There are many different ways to tell a story. Books, movies, comics, song, theatre and even paintings -- I've enjoyed them all.
Yet, when it comes to video games, even where there is a complex plot and set of characters involved (as opposed to matching three pieces of similar-looking candy in a row) I think there's a lingering feeling that it isn't quite on the same level.
In theory, video games should be a brilliant medium. A story where you control the protagonist and decide the direction the plot takes? Why not? But even though I myself am an avid gamer, I used to be quite clear in my head that I was playing games for a sort of mindless escapism without any of the challenging or thought-provoking aspects of reading a book.
And for many years, video games didn't help themselves by pandering to some rather boring stereotypes. The Super Mario games, for example, while unique and incredibly well thought out in terms of gameplay, were at the end of the day about a man rescuing a series of helpless princesses (there are dozens of variations of this in the gaming world).
The early Tomb Raider games, in which a British aristocrat called Lara Croft goes around the world in search of treasures from the ancient world, was one of the first high-profile instances of a female protagonist. But the fact that Lara was an absurdly-proportioned woman pulling all sorts of impossible stunts, occasionally while wearing revealing cocktail dresses, meant this wasn't quite the boost for feminism that some might have hoped.
But into the noughties and the 2010s, games started taking on some additional textures to keep the first generation of serious gamers interested as they grew older and more demanding.
The Uncharted series, for example, where you play Nathan Drake, a sort of male version of Lara Croft, was far better at providing a nuanced Indiana Jones-style backstory. But it was still a bit weird to have a protagonist whom you empathised with also being a homicidal maniac who shot down hundreds of people in the course of his adventures. There was a massive cognitive dissonance between the character you played and the violent demands of engaging gameplay.
This feeling that games weren't quite a form of storytelling on par with other media changed for me over the course of three games Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
Skyrim was the first game that made me realise how far the video game industry had come. It is a game set in the fantasy world of Tamriel, where your character has the ability to absorb dragon souls, a neat little trick that you will use to save the world from an invasion of dragons. But what is genuinely remarkable about the game is the way in which you find out about the world around you.
You do so by talking to people, exploring catacombs and by buying books from merchants throughout the world. These books (they are usually only a few pages long rather than full length novels) tell you the story of the region, its history, politics and religious beliefs, and you discover it through finding more of these. I've honestly spent ages looking for the right merchant in Skyrim to complete a particular boxset to tell me a particular story. And the rest of the game is pretty great as well, but it's the rich world, and they way you discover it, that made this a very special experience for me.
Witcher 3 The Wild Hunt
Skyrim was my favourite game of all time -- until I played the Witcher. The game is based on the Witcher novels by Polish fantasy writer Andrzej Sapkowski and it is probably the most incredible, detailed adaptation of a book ever made. I've read all of the books in the series and I can honestly say that in some ways the game actually outdid the book from a storytelling perspective.
I was about two-thirds of my way through the game when I read somewhere that the main character, Geralt of Rivia, dies at the end of the game (this turned out to be wrong -- in reality, the ending depends on the choices you make in the game). I believed it. For the next few weeks that it took me to finish the game, I genuinely walked around with a catch in my throat, a deep sadness that my character, whom I had grown to know and admire, was about to die. While I have since played better games, I don't think any one game had me as emotionally involved as The Witcher.
Elden Ring
Game-designer supremo Hidetaka Miyazaki's magnum opus, Elden Ring, is not just arguably the greatest video game ever made. It is also the most intriguing way in which to tell a story. Elden Ring has no obvious plot. Half the time you have no idea what everyone is going on about. You have to piece together the story behind the game by talking to side characters, reading the descriptions of weapons and spells and often by stumbling upon random areas of the map, both above ground and under it. Essentially, you have to be an amateur sleuth to follow the story.
As a result, an entire subculture of Elden Ring lore hunters has sprouted all over the internet. Some authorities on the game's lore seem to do nothing except piece together the backstory to this sprawling game. And boy do I love it. I spend hours not only playing Elden Ring (much to my wife's delight) but also several more hours consuming the content around this incredible work of art.
For me, Elden Ring doesn't have the emotional pull of The Witcher. And it doesn't have the empathy and high romance of Skyrim. But it is incredibly rich, textured and is quite unlike any traditional narrative. And herein lies its appeal.
It is also the game that is fast bringing me to the conclusion that video games are not just coming up to speed as a form of storytelling. They are now starting to define how it's done.
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