Should you need to read the books in order to understand a game's lore/characters?

[RealRT]

No, you should never *have* to do this. If you do, it's not a well-written series. You should read the books if you want more of the lore that you have seen, not if you want to understand what the hell did you just play through.
By the way, I don't think Witcher qualifies as this. While it does get more dependent on the book lore with each new installment, I think it does a fine job explaining characters and lore on its own.

 

[Something Amyss]

I think it can be an option but I'm never ever going to play it.

I shouldn't have to do homework to enjoy your game. If I wanted to read a book, I would read a book. Books/Codex things can be optional in order to better appreciate the world and whatnot but if I can't figure out your story based on what I'm playing, I'm dropping your game.

Yeah, the story itself should be largely self-contained. I don't mind references to other things in-universe/other games/books/whatever, but If they're actually necessary to get this game's plot, it's bad storytelling. If it's necessary to understand basics, what the hell are you even doing, game?

 

[happyninja42]

Back in the days when games came with an instruction manual, that usually included a cliff notes version of the world setting, I would say it was fine to read to understand what's going on.

But if they are basically locking the context of the events behind a paywall of a book purchase....no, I think that's a real shitty thing to do.

Now, if they want to expand on the narrative with novels, that's perfectly fine. Tell a new story that helps bring more depth to some of the characters presented in the game, but don't require it.

 

[BadNewDingus]

I don't read the books. I do, however, read the quick lore from wiki and such.

 

[Tohuvabohu]

Should you need to read the books in order to understand a game's lore/characters?

No. If a game is attempting to put forth a story, it should give us the information necessary to make sense of its lore. Plenty of games exist which give little care to presenting a story - Such as some fighting games, action games, etc. And for these, where the gameplay itself takes precedent over everything else, having no real presence of story is fine. Not great, but fine. Having things like books aren't a bad thing if there is a sensible story already there, and books exist to flesh out the universe for those people who really do want to learn more...

But that should be no excuse for leaving a story totally absent within a game. How bad can it get?... I'll highlight one specific game, which blunders the concept of introducing players to its lore in a spectacular fashion.

Destiny

It's not quite what you are regarding to in the OP, in the sense that the game doesn't really have "books" needed to purchase in order to come to grips with the lore. Rather, the game seems to intentionally omit a majority of its own lore and relegating it to "grimoire cards." Basically, as you play the game and encounter enemies/locations/bosses/weapons, you uncover info cards for them which give pieces of information that flesh things out.

Not the worst concept on its own. But the problem is that the grimoire cards are utterly inaccessible ingame. You need to go straight to Bungie's website, log in to your account, to look at your own grimoire cards. Or you can use the mobile app. Cause that's what gaming sorely needed! /s

You have this database of information

This Library of Lore

A treasure trove of history.

And you can't even look at it ingame. Bizarre that a game whose lack of story has become a punchline has made no effort in all the DLC's to fix this.

The expansions have fixed this somewhat. House of Wolves introducing a villain with goals. Then the Taken King moving the concept even further by having a persistent antagonist with motivations and a strong presence. You know who he is, you know why he is there, you know how he operates - And this is all done within the game's own presentation through cutscenes and dialogue.

Destiny is now actually attempting the bare minimum of storytelling. It does, however, make the grimoire card problem even worse.

Although there is now a storyline. There is also a slew of new Grimoire Cards which are more important to the lore than ever.

Altogether, the new grimoire cards are referred as 'The Book of Sorrows.'

And they entail a thorough history of not only the entire Hive Race (the major Antagonist race of the Taken King), but also major background history of various other races, the 'darkness', and the Traveler itself. The hive origins, the planet they came from, who Oryx is, how the Hive Religion functions, the progenitors of 'Darkness' and how it operates and the motivations of the Hive Worm Gods. The Traveler's questionable role in spreading darkness throughout space. The origins of the Vex Race (A total fucking mystery in the base game, and were also the major antagonist species before the expansions released)

All of this insanely beneficial information which explains not only the origins of damn near everything - But also explains much of the gameplay logic... Totally inaccessible within the game itself.

