Mission based gameplay and narrative

[melmer]

I was just reading this zombie fitness game article :? about narrative in gaming,

...game designers often make the mistake of relying on film tropes when working on a game's story.

'Games are much more like TV shows and novels, where you're expected to go away and come back.'

"Movies are intended to be consumed in one sitting," she says. "Obviously people can pause DVDs but essentially the experience is a single, contained experience. Games are much more like TV shows and novels, where you're expected to go away and come back, go away and come back. And actually the game or the novel will help you out by being broken up into nice episodes or chapters with something of a completed narrative moment in that chapter or that episode, within a larger arc. And to me this is part of the problem with game narrative. It has happened to me quite often with a game where you put it down and you come back, maybe it's been two weeks, and you're like 'why am I doing this mission again? What am I meant to be getting?'

Which, on the surface of it, seems like the most logically approach to game narrative. Bite size chucks of story. But does this totally kill immersion?

i've just realised what this topic is actually about it...How important to narrative is immersion?

I had a fantastic time playing through dishonoured last week, we can all agree the story wasn't the games strongest point. But i can't help but feel that chopping the game up in to it's mission based format crippled the story further.

There was this one moment in the game towards the end, where the game switches to a more typical linear story driven fps, where you're tasked with making your way through a swamp...and i absolutely loved it. i had a real half-life deja vu moment scaling a dilapidated industrial staircase, and my immersion level shot through the roof, i actually cared about what was around the next corner, and what narratively awaited the protagonist when he escaped the swamp. The sense of not knowing, having no check point or mission objective really drew me in... now you've got me by the balls, slap me with some story and i might actually give a shit.

The mission based stuff just offered no surprises, no intrigue, no immersion. If you wanted to know what was coming up next in the story just look at your mission objectives.

Where as if you play a game like uncharted 2, which is admittedly narratively segmented, but there is an ambient end of mission state. The game switches shit up on the fly, shit goes down, shit hits fans. For me, the sense of unpredictability and unknowing in the level design really boosts the immersion level which can only strengthen the players connection with the story. (unless you're playing a ninja gaiden game)

So what does the future hold? What if Half life 3 ends up being mission based!!

[youmeyou]

I think it's more a case of the story in Dishonored being poorly done than blaming an articulated mission structure. Uncharted just has better writers, so comparing the way they structure the game might be looking in the wrong place.

Take the Portals as an example: extremely segmented games that nevertheless have great immersion and excellent narratives. Not to say the loading screens in Portal 2 weren't jarring and couldn't have been done without. But the story was so well done that it's not something that tarred the experience.

I think mission structures help story more than hurt it. In an open world game without clearly defined missions the main story tends to take a backseat. How many of us have never finished Oblivion or Fallout and just done tons of side missions? In games where you're not being guided very directly it's very easy to lose that sense of excitement and immersion in the narrative.

[SecretAsianMan]

With regard to the article and 'why am I doing this mission again? What am I meant to be getting?', didn't Alone in the Dark (the 2008 game, not the original) have a DVD like level select where you could pick chapters and it would actually recap previous events for you? I never played it myself but I remember that being a thing.

As for the actual topic, I can think of an instance (at least for me) where the mission based structre helped with my immersion and narrative. I'm not a big fan of most flight/space combat games, but Freespace 2 is one of my favorite games ever. From a narrative point of view, you're just a nameless pilot. You're not the ultimate savior of the galaxy or anything, just a random guy. Breaking it up into segments made me feel more like a pilot with some downtime between missions. Only a couple of missions are supposed to happen the moment the previous one ends and those I played through back to back. If the game had been one long mission, I probably would have started wondering how much air my ship had, how much urine my flight suit could hold, how bad the cockpit would smell after a few days, etc.

[youmeyou]

Alan Wake has television-like recaps and it's quite awesome, actually.

[melmer]

Perhaps i should have been more specific, as i was only thinking about a very particular style of game when i was writing it.

In my mind i was comparing dishonoured to the likes of half-life 2, both linear adventures, but ones a continuous journey and the other is chopped up in to mission. (do mission, return to base, go to sleep)

Consider if instead of returning to the pub after every mission, you would get dropped off and picked up by a barge which housed all the key story characters, and in-between mission you were actually travelling to the next location so there's this sense that you are always moving forward, travelling to the next objective, progressing the story. Still chapter/mission based but without the super blunt 'go to sleep' to end the chapter.

Alan wakes American nightmare works really well with episodes, doubly so because its actually integral to the plot, Alan is stuck in a the night springs television show. So if you're going to use chapters in your game why not actually work there purpose in to the narrative.

(really good game actually, its half price on xbox at the moment well worth a punt a £5?)