Narrative in Video Games

[DoubleTake]

Don't be put off by the thumbnail. This is a video on narrative and all its different forms.


View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t4oHSmfZbzQ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t4oHSmfZbzQ

Quelaag is a wonderful creator and very thoughtful about the ins and outs of Souls games and stories in general. She was one of the first channels I ever watched on DS1 lore and has only gotten better. Def sub if you're into chill lore rambling with great insights.

So, what say you? Are Souls games narratives good, or no?

PS: ER spoilers. No God of War spoilers despite the thumbnail.

 

[Mary Celeste]

Sometimes! Bloodborne does, Dark Souls 2 does.... Elden Ring not so much, imo

 

[DoubleTake]

Sometimes! Bloodborne does, Dark Souls 2 does.... Elden Ring not so much, imo

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Why do you think that? I'm actually beginning to think that Elden Ring is tied with Bloodborne for their best narrative.

 

[Precious Tritium]

I usually enjoy the narratives when they're summarized in a YouTube video. I've always enjoyed the games and the general settings and narrative but know I've missed at least 50% of what's really going on when I play it myself.

So not sure if the style of delivering the narrative succeeds for me.

 

[Deleted member 3924]

They have a huge following because of that style. Certain people love the obscurity to where they'll watch or create hundreds of lore videos and theorycraft about all kinds of things. I think its neat that it exists, even if its clearly divisive.

 

[electroaffe]

All the Souls games have an amazing narrative, especially Elden Ring imo. Every character has so much depth and development.
I love how unpredictable and never-before
-seen everything in the story is. I can watch hours of videos and never get bored by all the details that are in every nook and corner of the game. An outstanding achievement in story-telling.

 

[Aaronrules380]

I think souls game have cool lore and world building, but I don't think that's the same as a good narrative

 

[PucePikmin]

Souls "narratives" are effective in what they set out to do -- set the tone and establish some interesting lore and backstory. The worlds of Souls games are fascinating! The problem is, they're not accompanied with, y'know... actual stories. With characters you care about, and a plot beyond "beat bosses to achieve X." If you're looking for a pure, old-school RPG experience where the dungeon master sets the table and you tell your own story through playing, Souls games are great! If you're looking to be taken in by a compelling yarn, yeah, not so much.

 

[Nephilim]

The lore is fantastic.
Narrative i have problems with, because i feel i miss to much and often can't put pieces together on my own to look at the whole picture in a satisfying way.

 

[Aaronrules380]

i also feel like for all people praise the way souls game weave lore and world building into everything, the actual process of learning it in the game itself is incredibly tedious and there's a reason almost nobody experiences it outside of letting lore videos do all the work for them to get an idea of what's going on.

 

[Deleted member 3924]

Putting the onus on the player to figure out the world is certainly a unique choice that really only works because of the medium and especially through multiple playthroughs. I have a friend who was really frustrated with Bloodborne, asking for "more story" but eventually it becomes clear that it would be detrimental to what they're going for. If you start forcing players into cutscenes and conversations it starts to feel like you're part of a script and less that you're just existing in this bizarre place.

There's not much to the major overarching narrative, but that seems to be by design.

 

[St. Elmo's Fire]

The lore is fine.
Narrative? No.

 

[Aaronrules380]

I feel like the popularity of lore videos is actually a mark against the story given how the lore is basically all there is to the story in these games, and if people were able to understand it just playing the games themselves the lore videos would be unnecessary and way less popular. Like i can't say a game has good story when it's pretty incomprehensible without engaging with supplementary material, which youtube videos are in this case

 

[Deleted member 3924]

I feel like the popularity of lore videos is actually a mark against the story given how the lore is basically all there is to the story in these games, and if people were able to understand it just playing the games themselves the lore videos would be unnecessary and way less popular. Like i can't say a game has good story when it's pretty incomprehensible without engaging with supplementary material, which youtube videos are in this case

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The lore is supplemental. The narrative taking a total backseat to player agency is a pretty distinct directional choice. Simple isn't necessarily bad, especially when it benefits the game design.
Elden Ring being nominated for Narrative is weird, like maybe that category should be writing instead of narrative, because it does have some great characters and minor arcs, while the main throughline is fairly basic. Sometimes character writing and sub-quests are more appealing and "best narrative" doesn't seem to really describe that.

Even then im wondering if its more just simple narrative presented beautifully having more value than an intricate narrative presented in the most rudimentary fashion in a way that just doesn't benefit the medium.

 

[LilScooby77]

Without YouTube videos I would have no clue what's happening. I love blood borne but none of it made sense to me and I finally caved in and watched some YouTube. Great lore but they can't tell a story without everyone doing all the hard work for them.

