"Finally, games have good writing"
We've all said it at least once, but let's now remember how many times we've said it!
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There's been a bit of confusion it seems from people who have seen this list about what exactly it means, so let me try to clarify. This list is not a list of games with writing I consider good, nor is it a list of games I consider overrated or pretentious. This is a list of games that, in the discourse surrounding games, have been heralded as a "step above", as a piece of art that has transcended being a game and could finally be called "literary". It is not a judgement of quality, only of how it made waves.
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There's been a bit of confusion it seems from people who have seen this list about what exactly it means, so let me try to clarify. This list is not a list of games with writing I consider good, nor is it a list of games I consider overrated or pretentious. This is a list of games that, in the discourse surrounding games, have been heralded as a "step above", as a piece of art that has transcended being a game and could finally be called "literary". It is not a judgement of quality, only of how it made waves.
32 Games
28 Comments
How so?
theyre very good games about self-discovery and trauma that more people need to play.
Oh, let me be clear: I love many of these games! I'm more just tracing the history of titles that people herald as the final arrival of "literary writing" to video games. Not a criticism of any of these games in the slightest; if anything, it's typically a badge of honor.
ah my bad
Should Mother 3 belong to this category as well? I remember clearly people saying stuff like the game being proof that the medium is art, or the closest games came to literature
(I love the game in spite of this)
(I love the game in spite of this)
From what I've played (80+%) The Silver Case could belong here as well. Great list tho, super interesting stuff
is this a personal list or is this like actual times the industry went "finally, games are ART!"
The latter. I can think of many, many more games with amazing writing, but what I'm highlighting here is what I've seen in discourse.
OG Bioshock is the poster child for this imo, seen it said about that game so much
Totally true, added!
some form of TLOU
While Bioshock was definitely the poster child of this for a time, Bioshock Infinite also likely deserves mention here. Opinions on it soured pretty quickly, but on release it definitely got a fair amount of "games are art now" responses from the industry and media.
Maybe the first Metal Gear Solid as well? Before people got more vocal about criticizing his penchant for self-indulgence, people heaped a lot of praise on Kojima as an auteur storyteller. Then again, maybe he was too over the top to fit on this list?
I'd almost suggest Cosmology of Kyoto as well. The game maybe didn't get this response on release, but it definitely feels like it was retroactively granted this status in the face of Roger Ebert's clashes with gamers and people digging up his positive review of the game.
Maybe the first Metal Gear Solid as well? Before people got more vocal about criticizing his penchant for self-indulgence, people heaped a lot of praise on Kojima as an auteur storyteller. Then again, maybe he was too over the top to fit on this list?
I'd almost suggest Cosmology of Kyoto as well. The game maybe didn't get this response on release, but it definitely feels like it was retroactively granted this status in the face of Roger Ebert's clashes with gamers and people digging up his positive review of the game.
Oh, I also came across a period review for Loom that amounts to this.
https://twitter.com/farawaythyer/status/1529291392807231489
"First and foremost, Loom is not a game! It's a story--a good, possibly a great story.
https://twitter.com/farawaythyer/status/1529291392807231489
"First and foremost, Loom is not a game! It's a story--a good, possibly a great story.
i love this list. the idea for it. and i'm thinking these probably don't really belong here, but i'm remembering a time in the mid '00s where ico and shadow of the colossus really stood out as these super refined examples of narrative very lightly draped over the skeletal form of The Video Game. maybe this thinking was more widespread than i'm remembering, but it was kind of an obsession of mine, and their intersection of minimalism and the distillation of tropes set forth by zelda et al was held aloft as thee idealized form of writing in games for some time. technically kind of the inverse of "literary writing arrives in video games", it (as an approach) embraced writing in games being 'gamey' without overtly breaking the 4th wall. often, games like this would also be seen as lonely games.
in some regards i think this holds true, and that with fumito ueda seemingly now resting on his laurels (i actually have no idea what he's up to), fromsoft's approach to writing - which, honestly, has been what it is even today as far back as king's field - now bears this torch in a sense. we've all seen people claim their games have "no story", even well after the discourse around emergent narrative, while... well, there've been tomes written on fromsoft's approach to writing lore to closely fit the form and function of their games. and they're not exactly alone in that, though it does make sense that they'd be seen as vanguards of that concept.
anyway, uhm... again, pretty sure none of the aforementioned games actually belong on this list. unless...?
in some regards i think this holds true, and that with fumito ueda seemingly now resting on his laurels (i actually have no idea what he's up to), fromsoft's approach to writing - which, honestly, has been what it is even today as far back as king's field - now bears this torch in a sense. we've all seen people claim their games have "no story", even well after the discourse around emergent narrative, while... well, there've been tomes written on fromsoft's approach to writing lore to closely fit the form and function of their games. and they're not exactly alone in that, though it does make sense that they'd be seen as vanguards of that concept.
anyway, uhm... again, pretty sure none of the aforementioned games actually belong on this list. unless...?
