223 - Gaming Narratives: Power and Pitfalls in Interactive Storytelling - Feat. Chris - Part 1

Alex, Jem, and Matt are joined by lifelong writer and gamer Chris for a rich and unfiltered conversation on the craft of video game writing. They get into what sets game writing apart from other media like film, television, and books, exploring the challenges and unique storytelling power.

Chris shares insights from both his hands-on experience of writing and his deep love for gaming.  The episode considers how interactivity and non-linearity shape the narrative experience, as they meander through topics such as relinquishing control, the strengths (and failings) of exposition in games, and the intricacies of crafting stories that players actively shape.

Highlights:

• Game writing is fundamentally different: it must accommodate player choice and non-linear narratives.
• Interactivity changes everything: Writers share control of how a story is experienced and interpreted.
• Good writing supports immersion: Subtext, environmental storytelling, and silence often say more than exposition dumps.
• Bad writing breaks immersion: Clunky story telling or dialogue can pull players out of the experience.

Featured games - Elden Ring, The Witcher 3 , World of Warcraft, Split Fiction and Space Marine 2 to name a few. 

Whether you're a player, a writer, or just curious about the storytelling potential of games, this episode pulls back the curtain on how narratives are built in the world of interactive entertainment.

🎧 Stay tuned for Part 2, where we’ll dive deeper into writing choices, player agency, and what makes a truly great narrative in gaming.

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Transcript

Alex: 0:15

Hello everyone. Welcome back to another episode of Gaming the System, the podcast where three intersectional feminists examine gaming and games through a feminist lens. Today, I'm your host, Alex, and I'm joined by my friends, gem and Matt, before we get started, if you want to support us, you can subscribe to our Patreon at patreon.com/gaming the system for some exclusive content. Or you can send us a one-off donation via PayPal to our email address. We are gaming the system@gmail.com. So in a previous episode, we explored writing women in gaming and in games, and today I'd like to explore the art of video game writing in a bit more depth. And we have a guest joining us on the pod. Hello, Chris.

Chris: 1:04

oh, God, I absolutely can do. I'm really, really excited to do three of you today. I come at this from two angles, really. The first one is that I'm a giant nerd. Have been for the longest time. I've played video games for as long as I can remember. And the other thing is that I have always written, and I've been a writer for the longest time. I studied writing at University Northampton an embarrassingly long time ago now. And it's something that I've always kept up. So I've written plays, poetry, novellas, and so I'm super interested in writing and video games. And so this is basically the perfect episode for me.

Alex: 1:42

Awesome. We are very delighted to have you on the pod as well, which brings me very nicely into our first question, which I'm sure you'll be an authority on. Chris. I want to know about writing for games and how different is that to other media, for example, a television, film plays, et cetera. So how does writing kind of shape up in comparison? Do you have any thoughts on that to kick off

Chris: 2:07

so the super interesting thing for me, there's two things really, that I would say is that it's non-linear. So when you're writing for video games in particular, there's a certain kind of non-inferiority, if that's even a word, that comes across, which is super interesting. And the other thing is the interactive nature of it, right? So I don't think there's another medium that can do it as well as video games can, which is you are literally there doing the thing, interacting with the story, and oftentimes you are given decisions. You can change it, you can do whatever you like, so those are my two things that I think are different about video and game writing in general, to say writing for other medias that they're by their nature video games and non-linear, and also there, there's that kind of interactive nature of it.

Alex: 2:57

Definitely, yeah. We've talked a lot on the pod about the differences between film and TV and gaming in that when you've got a film, obviously you are a passive observer of what's happening. Whereas in a game you are controlling the narrative in a lot of ways. And that I think, comes through really clearly in the writing. Definitely. Did you have any other thoughts, Matt and Gem?

Matt: 3:21

I want to preface the, the, the tone that I'm coming from in this, uh,'cause I've had a bit of a stressful, irritating day, I've got a lot of critical thoughts that I have about writing in games, but I also wanna say that I am similar in that I have been writing creatively for my entire life as well. So when I'm being critical, it's pointing at me as well. I'm not going, I'm the best writer to ever existed. Everyone else is stupid and useless. it's one of those things where something that makes you angry is very often a vision that you hold on yourself as well. gaming writing for games is both easier and harder than normal because in every other form of media, the writing is the foundation of it. You can't have a good book without good writing, but with games you can have. A terribly awfully appallingly written game story from the writers. But if the gameplay is good enough, then people will ignore the writing and just enjoy playing the game. A good example of this is the Doom reboot. The gameplay is so awesome that the story doesn't matter. The writing doesn't matter, and so there's less pressure on game writers in that way. It's also got the positive and the negative thing, which not enough writers utilize in that, in gaming game design, literally anything you can imagine is possible. It's not like with a film set or a TV show, and even with a book, you can write whatever you want, but the readers still gonna have to imagine it in their heads, where literally you can. You have a blank creative check when it comes to game design writing. So they haven't, they have no excuse for, for lackluster storytelling. Mm-hmm. and I'm just, I I, it also comes to a place of deep jealousy where I wish that I was a GI video game writer, and so I'm annoyed that everyone else that is already in the industry,

Alex: 5:38

indeed, it is a very, enviable job. What about you, Jim? What do you think?

