I certainly find the sentiment rings true. It's quite disappointing. I myself am only more enamored if a game has a truly compelling story to put it over the top.
Red dead. Excellent story line. Not original but for Gen X and millennials a good entry . Marks the subject of the west becoming civilized and outlaws becoming irrelevant. Kind a like a Wild Bunch theme.
That's unfair, games from Deus Ex to Papers Please have fantastic narratives. They might be rare, but when they pull it off, they demonstrate that this medium can be the best at storytelling.
I think a lot of the things games can do that make them satisfying "game" experiences are actually antithetical to good storytelling and so story is frequently kneecapped or must take a back seat. This isn't to say video games are bad medium for storytelling, but many game formats are.
Depends on the game. Like if it’s a single player game, there needs to be actual story, but if it’s like a survival game and they give me anything that’s not just “Oh, I found this picture on the ground” and there’s actual direction, I appreciate it
Video Games as a medium aren't really reliant on stories, the only video game genres that tend to rely on stories to sell their games are JRPGs and Visual Novels (and even that is debatable)
Papers Please is probably the only game I've played that I can say definitively has a great story
I feel like an open world game with a great story can become disappointing the more you get distracted by side quest. Most of the time they don't add more to the story and you are just fetching something for someone to level up your character.
This really gets on my nerves, conflating “the story communicates what is happening” with “the story is great”. I mean not everyone is going to have the ability to parse and critique and that’s fine but I wish they would also stop pretending like they do and going to bat for bad writing
Yeah, basically. Lots of AAA titles that have yearly releases have basically given up. Granted, we've shown that we're ok with that by continuing to purchase those games.
The story is great because there was one.
The game is super difficult because you can die.
The games music was amazing because it was thre.
The gameplay was the best because I pressed buttons.
The 'artstyle' is great because it looks kinda like irl.
It shocks me what some people call good stories in games sometimes. I just expect all stories to be bad at this point, and then I can be pleasantly surprised from time to time.
Whenever I think of a game's story I like to imagine dunkey's definition. where the plot may be getting from point A to B. but the story is how you get from A to B and the adventure. Granted, this doesn't always happen with every game. so who knows, maybe it is just that simple.
I'm sorry.. I still say people over-blew Last of Us story -way- to much.
The entire story was a cliche *and as a Toku fan, I don't find cliche's BAD!*, but sadly people acted like it was the most original story in the world.
I also had problems with Ghost of Tsushima (sp?) writing in parts.
Well i started playing a text based game in 1989. It was called Dragonstone. Dungeons and Dragons RPG. It is offline right now doing some coding work. Now that game has a History that fills lots of memory. Books upon books written by the mortal and immortal players and you know what, nobody cares.
A while ago I was having lunch with a friend who doesn't play videogames. They started talking about how much they liked The Last of Us TV show, which, hey that's cool, but they also said that they heard The Last of Us has one of the best stories in all of videogames which made me want to die
It's not in the top 10. Hell, I'd go so far as to say it's not even in the top 100, but its a competently told story that you don't have to think about too much so that instantly makes it one of the best I guess.
The hype around that game never made sense. It's another zombie drama at the tail end of so many others doing one. Hell Telltale did the father found daughter relationship better before as game with Walking Dead.
If it has a good plot that sucks me in and immersed me, it's as good as any book/movie. In fact, many times, it's better because I'm experiencing it rather than just watching it. Some games don't need a storyline. Sims 4, forza horizon, Rollercoaster tycoon, they're immersion in other ways.
Kinda like music videos, a story isn’t a prerequisite to be enjoyable for the medium. But when there is one it’s kind of a “nice to have”. It is noticeable when a story is even slightly above average lol
The thing is games are capable of truly great storytelling and not just on a "for a game" level. It just needs to leverage the gameplay loop. Red Dead 2 has like 4 or 5 truly transcendent moments and they all tie back in to how the game is played, eg your reliance on your horse
So true. Games can also offer emergent storytelling that isn't entirely written or prescribed. After I wrote my response I was kinda thinking I was doing games pretty dirty. But it did remind me that Michael Jackson's Thriller might be the best storytelling in music videos and that felt good.
Ya Speak the truth. Games have stories in their plots. It's a must. Some fandoms members are hooked in the past stubbornly. Halo has a good storyline, same for gears, and many others.
IMO Pokemon is a good example of this in that people used to really love the Black and White story, which is extremely basic. It was just the first time they’d really bothered to do a story at all
(But nowadays they have some genuinely excellent character writing)
SwSh is a pretty good story about the Pokemon League itself and the characters most of the way, but it shoehorns in a legendary plot that is halfhearted and doesn’t work very well.