 

[Firefly]

Never really cared for it so I can't assess it. Maybe I failed to understand it but it never felt necessary to the core experience.

 

[Buttonbasher]

I feel like the popularity of lore videos is actually a mark against the story given how the lore is basically all there is to the story in these games, and if people were able to understand it just playing the games themselves the lore videos would be unnecessary and way less popular. Like i can't say a game has good story when it's pretty incomprehensible without engaging with supplementary material, which youtube videos are in this case

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I feel like the existence of "[Movie Title] ENDING EXPLAINED" videos for just about every movie released kind of disagrees with this. Most of those movies don't require these videos either, but those videos still often get millions of views. Souls games also aren't incomprehensible without those videos.

 

[Nameless Hero]

They do in the sense that i can easily ignore it completely and just be a guy hitting skeletons for 30 hours. And then somebody links a 5 hour lore analysis video somewhere and I'm liked "there's lore????"

 

[Linus815]

They do in the sense that i can easily ignore it completely and just be a guy hitting skeletons for 30 hours. And then somebody links a 5 hour lore analysis video somewhere and I'm liked "there's lore????"

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zanzibart..... forgive me....

 

[Smoolio]

The lore is fine.
Narrative? No.

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This, the encyclopaedic wikis of the games have a better narrative.

 

[Pyro]

I'll say no because I've never felt compelled to fully learn them. I've tried a few VaatiVidyaa(?) videos and while I get the appeal, hearing someone list it all out is boring and I don't care enough to play detective myself.

 

[Lucini]

Am I missing something? I don't think there's much of a narrative in ER, at least not one that the player is experiencing and reacting to. In ER the moment to moment experience in hindsight is the narrative, its player created. Someone mentioned a D&D campaign and that's a decent comp to me. The overall world and general start/end points are established but the how is not.

 

[Horp]

To me, the narrative in the souls games are awesome.
It first so much more "first person" and "real" than most other games - simply because so few things are explained to you. If I was that tarnished, travelling around in this foreign world, I wouldn't stumble accross in game cinematics and NPCs that are inclined to tell me 5 minutes of story time whenever I see them.
It's mysterious, weird, isolating, adventurous... I love it

 

[DoubleTake]

I think souls game have cool lore and world building, but I don't think that's the same as a good narrative

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What is a good narrative?

i also feel like for all people praise the way souls game weave lore and world building into everything, the actual process of learning it in the game itself is incredibly tedious and there's a reason almost nobody experiences it outside of letting lore videos do all the work for them to get an idea of what's going on.

Click to shrink...

I will say putting the pieces together can be a daunting task. But the fact that people are able to is a testament to the fact that it is doable. It's just more difficult because we're playing a 100-hour game with visual, musical and literary material and not watching an esoteric 2-hour movie or reading a book.

Like i can't say a game has good story when it's pretty incomprehensible without engaging with supplementary material, which youtube videos are in this case

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Have you never watched a movie or read a book in which something happened that didn't quite make much sense but then you looked up supplementary material to broaden your understanding of what you experienced? What makes that experience any different than what Souls games do? I can tell you Souls games are very much the same in that they take inspiration and queues from many different philosophies and cultures and twist them which invites the community to dig to better understand what From are getting at.

The flame of frenzy for example.

- YouTube

Enjoy the videos and music you love, upload original content, and share it all with friends, family, and the world on YouTube.

www.youtube.com

To me that's a sign of deep and well thought out piece of art. I think it is a massive success when a video game forces/invites people to take a deeper look into the message it's trying to convey. In most games it's so easy to consume and move on due to how closely the narrative style of Film is followed (tons of exposition, little ambiguity, poor use of diegetic gameplay and ludo narrative harmony).

 

[DoubleTake]

I think so much of the problem with this discussion comes from how people define the word Narrative and how from makes it possible to completely disengage from that aspect of their games.

I could ask one person what Elden Ring's Narrative is and they'd say:

1. Woke up in a hole. 2. Got Weapons. 3. Met Characters. 4. Told to go Kill things. 5. Kill things. 6. Ending Cutscene

Where I would answer:

Elden Ring's Narrative is about the formation and collapse of an age. The concepts of causality, regression, oneness and independence, duality, Nihilism, monotheism vs. atheism vs. polytheism, Racial/Cultural Segregation, Genocide, Voluntary and Forced Assimilation, evolution/devolution, alchemy, what it means to be a "living" being, familial bonds. And all these things tie into one another in more than one way (a major theme of the game).

All because I chose to engage with/put effort into the bits of visual and literary storytelling they spread throughout the game.