Jem: 5:43

So, I was sort of thinking about the emotional element of, writing because I remember hearing somebody talking about writing a book, and they said that, you are with this. Baby for a long time. You're working on it, you're pouring your heart and soul into it, and then you let it out into the world and people read it and they take away their own interpretations, and they might not read it the same way that you had intended. So they might go away and say, oh, this character was doing this for these reasons, or, I understood that symbolism, to mean that. and that's obviously something that all artists have to accept with their art that they put out into the world. And I'm thinking that with games there's an added layer because it is interactive and because the player is in some ways responsible for the direction of the story. How does a writer, make sure that the. Beats hit in the right place that the emotional response that you are going for, and I'm just intrigued as to what your thoughts might be on that, Chris.

Chris: 6:49

it is kind of interesting for me because you've hit the nail on the head if anything else, like you say it's your baby, and when you're writing fa video games, I think there is almost entirely a relinquishing of power you have to do in the sense that you are giving that away and it becomes the gamers in a way, that they craft their own experiences with it, a terrifying thing to do. If you, if you are a writer and you're, you're kind of working on, on this project for such a long time, and then you, you kind of say, and now I have to give it away. And they, they, they can almost do, do whatever they want, have whatever experiences they want with it. in, in an interactive way you're talking about.'cause I know that everyone can kind of sit and watch a film and be absorbed by it and take away their own, message or meaning. but I think it's, there's a much greater level of control. You, you know, give someone a book you wrote and say, here you are because you've controlled almost every single of that. so yeah, it's, it's a kind of sting way.

Alex: 7:54

I was thinking about, How sometimes when you're playing a game, the game has to explain certain things to the player, for the player to be able to progress. And it can do this in lots of different ways. Sometimes it does it through environment. So you've got your classic, like this lighter area must be where I need to be going next. That's what we could call the language of gaming. that kind of gets embedded into a gamer's brain and they automatically know that if something's got yellow paint on it, they can climb it. if there's a red barrel, it's probably gonna explode, that kind of thing. so when it comes to writing those sorts of. expedition type things where the characters might have to break the four fall with expedition, sometimes it can be really clunky and obvious. how does that work within gaming? Because, we've all seen terrible expedition in film and tv, how is that avoided in gaming and do you think it's more common in gaming as well?

Matt: 8:55

Subtext, subtext and silence and action. Those are the, those are the weapons that writers need to be using, whereas they just go, this is where we are at the moment. This is where we've got to go next. And information dumps of where you meet a character the first time and they tell you their entire life story and there's no subtext, there's just text. And you just find the way to communicate your thing without saying it. That's, that's the gold standard because what the goal of writing is in gaming is to make you forget that everything is basically the same that you're doing, that every single game is broken down into. You've got the main quest, you've got the side quest, and you've got law items, and you've got the functional things which are like, puzzle helper things. A particularly useful thing of recent years is when, say like in the last of us or in God of war, you're fighting and then once you've killed the last enemy, rather than you just looking around and seeing if you can find, is there, anyone's left? Your companion goes, oh, thank goodness that's over. So that's a useful thing. when the writing is done well enough, you forget that nothing's real and it's all, everything's different. that's where the immersion comes in. That's what writing can either make or break a game's immersion

Chris: 10:26

Yeah. And it's, it's kind of good writing in this, when you say go, don't tell.

Speaker 10: 10:32

Mm.

Chris: 10:32

you know, your emotion will equally be broken. If you are in a book and you kind of reach a bit that's kind of a bit expedition heavy and a bit boring, and you're like, God, I'm bored. or you're watching a film and you say the same sort of thing. if I'm playing a game and I have one of those bits where it feels a little bit too clunky. It does tick me out of it and I'm like, nah, I feel it feels very obvious I'm playing a game now, you know? And I mm-hmm. it kind of takes me off. It's the

Alex: 10:57

good thing though sometimes about gaming is you can also skip dialogue so I guess that's one thing that can happen in games that doesn't happen anywhere else. But then that would be a sign of bad writing if a player is constantly accusing to skip through all the dialogue.

Chris: 11:12

Well, it depends on your reason for playing a game in the first place.

Speaker 10: 11:15

Yeah.

