The Evolution of Narrative:Gaming and the language of film

As with any burgeoning artform, game developers over the last 20 years have made their stumbling baby steps towards maturity of the art. Narrative, until recently (and with a few notable exceptions) has long taken a backseat (or no seat) to gameplay. The many constraints of the hardware and software capabilities until recently have precluded developers from exploring narrative (outside of text based games like Zork) as the challenges in just making a game run as a finished piece of code and be fun is daunting enough. However, with ever expanding technology in both hardware and software, and the maturity of over twenty years as an industry, gaming has finally begun to stretch its legs in terms of what can accomplished within the art.

I believe that interactive gaming is the next step in narrative and easily the most immersive. However, like any other maturing form of expression, gaming has come to consider other artforms as the mold on which to base itself, rather than seeking to create something the is unique unto itself. In this case, the language of film and terms like "cinematic" are now tossed about as identifiers of pedigree. Like the comic book industry, gaming is turning to Hollywood screenwriters to pen the storyline of a game as well as seeking ways to implement the visual language of film in the storytelling. While this in and of itself is not necessarily a bad thing, it can lead, as it has in comics, to a turn away from the strengths of the form to become something that is less than the sum of its parts (ie. decompressed storytelling).

The language of film has developed over the last century to become a short hand in the public unconscious and this can only serve, if used well, to immerse the player deeper into the world. The greatest strength of cinema is the ability to elicit emotion, an area precious few games are able to reach. To use the visual vocabulary of film without understanding how that language developed does developers a disservice as it creates built-in limitations. By imitating the image without understanding the intent meaning is lost.

As an example, during the recent GDC conference, Canadian developer Silicon Knights previewed their new game "Too Human". While the development history of this game has been controversial and public, the gameplay demonstrated looked solid. While previewing the gameplay, the phrase "the language of film" was used multiple times, and to their credit, moments in the game gave credence to the developer's intent. Not having played the game I can only comment on the brief moments I saw but what struck me was the use of "standard" film shots in much of the cinematics (ie. establishing shots, over the shoulder dialogue scenes etc). While refreshed to not see the spastic camera moves of many cinematics (ie. Devil May Cry) it was strange to see a locked off panning shot, which established the epic locale as a character entered the area.

Had this been a live-action film of the same fantasy environment it would have been a matte shot, panning off a digital painting to a holdout area for the live action to be place, shot against a greenscreen and/or partial set. In real world terms, if the same shot was used to show a character stepping into a cavernous area, the camera would physically be on a crane or a skycam, limiting its mobility. Such limitations do not exist in the digital world and by copying the staging of a shot without understanding the reality of it, the developer does the game a disservice.

Should developers go camera crazy and move the digital camera around spaces that would be impossible in the real world? No, as this would destroy any verisimilitude necessary to immerse the player. Developers need to come to understand why a shot exists in a film before emulating it in the game. Once understanding the intent, they can begin to create a new language, combining the emotional dynamic of film with the unlimited potential of digital imagination.

Only then will gaming truly become a narrative force.