Do games, NEED story?

[Arrogancy]

At the most basic level, no, games do not need stories. That is a fairly uncontroversial point. However, you provoke controversy when you attack games for having stories at all, as some forums claim.

 

[emeraldrafael]

My opinion on it is the more advanced you make the game the more you should include a story. A good stroy can always only help so there's nothing wrong with games that have them as long as it doesn't feel forced or is half done.

 

[thejackyl]

No, games do not need a story. Some games are (personally) far better due to their minimal story-telling approach.

A lot of people will say that Dark Souls and Demon's Souls have no story, and that is definitely not true. Sure it isn't hand fed to you, but if you look at your items, and talk to the NPCs you'll learn a lot about the world. Though I will admit they should put a better emphasis on how the player finds it.

More examples: ICO and Shadow of the Colossus. Both have more or less an opening cutscene, boss intros(Not sure about ICO, haven't played that far), and the ending cutscene. The story is what gets put together by the player.

Also, Skyrim has an overarching story (That you can do at your own pace), and every quest usually has some back story to it.

Multiplayer focused games do NOT need a story (and are usually bogged down if they have one.) Guitar Hero/Rock Band don't need the Career Mode, since anyone can pick up the controller and have fun.

One of my favorite games has a next to no story and is getting a remake. X-COM.
"You are the commander of an army to save the world from alien invasion. Good Luck." No real context as to why they are attacking, or anything, but the game is still fun.

 

[DugMachine]

If you're gonna put any sort of story into it I feel it should be worthwhile not mediocre and just there for the sake of having a story.

Games that are barebones like say Tetris or Pong though wouldn't need a story cause.. well they just don't. They're games in it's simplest form.

 

[willsham45]

No not all games need a story.

But some games need context and the best way for this is usually story.

I would not be happy playing a shooter unless there was at least something there that says who these people are and why they are fighting.
But I would be happy to play something basic like tetrus or some similar type puzzle game with nothing. It just depends on what you are doing.

 

[ScrabbitRabbit]

Again. Nowadays, story is needed and is more important than gameplay. Gameplay can only go so far until it hits limitations... which it pretty much has for almost every genre now. The only thing to make things different is by making story based games.

But there's so much games can do, artistically, as well as tell a story and there are still so many things in gameplay that could be improved and perfected. I see new innovations all the time.

Sure, we don't see many new genres but we do see new interpretations and improvements to the established formulas all the time. We see poor reinterpretations and changes for the worse, too, but, hey, we gotta take risks and figure out what works.

For many, many games the story is extremely important and maybe even what makes it great, but interactivity is what defines the medium; it is inherently the most important thing. I suppose, in many games the story and gameplay are inextricably linked, such as in Home, and in these cases story is just as important as gameplay... but the key phrase here is "just as." If your interactive bits are poor, all you're doing is making the story harder to enjoy. If the interactive bits are great and the story is poor, the game might still be enjoyable (unless it's got overlong, often unskippable cutscenes like Max Payne 3).

Besides, story based games are better than gameplay only ones.

I find it hard to disagree because nearly all of my favourite games are story-driven. I will say that I believe there's room for both; I want to see games develop and reach their full potential as a storytelling and artistic medium but I don't think every game needs to do that. It's perfectly OK for some games to just be fun timekillers.

 

[TrevHead]

Manuals need not exist. The human mind can hold so much more, and is easier to manipulate and implant.

Dood, it's all about imagination (lazy writing). Why bother spelling things out only to be contradicted. We can get away with so much more shit if we are vague and minimal!

Ah I see

While I still think manuals or an ingame wiki has its place, I do totally agree with what you that many games are too heavy and almost treat the player as a psychopath with no imagination to fill in the blanks themselves or capacity to understand emotion.

For example all those 8bit adventure games, they were very immersive when we were kids and are still today with indies using the same style. And while some might look like B grade 50s horror flicks to somebody used to watching The Saw, there's still alot the AAA industry can learn from them.

Homeworld would be a good example of a AAA story done this way. And it's why in some Japanese games I like oldschool text or English subtitles with the Japanese VO which I can't understand.

Hell even a simple shmup has a good story in it and is a rollercoster of emotion with overcoming adversity including facing that awesome boss for the first time when it kicks your arse than a few tries later you beat it. It's almost an tolken-eske adventure in itself

 

[wulf3n]

I always wonder if these types of discussions occur for all fledgeling media, that if 80 years ago people were arguing whether film needed a story or if it's better off being just a series of moving images.

