Bioshock: Infinite, Choice And The State Of Storytelling In Games

Many developers have assumed that giving the player more options enhances immersion, but with every bell and whistle added, the narrative focus becomes more diluted. Bethesda’s Fallout and Elder Scrolls games allow the player near limitless control over the development of their character, and the pace at which they progress through the main story. As a result, the main quest line is always a generic, flavorless gruel, because it has to accommodate “Galadriaz,” the honorable, magic-wielding high elf, as well as “PwnSaw,” the 4-foot tall heavy weapons expert who kills every NPC they come across. The tired RPG plot of “the chosen one,” in which destiny proclaims that only the player character can save the world, exists because it’s about the only way to create dramatic stakes out of an unknowable protagonist. I can play Mass Effect‘s Commander Shepard as the biggest asshole in the galaxy, but because he’s Space Jesus, other characters won’t mind. What else are they going to do, side with the ancient returning evil that threatens all of mankind?

Good storytelling depends on strong, consistent characterization, and the Star Wars cantina scene provides a great example why. In the original cut, Han shoots Greedo without provocation, establishing him as ruthless and self-interested. In the Special Editions, it’s Greedo who opens fire, and Han puts him down in self-defense. The actions relevant to the overall plot are unchanged, because Han is alive and Greedo is dead, but our interpretation of the character is wildly different because of the path taken to the plot point. Now, imagine that scene with your typical first-person shooter gamer in control: what’s our impression of Han for the rest of the trilogy if in one version of the scene, he shoots the ceiling because he didn’t invert the controls, and in another, he loots, then T-bags Greedo’s corpse? How can any story adapt to the multitude of different versions of the same character that exists because of what a player chooses to do?

That’s only half the issue though. What’s more problematic, is that what the user controls (gameplay) and what the developer controls (plot), are still so radically different, a uniform synthesis of the two is nearly impossible. When analyzing the original Bioshock, Clint Hocking coined the phrase “ludonarrative dissonance” to describe the gulf between the story we create through gameplay actions, and what we’re being told the story is through cutscenes. Unsurprisingly, the two are often incompatible, and if anything, the dissonance has only gotten worse this generation, because while cutscenes and writing have gotten better and better, gameplay has been mostly static.

Take, for instance, Uncharted 2, a third-person shooter with some of the best cinematics, and dialogue in the business. The animation is lifelike without becoming uncanny, and the exceptional voice acting turns mounds of pixels and effects into living, breathing characters. Importantly, there’s strong visual consistency between the cutscenes and the gameplay; Sony marketed the game by selling the transition between each as so seamless, you’d mistake the package for a movie. And they’re right: when you’re watching Uncharted 2, it’s almost indistinguishable from an animated action-adventure movie…

…but when you’re playing it, which is ostensibly the point of any game, the dissonance is like a splash of ice water to the face. During player-controlled combat, Drake can eat bullets like they were his morning Wheaties, but when he’s in a cutscene, gunshots have the intended effect. Death, meanwhile, becomes more of a threat to immersion than progress, because no matter how intensely dire the scrape you’re in, a checkpoint is always there to cushion your fall down the game’s 100-foot chasms. Most damning, is that while the developer presents Drake as a brash buckler of swash that’s ultimately good at heart, you have to wonder if you’re really playing the hero when the game makes it impossible to experience Drake’s story without killing hundreds and hundreds of faceless thugs and goons. Watching Uncharted 2 makes you think it’s a rip-roaring adventure starring the secret love child of John McClane and Indiana Jones. Playing it makes you question how Drake can sleep at night.

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