Gaming is young and there is no established canon of theory about many of its aspects outside of science. We have a vast pool of often very precise knowledge about how games are created. But what about the humanities?

rn

One of the most obvious questions concerning game studies is this: how do games tell storys? One of the most obvious answers would be by taking control/interactive possibility completely away and playing a cutscene. I would argue that this is true and cutscenes are part of the game, but film theory has very much covered most of what can be said about this aspect of video games.

rn

What other methods are there to convey story while retaining interacivitiy? Is this especially hard since player action must to some degree ruin a predetermined story? How much does it have to be predetermined? Is this an opportunity in disguise and is interactivity a goldmine of creative potential for storytelling?

rn

In short: please give examples and discuss the different methods to convey story by the means of gameplay.

rn

Example: a classic - as Ico the player is tasked to hold Yordas hand. Simple but interactive. What does this produce? Perhaps the notion that you have to rely on each other to complete the game and escape the castle. Perhaps it further ingrains the notion of female frailty and passivity since you have to drag her across the levels and constantly save her. But maybe the game tries to deconstruct such stereotyps by taking control away from Ico and the player and playing a cutscene where an active Yorda saves a passive Ico (the bridge scene). Perhaps holding somebodys hand makes people inadvertently care about that somebody and this was the whole point - that you feel responsible and protective of somebody. To me this is quite a big thing achieved just by holding R1.

rn

What are your examples of storytelling through gameplay? How can those examples be categorised and what do they achieve?

I'll start with Civilization. You play through early history to modern times, living the rise and fall of civilizations and technological advancements that change the course of history. Part is conveyed through descriptions, but seeing it play out in the game far more powerful.

MMORPS like Everquest are all about story through game play. However that's making your own story with little control from the author of the game. Not a way to convey a story and predetermined to ruin any attempts to tell a story like most sandbox games. Death Stranding does a good job at turning you into a Mule through game play. It's heavy on the story telling like all Kojima games, yet the open world part tells its own story of connection and working together.

As Ico, SOTC is even more successful in conveying story through gameplay. The doubt and guilt that creep in towards the end of the game is very well done and never told in any cut scene. Turning from the hero into the villain, purely by gameplay without any nonsensical karma system, it's genius.

Journey also tell a story of human connection through interactivity. It all depends on who you meet through the game though which is not really in control of the story tellers hence the different reactions to the game. It is risky to rely on random player connections, same thing in Death Stranding where I first opted to play offline to get rid of the human mess factor. However that also removed the 'working together' part of the open world story.

Thank you for your interesting examples. Some I get more than others. I don't play MMORPGs, so Everquest being all about the story is a bit lost on me. How is it different in how you interact with it than say any typical hack and slash action game where your method of interaction is combat and your contribution to the story is who you fight and/or kill? Is it your choice of whom to fight and with whom and at what point of the game? If it is your choices (e.g. compared to DMCV that provides no such options) that make it your unique story, one has to ask about how meaningful those choices are. And does not the majority of people walk away from MMORPGs with roughly the same story experienced?

Perhaps I think about this in a wrong way. I think if somebody really role-plays with his own charakter and comes across other charakters, online becomes a huge tool for storytelling through gameplay. Like getting to know those fictional charakters and their backstories that are wholly unique to the player you happen to encounter. Can online chat informed through the aesthetics and lore of the presented game world be considered a gameplay mechanic. I think so, which really goes to show how diverse this subject can get.

But I would really be curious about your further explanations of story through gameplay in MMORPGs since I don't really know anything about them.

Half-Life mumble mumble. There are practically no cutscenes, and the story is told by what the characters speak (to either the player character or to each other), what happens in the world, and sometimes by what you find in the world. When Half-Life first came out, I had too little experience with games to understand but apparently that kind of storytelling was revolutionary back then. Nowadays it's of course not that rare anymore.

I've recently been playing Crusader Kings II, and I feel like it's a good fit in this thread. It's full of emergent stories, such as this one. Basically there's politics, relationships between people, events, and decisions, and all that stuff, which can create some interesting narratives - or not, if you'd rather play safe and lead a boring life.

Everquest is all about team work. The game is very hard to play on your own and not much fun. Together you decide where to go, creating your own story of adventure, exploration and conquest. As most open worlds you can go (nearly) anywhere right from the start. Starting location makes a big difference as well.

The story Everquest created for me is rather unique (although not as unique as you would think)

This is my review of the game I posted about 10 years ago in the best games of all time thread:

The best game of all time? For me it is. It is the game I have played the most and the game that has had the biggest impact on my life. The short story: I met my beautiful wife while playing Everquest.

I had been playing Everquest for a couple months already, not really getting anywhere. Life past lvl 10 was hard and unforgiving in Norrath back in 2000. I was on my fourth character, an enchanter named Gazzook, this time carefully planned out from the beginning. At lvl 10 I decided to move to Freeport, a dangerous 40 minute journey on foot from Qeynos. In west commons I met up with a high elf wizard, recently moved to Freeport from the greater Feydark. From there I started to see her more often in groups in east and west commons killing orcs and bears trying to get a grip on the early teens.

