ignika98 on Nostr: I don't think environmental storytelling is the same as having an actual story. Or at ...

I don't think environmental storytelling is the same as having an actual story. Or at least, I haven't seen it used in that way before. You mentioned the Souls series, which is a good example of what I mean when I say this. A lot of people these days tend to confuse lore with story. A game having "deep" lore is not the same as it having a well crafted and engaging narrative. While I haven't finished Demon's Souls, I know that Dark Souls is a game that people constantly praise for having "deep lore". And while that's all well and good, it's not quite what I'm looking for. Because the actual story you end up playing through in Dark Souls is incredibly straightforward. It's nearly identical to every other fantasy, hero saves the world type story. The only difference being the twist near the end where you find out that your quest to "save the world" might not save it after all. Which is interesting, don't get me wrong. And for a game like Dark Souls, which is more focused on exploration and combat. it works well. But what I'm looking for are games where the narrative takes center stage, and follows the events that you actually play though, rather than snippets of information about things that happened before the game actually started.

On the point of a lack of talent, I think that's true. I don't recall where I heard this, but I've read that a lot of game studios don't prioritize story at all. To the point where they won't even have a dedicated writing team. They'll just leave the story and concept up to the director or artist or whoever they already have in the studio that can write something. Even if it sucks. And if you look at a lot of prominent storytellers in games nowadays, particularly Japanese ones, you'll find that a lot of them got their start working on art or programming, and then eventually had enough good ideas that they were allowed to make their own projects. Both Tetsuya Takahashi and Tetsuya Nomura are examples of this practice. Perhaps studios should invest more in having dedicated writers or writing teams, so that games can have stories that go beyond a 5 sentence synopsis.