Peeking Behind The Developer’s Curtain

Alright, I’m going to try to stay away from discussing my ongoing Verification Quest project. I fear that I chose a topic that has aged… poorly. I’m actively considering changing it at the eleventh hour. With that being said, I want to delve into some things that I’ve never really considered about game development.

I was tasked with reading “Approaches to Game Construction,” a section from Story Mode: The Creative Writer’s Guide to Narrative Video Game Design by Julialicia Case, Eric Freeze, and Salvatore Pane. The authors break up the important parts of narrative game design into four parts: 1) Different Player Types, 2) Perspective, 3) Structure, and 4) Player Choice. I’d like approach this post by applying these themes to some games that I’ve played recently.

I’ve played a lot of games in my time. I have more hours across Warframe, Destiny 1 & 2, and Tom Clancy’s The Division 2 than I would be comfortable admitting under oath. There are commonalities between these games, but some key differences as well. The largest similarity is that all of these games all fall under the “looter shooter” genre. This boils down to the player grinding a bunch of late game dungeons, missions, and activities to create an optimal (or “meta”) loadout to shred the highest level of enemy for the longest amount of time. Each of these looter shooters do the different aspects provided by Case, Freeze, and Pane in ways that vary in quantity and quality.

Destiny, despite its numerous flaws, attracts vastly different player types. This is due to Bungie being able to do PvE (players versus nonplayer enemies) and PvP (players versus other players) content exceptionally well. This means that Bungie has to work overtime to make sure that updates pertaining to both sides of the game are equal in quality. This also means that Destiny has had a considerably longer lifetime because of its ability to capture the attention of what are typically two completely different gamer archetypes.

For perspective, I would like to consider all of the games I listed. These games have mountains of lore attached to them, but they are definitely not driven by their narratives. Warframe can be the exception to the rule, but most of any player’s time spent with the game will be the aforementioned construction of an optimal loadout, not in a deep lore story mission. The perspective of the player in these games is… complicated. They are often made out to be the most important part of the in-game narrative, but that is only because the responsibility of being the only person capable of defeating large quantities of enemies is thrust upon the player. Player characters in looter shooters rarely have any story impact in a social sense, its all through gameplay. I think this may be in part due to developers being unsure how deep the RPG elements in their games need to be, as well as attempting to make the player experience a little more engaging so that players are not stuck in cutscenes that they might not care about. The player perspective in looters does matter, but it is common that it takes a backseat to the development of solid moment-to-moment gameplay.

The general structure of The Division games are something I really admire. Like I stated in the above section, the narrative in these games isn’t exactly strong. However, the structure in The Division games, as well as the backdrop of their stories, are really engaging to me. They cater to the gamer that wants a more grounded looter experience. The structure of the story is laid out by a few secondary antagonists, one main antagonists, and a team of other Division Agents that are trying to take out the stereotypical political action film bad guys. Players are given the gist of what’s happening around them in the first few cutscenes, and learn new information along with the non-player characters. The shock of learning who has betrayed American society happens to the player the same as the player character’s allies. The attention to detail in the game world adds to this. As the player progresses more, the game world will change. There is no high science fiction, magic, or space magic. There is only the intrigue of treacherous domestic terrorists and the desire to save New York or Washington D.C. from falling to chaos.

For player choice, I would like to harp on Warframe. Although few and far between, there are several story quests that have decisions at the end that might change how a player experiences future gameplay. These choices dictate which enemy types can and can’t invade normal missions, and how certain characters might interact with the player. These changes aren’t exactly the most game changing, but they do make it so you care about what you decide to do. Maybe it’s just me, but the choice of having a character address me in high regard versus barely acknowledging me weighs heavy in my mind when a new quest with choices is released.

This reading has made me consider just how many things I overlook when playing games. These are interesting things to take into account, even if the games I normally frequent aren’t exactly the most narrative or choice heavy.