Uncharted and “Narrative Design”

I recently had a discussion with a friend and colleague at a party about Uncharted 3 and it’s merits and weaknesses.  My friend’s main high point was the fantastic “Narrative Design”.  I’m not trying to single him out with this post and I don’t’ want to insult anyone, but when I hear terms like “narrative design”, I want to give our industry a good shake.  Not because it’s necessarily wrong to go after a great narrative, not that narrative and design should be divorced, it’s just that it’s so freaking poorly defined!

What is narrative design anyway?  Is it writing?  Story? Connection between story and gameplay?  All of the above?  something else?  For me, the term invokes the concept of telling a story through gameplay, or at least tightly interleaving gameplay and story.  To me a great “Narrative Designer” would be someone who can tell me the story of a game even as I’m playing it, without relying heavily on dialogue or cutscenes.  Someone who can use environment cues to give backstory, who can, through gameplay, create emotional connections to characters and plot.

Not to offend anyone, but I don’t think we have a lot of these people in the business.  And, not to be a total jerk, but I don’t think any of them work at Naughty Dog.

Let me start by saying that I think Uncharted 2 is in a short list of contenders for best game of the current console generation, and maybe one of the best games of all time.  Certainly one of the best action games of all time.  Particularly in context.  It wasn’t a game that innovated, but boy did it execute on so many levels.  Great encounter design, decent shooting, fantastic graphics and great dialogue.  Really impressive tech, too, in terms of graphics, physics, what have you.  Amazing opening, incredible pacing, just a fantastic bolt from the blue as far as I’m concerned.  Uncharted 1 did not prepare me for what Naughty Dog had in store for Uncharted 2.

However.

When Naughty Dog says things like (paraphrasing) “it’s disheartening when reviewers say other games have amazing stories”, I have to take issue. The story might be good, if there was a consistent main character in Uncharted, or if the allies of the main character didn’t have a huge blindspot for the main character’s bizarre psychopathic behavior.

What am I talking about?

The main character, who presents himself as a “happy-go-lucky” everyman who is a treasure hunter, just trying to get that big score, in actuality is a mass murderer.  We’re talking about someone who will sneak up on hired guards who are paid to protect an archeological dig, or possibly some amazing ancient tomb, and silently kill as many people as he can until they realize he’s there and desperately try to defend themselves.  It doesn’t do much good though, because Nathan Drake is a superhuman marksman and soldier who basically puts any real soldier to shame.  During each uncharted game, Drake kills easily over a thousand people, many of whom had no warning, and certainly did not initiate combat. 

And why does Drake murder all these people?  Is he trying to save his country?  Maybe protect the human race?  Even something as simple as revenge? 

No, the main reason Nathan Drake sneaks in and murders hundreds of mercenaries is to try to get rich.  He’s presented as a noble protagonist and several characters are sympathetic to him due to his supposed nobility.  But all the motivations for Drake are to make a lot of money obtaining some relic. The plot does ensure that there’s someone even more murderous and money hungry (though do we ever see these so-called villains murder thousands of people?  I don’t think so), and of course the get rich quick scheme backfires, but it doesn’t change the fact that characters in the story laud drake and hate the antagonist despite the fact that the motivations are largely the same.  And worst of all, they’re not really that consistent with the motivations of the player!  The player wants to have fun murdering thugs!  Which is totally out of character for Drake!

Now, I haven’t played Uncharted 2 in a long time, so I can’t pull examples from that as easily, though the beginning of the game, where you inexplicably start with a tranquilizer gun comes to mind (why bother?  Drake clearly has no compunctions taking down hundreds of people who get in his way), or at the end when in a bizarre desire (one assumes) for Naughty Dog to show the world how ridiculous its plot actually is, they have the antagonist say to Drake “How many men have you killed, just today”.