IMO ScVi are the best Pokemon stories and the best cast. But because of the open world, its structure is a bit weird
Reminds me of how people refer to Kefka as the greatest villain of all time. Why though? He certainly was a villain that's for sure, but he was just kind of a crazy guy who got too strong lol
Kefka is memorable & effective, and ff6 is one of my favorite games, maybe all-time favorite, and I typically don't try to write this sort of reply, but FF sucks at villains and that is why he stands out. They're usually props. Even Kefka is low complexity, like you say, but he at least does stuff.
Also, we're supposed to, in places, feel sorry for Kefka, Sephiroth, Kain, and Seifer, and it mostly just doesn't land. FF Tactics succeeds here, and also has consistent themes and symbols, and I'd put it forward as a rare Good game story. Compared to a book though, very obvious about its message.
This is part of why FF5 has improved in my estimation over the years. Its story doesn't really ever take itself completely seriously and the bad guy is like a self-parody, but there are 0 overwrought attempts to be Deep in the opinion of 1990s teenagers.
Anyway sorry i gave you 4 replies under a random comment. As a former kefka defender, i think suikoden 2 and mother 3 have much better villains, the end
So I'm fine with shorter smaller stories in some cases, and in others, I want a world building lord of the rings style saga to explore! I'm also fine with games that essentially allow you to write your own story as you progress, which mostly come from Strategy games. (Looking at you Paradox)
However, there are definitely plenty of games out there with a BAD story, be it from the story itself, or how it's integrated with the rest of the game. If others enjoyed it, that's fine, but to me, if the story isn't good or it's poorly integrated, the game is ruined for me.
“It’s a plot heavy FPS!”
“Cool! What’s the plot?”
“A space marine is the only survivor of a crash on an alien world, and has to kill all the aliens because… Reasons!”
“Ohhh, and you’re being cagey because the reasons form an important plot twist later?”
“Look, I said it was plot heavy, not Tolstoy.”
I'd counter that some stories in video games aren't for everyone. The games I love for their story can be disliked by others for their story. I love that video games have enough space for everyone's tastes.
I wouldn’t necessarily say that, it’s just that the average person doesn’t really have that critic brain to recognize flaws in the media they play or see. If they’re invested in a game and the flaws aren’t blatant, 80% of people would say it’s fine and that goes for all media imo.
So controversial, but yet so brave. The way I’ve been verbally assaulted for saying that Rebirth was convoluted but ok and entertaining enough lol didn’t even say it was bad.
I was like that as a kid, and still am a bit like that.
Playing video-games generally doesn't require a high bar in media literacy, and that's probably a good thing.
Games where my entry point into better stories, something like :
Games -> Games w better Stories -> Books quoted as inspiration/ref
My first play of any game, will always be the "relax" level first, so I could fully enjoy just the storyline and then play the game seriously after. But yeah, not all RPG title has a good story.
Sometimes when i say good story I mean how well the game builds connections with its characters. Uncharted is cliche but I love the characters interactions and their relationship. In ME, I enjoy the saving the galaxy story but the smaller character moments stick with me most
Death Stranding had a good (but juddering) story (probably because I got stuck in sidequest land). But I think Outer Worlds absolutely nailed it - looking forward to OW2 - hopefully they take time to get it right #OuterWorlds2
I think the thing is that is more the game has an "acceptable" story for what it's trying to do that doesn't get in the way of gameplay (after all there *are* still people who don't expect storytelling as a mandatory aspect of gaming.)
Yeah like in Need for Speed Most Wanted 2005. The game’s story is simple, yet effective. Razor didn’t steal the protagonist’s M3, he stole YOUR M3. It drives you (no pun intended) to climb up the black list to take back what’s rightfully yours. Execution leaves a lot to be desired, however
Pardon my take, not sure of its temperature:
Most video game narratives are too busy trying to be Hollywood award-winners with some gameplay elements, rather than anything actually written into the game itself. Dare I say it, most writers of such seem ashamed to be in video games instead of cinema.
You are right but this is thankfully not most videogames. Just the huge budget ones.
Nothing compares like a single dev pouring their heart out to you in a rpgmaker game about their personal struggles and issues with the world.
This is an incredibly based take - likely growing pains of the medium but video games as a whole seem to be quite embarrassed to be themselves. We have too many games that are trying to be movies, with stories told for movies and not for games. We need to tell stories only games can tell.
This extends into the wider industry too. Too many games prop their stories up with Hollywood actors & Hollywood writers, getting big name movie actors for awards shows & the like, rather than cultivating our medium’s talent. In 100 years we’ll look back on this shame with confusion I think.
