God of War designer David Jaffe has been talking about stories in games and why they still fail to really emotionally engage:
The recently released flower immersed me and made me feel something. Hell, I even felt a bit of emotion in Gears of War 2 (altho, to be fair, it was emotional connection created via cut scene, not gameplay). But overall, I feel the medium is either not capable of creating and sustaining deep emotions or we have simply not come close to understanding how to do it on a consistent basis. I am open to it, but I'm just being honest with how I feel about the current state of storytelling in gameplay.
Most of the post is based around Jaffe's issues with the end of Metal Gear Solid 4 but the general point is valid. Cut scenes do their thing but can we ever have a truly compelling and emotionally powerful story while actually playing a game? I think so, although it tends to be RPGs like Knights of the Old Republic or – cliché alert – Final Fantasy VII that spring to mind. Jaffe remains unconvinced though.
I'm not saying folks who say they get emotional are 'wrong'. That's great they feel that way. Altho sometimes I get the feeling that SOME of those folks are just clinging and making false claims because they WANT games to be that way and are willing to tell themselves that games are that way even tho they actually are not.
What do you think then? Can powerful storytelling ever work in gameplay? Or are cut-scenes the only way?
