It’s said video games have low standards for writing. On average, this is
true. What most neglect is why this
is the case. The obvious answer is “bad writers”, but there’s more to it than
that. Video games are a different medium than books or movies, and writing them
requires a new approach we haven’t collectively figured out yet. I’m not just
talking about interactive narratives or branching paths, but how the
introduction of gameplay completely changes the pacing and tone of plain ol’
linear stories.
This video outlines
some of the problems with writing game dialogue. Not only do games have far
less words per minute due to all that pesky gameplay, many of those words are
spent on where to go, what to do, and reminding you of current events. It
might’ve been an hour since the last conversation, let alone major plot point.
Game writers, on top of sharing their story with a team of dozens of people with
changing agendas and budgets, have to be economical with dialogue to keep
pacing tight and stories interesting in between your lazy afternoons killing a
thousand rats.
RPGs are often heralded for their stories, but in truth, they’re not
much better. A lot of what makes RPG stories enjoyable isn’t their quality, but
their quantity. They’re just as wasteful with their words, but bring enough
along to make up the difference. 40+ hours is a long time to properly explain
yourself. Dragon Quest 7 has 100, and it’s not shy about packing them with
words. The key question is does it use those words well?
Weeeeeeell…there are some
parts of the writing I like! And we’ll get to those. Eventually. But first,
let’s talk about characters.
