Video Games Are Not Created Around Stories: Mythbusting

There was a time in the game industry during which, truly, several games were constructed around a central arcing story. Some rare instances still exist where game design is ultimately beholden to an authoritative source of "game lore," but these are usually restricted to games whose generations of success are founded in their loyalty to story. But in recent times, this has become a rarity at best, and at worst, it's considered a downright waste of time.

To many, the story is the best part of the game - and if it suffers too greatly, no amount of game play or shiny graphics will be able to pull it out of its slump. Most games are expected to at least make an effort at consistency, appear to have some sort of believable or understandable back story, and have at the very least memorable characters. Most popular games succeed in this - but they are far from the game developers' primary concern.

To put it at its barest, a video game is broken down into milestones on a calendar. By a certain date the design team hopes to have a percentage of the total map art done, by another date they hope to have a certain amount of playable content in a number of "zones" or "levels". Much like these technical aspects of the game, another milestone is simply the completion of the story. Assuming that a certain product, usually an expansion, is expected to be done in seven months, it is hoped that before the project is started a proposed story outline will be selected which will act as the framework for the product's creation. Details at this time will be very simple - in the case of Grand Theft Auto it would likely simply be a two page word document that explains that it is a "game in which the player is able to pit several gangs against one another, who are at vastly different levels of efficiency, professionalism, and notoriety."

The end product usually retains very little loyalty to the base scheme, which is simply intended to unite the designers' various working aspects of the game. Because design staffs will often be separated into teams - some working on creating items for the game, some working on creation stage one levels and missions, others working on general population - they need to have a base consistency they are expected to work with.

Details will usually change on a whim in order to suit a specific designer's wants, needs, or downright inconsistencies with the main story. A character who was originally seen as being a Cuban drug lord trafficking in heroine suddenly finds themselves transformed into an African voodoo gang lord with a cocaine addiction.

Meanwhile, the team will usually be collectively working on the story itself, with an individual or team devoted to the processing/creation of the story. With the basic framework in mind, this "Story master" type figure will do their best to maintain consistency while taking notes and creating plots inside the game. Where one designer will simply create a Grand Theft Auto mission that involves killing two targets and blowing up a car, it will be the "Story master's" job to find a reason why those particular targets needed to die and what that car was doing getting blown up.

This is all done with the release date and milestone chart in mind. Rather than the company considering that the game should be crafted based on the story, the story itself is entirely subject to both the time tables and any changes made up by the design staff throughout the process. On the calendar, it would simply appear as another due date - story is expected to be completed by March 17th, three months before launch.

This kind thing can be easily seen in many modern video games - the popular Halo is an excellent example. When these stories are so subject to change, press releases are often erroneous, and the proper channels throughout the company are not appropriately informed. Where the original Halo: Combat Evolved was meant to be a true warfare first person shooter where Master Chief led a guerrilla resistance against the Covenant behind enemy lines, it was quickly transformed into a one-man, gung-ho shooting spree, with most of its plot revolving around a series of disjointed events that are later added onto only in Halo 3 and the subsequent novels that followed.

These types of errors are a result of the common industry standard of seeing story as simply another milestone, rather than a key aspect on which the entire game's design hinges.