to drive gameplay. 

My favorite video game story is Donkey Kong. Deep stuff.

I think we've seen some great things done with video games stories but in general the way the industry has told tales of soldiers, super-beings and warriors is far from perfected. I also really have to disagree with you on the Nintendo stuff. Now, don't get me wrong, I think Nintendo have made some fantastic games, but I just can't agree with you that with everything made in the industry over the past forty or so years games like Super Mario World and Super Metroid are some of the best electronic interactive stories that have ever been told. The stories are perfectly adequate but these games are so light on story as to make it a tiyn part of the overall product, they just can't be directly compared in that way to games like Shadow of the Colossus or Heavy Rain. Cuisset and Cage are by no means the only people to look to literature and film for influence on creating story in games, basically everything we know about video game narrative, the industry has taken from these mediums. The problem comes in that video games aren't books or films and while a certain amount of borrowing is a very good thing, ultimately the medium needs to work out its own way of telling stories, something I've written a couple of blogs on if you're interested. I enjoyed your post though, it was very well written.

With regards to Heavy Rain, I didn't mind its push for a cinematic expierence. In some respects and I know it makes no sense, it was more of a 'game' than something like Modern Warfare 2. Heavy Rain has so many flaws, so, so many however it still worked for me. It was far more interactive and engaging than any film I've ever seen (seems like an obvious thing to say but just like in Mass Effect 2, I damn well cared if someone died... hence to my shame I played through the ending twice ensuring everyone lived!).
 
Great article by the way!

Great article! But I think you should consider more games here. Some of them do some interesting stuff. 
Most forget they're games. Rockstar's games for example, everyone is praising LA Noire for its story. 
I really don't like it when the game doesn't tell the story like a game should. Contextualy, through the environment. 
 
Valve's games are a perfect example. Portal (the first one) was such an amazing game in this regard. 
Same goes for Half Life 2, with the whole history of the war and the invasion hidden away in the newspapers 
and the conversations of the people on the street. It's all a whole lot more exciting and interesting when you have to 
put together the pieces of the story. 
 
Shadow of the colossus had that too. The world was for you to explore, ruins to find. Amazing game. 
However more story and background information should be placed in the environment, excpet for the ruins, the place feels pretty empty. 
It evokes a certain feeling of opression caused by the overpowering world, and that's amazing, but the story 
is served in a pretty standard cinematic way. I'd like the ruins to tell me why this place was abandoned.  
Why the ruins were built in the first place. Too bad, because the rest of the game is really mesmerizing.
I also adore Bioshock, the way it gave away bits and pieces of the story via the scattered audio logs, amazing. Nice shot.  
 
Games like Fallout 3 and Morrowind are also pretty interesting, and I feel they are the future of vidja game storytelling (even though the stories themselves in these games are weak).  
Kind of simmilar to Shadow of the colossus when I think about it now, a big sandbox. Unfortunately the things you stumble on 
are side-quests, and after you find them, they just lead you straight where you have to go. Which takes all the charm and amazement 
out of exploration. It also seems a bit meaningless, because you never find anything that's connected to the main story thread.  

I totaly agree with you when it comes to BioWare games. I hope they will evolve, but for now, them seem to be de-volving. 
If that makes any sense. I can't wait for the Journey, the PSN game, that seems like an interesting experiment.

Whoops- kind of a long post. 
But I love talking about the storytelling and narrative in video games.

There's no substitute for good story-telling. Period.
To only tell story and narrative context, through "playing a game", is equally and ironically limiting to the polar opposite method of storytelling. There are pro's and con's between both formats, and I can name you multiple times where a developer has attempted to only disseminate information via player-experience, and have it fall flat on it's face. Sometimes you need that cutscene, or some-form of vehicle for the context to get to the player.
 
After years of me trudging along a game-world, without any real rime or reason over why I should care about anything but myself, Valve got wise with the Half-Life 2 episodes and made Alyx a permanent companion. For game-play purposes? Sure. But she also filled the void of the Gordon's inability to speak. All of a sudden, my goals had purpose, and in some cases even history attributed to them. 
 
There's no right or wrong way to tell story in video games. It depends on what the game is trying to achieve. 
In the case of Colossus, or my personal favorite Out of This World, it's quite clear that they're attempting to be a very interpretative experience. By contrast, if your game has a deep back-story, and the logic of having a character that doesn't speak with the idea that "you yourself will experience it," even though said story relies on heavy characterization, and context in order to understand the basic motivations of...anything...Then no, that argument doesn't stand well. 
 
