Games With Grey

With the increasing popularization of the video game industry comes the natural diversification of potential playerbases – uniqueness overflows, each individual player possessing their own distinct desires and expectations. Expectations extend to many different spheres – expectations in gameplay, world-building, music and the like. But expectations concerning narrative are most fiercely held and cherished; narratives will rarely be approached and processed with total ambivalence. In crafting a masterful narrative, whether that mastery is communicated in a decidedly minimalistic fashion or in a cruder, heavy-handed one, developers have access to their players’ souls. Robust and stimulating gameplay is rightly revered – gameplay distinguishes video games from films. Foundationally, however, gameplay alone cannot reach the same depths of feeling an engaging narrative evokes with instinctual ease. Questions necessarily abound – to what extent should narrative be prioritized? What is the ideal ratio of gameplay to narrative? Is equilibrium desirable, necessary? Complex questions all, answers are elusive, and accordingly development studios approach this issue with clashing attitudes and guiding ideologies.  

If narrative is emphasized to the last, if ample resources are expended upon, say, the writing process and the voice acting process at the expense of gameplay development, is the end result suddenly undeserving of the moniker video game? Logic says, no. Of course not. Some tentative efforts at gameplay are prerequisite inclusions, of course, but it is unfair to instantly discount more narratively inclined experiences solely for their narrativeness. But in the industry, narratives are defined by rigid hierarchization – narrativesexist on a spectrum. On one pole are those games mostly devoid of narrative content (or more accurately explicit narrative content) – see Galaga or the litany of other earlier arcade titles. On the opposite end of spectrum lie titles which valorize narrative above all else – see the litany of adventure titles developed by Telltale Games, titles essentially devoid of anything resembling robust gameplay – The Walking Dead is mostly automated in its gameplay. Such valorization, such automatedness, oftentimes has many positive aftereffects – resonant emotional chords are struck; Galaga, for all its enjoyability, is totally overshadowed and destroyed emotionally by any conventional Telltale Games production.  

But this valorization, when blindly and totally held, has many potentially devastating repercussions, too – excessive fascination with feeling is sometimes destructive and exhausting for player and developer alike, especially if this fascination consumes the development studio entirely – equilibrium is a justly coveted attainment, in that it largely reduces possibilities for destructiveness and exhaustion. Whether equilibrium is welcomed or rejected, whether developers act and create totally boldly or in a state of total insecurity, in all games the gameplay / narrative warfare eventually and always erupts in full force – even in the gameplay-sparse Walking Dead, simple QTEs see forced implementation, Telltale adhering to convention and expectation. Before, this warfare was rather tepid and meagerly waged, owing to technological limitations – narrative mastery was formerly bounded, to gameplay’s direct benefit. No longer. For the future of the industry, an increasingly empowered industry, is inevitably conflict, and this brutal, unceasing melee between narrative and gameplay mechanics is integral to that conflict.   

While the creative impulse is thriving and ubiquitous in the industry, underpinning almost all development decisions, economics matters, certainly, greatly determining a project’s end result. Any given AAA studio is singularly empowered, having access not only towards developer enthusiasm but also potentially inexhaustible sums, invaluable when melded together. Any given indie studio may match or even exceed that passion, though that selfsame studio is instead burdened with financial limitations. Practical manifestations of these imbalances are fiercely felt – see for instance voice acting, which may be of lesser quality in indie games, or at least prone to rampant repetition, a scant few voice actors relied upon excessively and exclusively. In some cases, formal voice acting may be absent outright (though this absence may stem from the creative impulse just as it may arise from pecuniary concerns, absolutely). It would be inaccurate to suggest a game devoid of voice acting is incompatible with narrative heft, but it is right to suggest that voice acting, if properly and respectfully implemented, can greatly heighten immersion and narrative engagement. In forcibly including voice acting (to continue this tangent), the smaller developer is susceptible to illustrating the budgetary constraints pressed upon them; logic suggests, then, that in these circumstances voice acting should be rejected, for rejection ensures these selfsame developers do not destructively overreach. Developer idealism must never be stifled, though practicality must ever be considered, rather than spurned.