 

[Nameless Hero]

Have you never watched a movie or read a book in which something happened that didn't quite make much sense but then you looked up supplementary material to broaden your understanding of what you experienced?

Click to shrink...

There's a difference between "what did this character mean by this" and "who is this, why is he here, what is he talking about, who is this other person he mentioned, what is this event, who am I and what happened to this world"

That's not me being dismissive, I totally believe that this can be rewarding to learn, but it's not a comparable experience

 

[Linus815]

Where I would answer:

Elden Ring's Narrative is about the formation and collapse of an age. The concepts of causality, regression, oneness and independence, duality, Nihilism, monotheism vs. atheism vs. polytheism, Racial/Cultural Segregation, Genocide, Voluntary and Forced Assimilation, evolution/devolution, alchemy, what it means to be a "living" being, familial bonds. And all these things tie into one another in more than one way (a major theme of the game).

All because I chose to engage with/put effort into the bits of visual and literary storytelling they spread throughout the game.

Click to shrink...

this is what people say after watching 50 hours of elden ring video essays, not after playing the game

 

[Rodelero]

I think if people want to see a good example of narrative in a game which doesn't spoon feed the player with information in cutscenes you'd point at Outer Wilds. The FS games bury this stuff so deep that you're unlikely to follow any of it unless you spend hours reading and watching the interpretations of others who have spent even more time reading the endless tiny tidbits buried in item descriptions and the like.

World building in their games is wonderful, everything else leaves much to be desired.

 

[DoubleTake]

There's a difference between "what did this character mean by this" and "who is this, why is he here, what is he talking about, who is this other person he mentioned, what is this event, who am I and what happened to this world"

That's not me being dismissive, I totally believe that this can be rewarding to learn, but it's not a comparable experience

Click to shrink...

Well, I think that both of those series of questions are asked in many movies. Not just Souls games. There are many movies where the main character's origin is not explained, where they speak in riddles, some where they don't speak at all, some set in post apocalyptic worlds and some with all of those combined.

Explanation videos exist for those too, just like they do in Souls. But again, it's a bit more difficult to parse and piece it all together because we're dealing with a 100-hour game where the gameplay also informs the experience. That does not make a worse narrative, IMO, just a...bigger one?

 

[NaikoGames]

I feel like a lot of people sometimes forget that videogames are not movies, are not music, and are not a painting to decode, they are meant to be experienced directly, that means that a videogame narrative doesnt always have to be "then a cutscene happened and this was revealed" like in a...well a movie.

EldenRing is more similar to a painting than a movie in that sense, but still there's more to it.

Considering this is a new medium, at some point games try and have a more "direct" narrative (aka the story itself that is unfolding while you play, is the actual narrative, ala Half-Life 2, BOTW, Elden Ring, HollowKnight).

There's also games that do a mix of both, cutscenes and "direct discovery" like Bethesda RPGs.

If i kill an important NPC in ER and that affects the ending, thats the narrative, if i decide to go to Lyndel directly or just wander around forever while trying to kill a Dragon naked, thats the narrative, if my first character just kills anything without even thinking about it, welp in my Roleplay thats MY story, there's an overall narrative but i think is simple and confusing and indirect...because is half of the coin, the other half is the explorer in question...how good of an explorer you can be affects how good the narrative you found in your actions and situations is.

So...is it good? i mean, the lore could have more interesting stories, if you go deep and you find nothing of value, then yeah is probably still a bad narrative, while i played ER i didnt found anything super insane narratively speaking but im also pretty bad connecting dots so i cant really say, the direct experience tho? 10/10, insane adventure full of moments.

maybe someone that fully explored the lore can tell you if the lore is actually good or a blob of nonsensical concepts

 

[DarkFlame92]

Sometimes! Bloodborne does, Dark Souls 2 does.... Elden Ring not so much, imo

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I agree. The lore in Elden Ring is fantastic,but the actual narrative and ongoing story is very mediocre.

 

[DoubleTake]

this is what people say after watching 50 hours of elden ring video essays, not after playing the game

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How did those 50 hour videos come to be? 1. by people sharing their theories with others. 2 by being somewhat experienced with different aspects presented in the game.

For example: I didn't pick up on any of the alchemy stuff at first. I know jack shit about alchemy. It wasn't until I went on reddit and spoke with other people who were connecting those dots that I saw the connection. Everything else I wrote can very easily be picked up on by playing simply playing the game. None of it is particularly hidden. I mean the spell which reveals the game's biggest mystery is literally called Causality and its counterpart Regression. From there, and quite earlier TBH, it's easy to start looking a bit deeper. Though I understand how that isn't everyone else's cup of tea

 

[BrickArts295]

I like to think Bloodborne and Sekiro had "better" narratives because they were more digestible and clearer on the actual goals without much effort in lore hunting. Elden Ring gets close to them but still feels heavily dependent on its lore like the Souls Trilogy.