Are we talking about good stories, or good simulations? I think there needs to be a good balance between the two concepts. I also think the future of good storytelling, has more to do with better writing, versus the general mechanics of games that haven't changed much since their inception. At least that's where it seems to be going.

WARNING LONG-ASS POST

You've got some good points, and as I understand your argument, it seems to be that we should judge the quality of game-storytelling in terms of player agency - i.e. games need player agency to have a good narrative.

Which is an agreeable stance - game designers should play to the medium's strengths after all. However, as you also illustrate, games like Heavy Rain, which are heavily influenced by non-interactive media forms, would then be considered bad games using a criteria of player agency. And I think that is a shame, while something like Heavy Rain is not for everyone, I (as well as many others, based on its mostly positive reception) thoroughly enjoyed "playing" through a movie that allowed me to invest in and control characters and events in a way that is not possible in traditional movies.

I suspect, and this is only personal opinion, that narrative in terms of player agency is not the only way to go about it. While you can explore a fascinating world as Wander in SoTC, you are limited in both the range of your exploration, and how you explore - the agency of many, if not all, games, are extremely convincing and elaborate illusions.

(slight spoilers for anyone who has not finished shadow of the colossus)

I can't not save the girl and simply ride back to where I came from for instance - it is hardcoded into the game that eventually the player will save her, and that this "act" will have consequences. And why wouldn't it be? If Ueda had had to allow for every possible player action, the game would never be finished. It would also make for a far worse and unfocused game, if Wander could simply ride away.

(end of spoilers)

But what you are advocating isn't this sort of game-like anarchy of course, but a balance between script and agency.

While agency is important, I find it far more important how that agency is used. Ueda approaches agency in an almost minimalist way, where gameplay is kept fairly simple throughout the entire game. But he punctuates this with extremely dramatic moments, like climbing a flying colossus, or the result of defeating colossi, and the game's many contrasts make the narrative seem grander.

So if a game has close to no agency, and you are simply pressing X once in a while to advance, I think this is inconsequential in terms of narrative quality, as long as the rest of the game is engaging (many duders enjoy the story in press-x-to-advance Persona 4 as well).

Also, this:

@vidiot said:

There's no right or wrong way to tell story in video games. It depends on what the game is trying to achieve.

The future of good storytelling, has more to do with better writing, versus the general mechanics of games that haven't changed much since their inception. At least that's where it seems to be going.

Great article! But I think you should consider more games here. Some of them do some interesting stuff. Most forget they're games. 
 
Valve's games are a perfect example. Portal (the first one) was such an amazing game in this regard. Same goes for Half Life 2, with the whole history of the war and the invasion hidden away in the newspapers and the conversations of the people on the street. It's all a whole lot more exciting and interesting when you have to put together the pieces of the story. 
 
However more story and background information should be placed in the environment, excpet for the ruins, the place feels pretty empty. It evokes a certain feeling of opression caused by the overpowering world, and that's amazing, but the story is served in a pretty standard cinematic way. I'd like the ruins to tell me why this place was abandoned.  Why the ruins were built in the first place. Too bad, because the rest of the game is really mesmerizing.
 
I also adore Bioshock, the way it gave away bits and pieces of the story via the scattered audio logs, amazing. Nice shot.   Games like Fallout 3 and Morrowind are also pretty interesting, and I feel they are the future of vidja game storytelling (even though the stories themselves in these games are weak).

There's no substitute for good story-telling. Period.
To only tell story and narrative context, through "playing a game", is equally and ironically limiting to the polar opposite method of storytelling. There are pro's and con's between both formats, and I can name you multiple times where a developer has attempted to only disseminate information via player-experience, and have it fall flat on it's face. Sometimes you need that cutscene, or some-form of vehicle for the context to get to the player.
 
After years of me trudging along a game-world, without any real rime or reason
 
Are we talking about good stories, or good simulations? I think there needs to be a good balance between the two concepts. I also think the future of good storytelling, has more to do with better writing, versus the general mechanics of games that haven't changed much since their inception. At least that's where it seems to be going.