So yeah... Please give us something. And if there's more beyond cutscenes and cursory dialogue, please let us see it in the form of an in-game codex/database/library. Chopping story out of a game to a point where it makes no damn sense on its own is inexcusable.

 

[KingsGambit_v1legacy]

A game's story needs to be able to stand alone, be exciting and self-contained. If it doesn't make sense or is full of gaps and plot holes that require external sources to fill I wouldn't hesitate to say the devs failed at proper storytelling within the game.

Using DA:O as an example, it is a perfectly self-contained story that one can play through from beginning till end. We know all the important information, the characters and their motivations and meet the different races who we help in order to win them to our cause. Saying that, the DA novels go into more depth on the older characters. We see how Loghain came to meet the King and Queen who would eventually give birth to Cailan, the King in DA:O. It is a different story entirely but despite Maric being the main character, shows Loghain to be a very interesting, deep and loyal character. Having read it, and then played DA:O it is interesting to compare Loghain's actions in the game against the character we learn about in the novel. But the novel is not required reading, just going into depth on events set before the game, fleshing those events out and adding to the lore.

 

[K12]

No definitely not if it's needed for the story. If I need to be consulting something else to enjoy/ understand something (especially when that is a completely different medium, what if I love the game but don't like reading?)

When it comes to series it's a bit fairer. I think that not fully understanding "Hypothetical game 2" from the start without playing "Hypothetical game 1" is basically ok as long as it's possible to be caught up on the relevant details after a little while. Basically the way that "in medias res" stories play out.

It's great having extras, the history and origin of particular characters, conflicts or groups, but if I'm ever asking "wait, why are these characters/ factions acting like this?", the response "if you read the book you'd know" isn't an excuse.

This extra true when it comes to adaptations of already existing stories. What the hell is the point of an adaptation that only works if you already know the story!

 

[HybridChangeling]

With the exception of all 6 good book based games, no. The whole video game books were big in the nineties when videos games were being translated to book or to add lore to the story, (Halo and Resident Evil Books) and usually did little to improve your experience. Now some games use it as an excuse to get the "story out of the gameplay" and shove it somewhere else. That way the can guard themselves with "its there see?" and also prevent most people from actually seeing their sub par story.

 

[Malfrun]

I have heard bad things about the quality of writing in some extended lore books like the Elder Scrolls one which was given out as a pre-order bonus. I like the idea of them but don't think they should be necessary at all for knowing what's going on. Still trying to get around with reading the rest of the Dragon age ones but the last one kind of bored me as it was about a character I didn't really care for.

 

[CaitSeith]

In general I think books (or even in-game glossaries) shouldn't be required for the basic understanding of the game plot and characters; but they should be available for details and to add more deepness to the characters and their universe.

 

[spartandude]

I think the original Star Wars trilogy is a good example of how to do it. Everything you need to know is in there. You watch those movies and know what's going on and get a really good sense of how the setting works. But if you want to know more there's a shit tonne more to read if you want.

 

[IamLEAM1983]

Absolutely not. I always thought that games needed to stand up on their own. Related books are nice asides, possibilities to consider if and only if you're seriously engrossed in the lore. Any Witcher fan who dismisses players who haven't dug into the novels is doing the series a disservice.

I mean, you *can* recommend a related book series if it's worth it on its own. Just don't pull the "Read X or miss out on plot points" crap. That's not transmedia marketing, it's shoving novels of unproven quality down the throats of consumers.

 

[Ishigami]

No. If it is not in the game then it shouldn't matter.
Also if you are required to understand something then it should be part of the plot/story that is told to you directly.
Moving everything into some sort of archive that is accessible in the game is not a proper way to do things.
It is in fact the most lazy fucked up way to do things: See FFXIII for example.

