Storytelling in Games, Part One

The editors at IGN have penned the first part of a feature called “Storytelling in Games” where they quiz “some of the biggest name in gaming” about, you guessed it, storytelling in games. The theme of this first part is “Past and Present”, or rather, whether storytelling in games is advancing or not. Among the big names answering are BioWare’s Casey Hudson and CD Projekt RED’s Tomasz Gop. Here’s a sampling:

IGN: How sophisticated is video game storytelling compared to other mediums? Is there anything holding it back?

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BioWare – Casey Hudson, Executive Producer:

I think at this point, the medium is capable of the same sophistication in storytelling as other mediums. In some ways though, the interactive nature of a videogame story adds an extra dimension that makes much greater demands on the creators. For Mass Effect 3 for example, we’ve got a story that will have to start from a variety of different positions based on either a new game or decisions left over from playing the previous games. It will then need to continue branching multidimensionally as players shape the story with moment to moment decisions. But as technically complex as this is, we still need the end result to feel as artfully crafted as a memorable novel or motion picture.

I would agree with Casey Hudson that the media is now capable of the same sophistication, but I’m not sure if this capability has been capitalized on so far.