The problem with Shadow of Colossus is that it is still just the regular hero story. Heroes goes out into the land to smack big bad guy over the head with his sword to get his girlfriend back. It tells that story extremely well with a few nice twist and such, but it is fundamentally no different than all other classic video game stories, be it Zelda, Mario or whatever. It still lacks any kind of subtlety in the events of its plot. That's not to say that there is anything bad with the way it handles things, it is certainly far superior to almost any game out there, but it simply does what others do extremely well, it doesn't do anything fundamentally different.
 
I also don't think that player agency is really a problem in adventure games, quite the opposite, they actually handle it very well, as they give you a high amount of exploration and interactivity, while at the same time have game progress be largely depended on the player actions, as it should be. Where player agency or lack there of becomes a problem is more in the modern shooter, where story progress is not depended on your action, but simply the result of arriving at the level end. The motivation of why you even want to go there thus become easily lost in the action and the only reason why you even get there is because the game doesn't leave you any choice, its a linear corridor after all. There have been a ton of shooters where I essentially got completely lost, didn't know what I was fighting for or why, but still beat them without problems, I never had that issue with an adventure game.
 
So essentially as long as the player is given reasonable explanation and motivation for why something is happening and is given enough freedom to actually explore the virtual world on his own, that's enough to create a great immersive experience. I don't think choice really factors into it, I personally don't care about choice the way that it is currently handled in most games. I don't need flat good/evil choices, all I need is a bit of interactivity, ways to look around in the world, talk to NPCs to get more informations, etc. Thus the option to just ask any NPC around for the way to a place I have to go (Shenmue style) is a hell of a lot more interesting then the option to randomly smack people in the face.

Read a fair bit of similar stuff before but that's because it's the stuff that generally interests me.  This was was a well put together set of thoughts.  Hadn't heard of Amy before and I'll definitely keep a look out if it comes across my path again in the future.  I love SotC too.

 (seems like an obvious thing to say but just like in Mass Effect 2, I damn well cared if someone died... hence to my shame I played through the ending twice ensuring everyone lived!).

But what you are advocating isn't this sort of game-like anarchy of course, but a balance between script and agency.

While agency is important, I find it far more important how that agency is used. Ueda approaches agency in an almost minimalist way, where gameplay is kept fairly simple throughout the entire game. But he punctuates this with extremely dramatic moments, like climbing a flying colossus, or the result of defeating colossi, and the game's many contrasts make the narrative seem grander.

So if a game has close to no agency, and you are simply pressing X once in a while to advance, I think this is inconsequential in terms of narrative quality, as long as the rest of the game is engaging (many duders enjoy the story in press-x-to-advance Persona 4 as well).

Also, this:

@vidiot said:

There's no right or wrong way to tell story in video games. It depends on what the game is trying to achieve.

The future of good storytelling, has more to do with better writing, versus the general mechanics of games that haven't changed much since their inception. At least that's where it seems to be going.

I chose SotC as an example, as a reaction to the minority of game designers who are trying to emulate film quite directly in video games. Colossus seems to be inspired by film as well (Jason and the argonauts for example), but it has a thoughtful attitude to the player and manages to create a world for them, not in spite of them.
 
And I totally agree about the player agency issue. It doesn't matter how much or how little choice/play there is, but it matters about the quality and the existence of some interactive element that relates to the story, or what is being told. Most importantly it matters that the player is connected well to the game and that there is good internal logic that makes sense - so the player can then make sense of their personal experience and create meaning and narrative. This is why old arcade games are so successful at narrative design - because they're so simple.

The problem with Shadow of Colossus is that it is still just the regular hero story. Heroes goes out into the land to smack big bad guy over the head with his sword to get his girlfriend back.

I've only played the demo of it; that seems like it has a different type of exploration - sort of detective-like investigation. Metroid: Other M had a similar type of detective-like explorative play, even though it was pretty linear.

@just_nonplussed said:

I've only played the demo of it; that seems like it has a different type of exploration - sort of detective-like investigation. Metroid: Other M had a similar type of detective-like explorative play, even though it was pretty linear.

The biggest difference with Heavy Rain isn't just the way that it tells it story, but they way that it lets you interact with the world. Heavy Rain is extremely heavy on context sensitive stuff, so you don't have just a wave-sword-around and jump action, but you have access to whatever actions make sense in the context of the situation, thus you have brush-teeth and drink-orange-juice and whatever. That opens up the door to telling completely un-videogame like stories in the form of a video game, in a sense its a modern version of text-adventure/interactive-fiction games, which were similarly based heavily on context and didn't restrict your actions to what would fit directly on a controller.