We all want something slightly different from a story; some of us want a quick pace, some want emotionally resonating content, some like a story with well rounded characters. Whatever our personal likes and dislikes there have always been certain storytelling constants that we can expect; there's a protagonist, a villain, obstacles to be overcome and turning points to navigate. The most defining characteristic of a story is the simple relationship between the person telling the story and the person receiving it- that is until recently.
The development of digital forms of storytelling, particularly video games, has begun to blur the lines between the people behind the story and the audience. Moreover, it's changing the way we experience, interact with and enjoy narratives. Historically we like to absorb a narrative, have events told to us in a (usually) chronological order with a good plot, a build up, climax and resolution. The big difference in modern digital storytelling is that we, the audience, want to have a hand in how these narrative elements play out. Video games offer us the chance to become, to a variable extent, the writer. So what is it that video games are doing to make this happen and what does this say about the modern audience? More importantly, where is it leading us?
The centre of this change in storytelling is interactivity; a word that has become very familiar over the last few years. The modern story is an interactive one; a story that the audience, the player, can touch and change thanks to that crucial question "what would you do?" Digital technology has enabled the creation of stories which, rather than following one path, can splinter off when we make a choice. The power is disseminated from the creators of the game through to the people who play it, even if only by a small degree.
We've seen games that sit at varying points on the spectrum between conventional stories that don't seem all that different from a film, to narratives that can be entirely different both in plot and outcome depending on the choices gamers make. For those of us who played Halo 3, for example, it'd be difficult to claim that we had any real influence on the direction of the story. But those who walked the winding paths of Heavy Rain could certainly lay claim to a particular set of events that they instigated in the story.
To say this evolution was entirely planned would be wrong. The fact is the combination of a game and a story inherently opens up player influenced options in the narrative- even if this is only the choice between success and the game over screen. However, over the last decade games developers have been refining this process into something the medium can truly call its own.
Back in 2000, for example, we were given Deus Ex; a game that broke new ground and offered some great choices for gamers, both throughout the game and in the three possible endings. Since then the industry has pushed forward and new breakthroughs have been made.
The Mass Effect series has innovated and built upon the multiple choice narratives offered by many RPG games to offer a branching, player manipulated narrative that persists from one game to another. As those who have played the first two games will know, the choices made throughout the first game carry over into the second, sculpting the continuing story in sometimes drastic ways.
Taking the idea of branching narrative to the extreme is the PS3 exclusive Heavy Rain. A dark thriller that is often labelled an interactive drama, Heavy Rain has received a lot of attention for the huge scale of variation possible within the plot and the number of changes the player can make with their choices. Key, even playable, characters can die depending on player decisions and many different endings are possible.
Some modern games have taken a more insidious path with the use of branching narratives and player choices. The game Silent Hill: Shattered Memories, for example, uses a series of personality tests planted throughout the game to determine certain facets of a player's character. Using this information the game reshapes some plot elements including the ending. How effective this is can be debated but the goal is to make the narrative more emotionally engaging, or even disturbing, for the player. The key difference between this game and other modern examples is that it is harder for the player to predict the outcome of their choices. If you choose to side with a faction in a story you can be certain you'll find yourself facing the opposing force, but its much more difficult to see the outcome of a choice on a personality test.
So here we have stories that shape-shift, morph and adapt sometimes with and sometimes without the audience having foreknowledge of these consequences. This interactivity and non-linearity in storytelling is something that video games have an almost exclusive hold on. TV, film, books (most of them anyway)- all of these are bound to the straight line of a classic story, something that games have escaped.
These qualities are such dominant attributes of gaming that it's often easy to overlook some of the other tricks being put into use in the industry. Games have plenty of ways to tell a good story. A method of narrative delivery that has fallen into common use is the episodic system. Famous examples include the Half Life 2 and Tales of Monkey Island series. These methods allow for small segments of a story to be delivered in a manner not dissimilar from a television series, the drawback being that the story is fractured into pieces and lacks the cohesion of a single product. Alan Wake took a step further by providing an entire season of episodes on one purchasable product, emulating the feel of a series of episodes while keeping the experiences linked together.
Beyond how games are being delivered, there is another way of experiencing game narratives that started in the home. With the evolution of game graphics and the growth of cinematic styles in game visuals it has become possible to view game stories as a spectator and enjoy them as if they were classic narratives. The result of this is that the player can take an active part in making the game more entertaining, forming a middle party between the creators and a secondary audience.
Chances are most of us have, at some point, played through a single player game with a friend, showing them the story and enjoying the experience together. Anyone who has done this also knows how this can amplify the fun of getting the perfect combo or keeping up with the pace of the NPC's words when making dialogue decisions; it keeps the flow of the game going and ensures a smooth experience for the spectator. This kind of cinematic game viewing experience is facilitated by the more fluid actions entering game play; Max Payne and Splinter Cell: Conviction are just two examples of games with very cinematic visuals.
The concept of the game spectator is something that has expanded beyond the home to more official venues. Perhaps the most famed example is Starcraft- a game with huge popularity in South Korea as something of an e-sport. Thousands gather at events to watch professional players engage in fast paced battles with one another. This is a far cry from a storytelling experience but it's still a fascinating evolution of how game audiences enjoy the medium.
All together this adds up to something of a revolution in how audiences want to absorb stories. We're no longer satisfied to sit back and take in a narrative, now we want to shape events ourselves. Moreover, we like to create compelling narratives for each other using the templates offered by games. Whether games are offering us a sandbox story to mould to our whim or using our deepest personality traits to target us specifically, the medium is definitely making some incredible leaps forward in terms of what a story is and how it should be experienced.