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Comment by azemetre | Hacker News Reader

I think the parent commentator is lambasting storytelling in video games as being very poor. I can’t disagree if this is what they mean.

Been playing games my entire life and even the most popular games like the Zelda series have average writing. Just because it’s serviceable doesn’t make it long lasting.

Even those games with interesting stories like Bioshock or Red Dead Redemption don’t hold a candle to what literature can offer.

They all really feel ephemeral compared to books which seem to last beyond the life of their authorship. Are there any games that will be the same? The medium itself means that it’s highly unlikely any of the games will be available in 200 years from now compared to the biology book I have from 1850s that still works fine and still bounded together.

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Only games that seem to have escaped this in my memory are Disco Elesium and Planescape Torment I'm leaving out interactive fiction but there's some very good writing in that niche.

I haven't played it yet but all the other comments mentioning it is making me think I should check it out.

I did enjoy "Slay the Princess" but my beef with such type of "games" is that they could have easily been in a different format with minimal loss of storytelling, like a webpage for instance.

Disco Elesium seems really cool and way different than what I imagined.

Also Planescape Torment looks great too, I actually like those type of games (forgetting the genre name ATM). Definitely bought both of them, excited to see how they handle storytelling in the medium.

While on the subject, have you ever played the Legacy of Kain stories? I hear those have great stories as well but from what I can surmise (and read on wikipedia) is that those would have been best seller fantasy books if in a different medium.

Disco Elysium is not just good writing, its also good political commentary (from members of far left ideologies, but also not sparing far left ideologies from intense criticism)

To the point where theres something like 4 teams making games right now claiming to be the true successor to Disco Elysium, as the publisher fired the original writers/developers and pivoted to mobile game development.

I cannot recommend it enough. I played Outer Worlds in the same month, and Outer Worlds has the depth of a fox news rant in comparison.

I mean, I like the writing and I mostly enjoy the game. That said, it is not amazing political commentary? Specifically, it takes a rather expected position on topics. What parts seemed amazing?

But a mid to low tier sci fi writer can really make an otherwise ok game shine.

Depends what kind of story you want? Games like Slay the Spire didn't need a ton of writing to still have a very fun experience with interesting characters. Ico had minimal story, but an absurdly high atmosphere and emotional impact with what they had. Bastion's story was fun, if farcical. Hades literally won an award.

There are games that carry in gameplay alone but not every genre can do that. A good story can really help bump a game from c tier to b tier or even a tier. Space based and open world games are prime candidates.

Like palworld was good but palworld with a story would have been a multi billion dollars Machine.

I'd argue that every genre can, in fact, do this. I can also agree that good writing can help bump up a game.

Palworld is an odd example. It isn't like the writing in Pokemon was top tier? Does Monster Hunter even have a story? Not one I've ever heard spoken of.

Pal world has some lines in it but no story. But with a bit of story even Pokémon level story it would have been a much more interesting game

I'm assuming it is below even Monster Hunter, then? I confess I assumed those games didn't have a story, either.

I don't see anything special in RDR(2)'s writing. Many of the characters' motives were left unexplained (even the most important ones), and Arthur often said contradictory things minutes apart

>I can’t disagree if this is what they mean.

Definitely a factor, writing is generally poor, but the writers are acting as if they are literary genius.

I can count a handful of games that I actually think are well written.

I mean... the storytelling in most stories is very poor. Full stop. All the more so as they try and be more sophisticated. Is obnoxious how "adult" has come to mean either very violent, or overly sexual. And I realize that isn't exactly new.

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