Very few games have had a good story. In many cases, games have no story or a story that’s so poor it shouldn’t be considered one. This is fine in many cases. However, incorporating a solid story into a game is something that needs to be explored further.

One of the few games to really pull off a story was Half-Life 2. The true key, I believe, to HL2′s story was the use of character development and exploration and steady, rising beats of conflict. Most games today have some form of character development, or claim they do, but this development is largely attributes/equipment/skills. That’s the case of nearly every RPG. Not once have I truly cared about a character in these games because they were not real to me — they had no depth beyond their numbers. Part of this reason is the way games use stories — they are almost purely conflict. Now, characters can develop in tense situations and often the biggest changes come during them, but this rarely happens in games. Part of what made HL2 work was the beats of conflict — you were not always in the middle of a fight, an overall conflict yes, but there were periods of rest and character exploration. A decade ago I could understand the lack of development, games typically didn’t last that long, but these days you can easily get a couple days worth of play out of a single player game. (check out Fallout 3, that does well with story, character development and immersion) Games have the potential to create deeply compelling characters, stories and worlds. It’s about time we explored that as much as possible.

*Overall not too well thought out yet. I’ll post more on the subject of stories and games in the future. I’m pretty sure I have several times already, though.*