Christmas time was there and I didn't see her for a while. In the new year we met up again in North Ro desert and Oasis of Marr while dodging deadly giants. From there we occasionally took the boat to set foot on the continents of Velious and Kunark. Although the tower of frozen shadow looked very intriguing Velious was still out of our league. Kunark quickly became our favorite place to spend the early 20's. Lake of ill omen was the perfect zone with plenty of places to explore and hang out.

There was lots of downtime in Everquest, plenty of time for good conversation. Often we would simply sit around chatting instead of actively looking for a group. After mastering the Saenak fort in Lake of Ill Omen we moved on to the giant fort in Frontier mountains and after that to the Overthere.
As we got on in levels our relationship began to grow and before long we had our first phone call and started exchanging pictures. Quite exciting after only talking in text for months. Luckily she exceeded all my expectations.

By the time we got to the 40's and moved on to the dreadlands I decided to come over to visit for a week. After a 7 hour plane ride I arrived at 1 in the morning in a rental car in a foreign country in the middle of a snow storm, having never driven in snow before. Nerves aside it was one of the best weeks of my life and gutwrenching to have to go back. A couple of months later she visited me in Amsterdam and from there we kept going back and forth every couple of months.

Obviously this was not an ideal situation, so by summer I was looking into immigration. The whole immigation process from Holland to Canada took about a year requiring tons of paperwork, physical tests, and documents going through 3 countries. In july of 2002 all planning came to fruition and we were finally united forever. My life changed completely, it was the best decision I have ever made.

Not long after we got settled in we started playing Everquest again, this time side by side. This allowed for some interesting tactics, closely timing spells together. Our enchanter wizard duo became an unstoppable force, lag permitting. Shadows of Luclin had come out by then with some interesting zones, a hub to make it a lot faster to get around and a new graphical make over of the game. Yet Lower guk in old Norrath and Sebilis in Kunark became our favorite zones. Sebilis was the best. There we could round up and defeat up to 30 targets at the time by keeping them stunned with 2 enchanters while wizards blast them with area effect spells. A risky business but great fun.

Planes of power was another good expansion, however Lost dungeons of norrath turned out to be our best. The random generated instanced 45-60 min dungeons were great for a few rounds each night to earn points for weapon and armor augments. After the next expansion, Gates of discord, we finally got married. We wanted to do it sooner but getting family together from a different continent takes a while. In good tradition we decided to visit some of our other long time Everquest friends during our honeymoon on the west coast.

Omens of war was to be our last expansion. We were in the upper 60's by then and the game kept getting harder without raid equipment. We never did many raids since they tend to take anywhere from 6 to 12 hours at a time. Friends started leaving to Star Wars Galaxies and <a href="http://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/post.php?id=4322999">World of Warcraft</a> and by lvl 68, after 4 years and 8 expansions, we also made the switch to WoW.

WoW was great but never reached the same heights (and lows) that Everquest has. We met many great friends on Everquest, the forced grouping to get forward makes it a real social game. Everquest also has way more spells, alternate advancement abilies, augments, all allowing for a wide variety of tactics. With plenty of odd spells and items to have fun too. My wife still hasn't forgiven me for dispelling her floatation spell causing her to drop out of the sky after jumping off the spiral tower in greater Faydark.

Everquest is still going with its 18th expansion just released. It will be a while before we have raised our 2 gold farmers to high enough age to get back to it.

The power a game can have! Everquest is still going, our kids are 8 and 10 now, oldest addicted to Fortnite and Ark :/ In both they create their own stories in the co-op play parts of those games with their friends online. Especially now with the crisis they're playing Ark every day now. Currently they're building a village in some desert world together.

I was thinking about half-life as well, but that's not really through game play. The game play is on hold during those interactive cut scenes. And what you find in the world is world building, also not game play. Story telling through world building is one of the most powerful tools, used by many genres. Dark souls, fallout, red dead redemption etc. Red dead redemption 2 does some efforts to tell story through game play, making the player balance his/her moral compass throughout the game with different assignments. Not only having different ways to things but also having real consequences through the unforgiving bounty system.

Elite Dangerous is full of emerging stories as well. I wrote this story through game play
https://forums.frontier.co.uk/threads/exploration-quest-for-the-loneliest-planet.132053/
Yet the only credit to the game here is presenting players with a giant sandbox plus such a boring game loop you start to make up a story to keep going!

Crusader Kings II sounds interesting :)

Boah, what a response. Very cool that you met your future wife in the game and created storys with her in it.

You mentioned storys of conquest, exploration and adventure. I think you could have those also in many other games. But what seems to separate Everquest, or other MMORPGs, from those other games, is the ability (and almost necessity) of going about those adventures together. Perhaps this is a whole different way of experiencing games. When I play God of War, there is no time for introspection of my own. I do not explore my inner demons and wishes, but those of Kratos. And that also mostly through cutscenes. Deciding where to go woth another person and than constantly exchanging about what you experience together seems huge to me. It seems like a game mechanic (online multiplayer and chat) used to really write your own storys: to talk to people about the adventure, discuss battle tactics, ask why they play a certain way, complain about them doing, or not doing a certain thing, growing together over a battle, or appriciation of some lore, or growing apart because of how you respond to the games input. 