When it comes to the crafting of masterful narratives, Playdead Studios exists at the vanguard – see most obviously Limbo and Inside, wonderfully and deliberately understated. Aesthetically, the titles are disarming indeed, Limbo’s somber blacks, greys, and whites brimming with moodiness; atmospheres abound; the gameplay experience is periodically exhausting. But it is a wonderful, challenging exhaustion, one founded solely on minimalism. Limbo is indeed defined by this minimalism; formal voice acting is completely absent, for instance. Fair enough. But in Limbo, all forms of written dialogue are absent, too; wordlessness and speechlessness both thrive here. And yet, a poignant and heartbreaking narrative is conveyed despite these limitations and absences, as Playdead rely upon clever environmental storytelling and very brief, unintrusive cutscenes, making much of little. And so the unnamed Boy begins his journey and concludes it, uniting (reuniting?) with a female figure of considerable value and affection, presumably a sister, though not before assaulting a tribe of rebellious and violent youths, expert wielders of throwing spears and even other makeshift weapons. And so the unnamed Boy spars with a gigantic spider on his odyssey, just as he grapples with bizarre, mind-controlling sluglike entities, their motives unknown and unknowable. Very few explanations are advanced in Limbo, and this design decision has two possible originators – Playdead, very much an indie studio, embraced minimalism as a deliberate design choice; or minimalism was thrust upon them owing to damning pecuniary circumstances. Ultimately and absolutely, Playdead was guided by passion and bold clarity of vision – every executed decision was deliberate. Their early success with Limbo in 2010 asserted the place of indie games within the larger video game industry, building upon the earlier successors of Jonathan Blow’s indie darling Braid. Limbo’s successes also asserted the vitalness and specialness of stripped-back narratives. For in Limbo, the player takes the narrative presented them and is permitted to act as decipherer, alighting upon wholly new meanings and meanings subtly implemented by the developers. Here, players matter, for here they personalize the narrative; emotional chords are struck; the player is respected.  

Still: narratives can be delivered and developed in a plurality of different fashions; the developer is ever empowered (and potentially confused and overwhelmed by that empowerment). One especially common approach revolves around conventional cutscenes, their implementation. Oftentimes the domain of larger studios, the required animation – and quite frequently voice acting – further fosters fragmentation, as the costs required are uncoverable by a conventional indie dev. This precise approach, for all its stirring effectiveness and consequent moodiness, suffers from lessened originality – such cutscenes are cut from the same cloth as a traditional film, that artform thriving for well over a century or now. Given the lengthiness of their existence, it follows films and filmic approaches have been mastered – they are understood, although further understandings are ever attainable. It is only natural that video game developers, then, should rely on this approach. And so auteurs like Hideo Kojima emerge, auteurs more interested in crafting a cinematic experience than crafting a moving gameplay experience. Kojima’s ambitions are inherently cinematic in nature – his ambitions are accordingly costly. But his studio’s size and the former backing of Konami ensured he was capable of acting upon those inclinations, achieve their fulfillment. Had he lacked a larger budget and studio support, the end result would be very different. Figures like enigmatic Solid Snake would still see manifestation – they are central to Kojima’s artistic vision – though characterizations would be of lessened depth or developed in secondary, sometimes less effective means. In a bizarre fashion, Kojima’s enablement and support serves an intoxicating function – authorial and developer hubris runs rampant. Playdead faced no such complications, for they could not craft lengthy, highly stylized cutscenes featuring rousing voice acting by professional, truly capable voice actors. Instead, still they rely upon brisker cutscenes devoid of voice acting. Instead, they manipulate in-game audio and core explorable environments to communicate their message, advance their vision.  

But a monumental sea change is presently underway, a sea change connected to industry fracturing – and paradoxically heightened fluidity. For the boundary separating indie studios from their larger AAA brethren is weakening – not eroding outright, but weakening, as both entities grasp on the same inspirations, pursue the same ambitions. Budgetary concerns ever matter, of course, but as time has passed, the limitations necessarily attached to lowered stores of funds have been countered by added developer ingenuity – much can be made of little if the heart is followed. This highly sentimental, highly reassuring statement exists at the core of indie game ideology, serving a rallying function. Now, developers like Supergiant Games thrive and innovate, their titles overflowing creatively. Decidedly indie-like in heart and ambition, they meld together the reverence for environmental storytelling and minimalism with more traditional narrative heft – see their early masterpiece Bastion, which essentially established and cemented their distinct aesthetic vision, a core unifier linking together all of their projects in some fashion, even as each individual project sometimes features wildly different gameplay systems – Bastion could not be further removed from, say, their later Hades. Regarding that former title especially, the development studio recognized formal cutscenes’ occasional stiltedness – and more importantly their intrusiveness. In this early masterpiece, the developers deal this approach a mortal blow, and in time adopt a disembodied approach to narrative presentation. The unnamed narrator, brimming with charisma, organically comments upon gameplay occurrences in real time, his words never disrupting the gameplay presently unfolding – the player is never deprived of control; gameplay pace remains consistent, predictable, and engaging; the traditional cinematic approach to narrative development is completely rejected within Bastion. With this project, innovation again overflows; indie games reassert their prominent, vital industry position.