Chris: 11:16

Because I was taking some notes from this, beforehand and, it turns out that I really don't like MMO writing very much. but then I kind of think, well, the reason people play MMOs isn't, The writing is probably, I don't know this for a fact. I'm guessing the writing might be lower down on the list of reasons to be playing. Right. and maybe why the focus on the writing and MMOs tends to be lazier. I'm interested in your opinion. I'm just sort of, thinking out loud really on that one.

Jem: 11:45

I think I'm the one that's played the most I, our verse, considerable time in World Warcraft, and many others, since, but, yeah, I agree because I think people play these games for the social aspect of them and the combat actually and the grind and the, gearing up. I know certainly from my perspective, I used to often skip through the conversations in World of All Craft or other games because they're just, it is just all this background that you don't need to care about.'cause you've got a little arrow that's gonna tell you where to go and a flashy thing on the map. I think, that perhaps that is a failing of faith in the gamers, because there's an assumption that they're not gonna be interested in that. So it isn't written for that. some of the stories in World of Warcraft back in, The early two thousands were amazing because they had this big epic storyline and you were there as a part of that, and that really mattered. That was really fun to play. And so you got engaged in the characters and what was going on. And, in the end that was a reason to come back and to, have that immersive experience. and so I think it's a shame that these days, it seems so second thought, really.

Alex: 13:10

I was thinking of examples of where the exposition has been especially clunky in games I've played lately. And actually, I was playing a split fiction or starting to play it and not got anywhere near finishing yet really enjoying it, but some of the dialogue I felt was like really clumsy, in the way that the characters were really obviously spelling out maybe it's just me like reading too much into it. It's gonna have a, maybe a broader player base, those types of games because it's couch co-op It's kind of marketed to be a bit more of a, wide ranging sort of game. But one of the characters was talking about, how they were gonna get out of, of being stuck in this simulation and that they had to find the glitches. And I think she said, I believe that if we destroy these glitches, we'll be able to get out. But it's the way that she said it as if she knew that that was what they had to do with no prior idea of the, the thing that they were stuck in. But that was a universal truth that she just immediately knew from being stuck in there for two minutes. And it's like, well, yes, obviously that's what we need to do to escape in the game, but how would the character know that? And it just felt like a really clumsy handling of that particular plot point. And it took me off it for a moment there, but do you have any other examples you can think of. Of games where that's happened and you're like, oh, that's a bit, that's a bit heavy handed.

Matt: 14:37

Yeah. For fucking the biggest squad recently that I actually played and that actually broke the game for me was Space Marine two. But that was just a case of there wasn't much being said, but what everything that was being said was just where we are, where we're going, what we need to do next, and you just get sick of it. You just get sick of bullshit where it's better off to just not speak. If they removed all of the di, there are so many games where if you, if you cut 90% of the dialogue, their game would be a hundred percent better.'cause sometimes less is more is the the most impactful way to do things. But when you try and do less is more the wrong way, then you just end up with there not being very much.

Speaker 10: 15:32

Yeah.

Matt: 15:33

The perfect example of less is more is Eldon ring because I played it years ago when it first came out on PS five for about a hundred hours and understood nothing about the world. Literally zero understanding of anything. But the game was beautiful and it was exciting. I loved playing it. There's practically no dialogue in the, from software games All the writing that there is, there aren't any long pages of things. Literally, the story is told through the environment and items, and these items have one or two sentence descriptions when I came back to play it last year, entire YouTube channels have been set up to go through the law of Eldon ring. Hundreds of hours of, of analysis that you go, holy shit, this was all there this entire time. And it's an infinite source of fascinating stuff. If you want to look for it. If they'd been every five minutes, you're going, oh yes, this is the place where this happened, and then that happened, and then this happened, and just stop talking. I find that so much just they can just shut up. Things would be better.

Chris: 17:00

I think Elton Ring is the perfect example of storytelling in video games. I don't think it gets much better than that.

Alex: 17:06

Have you finished it, Chris?

Chris: 17:08

I have for my sins.

Alex: 17:11

Well done. I got partway through. I really enjoyed it. The part that I did play but barely touched, barely touched it. I mean, like, I think we barely scratched the surface. We didn't make out of the, I beat, what's his name? Not Margaret? Margaret. Yeah, Margaret the film. Yeah. Beat Margaret with lots of help and was really proud of that. And then I was like, well, I've done it now. That's enough for me. You know?

Chris: 17:37

haven't played, I haven't played Shadow Theary that's on my list to get and to play. And, have you played that Matt?

Matt: 17:44

Yes, I have. for my sins, I've used, basically an invincibility mod. I couldn't do it. I couldn't be there. there are some bits in it where in a normal game, even with a, from software game, the difficulty level as you go through. will ratchet up by about maybe five, 10% more with from software games. each step is attainable when you first arrived to it. But with shadow of the ry, it really felt like they just went, ah, we'll go up 300% for this boss and we'll design it. So even if it was 5% harder, it would still be impossible. I just wanted to go through this world that I suddenly, I actually understood what the fact was going on. so yeah, that's my confession.

