The Impossible Problem

There's been a lot of talk in the industry lately about video games as a medium for storytelling, some even questioning the validity of such a task. I've shipped two games now in the Brothers in Arms series, and we're now in the completion stages of the script for the third game, Hell's Highway. I thought now would be a good time to share some of my thoughts with the industry at large, as well as our devoted fan base. I would like to share what we've started to call "the impossible problem".

Mike N. at E3 with Stella

Now, with any uncharted territory (and I greatly consider storytelling in games still largely unexplored, especially in contrast to how far we've come in technology) there are always massive, seemingly unsolvable problems that arise. I find we've come to some kind of impasse as developers are starting to surround their main character with other NPCs that are interacting with the combat. In essence, these NPCs are in danger and could be killed at any moment. This actually isn't the problem, or even the debate I'm getting to- that's just a brief synopsis of where games are headed at the moment.

Here's the rub (and a description of what any number of people have told me is a solution, which is not): More often than not, the "solution" is defined as allowing the player control over who lives and who dies and simply replacing the men that perished for gameplay purposes. Hypothetically, in a perfect world, where technology isn't an issue, a game could be inhabited by hundreds of characters that all have distinct personalities and animation sets that create the sense of a living, breathing human. The player fights alongside many of these well drawn out characters and a few are killed in combat, but that's okay because they are replaced by someone equally neat and groovy to hang out with. Technology and content limitations aside (which are astronomical,) this is far from a be-all story telling solution and in quite a few ways is actually detrimental to the story as a whole.

This brings us to the crux of the problem, the shared experience. Pick a story telling medium, be it books, television, movies, or what have you. The stories people hold close to their hearts and remember for years are because of a shared experience. Darth Vader revealing himself to be Luke's father happened to everyone. The existence of a single thread across all languages and countries allows this fictional occurrence to ring with one hundred percent authenticity. It is, for all intents and purposes, true to the audience. Conversely, in a lot of interactive mediums the story telling is much less effective when left up to the player. No one is ever truly in love, married, wounded, dead, blind, etc because the experience could vary so greatly from one game to the next. This is compounded by the fact that the player could choose to play through a second a time and have a completely different experience all together where different people are married, dead, or turned into fish.

I would equate it to when you read those Choose Your Own Adventure books as a kid. They were fun as a gimmick but carried almost no storytelling weight, as no matter what path you chose, it created an untrue story. The answer to truly effecting people has always been in the shared experience. We author stories, and the audience consumes them. They then, in turn, share what they have consumed with each other. Without this shared consumption, it can never truly mean enough to emotionally affect the player in the same way that sharing it can. It's truth versus fiction, in a fictional world (I apologize for the head spinning that statement probably caused.)

Relating this all to Brothers in Arms, it is proven, not by what we have given the player as a story, but by what we have taken away. In every language, and every country, no one will ever see Allen, Garnett, Leggett, Desola, Obrieski, Paige, Risner, or Doyle alive again. The audience has shared this experience, and that is what makes it true.