The pace of change is rapid: in the present moment – fourteen years after the release of Limbo, thirteen years after Bastion’s release – diversification has again expanded and ever expands. Owing to their swelling ambitions and their rather unconventional approaches to narrative, these titles met with a rather ill-prepared audience. This ill-preparedness, however, directly explains these games’ affectionate critical and player reception; originality abounded. With time’s natural passage comes ill-preparedness’s dismantling – the industry has changed drastically in thirteen years, and gamers have grown more acclimated to the industry’s ample diversification. Total acclimation causes excitement to wither – expectations fast settle in, especially in the realm of gameplay, where repetition must inevitably thrive. The rift erupts – narrative is the locus of beautiful, necessary, and sustaining originality, while gameplay of the present moment is defined by derivativeness. Gameplay ever can and ever must be enjoyable, though still boundaries are in place, boundaries imaginative narratives ultimately skirt. Now, gameplay is largely the domain of refinement or fusion; narrative is the domain of stirring newness, a newness obtained even if the narrative is rather amalgamationist in construction.   

Any given studio has multiple distinct methods of advancing narrative beyond environmental storytelling and conventional, cinema-like cutscenes – Kojima’s approach is but one approach amongst many. Most prominent are: text documents discoverable and readable within the explorable environments; and audio recordings, presented without tangible printed text. Ever reflecting economics and the constraints attached to stunted budgets, text logs are frequently more numerous than audio logs, for that former tool of narrative development is far more economical to produce. With these, the studio’s writers alone are emphasized, while with audio logs multiple disparate factions of the studio come together. Writing logs, then, are defined by a certain purity which is lost and ever losable in audio logs. Here, confusion inevitably reigns supreme, as more and more figures make their own distinct contributions, all supposedly acting for the good of the whole – the project overall – though muddying the project rather than crafting clarity and focus with their exertions. Very ironically, too, such audio logs are excessively valorized – consider again Bastion and its rejection of all intrusiveness, a guiding principle. This disembodied, audio-centric approach, wonderfully unintrusive though it is, is steeped in many potential negatives – most damnably, it is suspect to possible incoherence, as only part of the narrative is received and processable, as attention is inevitably lavished upon gameplay as the narrator makes his gravely, charming narrations. Following this train of thought, Bastion’s narrative heft is less than it might have been were that selfsame narrative more “conventional.” The game’s overwhelming originality is paradoxically alienating and alluring.

This terrible, terrible incoherence is more consistently and fiercely felt in Gearbox’s immensely enjoyable Borderlands series, which excessively, feebly, relies upon audio logs. This series’ gameplay is defined by freneticism, consequential to the narrative indeed, determining the overall pacing. At any given moment, the screen may be host to potentially dozens of enemy NPCs, may be host to gunfire and explosions, bandits rushing this way and that, the feral, doglike Skaggs bounding about recklessly and destructively, menacing the player, spewing fire, acid – on and on it goes.  These ferocious enemies’ presence demands total concentration – turn away from the threat, and death is a tangible entity indeed. In turn, player attention is turned away from narrative and through towards gameplay. Any given audio-log may feature superb writing and voice acting, may be brimming with charm and sincerity, may advance many poignant and thoughtful statements, but if the player’s attentions are directed elsewhere, then that swelling poignancy and thoughtfulness inevitably go unacknowledged and promptly forgotten – narrative suffers in the audio-log approach to storytelling. The narratively masterful Bioshock games encounter similar issues, owing to their reliance upon audio-logs, but the inclusion of ample and mature environmental storytelling ultimately negates these failings.  

For me, narrative heft matters, for a narrative-less title is essentially a directionless title; emotional or cerebral stimulation are integral components of all video game experiences, and it is difficult if not outright impossible for gameplay and gameplay alone to strike at the emotions and to strike at the mind simultaneously, fiercely – narrative must emerge to fill the void. This void can, of course, be filled in a number of different ways. Cinematic cutscenes certainly have their place, just as environmental storytelling has its own place, while audio-logs and discoverable, readable documents can also advance the narrative – oftentimes in an unconventional, unintrusive fashion. Any given developer, then, whether speaking of the small indie dev studio or the bustling AAA studio, is afforded ample opportunities and liberties, both of which equate to flexibility and empowerment, which do in turn enable a masterful narrative’s eventual construction; the limitations of the past have largely been shed. Squandering those beautiful, newly-won opportunities and liberties by shunning or vilifying narrative to the last is frustratingly wasteful; the experience suffers; such developers are mired in the past. But monopolization is ever disadvantageous – coexistence is beautiful indeed. Reflecting this, narrative-heavy games must coexist with those which reject narrative – ever and always. The rise of the open-world genre only complicates these discussions, for a more open-ended approach to design ultimately deals narratives a sharp blow – highly directed, wholly linear experiences are more neatly and instinctually compatible with rousing narratives than sprawling non-linear affairs. In crafting their narratives, future developers must reconcile the open and the focused.