This month’s Blogs of the Round Table posed a bit of a problem for me. You see, I’ve already written a treatise about stories in games for the munificent Troy Goodfellow, and this particular Round Table discussion is on that exact subject. Considering it’s a subject I love to expound upon, I wondered if I could find something new to write about. So, can I? Let’s see.

There’s one thing about stories in games which has particularly irked me for some time, and that’s the prevalence of world-ending scenarios. In most games out there that feature either a plot or a setting, be they Serious Sam or Final Fantasy, you’re usually pitted against a foe with limitless resources and a desire to either destroy or take over the world (or, occasionally, both.) It’s easy to see why, though. I mean, instant dramatics! You can’t get more dramatic than saving the world, can you? No need to have anything else! Right?

Wrong.

The problem with that sort of thing is that, for most of us, it’s extremely hard to relate to impending apocalypse, and the sheer amount of these “plotlines” – and I use that word loosely – have dulled us to them even further. We expect them and, as such, the presumed impact of the plotline is drastically above what we usually feel. I can’t deny that these games feature some fantastic moments (often “really cool” moments that you just have to show to everyone you know) but in terms of being decent stories? No, no, no.

It’s the personal parts that make us connect with the stories. Dreamfall is a game with a world-altering threat, certainly, but at the heart of that it’s about an aimless 20-something girl with personal problems of her own, and how everything going on not only affects her relationships, but how it affects and changes her, and gives her the drive she so desperately lacks at the beginning. Planescape: Torment (oddly, another of the games brought up in the aforementioned article) is a deeply personal story about redemption, which has serious consequences on the player character, but not so much for the rest of the world. The skilful writing and masterful formation of the plot definitely has an effect on the tangibility of the story, but the personal nature of the story makes it.

For a long time, games have tried linking the two together. It’s an oft-mentioned cliche of the Japanese RPG genre that the end of the world is inextricably tied to the main character in some way, and he’s personally drawn into the conflict, usually because, at the start of the game his parents are murdered, or his village is burned down, or someone kicks his dog. To be fair, it’s not solely restricted to Japanese RPGs as Baldur’s Gate opened in almost the exact same way, but it is a frequent occurance and this has again dulled us to it. Then again, some of this may also be related to badly thought-out plotting – why should we care if the main character’s parents are killed? We’ve known them for half an hour, at best. Unless we’ve spent a good amount of time with them and grown to like them, or unless we really like or identify with the main character, we simply won’t give a damn. In part, this is why Aeris’s death in Final Fantasy 7 hit so many players so hard. The series has a history of killing off characters (and it hinted at this development fairly often), so it didn’t surprise me all that much, but for those new to it, it was a shocking twist that added a lot of very personal drive to go after the culprit responsibile.

It’s perhaps ironic that the next game I mention actually opens with the exact sequence of events I sneered at last paragraph, and includes so many cliches that it frankly deserves an article to itself. Xenogears ties together the personal aspects of the story with a general impending doom in one of the most perfect ways I’ve yet seen. Yes, it opens up with the destruction of a village. Yes, the main character has amnesia. Yes, there’s an evil church. Most importantly, though: yes, it ties together some remarkably mature issues about religion, fanaticism, manipulation, some unexpectedly heavy philosophy, and yet somehow constructs a coherent – and, on occasion, deeply personal – plot with all of them. This is how it’s done, folks. The game’s certainly not without flaws, especially in the pacing department, but if you want to see what a well-crafted plot in a game that is still, almost defiantly, a paragon of its genre, then this is the one to look for.

There’s one more game that deserves a mention: Final Fantasy XII. Regular readers will know I liked this game a lot more than it probably deserved. In context of this article, though, it had some interesting takes on plot… at least, for a Final Fantasy title. For one, there was no overabundance of cutscenes – in fact, the plot was a little underutilised, and much of it was instead just a setting for the gameplay. Another surprise is that, by and large, the game doesn’t involve evil gods or world-threatening calamities, instead focusing on a small group of people in a war-torn country, and their desire to restore said country to its former power. This focus is particularly apparent when you realise that, of all the countries in the world that’re mentioned, you only ever visit three or four.

And then, after all of this, the game completely fucks it up by introducing elements of gods and fate in the last few hours. It still works surprisingly well, but quite frankly, it would’ve worked without them, and it would’ve felt a lot braver. It’s definitely a gripe that’s particular to me, but I can’t help but feel that this would’ve been a perfect example of how a smaller plot can work brilliantly, especially in a genre not known for it, if only they hadn’t shoehorned these bits into the closing chapters.

I’ve used the word “personal” a lot in this article, and that’s because I think it’s one of the keys to telling a great story with a great impact. The player has to be able to relate. If you want to make a good story, then the player has to connect to it, and has to personally feel the events. Many games do this to different extents – Baldur’s Gate, while not exactly possessing the greatest narrative ever seen in a game, did create some connection solely through being so gigantic and giving the player almost complete control over the main character’s destiny. Dreamfall, on the other hand, used deep and well-written characters to make us feel as though we’d accompanied Zoe on a genuine journey, and crafted a very personal bond between us and her.

My point, all in all, is that the apocalypse isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. As a setting, it’s fine: the impending destruction of the entire human race is a brilliant excuse to shoot hordes of aliens/terrorists/alien terrorists. As a plot, however, it simply cannot stand on its own. Using it won’t automatically make a game’s plot terrible, just as leaving it out won’t suddenly make a game’s plot good, but it’s an overused cliche which loses almost all impact when it’s without the context provided by other – more important – elements, which so many games seem to forget. If you want to claim that your game has a “nail-biting story”, then for crying out loud, don’t forget the essentials.

Tim McDonald