Disconnection from a Game's Narrative.

[MrDumpkins]

Bioshock Infinite disconnected my from the narrative around the time things get strange, though I assume that's the game you're talking about OP. I agreed, as soon as they said multiple universes where everything is possible, I didn't like it. I got uneasy the first time we went to another reality, I was like, oh man, now nothing matters. And it only got worse from there. It made everything that happened in the game feel pointless. Even the end.

The other game I got a narrative disconnect was the tomb raider reboot. Seeing lara struggle in all the cutscenes was cool and I really liked it, but then mowing down hundreds of bad guys right after blew me out of any immersion I had. Still a fun game though, and worth a playthrough.

 

[Ubiquitous Duck]

Bioshock Infinite disconnected my from the narrative around the time things get strange, though I assume that's the game you're talking about OP. I agreed, as soon as they said multiple universes where everything is possible, I didn't like it. I got uneasy the first time we went to another reality, I was like, oh man, now nothing matters. And it only got worse from there. It made everything that happened in the game feel pointless. Even the end.

The other game I got a narrative disconnect was the tomb raider reboot. Seeing lara struggle in all the cutscenes was cool and I really liked it, but then mowing down hundreds of bad guys right after blew me out of any immersion I had. Still a fun game though, and worth a playthrough.

No comment from me on what game I'm referring to! I will stick to my political party line!

I personally got really annoyed seeing Lara continuously struggle and, as far as I saw it, just got tremendously lucky that she didn't die at multiple points in that game. Sure, you can have a lead who isn't the ultimate badass and is just the every-man of day-to-day life, but I couldn't judge it without thinking about whether they would have done it differently if she was a man. Instead, I thought, she was just being lucky not to fall to her death several times and she really needed to stop screaming.

It seemed impossible to judge that game without some sort of gendered hat on though, it was very frustrating - because I played it after all the furore about the coming of age and development of a female lead. To be honest, they should be able to create whatever kind of lead they please, but for me I felt rather similar to you about it. It really didn't make sense that after Lara shoots one person and freaks out and then can immediately begin mowing down groups of people without issue and also could take on multiple people in armed combat all of a sudden.

I ended that game with basically no connection to the characters and not really caring about what the outcome would be. I liked that the story became more interesting later on in the game, rather than plodding along like it was in the middle, but had no emotional investment in the characters or what would happen to them.

Also the very 'console-game-esque' elements of the game completely withdrew me from accepting the narrative - as it had all those areas you couldn't access and knew you would have to backtrack to at some point if you were a 100% completionist, because you didn't have that right item yet to open a door covered in rope (or w/e). Or you would get a new item and immediately it becomes vital to you progressing at all, otherwise you would've been completely stuck with no way to continue. Console game makers, that stuff, stop it.

 

[Ubiquitous Duck]

I believe that refers to instances where there is a disagreement or conflict between the gameplay and the narrative. This could cause a disconnection from the narrative and obviously is relevant, but my example is a separation from emotive investment in the narrative, due to the narrative itself, not anything necessarily to do with the gameplay.

I've not tried the latest instalment of the Batman series. How does the Origin crime scene investigation alter the experience? (I'm guessing since you named Origin and not the series as a whole that you liked the previous versions, but a change in Origin kind of broke it for you)

To avoid spoilers, the first and most important crime scene I was tasked with doing had Batman narrating some extremely implausible conclusions based on what I perceived to be extremely vague clues. This being an Arkham game, it broke consistency with previous crime scene investigations.

That sounds like something out of Sherlock Holmes or The Mentalist, but even more far-fetched.

I was already hesitant to invest in this game, as I heard it was a rushed product and I didn't like the second instalment anywhere near as much as the first (hated the Batman sandbox concept).

Now, I'm even more hesitant. Damn it, what happened Batman? I loved Arkham Asylum.

 

[MrDumpkins]

SNIP

Yeah I was pretty excited when they kept referring to the reboot as a coming of age and development story. But it just didn't work out with the gameplay they had in mind. I remember one of the coolest scenes was towards the end with the stormguard, you finally get to meet them after running through the game scared of them. So when you start sneaking through their ritual party, I was pretty immersed again and was really hoping they wouldn't see me. Then after that scene you run outside and it goes to a cutscene where like 10000 of them line up and laura just yells "COME AND GET ME" and you fight them all. Why was I sneaking past them at the start then if I could just plow through them with no problem...

I had lost interest in laura's story a long time before them, but the mystical nature of the stormguard had me intrigued until you actually had to fight them. That game disappointed me in so many ways.

 

[Ubiquitous Duck]

SNIP

Yeah I was pretty excited when they kept referring to the reboot as a coming of age and development story. But it just didn't work out with the gameplay they had in mind. I remember one of the coolest scenes was towards the end with the stormguard, you finally get to meet them after running through the game scared of them. So when you start sneaking through their ritual party, I was pretty immersed again and was really hoping they wouldn't see me. Then after that scene you run outside and it goes to a cutscene where like 10000 of them line up and laura just yells "COME AND GET ME" and you fight them all. Why was I sneaking past them at the start then if I could just plow through them with no problem...

I had lost interest in laura's story a long time before them, but the mystical nature of the stormguard had me intrigued until you actually had to fight them. That game disappointed me in so many ways.

The 'reveal' or whatever you'd like to call it of the stormguard in the story, I thought was genius.

I was like: Yes! this game is not what I thought at all and has taken a completely dark route now, but it just didn't continue on the vein that I wanted.

It was definitely the best aspect, but the execution of it, by you then taking them all on, I agree, was a bit mental and left me annoyed.

 

[porous_shield]

The Walking Dead game for me completely disconnected me from the story the moment I realized it was just like a choose-your-own-adventure book. I'd get invested in the what was happening and then I'd make a choice and the mechanics of the game came front and center and it ruined it a bit for me that my choices didn't carry any weight.

What I mean by that is in a choose your own adventure book the choices you make are only ever very shallow for the simple fact that if you had a choice with two major decisions that would affect the story in significant ways, choosing either would force the writer to write two very different stories from then on. Further choices create a ever more branching tree and even more work. The writer needs to merge the story to cut down on work for themself or they need to end the path altogether, so any choices need to be shallow or cosmetic enough so that the two paths can merge.

With The Walking Dead:

Spoiler

When that guy gets caught in the bear trap and you have a choice to either help him or let him stay there forces a very brutal choice on you but I feel it was undermined by the realization that if you save him or let him die, this man will be a very minor character and probably be killed off or otherwise leave right away. The saving him path would mean adding scenes and lines for him to the rest of the game, and that's a lot of work that presumably half your audience won't see, so the designers had to make both paths merge again and they did this by having him die right away.

Another example:

Spoiler

Choosing food for the group was one of the hardest decisions I had to make in a game but again it was undermined by knowing that it would be a very shallow choice. There was no way the designers were going to include outcomes for all the different possibilities for who you could have given food to. All you get is a couple of lines and that's it about your decisions and that killed it for me.

I enjoyed the game overall, but knowing the inner workings of the choices tore me out of the story every time.