Truths about video game stories
Many video games have very poor or bare plots, but amazing settings. In fact, I&#x27;m not sure that video games are actually good vehicles for plots. Video games are interactive, but all good plots require careful pacing and timing in order to be successful. It&#x27;s possible to force this in a game, but the more you do, the more the game becomes an interactive movie.<p>A great example would be Dark Souls: incredible setting, but really bare-bones plot. The plot is effectively: &quot;You&#x27;re the chosen undead, and you must quest for some items.&quot; The setting, on the other hand, could fill books.<p>In some sense, it&#x27;s similar to comparing a good news article to a good story. A good story. Good story generally can&#x27;t be purely fact-based, since this interrupts the needs of narrative: pacing, good vs. evil, moral decisions, defeats, and victories, etc. A good news story may have something like a narrative, but it&#x27;s more of a collection of facts. If there&#x27;s an narrative at all, it exists simply to help explain the relevance of the facts presented.<p>Video games are metaphorically similar: You may have an interesting plot in the game, but it is punctuated by the actions you get to take as a player. For example, in Wind Waker you must rescue your sister, but in practice the player is running around an island, breaking pots, and doing sidequests. The narrative plot and the play actions are almost totally disparate. The plot is nearly a side story, which helps add context to the player actions.