What makes for a great story in a video game Sometimes, with all the innovative development and cool graphics the actual story a game has to tell can get lost in the shuffle, or at least can seem to be an afterthought. When a game arrives on the shelves that presents one of the more engrossing stories we've seen in awhile, it's worth noting. Max Payne 2: The Fall of Max Payne has been recognized by many people with their heads screwed on straight as a benchmark in video-game storytelling. The 2003 sequel to the legendary Max Payne, this game exhibited a narrative depth that many contemporary offerings tend to lack. Max 2’s engaging story was made rich by polished, articulate lines such as...
“There are no choices. Nothing but a straight line. The illusion comes afterwards, when you ask 'why me?' and 'what if?' when you look back, see the braches, like a pruned bonsai tree, or a forked lightning. If you had done something differently, it wouldn't be you, it would be someone else looking back, asking a different set of questions."
"All this time we got the fable of sleeping beauty wrong. The prince doesn’t kiss her to wake her up. No one who has slept for a hundred years is likely to wake up. It was the other way around. He kisses her to wake himself up, from the nightmare that has brought him there."
"I was compelled to give [him] his gun back, one bullet at a time.”
Of course, it isn’t always necessary for a game to have a well-written story to be enjoyable, but as technology advances, the possibilities for immersion in the world you see on screen increase also.
With these ideas in mind, I decided to ask Sam Lake, the writer at videogame developers Remedy, to shed some light on where the profession stands today, and how a game like Max Payne, or its sequel comes to exist. And Sam should know all about that- he wrote them both.
Writing is an area often underappreciated in videogames. How did you get into it?
I was asked, simple as that. Petri Järvilehto, one of the founding members of Remedy, is a long time friend of mine. They were working on Remedy's first game, Death Rally, and needed someone to write the texts for the game. Petri knew of my writing, and asked me. I was studying at university at the time. I was very excited to get any kind of a writing gig. Now, almost nine years later, I'm still at it, so it turned out to be a long term one.
The script for Max 2 was about four times as large as some movie scripts. What drives you to take on such complicated projects, as a writer?
In my case, it was a clear process of evolution. Death Rally was just few pages of text, whereas the first Max Payne game already had a script longer than an average movie. We wanted to create a more ambitious story for the sequel, to flesh out the characters, and to add detail and content in general, so it was quite natural that the screenplay ended up being considerably longer as well. I wouldn't be surprised if the script of our next project would be longer still. The amount of detail in games is growing all the time.
In movies, it's generally thought that one page of script equals one minute of action on the screen. In a game with a movie-like story like Max, it's already getting very close to that. Games just tend to be a lot longer than movies, so it's more like writing an entire TV-series when you are writing a game.
I once tried writing for an Unreal Mod, and it all went to hell when they tried to make me design their levels for them. How is the line drawn between designer and writer, and how can the two roles co-exist productively, if at all?
Actually, early on in the development of Max Payne, I was drawing maps of the levels on paper as well. I'm glad we got past that quickly.
I feel that the designer and the writer need to do more than just co-exist. They need to co-operate very actively and well, getting inspiration from each other's ideas. Because of this, it's quite natural that the line between the two tasks is blurry.
Do you believe that a script/novel writer gets to tell the story he wants more often than someone writing a videogame?
I think that it depends greatly on the nature of the project. But yes, I see what you mean, writing a videogame is very much a team effort when compared to writing a novel. I don't see that necessarily as a good or bad thing, it's just the way it is. In the end, the goal is to make a great game, and that isn't always the same as a perfect story. In some areas you need to make compromises, there are limitations you have to work around, but in others, you get lots of excellent feedback and ideas from the rest of the team. And surprisingly often, limitations are also a good thing, they force you to work extra hard to get past them, and that can lead to good things that you would have missed otherwise.
How do you see the future of writing in games? Is it getting better (Max Payne 2) or worse (Devil May Cry 2)?
I'm optimistic about the future. As games become more and more mainstream entertainment, and the budgets grow larger, the importance of good writing will also grow. That does not mean that bad writing would go away. There will always be games that have been written well, and games that have not been written so well. Just look at movies.
Do you believe that technological advancement and deepening immersion of players into games will decrease the role writing plays, or bolster it?
We are still quite far from portraying subtle human emotions in games. We are taking baby steps to that direction, but its slow going. As we get closer to that, closer to the skin as it were, the need for good writing will increase.
Do you miss the days of the text adventure?
I don't miss them. I look back on them fondly, but I wouldn't go back to that. Besides, while I enjoyed the writing in the classic adventure games, I was always very bad at solving the puzzles.
Apparently Max Payne will return. As a writer, do you find that sometimes the success of a product forces you to beat a dead horse, or do you believe that how dead the horse is depends on the way you ride it? (Can good writing save tired franchises?)
I think that if the initial concept is solid enough, you can always find good ways to keep it fresh and exciting, to re-invent it. I'm not saying that it's always easy, but it's an interesting challenge.
I didn't mean Max Payne was a tired franchise. I swear. That question just took a wrong turn somewhere. You believe me, right?
I'm sure you are just confusing Max Payne the character with Max Payne the franchise. Max the character is always dead tired, depressed and disturbed. In fact, the more he is so, the better the franchise is doing.
Do you believe videogames are an art form? Why?
Prose is an art form, movies and acting in general are art forms, so is music, painting, graphics, sculpture, and so on. Some might even consider classic games like chess to be an art form. Videogames use elements of all of these to create something new. Why wouldn't videogames be an art form? Ultimately, what is art and what is not, is decided by the end user. I'm happy as long as people are entertained by our games.
