Best video game company for story telling

[AlternatePFG]

May fave would be Obsidian, hands down. The range of choice, the variety of outcomes, the many leveled depth of plot...

They're certainly not as polished as Bioware but that's to be expected as Bioware have essentially been rewriting the same story for around a decade now.

I agree with this statement. Obsidian games my be flawed, but they definitely have some great characters and stories.

 

[pyrosaw]

Valave and Volition games. Volare!

 

[alithanar8]

The Project Aces group of Namco, but only in regards to Ace Combat 3,4 and 5 (maybe 0 if I am feeling generous), I actually cared about the characters mostly in AC5 and to this day, I can barely play the November City mission without choking up... Chopper was an amazing character.

Also Bioware is by far one of my favorite companies, I love story and when it comes to western RPGs BW is king.

 

[Crowser]

2K is damn good - Bioshock was amazing (well the story was, I thought the gameplay was pretty bad) and Mafia 2 was EXCELLENT. That game held itself up very well simply on the merits of its story alone, considering it was about half cutscnenes and half gameplay

 

[ThePizzaGuy556]

Bioware has good stories just not to many risks with it. Going into a bioware game you kinda would know what the storyline was except for ME2. I would say 2k with the bioshock games was great storytelling as well.

 

[captaincabbage]

Rockstar games has always had excellence in writing IMO.

 

[mighty_wambat]

call of duty modern warfare 2, granted the story was generic nonsense but the story telling? amazing. if your playing on veteran the first time, from the moment you blow open the wall to the awesome ending sequence, the way that story is told is by far one of the most imersive game stories ever made.

 

[TheScottishFella]

VALVe, Bioware, Obsidian and Team Ico. Disagree? Don't care

 

[Le_Cable]

Aren't stories themselves inferior to a complex simulation? It's like the difference between wrestling the sport where you have some guys testing their skills against each other and Smackdown type wrestiling where it's basically a fakey melodrama.

So I would say that taking an beneficial risk with a storytelling would be discarding it where it's not needed or making it entirely a product of the players input.

You seem to be under the impression that narrative through player input and story telling are two different things; Which is not the case. Player influenced narratives are a type of story telling. One that is most effectively told through the medium of games. To consider player influenced narrative completely separate from traditional non malleable narrative is itself a fallacy. Player influenced narratives regardless of their potential outcomes still only have a set number of scripted outcomes. Meaning, that you are experiencing a structured narrative , you just have a say in which one you experience.

Finally, to say that one style of story telling is inferior to another is a simple misunderstanding of story telling itself. Every type of story has it's pros and cons. To claim that one is better than another is to express a personal bias in the guise of objective observation.

Crystal dynamics told one of the best stories in video games with the Legacy of Kain series. Yeah, the gameplay was ok at best, but the team behind those games gave off the distinct feeling that they wrote the story first and tacked on the gameplay as an after thought.

 

[Troublesome Lagomorph]

Bioware, I'd say.

 

[Trolldor]

Bioware will give responisblity of storywrtitng to a small bunch of writers and give them full authority.
They prefer innovation and new stuff to sticking to the usuall
this means there story's may be good, may be awful, but are different

You're right, look at Mass Effect where you're an elite soldier fighting ancient alien robots that are trying to destroy the galaxy, wow that concept just oozes originality. Or Dragon Age where an army of evil degenerate monster led by a demon and they're trying to destroy the world. I mean I can't think of anything like that ever. Or Neverwinter Nights where a group of ancient lizardmen are trying to take over the world, now that idea is unique in all media.

Seriously even if you love the execution you can't really argue that Bioware's plots are original.

Name me an original plot in a game within the past ten years.
Or twenty.

You can't, and for a reason.

Originality is found in the execution.


Also: Obsidian, easily. Their characters are always rich and vibrant, their stories always engaging right until the very end where they seemed to have run out of money or steam and it just crashes and burns....

 

[spartandude]

I'd say Bioware but they have really gone down hill recently, who knows maybe Dragonage 2 will be good but from the demo i got the impression the voice acting would be too terrible for me to care about the story

so maybe id say Valve or award it 2K for their work on Bioshock

 

[MinishArcticFox]

Bioware, Square Enix is too anxty Bioware is the only one that matters in terms of story telling. Maybe Rockstar for second.

 

[random_bars]

Nobody mentioning Double Fine?!

 

[zedel]

Well, I'd have to say Atlus. I really like some of Gust's games, but they often have translation problems...Bioware is better at NPC/Party interaction, definitely. However, I feel that the stories they tell are kind of meh when compared to SMT: Nocturne.

 

[Sad Face]

I usually think of individual games in terms of best story.

But if we're thinking about it in terms of game companies...
Valve usually tells a good story, and they do it without directly shouting it at us. We'll figure it out, and that's the beauty of it.

Double Fine also does a great job of this.

EDIT:

Nobody mentioning Double Fine?!

Just did.

 

[ShadowsofHope]

Bioware (Mass Effect series if you aren't focusing on the Reapers subplot, KotOR), Obsidian (Mask of the Betrayer), and to an extent Bethesda. Although Bethesda does open world sandbox games better than they do plot (ie. Oblivion).