Maybe controversial, but this was how I felt about GoW (2018). Took a one-dimensional character, slapped a beard on him, gave him a kid and introduced some basic themes of family/guilt, etc. not horrible of course, but not great by most other story standards outside of video games
I can agree with this, there are games with phenomenal stories, but many games don't need a compelling story to be a compelling game. Firewatch has a dead simple story and it's such a gorgeous game. While RDR2 has some of my favorite characters in fiction.
Story ≠ lore, but a lot of people don’t seem to make the distinction.
Some games have excellent lore and worldbuilding but make terrible stories from it like Elden Ring, or decent-at-best like The Witcher. (There’s a reason most people laud a particular side story in TW3 and not the actual story…)
I'm fully fine with people disagreeing with me, but even playing JRPGs as a kid on NES/SNES (im 40) as a kid... I've never once cared for story in a video game. I want to do tons of damage to bad guys. I'm ok with this being an unpopular take. I don't love it. I wish I could appreciate story.
Big agree. And even when a story is good at the start, it feels like they very rarely are able to keep that momentum and stick the landing in a significant way
A game developer I know once said "the very best video game story is still worse than an average book story" and I've had a hard time finding any evidence to refute it.
Of course you haven't, it's two vague definitions that are meaningless - no matter what game someone proposes as being the best story, you can dismiss it as worse than the average book story without ever having to justify that. It's a hand wavey definition used by people who have no real opinions.
I feel like games creation has been so taken over by people who want to tell stories, that it's strangling off the idea of a game that you play for the sake of play.
Those are examples of great games. Some ones that I'm calling out are: Horizon, Resident Evil, Most Final Fantasy titles (long does not equal good), and I might get flack, spiderman games.
Why Horizon? I feel like there’s a fairly decent amount of story, especially with developed side quests. The second one maybe wasn’t quite as complex, but it still had a lot of good parts and overall good flow imo
Hmmm… I really enjoyed both, but I kind of thought the second felt a little more stale storywise than the first for me. Still, I have 100%ed both so I can’t really complain
Imo what makes a good video game story is if you can sink yourself into the protagonist and follow their emotional throughline from beginning to end, being impacted by the moments that impact them. Horizon has cool worldbuilding, but the way aloy interacts with it is imo boring and obnoxious
I feel like Cyberpunk is a really good example of an rpg that makes living in the world as V feel really natural, and on top of the cool worldbuilding all of the characters feel really real. For that reason (and some others), when big emotional moments happen they're impactful
I mean FF is a mixed bag for sure, but I'd argue more of them are great rather than bad. I personally love the story for the original FF7, plus FF9 and FF16 are fantastic. I'm also one of the schmucks that loved FF15's story. It made me cry, lol. Some of the FF games are boring though.
The stories in Spider-Man definitely isn’t good. I was a lil confused after beating it and people talking about it being one of the strengths of the game. It was just standard superhero stuff and the writing/characterization wasn’t that much better than a lot of stuff I’ve played.
I think when people say something has a good story they often are thinking of memorable scenes and / or engaging characters. I like Resident Evil and Final Fantasy VII on those terms. But I wouldn't say the story in either is anything more than fine.
A+ list. I'mma push back a little on Resident Evil because I think they do a good job of hitting the tone they're shooting for (campy B tier action/horror movie), and the spiderman games were pretty good but just not as good as the batman games, but yeah you got this right
Strongly agree for resident evil - as much as I adore the series, it’s not a franchise with good stories/characters 99% of the time. Of just the modern games, RE7, 2R & 3R have mediocre stories, RE8 has a genuinely bad story, and RE4R has an actually good (albeit tongue & cheek) story & characters.
RE4R is probably the only RE game with a story I think is good off the top of my head, and even then that’s mainly carried by likeable characters & some compelling themes rather than a strong plot. RE8’s writing is so bad that I wonder if it’s even meant to be serious or perhaps seen as a comedy.
I’ll admit, that’s also my rationale. I appreciate a good short story as much as the big long ones. I do know that I’m willing to let the writers tell the story they want to as well, no matter how bad the execution is. If they can show me effort, then I’ll give them appreciation.
yep, and as an older gamer I often notice (esp. in this era) it's a story that hits all the boxes for popular film storytelling (ie- the monoform)... so it's both busy & unengaging.
Games have such great story-telling potential, but even a lot of good video game stories fail to take advantage of that, let alone some of the more basic ones.
Tbh my game enjoyement is mainly determined by 2 factors, how hard can i cosplay a holy knight or Paladin and how hard can i abuse my enemy (DMC 5 comes to mind for the last one)
I still kind of liked Engage's story for how absolutely stupid it was. Towards the end I was just enjoying how far it would go. I'd rather have a bad but fun story than an average and boring one, like many games end up having. Also helps that Engage is great in most other areas.
