As video games have become more and more cinematic and realistic looking in recent years, especially this generation with the power of the Xbox 360 and PS3, narrative has taken on greater importance in video game projects. Story helps to drive blockbusters like Uncharted 2 and Dragon Age, but gameplay is still king, if you ask Corey May, the lead scriptwriter on both Assassin's Creed games.
May, speaking to IndustryGamers as part of a feature profiling the scriptwriter career, commented, "The game is changing all around me – every day. Even if it’s small and subtle shifts, it can impact the story – levels or maps can vanish – new ones could appear. Maybe someone changes a mission objective but forgets to tell me. Other times I have to deal with stuff that’s considered 'cool' from a gameplay perspective but nonsensical from a narrative one. And I can’t say no. I shouldn’t say no! I have to find a way to make it work. Story doesn’t come first. Gameplay does. And I’m okay with that. I agree with it."
Someone who wouldn't agree with that sentiment, however, is Denis Dyack of Silicon Knights. Back in July, he talked about gameplay being deemphasized in favor of narrative. "Gameplay is not everything," he said last year. "If you look at the most popular games today, they are far more narrative-focused. If games are to follow the trajectory of films, then the dominance of gameplay will diminish in place of an increased focus and importance on gaming’s stories and the ways in which they are told. It’s an unpopular viewpoint, but I don’t believe that gameplay is the most important aspect to games. I have a theory: that engagement is greater than or equal to art plus story plus gameplay plus audio plus technology. It’s all of these things combined, and one is not more important than another."
1 Comments
January 16, 2010
Assassin's Creed II wins, for having both an excellent story and also engaging gameplay. In which both compliment each other. The gameplay is an accumulation of the most innovative physical human feats imaginable today. This compliments the story, as the script is based upon the accumulation of all the generation's of human history, fused into a single narrative.