Story Driven Computer Games – Choice or Illusion?
Story Driven Computer Games – Choice or Illusion?As writers, one of the main things we are told is that when you’re not writing, you should be reading. Me, I like to play computer games. Granted, I love reading, too, but computer games are a big love of mine. Which kind you might ask? For me, story driven computer games have become a new obsession of mine.
I love computer games. Always have.
The type of games I mention are ones such as: The Walking Dead, Heavy Rain, Until Dawn, Mass Effect – all choice based and quite story driven. Sure, FPS and Survival/Crafting are another guilty pleasure of mine, but for me, these story driven computer games are something entirely different. It’s like an evolution of those old books where you would choose which path to take and then flip to that page. Only this time, you can’t peak to which page has the happy ending and make choices that lead there.
Choice or Merely Illusion?Sadly, the idea of choice in a story driven game tends to fall flat in most cases. Just like those old story books, the game sometimes needs to ‘force’ you onto a certain predetermined path it has written. Those games that claim there’s over twenty different endings? Pretty much just tiny variable on one or two actual endings.
That’s fine, and I can live with that. What gets under my skin is when as a player you have to suffer through some staged scenarios which simply ignore the player’s choices in favour of ‘staged pieces’ the developers wanted you to chose. Here’s one that is definitely no more than an illusion of choice:
Take Until Dawn for example. In the following video, you are set up with a choice between two characters of who lives and who dies. Either one you pick , the same thing happens.
*Spoilers* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MgDjhubMPhoNot much of a choice, right? ‘Three’ options – all have the same result.
Mass Effect 3 is another example of this gone horribly wrong. You can play as a saviour or devil. But in the ending, none of your previous actions matter. In the end, either you choose good or evil. That’s it. No repercussions for all the horrible things you done. No reward for all the good choices.
Did you choose to cure the genophage, or do what the Dalatrass asked? It doesn’t matter. Tuchanka and Sur’Kesh were destroyed.
Did you save the Geth, or the Quarians? Who cares? The fleet is wrecked and Rannoch has been obliterated.
Did you take back Earth, as the game’s ad campaign promised you would? Not in any meaningful way: the world you fought to save is gone.
Was your Shepard a paragon? Too bad, buddy; now she’s the galaxy’s worst war criminal.
People got so angry against it that there was a petition to change the ending. (This was later resolved through an extended cut DLC to give players closure after the countless hours they have invested into the three games’ continuing story).
One of my top five games of all time, Fallout 3, had the same fate about its ending and ultimately was retconned in a DLC, in which PC World called it, “Incredible Roleplaying Game, Lousy Ending.”
What can we learn from this?Apart from the how important endings are!
We need to remember that stories need to have repercussions. A character makes a bad decision and we need to feel punished for it. We need to see that decisions have impacts in the story and that even good decisions can have negative effects. The Walking Dead Telltale games handled this well. Characters live and die depending on your choices. Some of these deaths are blamed on you. Characters change their standing with you or react differently around you.
Be sure to include the effects of choice in your stories. Give your protagonists difficult choices and maintain the effects of their decision. Don’t just create the illusion of choice or force events to happen just for set pieces. Let it flow naturally in the story and don’t force it to happen because it will ‘look cool’ or ‘be more dramatic’. Do what is best for the story and most believable for your character and your readers will thank you for it.
And above all else, don’t get lazy with the ending! People will have invested enough hours to see how your tale concludes – give them the ending they deserve.
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