 

[The Madman]

No. Books, Comics, and other such media should be used to expand upon an existing game storyline not usurp it as the main means of advancing said story... *Grumble Grumble Warcraft Grumble*

 

[fix-the-spade]

No.
FUCK NO.

If a piece of fiction isn't self contained enough to be functional on it's own, it's a bad piece of fiction. You don't start a book from chapter four of ten, then mention at the end that chapter one to three are on the DVD release and chapters six and seven are a tie in game.

The worst offenders for this are EA and Microsoft. Crysis, Mass Effect and Halo all suffer(ed) from whoisthatandwhyshouldIgiveafuckaboutthem syndrome with plot critical characters appearing, disappearing and getting changing motivations in books, tie in comics and mobile games. Then when the new one comes out you're expected to know what happened in the gap and or care about the outcome (what happened to Nomad and the rest of the Delta teams again?).

Supplemental lore is just fine, but you don't need any of that to watch Star Wars (or Lord of the Rings, Avatar, Harry Potter...) and know exactly what's going on, games should hold themselves to the same standard.

 

[Kameburger]

I was playing a game (which shall remain anonymous) the other day, and one thing I noticed from it was there was a large lack of detail going into it. When I attempt to pull up the codex/glossary, the game redirects me to a website and asks me to buy a separate novel/guide so I could understand all the terms, the details, the character history, etc. (To be honest, the game ?does? touch upon some of the concepts and characters it brings up, but does it so lightly that it feels empty/confusing).

Which brought me to a question: How accessible should a game be? Should they need to read a lore book beforehand or should whatever lore be placed within the game?

For example, in Bioware games, they usually provide a codex which details certain concepts and history the game cannot depict without getting extra costs. But at the same time, those games do a well enough job explaining who certain characters are and how they got to that point. For example, I never read the two books previous to Dragon Age: Origins, the Stolen Throne or The Calling. However, I was able to get a clear picture of the concept, the world and the characters (especially Loghain) just by playing the game and didn?t need to read the books.

But in another area, the Witcher, fans say that I would almost need to read the novels to appreciate the world as it goes into more details of the characters than the games do. (Disclosure: I have played Witcher 1 and 2, but not 3 because of monetary situation. I plan to pick it up this holiday season).

What do you think?

I'm going to probably be a minority in this opinion, but I believe it's completely ok to make a game that has lore that is heavily tied into another medium. I think it's probably not to the games benefit if it flat out feels incomplete because bits and pieces are in another medium but at the same time, I think there is something to be said for games that have some extra content in another medium that enhances it. If something is based on a book, then much like movies it would be hard to expect absolutely everything to be explained within that context because sometimes there isn't room or that isn't the focus. It's just one of those things. I like having bits I can explore when I'm not playing the game, or have finished and want to continue in that world.

 

[Rednog]

I'd actually disagree about the Witcher, Geralt from the books is a really different person from the one in the game.
Going through the games in sequence is enough, reading the books just muddles the events in game. I personally think the games' plot does a,disservice to the story of the books.

 

[RedDeadFred]

Nope. As Cinemasins say: "the books do not matter."

Why should I have to read a book that's probably not even going to be that good in order to understand a game?

 

[Drakmorg]

Nope.

News flash, if you can't get across all the information the player needs to basically understand the story without supplemental material, you are a shit writer. I'm sorry, but communicating information is kinda pivotal to story-telling. If you can't think of a better way to do that then demanding your audience read an encyclopedia or half-assed novel beforehand, you should probably just be writing encyclopedias and half-assed novels instead of video game stories.

Now, I'm not saying that supplemental material is all bad. But what I am saying is that if it were required to read The Silmarillion just to understand who Sauron is and why we don't want him to get his jewelry back, nobody would give a shit about who JRR Tolkien was anymore.

 

[stormtrooper9091]

No, not really, most of them are massive infodumps to make the devs go "look, we r porfeshunal writors deeeerp"

usual suspects: Bioware. God almighty there's books filled with useless crap that I never ever waste time reading