Uncharted 3, has some pretty amazing moments in this regard, however.  At the beginning of the game, when Drake’s British compatriot hands him a gun and Nathan gives the man a look as if to say he wasn’t comfortable handling a gun.  Really Nathan?  Who are you trying to fool?  I personally watched you gun down hundreds of people during the previous two games, and don’t act like you’re trying to look good in front of your friends.  I’ve seen them shoot a fair few mercenaries themselves.  But the amazing part is towards the end of the game, no spoilers, so don’t’ worry, but there is a part where Sully separates from Nathan so Nathan can open a door, and on the other side of the door there are 20 or so mercenaries, just trying to guard the place.  After murdering all the mercenaries, you open the door, to have Sully ask:  “What took you so long?”  Your response?  Delivered in a lighthearted, devil-may-care tone: “The usual”.  Indeed, murdering tens of people is “the usual” for this madman, but not for any normal person!

Now longtime gamers might, at this point, begin to question my motives behind this blog post, and even question the validity of my concerns.  I mean aren’t most games about killing enemies?  What about Halo or Call of Duty?  What about Grand Theft Auto?  Well it’s pretty simple, in Halo and Call of Duty, you’re a soldier, and a soldier’s job is to kill enemies!  It’s perfectly reasonable that you’d mow down tons of enemy troops.  In Halo, you’re even meant to be a genetically enhanced cyborg, so it’s sort of plausible that you could face down armies on your own.  Call of Duty basically ensures that you’re the greatest soldier who ever lived, but at least it makes sense that a soldier would shoot enemies.  As far as Grand Theft Auto, I could write a whole separate blog post on why the gameplay and story don’t match up, but at LEAST the main character is meant to be a NOTORIOUS CRIMINAL.  In Grand Theft Auto Vice City, several characters are trepidatious about the protagonist’s imminent return due to his ability to destroy a town!  This isn’t exactly solving the problem but at least it sort of addresses it.

“Well, that’s all well and good,” you might say, “ but can you show me an action game where the main character isn’t killing hundreds of enemies?” 

Indeed, the Batman games from Rocksteady do, in fact, have a protagonist who doesn’t kill criminals.  All of the combat is stealth and fistfighting.  One might note this is how most of the action in films that are similar to the Uncharted series takes place also.  Films like the Indiana Jones movies, and Romancing the Stone.

I can laud the uncharted games (particularly 2) as a fantastic action game series, but I can’t take them seriously as advancing the industry in terms of narrative design.  I will admit they have a reasonably good plot and, for video games, really good dialogue, as well as fantastically realized cutscenes.  I won’t give them a pass on the absolute and complete disconnection between the action of the game, and the plot of the game, however.  It doesn’t make the game bad, but it certainly reflects poorly on the games as paragons of “narrative design”.

So is this rant just a hate filled spew?  Can ANY GAME Live up to my seemingly high expectations?  Indeed, my friend’s question was “what game does it better?”  Which, in some ways is a fair question.  I shall attempt to answer with a few games that I do find to be incredible examples of what I think of as great narrative design.

Ico is the only game that I’ve ever witnessed that can truly be said to have a love story in it.  You may not fall in love with Yorda, but if that’s the case, I’d advise you to go to the hospital, because I think there’s a reasonable chance you don’t have a heart.  Through simple mechanics and IK, a bond is forged between the protagonist and Yorda that ends up creating incredibly strong emotional connections, and the ending exploits this to tremendous (and frequently tearful) effect.

But that’s old and somewhat esoteric.  One could even complain that it’s too artsy fartsy, and not that popular.  Besides, there’s not even any good dialogue!

For my second case, I present: Portal 2.

The entire game, your motivations are perfectly in sync with the protagonist.  There is amazingly hilarious dialogue with genius comic timing.  The story is told through mechanics, dialogue, and told very well through the environment. I’m not going to talk about whether Portal 2 is overall a better game than Uncharted 2, but from a narrative design perspective, it beats the ever living crap out of uncharted 2 (in my opinion,  of course).

How about Half Life 2?  The beginning of the game is a master class in video game storytelling.  This storytelling doesn’t work in any other medium, you have to play it, you have to experience it firsthand.  I don’t’ think the rest of the game holds up quite as well to the beginning, but oh what a beginning.

Other games that I tend to think have great narrative design include Bioshock, Shadow of the Colossus, Mass Effect, and the God of War series.

I think that’s enough ranting, and I hope I made it clear that I think the Uncharted games are perfectly good games, but I hate that as an industry we can’t define “narrative design” as distinct from writing a story well enough to discern good dialogue and cutscenes from good design.