I will say this: there are clear limitations to what story you can tell, since your tools of interaction are still walking, fighting, collecting and sharing. But honestly, this is the case in most games, minus the sharing and talking. ... I don't know. I sort of feel other limitations here, but I can't articulate it. Perhaps it is the broad nature of MMORPGs that might hinder certain expression of delivery. Or maybe it is this: in an MMORPG you are a small part of a big world and therefore it never truly feels as if the story is really about you but just something you participate in. Whereas God of War is the story about Kratos. And DMC is the story about Dante. And Faust is the story about Faust. Everquest is the story about nobody in particular. And for that something might be lost. ... Mhhh, I don't know. Not really satisfied with this either.

But thank you for sharing this cool story. Also the one with this space game you linked. I read some bits of it like your experience in the black hole. Wild stuff. Maybe it is good for a game to just provide "basic" building blocks for you to tell your own story, as long as you have the fortitude, willingness and creativity to tell them. .... Ah, maybe that's what bugs me: the game provides so little in your examples, that your storys would almost seem independent of those games and you could tell them in any other setting provided you can talk to other people while doing so. I mean sure, Everquest is not WoW and the lore of those worlds is very different. But the story you specifically tell through interacting with the game, those storys of conquest and adventure shared with another person seem applicable to many worlds.

I agree that Half-Life might not be the best fit here, but I guess it depends on where you draw the line.

I'm not sure Crusader Kings II actually tries to tell stories, but because of the way things are in the game, it's not rare to end up with chains of events that kind of start forming stories. I wish I could better sum up the way CK2 tells stories, but more of the 'lead a boring life' type of a player in CK2, so I don't have too much experience there, and I also think there are many things contributing to it all. That is, it would take a good while for me to sum it up in a more comprehensive manner.

Hm, the Half-Life example is difficul for me. I tend to say it is gameplay, since you can walk around while somebody is talking to you. But not far and you cannot cut anybody of and you have to listen (never played it, just an assumption). So there is not much point in you still being able to walk around in the first place. You don't tell a story by walking two meters back and torth. ... Or perhaps you do - feels like a slippery slope, but you standing with your face turned away while somebody talks to you as very different from looking at that somebody. Would just be neat if that somebody reacts to your position in the room by altering what is said.

I feel similary conflicted by stuff you find in the world. On the one hand, yes, this is not you telling a story through gameplay. But you experience it through gameplay. It is not a cutscene where interactivity is taken away from you. Say you cannot interact with whatever you see, but you can decide to watch it, or walk by. These are very much different modes of play. You can rush through, or you can decide to stay for a few minutes and ponder the implications of that open cage and the blody smears beside it. It is different from holding yordas hand, but on some minor level it still is story through gameplay.

In Half-life you can indeed walk away, some characters will follow you a bit or simply stop talking, however they never alter their script.
I wouldn't call this story telling through gameplay:

That's me goofing off in Blood and Truth while the dude rattles off his script completely ignoring me. It's the same in Half-life except there you can walk away if you please. (Not everywhere, some doors magically unlock after the character finishes his monologue)

It's the same in God Of War with the head telling stories while you're in the boat. He stops when you get out and resumes the story when you set off again.



Being able to stop and ponder is an important part of games that movies don't have. Pacing is an important gameplay element but actual stoy telling through gameplay is more subtle. Papers please is a good example. It makes you do a tedious job, trying to make ends meet while putting the lives of others in your hands. Not so easy now to condemn those uncaring border agents. Putting the player through difficult choices is one way to tell a story.



True about Everquest and MMORPGs in general. I've played them for years and have very little retention of any story the game wanted to present. If the makers of the game wanted to tell a story, then they failed. Same with Elite Dangerous. These games provide the tools to make your own story, providing a blank slate as a character who you yourself give a background and bring to life in the game. Indeed totally different from a game like God of War where you live his life and learn about his past etc. Sometimes it clashes, at some point I didn't want to progress any further with TW3 since the only options the game gave me were all diametrically opposed to my ideas about Geralt from the books and how I wanted to play him. I was in deadlock for days until I decided to give up on the role play and enjoy the exploration min/maxing elements of the game. I mostly skipped.rushed through any further main quest stuff, still don't know how the main story ended despite finishing the game.


The best way to tell a story through gameplay is to simply put you in the situation. Many players dislike the slow start of heavy rain, yet the part where you are the dad just taking care of your kid after a bad divorce still resonates strongly with me. Is it game play? I think so.


Papa & Yo also manages to tell a story of an alcoholic abusive father through bright cheery game play. It is helped by a few cut scenes to drop clues, but a lot of it plays out in the game.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Papo_%26_Yo
One of the key elements of the game is Monster, a giant that Quico discovers while navigating through the slums. Monster at first appears to be very kind and helpful. He can be made to hold down pressure plates and his belly can be used as a super-trampoline to reach rooftops. Monster has an addiction for eating frogs and if he eats one he becomes a fiery, raging beast that will damage anything around him, even Quico if he cannot get away quickly enough. The player can use a fruit to calm him.