During a recent talk at Dice, Tomb Raider and Mirror’s Edge writer, Rhianna Pratchett stressed that writers are not brought in early enough in the game development process, to ensure that a strong story runs throughout the game.
In her presentation, ‘From Overlords to Tomb Raiders: A Career in the Narrative Trenches’ Pratchett spoke about her experience as a writer and how frustrating it is when writers are brought in after a game has already been designed. She described current games writers as “narrative paramedics”, arriving late and having to weave the story into the game, wherever possible. In her opinion, developers tend to ignore writers until quite late in the game’s development. She therefore advises that scripts should be written alongside core gameplay in order to achieve stories that run fluidly throughout.
“Writers need to be engaged with the whole team and not left on the outside. When writers are on the outside, so is your story. Story is not just words. It flows through everything in the game.” said Pratchett
Pratchett and her writing team recently won the Writer’s Guild Award for Rise of the Tomb Raider - a game that focuses on the story behind Lara Croft in much more depth. She believes that “we are narrative creatures. Stories engage the heart and make players care about your game”. She also argued that players will naturally look for stories, even when the story is not at the heart of the game, so ignoring the role of writers in a games production is a key mistake made by a number of developers. As a result, Pratchett is calling for the games industry to enable writers to contribute earlier on in projects.
Are some games currently lacking in their story content and could this lead to deeper and more immersive stories in the future? Let us know what you think.