 

[jb1234]

I don't pay much attention to the lore or stories in Souls games. I'm okay with their less is more approach if only because I can imagine the games filled with bad anime tropes and the thought makes my teeth hurt.

 

[EarthPainting]

Some people get a lot out of these games' narratives, but to me they might as well not even exist. Feeding me super tiny snippets of facts is the storytelling equivalent of homeopathic dilution to folks like me, who are unwilling to put in additional work outside of the game. There might be stories there, but I am wholly uninterested in the indirect way they are presented. The fact that the direct storytelling often consists of fortune cookie stuff and heehees doesn't really help either. I typically walk away from these games with the impression that they had no story. I know this is wrong, but I also will not be able to tell you anything of substance about any of these plots. I've played all of them with the exception of Elden Ring and Sekiro, and at best I'd be able to give you a tourist account of the locations and bosses.

 

[LilScooby77]

I feel like the existence of "[Movie Title] ENDING EXPLAINED" videos for just about every movie released kind of disagrees with this. Most of those movies don't require these videos either, but those videos still often get millions of views. Souls games also aren't incomprehensible without those videos.

Click to shrink...

Those endings explained are only elaborating on one part of the movie where all of the souls games story needs to be viewed from a lore video. They are not at all the same.

 

[DoubleTake]

I think if people want to see a good example of narrative in a game which doesn't spoon feed the player with information in cutscenes you'd point at Outer Wilds. The FS games bury this stuff so deep that you're unlikely to follow any of it unless you spend hours reading and watching the interpretations of others who have spent even more time reading the endless tiny tidbits buried in item descriptions and the like.

World building in their games is wonderful, everything else leaves much to be desired.

Click to shrink...

I haven't played Outer Wilds yet but hear wonderful things about it. Its on my list. But I don't think it has hundreds of weapons, items, and armor pieces to couple with its narrative, does it?

I don't doubt Outer Wilds does a great job, but I think we have to remember the games' scope when doing comparisons. The fact that From is able to create a compelling (IMO) narrative even while having hundreds of items to fit into the world is amazing.

 

[takriel]

One negative side effect of the Souls genre is the expectation that (insert popular lore "theorist" here) will explain this to us in a easy to digest manner. I have seen many reactions especially to instances in newer FromSoft games where people were like "Wtf just happened, better call Vaati!"

I feel like this has the opposite effect in that people won't even spend a second to think for themselves about the story and lore because they know someone else will have already put up a video "explaining" it.

 

[DoubleTake]

I don't pay much attention to the lore or stories in Souls games. I'm okay with their less is more approach if only because I can imagine the games filled with bad anime tropes and the thought makes my teeth hurt.

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I've watched a lot of anime so I feel you. But, my friend if they were, I would not have made this thread lol.

But I think that's the beauty in it. You can play the games and create your own narrative and ignore the one they've laid out, if you so choose. Just irks me when people who do that then turn around and say that they have no/bad narrative.

 

[Mechaplum]

Not clicking on clickbait thumbnails.

I think so much of the problem with this discussion comes from how people define the word Narrative and how from makes it possible to completely disengage from that aspect of their games.

I could ask one person what Elden Ring's Narrative is and they'd say:


Where I would answer:

Elden Ring's Narrative is about the formation and collapse of an age. The concepts of causality, regression, oneness and independence, duality, Nihilism, monotheism vs. atheism vs. polytheism, Racial/Cultural Segregation, Genocide, Voluntary and Forced Assimilation, evolution/devolution, alchemy, what it means to be a "living" being, familial bonds. And all these things tie into one another in more than one way (a major theme of the game).

All because I chose to engage with/put effort into the bits of visual and literary storytelling they spread throughout the game.

Click to shrink...

I got none of that after 18 hours of playing. Blood borne at least have a narrative structure.

 

[ket]

I think my problem with ER's narrative is that the game doesn't do a good job of signposting when characters have new things to say so you can go dozens of hours without seeing character development for major characters or learning more about them.

This resulted in me not giving a shit when a major character died even though they've been with you since the beginning. Clearly someone at FS saw this as a problem because a post launch update added a UI prompt that tells you when that person has something new to say.

It also doesn't help that there isn't a quest log and, before anyone says anything, the Volcano Manor questline puts waypoints on your map that tell you exactly where your objective is. So, a quest log that saves quest directions wouldn't be unreasonable.