Engage's story reminded me of what we had in some older games, and I enjoyed it because of that. It wasn't good, but it hit that Shadow Dragon / Awakening nostalgia just a bit, and that made it enjoyable enough to not detract from the rest of the game, which was excellent.
That's a fair point. I personally couldn't get over the stupid pet thing, and the tea time conversations being so bland. It kept grating on me. In addition, there were too many characters being added all the time. It made me feel overwhelmed with options.
People said you could play them in any order, but I think you had to do Blue Lions first. It was Sylvain's brother who became a monster, it was Ashe's adoptive father who betrayed the church. And then other playthroughs show their perspective is not so simple.
The bar is certainly low. But when it works, it REALLY works, after tons of hours of spending time with great characters in a fascinating world. Such a distinct experience.
Been on the hunt for good standoutsthat run well on the Steam Deck. Working through Disco Elysium for the first time right now and it has absolutely taken me by surprise!
This feels especially true for longer games. I love a long RPG, but some RPGs just have like zero respect for your time and never justify how long they make their story.
I might be biased but I do think Destiny has good writing in its worldbuilding & lore, but not the actual story itself. Even when the stories of expansions & seasons got “good”, it felt more like surprise that the stories were even serviceable at all, and that fans of the lore were being serviced.
When Destiny’s lore hits it hits different though I’ll admit. Beyond Light & Lightfall’s lore somehow even made Destiny 1’s release campaign understandable & tolerable which is an impressive feat.
Excellent observation on the lore. I made sure I said "Destiny at release" because yeah, they certainly did improve as the years went by. And I will fully admit - I loved Dinklebot. His detached, disinterested delivery resonated with me. :P
Comments
So no, I don't like that story. Game is fucking fantastic though.
Don't spill if so but hey uh, now I wanna know some examples!
Papers Please is probably the only game I've played that I can say definitively has a great story
Though I can see some people not caring about the high-school setting/anime tropes...
Sometimes it's enough that I'm blue and that guy is red. I don't need blue to have a tragic backstory, this is chess.
The game is super difficult because you can die.
The games music was amazing because it was thre.
The gameplay was the best because I pressed buttons.
The 'artstyle' is great because it looks kinda like irl.
The bar is at rock bottom for the medium sadly.
- me at 17
The entire story was a cliche *and as a Toku fan, I don't find cliche's BAD!*, but sadly people acted like it was the most original story in the world.
I also had problems with Ghost of Tsushima (sp?) writing in parts.
Which is why everytime i hear about a game with a great story and go to play its mid at best xD
Opened it randomly. Never knew it was a choose what happens game. Spent 20 hours on it getting all the endings
And I honestly think that this sort of thinking is holding back both genres pretty dramatically.
(But nowadays they have some genuinely excellent character writing)
IMO ScVi are the best Pokemon stories and the best cast. But because of the open world, its structure is a bit weird
“Cool! What’s the plot?”
“A space marine is the only survivor of a crash on an alien world, and has to kill all the aliens because… Reasons!”
“Ohhh, and you’re being cagey because the reasons form an important plot twist later?”
“Look, I said it was plot heavy, not Tolstoy.”
It's no different with games.
Was it particularly good? I don’t think so!
Playing video-games generally doesn't require a high bar in media literacy, and that's probably a good thing.
Games where my entry point into better stories, something like :
Games -> Games w better Stories -> Books quoted as inspiration/ref
Most « banger » story would be terrible if told on tv, like The Last of Us
A good video game story should be gameplay-related, not a common story that on’y adds to the media
Most video game narratives are too busy trying to be Hollywood award-winners with some gameplay elements, rather than anything actually written into the game itself. Dare I say it, most writers of such seem ashamed to be in video games instead of cinema.
Nothing compares like a single dev pouring their heart out to you in a rpgmaker game about their personal struggles and issues with the world.
Whole time I'm thinking "it's gotta be deeper than that!"
Some games have excellent lore and worldbuilding but make terrible stories from it like Elden Ring, or decent-at-best like The Witcher. (There’s a reason most people laud a particular side story in TW3 and not the actual story…)
Finding out how the world ended up how it is and seeing how the various tribes “evolved” was great.
Aloy’s story was boring though. It wasn’t until the sequel where the stakes started to become interesting.
like bro just admit you don't play for the story
I respect your take though, and I do...
- Cyberpunk
- Outer Wilds
- Citizen Sleeper
"OMGGGGGGG MOVIE TIER CINEMA IM CUMINMG"