 

[Samantha Burt]

The simple answer: does this sentence, need a comma?

Darn, ninja'd

OT: I really don't think a story is a requirement. I mean, story more-or-less ruined the UT series for me (seriously, field lattice generators?). Not everything needs more set up than: "here is X, use it on Y until Z happens. Now go nuts."

 

[lacktheknack]

I play Dwarf Fortress.

I also play Syberia.

Why do people insist on having one, but not the other?

 

[Arina Love]

I refuse to play games that don't have a story. i don't care about gameplay alone, what i need is full experience. Experience full of dialogue,characters,cutscenes and so on.

 

[Naranja797]

Doom.
Thank you very much.

 

[TrevHead]

The simple answer: does this sentence, need a comma?

Depends on how bad ones grammer is, in my case yes lol

 

[DustyDrB]

Games need story like your title needs a comma. But story can definitely elevate the experience vastly. It can rescue an ordinary or even a bad game. Having context and meaning behind your actions gives you an extra investment in them. I find myself creating a narrative of sort on my own when a game doesn't provide it.

 

[TheOneBearded]

I don't believe games NEED a story, however, if you aren't going to put the time into making a good story, don't bother putting one in at all.

I think games like CoD would be VASTLY improved if they just cut out the SP part of the game because they obviously spent little to no time on making it even half-assed.

Game companies need to stop spending time on something they have no intention on making even remotely good and should put their resources into making the focus of the game, in CoD's case the multiplayer, better.

I really don't understand why a game like Call of Duty (these days) has a single-player mode. Most people (specifically the more hardcore players) don't even touch this and just go straight to the mulit-player. Do they make it so that they have something to do after tweaking the multi-player? I'm pretty sure that they can dish out over four CoD games if they didn't have to bother with the single-player mode.

Damn, I really miss the good old days of Call of Duty 3.

 

[aegix drakan_v1legacy]

Not all games NEED a good story to be fantastic. *points at Unreal Tournament 1999*

What all games need, though, is CONTEXT. Or at least most games need context. I mean, no one really gives a damn what's going on in Tetris, right?

So no, not all games require a deep story to be enjoyable. However, a good story can make a good game fantastic and truly memorable. And it doesn't even need to have a good plot. Story can also be told through atmosphere and background details.

The writing in Demon's Souls, quite simply, sucks. But I'll still argue it's a good story. Why? The atmosphere. The bloodstains, the corpses, those all do a lot more to convey what's going on than a few lines of speech. You know a small handful about how this place used to be a paradise on earth, and then you see what it is now. It makes the severity hit home.

Kinda like that.

A good story with good depth and good characters (Like Tales of the Abyss) is admittedly hard to come by, but games like Demon's Souls, Bioshock, etc, are blessedly becoming more common, and I'll take what I can get.

Hey, Ranylyn, might I recommend renting Spec Ops The Line? DAMN good narrative, atmosphere and character development (mostly for the main character). If you can forgive a somewhat shallow first hour, the remaining 6-7 hours will blow your freakin mind.

Oh, and I don't hate you for hating FF7. As much as I loved that game when I was younger, I agree that it had some serious narrative flaws. Like, major major ones. That and the materia system made every single character feel EXACTLY the same. FF4 is way way way more awesome.

 

[Murmillos]

Games need story as much as movies/moves/plays/tv-shows do.

Depending on what type of entertainment you are going for, the amount of story can be as simple as you are guy X killing Z to save Y too more complex ideas that show or reflect on soul searching emotional questions.

 

[TehCookie]

Obviously it depends on the game - puzzle games don't really need anything in the way of a story, but RPGs fall almost completely flat without one.

Skyrim did pretty well.

I don't think all games need a story but it never hurts a game, if it's bad you can just ignore it and play like it doesn't exist (as shown above). Besides stories usually set some sort of goal, even in a simple game like Mario beating the level to save the princess sounds better than beating the level because that's what you do in games.

Are you really claiming Skyrim didn't have a story? I guess I imagined the entire dragon bit, the quests, and the factions. The fact that it takes placed in the already established world and takes past game accounts into it. Not to mention it let's players forge their own unique story and experience as well.

I thought it obvious enough that I knew Skyrim had a story and I just covered me ears and yelled lalala over it but I guess not. I was half joking when I said that but I was also half serious.