Totally, zenoslime. There's a reason this list is called "good WRITING", because I wanted to focus on the specific literary qualities of these games. If I made a list called "finally, games are art now", it would be a very different list, and would almost certainly have games like Shadow of the Colossus. I actually remember really distinctly seeing a news report where a guy was asserting that Metroid Prime was the Citizen Kane of gaming. But while that game is awesome, I've never heard people say it has "good writing".
I wrote about this a bit here. Story and narrative design in games is often expressly focused on text. By extension, often the spoken word. Usually it's considered the linear exposition of that text, but in recent years that requirement has kind of faded to the back, which is cool. But a game like Another World, which tells its story entirely non-verbally, is typically left out of that conversation, which can be limiting.
Still, this list is focused on that actually precisely because of that bias. Again, ambivalent of the quality of these stories, there is this two fold sense of "video games need to prove themselves as literary", and then "video games have never actually been literary... until now!" That's what I'm interested in tracing.
I wrote about this a bit here. Story and narrative design in games is often expressly focused on text. By extension, often the spoken word. Usually it's considered the linear exposition of that text, but in recent years that requirement has kind of faded to the back, which is cool. But a game like Another World, which tells its story entirely non-verbally, is typically left out of that conversation, which can be limiting.
Still, this list is focused on that actually precisely because of that bias. Again, ambivalent of the quality of these stories, there is this two fold sense of "video games need to prove themselves as literary", and then "video games have never actually been literary... until now!" That's what I'm interested in tracing.
oh, for sure! i get it. i wasn't actually arguing for the inclusion of games like ico or sotc on your list (the "unless...?" was kind of in jest) - but it's certainly a side bar for discussion, i'd think. even the apparent absence of text in games is writing, not too unlike a film without dialogue or voiceover would have to have been written. but again, yeah - just a side bar, and not the focus here.
amending that: a film wouldn't necessarily have to be written. that analogy doesn't completely hold up. but i think you get me...? obviously, another world was written. games like that, which tell their story non-verbally, can be pretty fascinating.
I totally get you! I was just adding on and further clarifying the purpose of this list haha
Undertale?
Metal Gear Solid 2 (or 1 or 3) deserves to be here, the trilogy is perfect but 2 was profound - it predicted the future and the storytelling was immersive, only in a medium like video games can such a story be told.
Also maybe Deus Ex?
Also maybe Deus Ex?
The comment I made all relate to the writing, and not the influences and plot of the game btw ^^
Deus Ex is weird, since, while people love its story, the writing is very awkward and often very funny, and paired with the voice acting, I think people don't take it "seriously". I think the pre-eminent conversation with Deus Ex was its mechanical innovations. That's my read, at lease.
As for MGS, this is something I've thought about a lot, and it comes down to one thing for me: MGS is and has always chased after cinema. When people talked about MGS, they didn't talk about the specific narrative devices or prose or anything. They talked about characters, about scenes, about action. And that is a very different thing for me. In the eternal ineriority complex of games, the deference is often to film, how games yearn to be cinematic, and comparable to film. There's a reason the term "Citizen Kane of games" is a cliche, because the industry constantly defers to cinema as the goal of storytelling. These games, however, tend to attreact discourse that defers to literature, rather than film. That's the key for me.
If you can find some crit which refers to the writing of MGS2 as particularly literary, I'd be willing to check it out and consider it. But I'm careful for the cinematic yearning, which may be worth its own list (I might make one?)
Also, as a heads up for all folks, I'm trying to limit to one game per series/iteration, just for the sake of brevity on this list.
As for MGS, this is something I've thought about a lot, and it comes down to one thing for me: MGS is and has always chased after cinema. When people talked about MGS, they didn't talk about the specific narrative devices or prose or anything. They talked about characters, about scenes, about action. And that is a very different thing for me. In the eternal ineriority complex of games, the deference is often to film, how games yearn to be cinematic, and comparable to film. There's a reason the term "Citizen Kane of games" is a cliche, because the industry constantly defers to cinema as the goal of storytelling. These games, however, tend to attreact discourse that defers to literature, rather than film. That's the key for me.
If you can find some crit which refers to the writing of MGS2 as particularly literary, I'd be willing to check it out and consider it. But I'm careful for the cinematic yearning, which may be worth its own list (I might make one?)
Also, as a heads up for all folks, I'm trying to limit to one game per series/iteration, just for the sake of brevity on this list.
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Also https://junkerhq.net/MGS2/ and there's a ton of YouTube videos but they're long and convoluted, except maybe https://youtu.be/jIYBod0ge3Y
i'd put last of us in more of a 'great acting' category rather than 'great writing'. not a dig at the game but i don't think the writing holds up as much as, say, planescape
great list tho
Deadpan
2 years ago