 

[DoubleTake]

One negative side effect of the Souls genre is the expectation that (insert popular lore "theorist" here) will explain this to us in a easy to digest manner. I have seen many reactions especially to instances in newer FromSoft games where people were like "Wtf just happened, better call Vaati!"

I feel like this has the opposite effect in that people won't even spend a second to think for themselves about the story and lore because they know someone else will have already put up a video "explaining" it.

Click to shrink...

I honestly agree and it's sort of killed theory crafting and sharing ideas on bigger places like here and reddit where every other post is just a meme. You need to go to discord channels to actually discuss and share theorie nowadays. I think this was going to be inevitable considering how big Vaati is and how big ER is and just how general media consumption has evolved.

First people read books then that became too much effort, so they started listening to audio books. I'd like to go to that book club and talk about it but why do that when I have sparknotes right here?

But why read the book when you can watch the condensed 2-hour movie? OH? The movie was so condensed that some aspects needed to be cut out or left to interpretation? Screw theory crafting with others, I'll just watch such and such break it down for me like I'm 10.

Not clicking on clickbait thumbnails.

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Thanks for letting us know!

 

[Nameless Hero]

Well, I think that both of those series of questions are asked in many movies. Not just Souls games. There are many movies where the main character's origin is not explained, where they speak in riddles, some where they don't speak at all, some set in post apocalyptic worlds and some with all of those combined.

Explanation videos exist for those too, just like they do in Souls. But again, it's a bit more difficult to parse and piece it all together because we're dealing with a 100-hour game where the gameplay also informs the experience. That does not make a worse narrative, IMO, just a...bigger one?

Click to shrink...

Not nearly on the same level but again, that's because of the medium (like, in movie you can't "miss" a character in the same way for example)

I don't think it makes it a worse (or better) narrative because the actual story/stories that are there might be good but the way to get there is, for many people, just not worth the investment. And while lore videos are super popular, I don't think it's fair to the game to rate the narrative based on those because (and that's not a knock against them) having everything laid out to you in that way does take away from the intended experience and changes it.

 

[LilScooby77]

I haven't played Outer Wilds yet but hear wonderful things about it. Its on my list. But I don't think it has hundreds of weapons, items, and armor pieces to couple with its narrative, does it?

I don't doubt Outer Wilds does a great job, but I think we have to remember the games' scope when doing comparisons. The fact that From is able to create a compelling (IMO) narrative even while having hundreds of items to fit into the world is amazing.

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I dont think people are saying they cant tell a great story as Dark souls 1-3 and BB are amazingly written throughout with its lore in the game. Its just not practical to expect anyone to figure it all out on their own. Just ask yourself how much would you know about the story of one of their souls likes without having looked it up. Obviously impossible to do atm if you've seen those explanation videos but you could test it out by asking people who went in blind and never played a from soft game before.

 

[DoubleTake]

Not nearly on the same level but again, that's because of the medium (like, in movie you can't "miss" a character in the same way for example)

I don't think it makes it a worse (or better) narrative because the actual story/stories that are there might be good but the way to get there is, for many people, just not worth the investment. And while lore videos are super popular, I don't think it's fair to the game to rate the narrative based on those because (and that's not a knock against them) having everything laid out to you in that way does take away from the intended experience and changes it.

Click to shrink...

I do think the idea of needing to keep in mind all these bits and pieces of info is a huge turn off for a lot of people. No knock on them for that. Also, how the nature of the medium makes it possible to miss some things can be frustrating. But I think that using the medium to its fullest, to where it is possible to miss things can also serve the narrative. For example: Finding the caravan deep under Leyendell. It's meant to be a secret not only for the player but also for the people in the world. That in itself is an example of gameplay informing and building the narrative.

Anyway, I'm rambling but yes, I totally agree with you lol.

 

[alexdotgames]

Oh their narrative style is definitely something that works. I mean, a huge appeal of a show like Lost was that the viewer was themselves lost by the infinitesimal amount of information they received. Stuff like that piques our Puzzle-brains and is a fun brain tease because of that.

Do I believe their narrative in and of themselves are good? Hahaha, hell no, lol.

 

[solarhorse]

Good lore, terrible narrative

 

[Sande]

Not for me. I've tried reading item descriptions and such but the vagueness always loses me.

Bloodborne was better due to how some of the twists unfold.

 

[MayorSquirtle]

I would say if I have to go watch a youtube analysis after completing a game from someone who's put many hours into studying every minute detail just to understand the point of anything that happened... No. You may have created a rich and fascinating world, but you haven't succeeded in telling a narrative.

 

[PJTierney]

My university thesis was based on the title of this thread, so I'll give this video a watch later 🙂