Speaker 10: 18:31

Mm-hmm.

Chris: 18:32

another example of this, it's not quite as elegant as, as Elden ring, but is the witch of three

Speaker 10: 18:38

mm.

Chris: 18:38

because from the second that you start playing that game, you are immersed in the time, the place in what is happening in the people. And it doesn't tell you anything. I think that from memory, I think there is a little bit of narration at the beginning where it kind of does a kind of an overture.

Speaker 10: 18:56

Yeah.

Chris: 18:57

Yeah. after that you are the world that you're taking into, you learn everything about the kind of political situation, about the war that's happening, about the various, bits and pieces through everyone else's eyes and their reactions to the witches around them. That, that's a good example of something that you can find things on the ground and pick them up and read them and they will add flavor to your world and flesh it out. But the main things you need to know are very skillfully told to you through conversation and dialogue and showing you the things.

Matt: 19:31

There definitely has to be a far greater, removing of a writer's ego from the work that they're doing. Because like with skipping dialogue And choosing not to read law items, most writers will have to know that most of their stuff isn't gonna be read. And that is a, heartbreakingly core thing to accept about writing is that for 99% of people, hardly anyone's ever gonna read any of their work. but with gaming, their, writer is successful in that they have a salaried position to write, to create things, but you have to know that, like with the witcher, they could go, I don't care about any of the writing, I just wanna go and kill monsters. They go, oh yeah, that's fine. No one's gonna read any of my writing. But then when you're actually engaged, you go, oh, I actually want to go and I've had my bath. And before I go to meet the emperor, I want to chat for half an hour with this random guy by a map table who'll explain literally everything that's ever happened on the continent. And that, that's probably a hard thing for writers to accept and go, I'm still gonna pour my heart and soul into these things that are probably never gonna be read. And I think most writers unfortunately go, oh, I'm secondary to the gameplay, so I'll just tick the boxes of, tick the boxes of going. Right. Quest Dialogue side. Quest Exposition.

Jem: 21:19

Do you think that's the writers, or do you think that's the game designers and the producers, though? I mean, who, who's making those choices? About how the value of the writing.

Speaker 10: 21:30

Mm-hmm.

Matt: 21:32

I think the. And I place all of the, the blame at the foot of the writers because, the executives don't care about writing. they're looking past the game to the money. And the worst thing that, an executive might force down on people is neutral voice when you go right. Don't take any positions on anything, just make it neutral and just words. They just want words so that they can put those into the word count and then have it be like that. But even if you get told like that, don't write about anything in a particular way that's very, very hard to enforce on people. You have to, they have to set their own personal standards of there's good ways to write about boring stuff. So it's the writer's

Chris: 22:31

fault in my union in short. and a good example of this is metal gear solid.

Speaker 10: 22:36

Mm-hmm.

Chris: 22:38

Because in my opinion, which I don't think is a rare opinion to have, the kind of overly verbose, slightly egocentric, writing behind it is, because the writers have too much power in producing the thing. Right. Which I think is what Matt is getting at a little bit, is that it's kind of one person's vision. They have written this, they've almost ought heard this. and the game is almost secondary to what you are being kind of experienced to.

Matt: 23:11

Have

Chris: 23:11

you played Death Stranding? I haven't played it, but I kind of know and know of it enough to, understand probably what you're about to

Matt: 23:17

Yeah. So that's the Made by Hi Jima, the guy who's responsible for the Mel Gift solid franchise, and he is an altar. He, him and Hi Miyazaki, the guy behind the, from software games, I think of them as two sides of the same coin.'cause they're both single handedly create these universes apart from hi Miyazaki getting George RRA Martin involved, which I, that's. The most visionary thing I could, I could imagine. And then have this universe just sat there going, oh, you could just ride past it if you, if you, if you're not interested. the example of hi Jimma doing all the writing. When a writer's in charge, then it's very easy for it to get all wanky and egotistical and people not being able to look at their own work with the seriously ruthless critical eye that is needed, with artists. And, then there's also the thing that I think he's, he's Idoc Jima has. That lent into, with particularly death, stranding and Begus on five, is having, the way the character looks and the way the character moves, be so charismatic and entertaining that they don't need to be speaking all the time. Because you've got Keith Sutherland playing Solid Snake and you've got Norman Reiss playing Sam in Death Stranding, and for 99% of the time they're not speaking. they're just being really stoic and laconic, but it just means that they don't need to be speaking So those are the extreme thing. But then my gripe is with the writers that aren't in charge of the project, they're in sort of the middle level of it, and they don't have the pressure on them that writers who are in charge have, and I think too many of them sit back on their laurels and don't put the work in. That's my reflecting on it.