Storytelling in videogames is a hot topic in the industry, but not the other way round: in literary circles, videogames are systematically ignored.
In our Writing Workshop we try to pay attention to every means of storytelling, so we’ll be doing our best to fill that gap. At some point I plan to record a session of our Spanish-language podcast devoted to this subject, but in the meantime I’ll try to keep ths blog updated with news or quotes on the topic.
Several specialized blogs reported yesterday the statements by Yoshio Sakamoto, co-creator of the Metroid saga, regarding one of the new function in the forthcoming “Metroid Other M“: the Theatre Mode.
[It] lets you view all of the cutscenes linked together seamlessly as a single movie… it’s hard to fully communicate a storyline in a video game with just one playthrough… It lets you make a lot of discoveries, things you missed or dialogue that makes more sense in retrospect. I hope it helps people understand the story better.”
We’ve seen other developers tell their game’s story through videos and cutscenes, sometimes in detriment of playability (we’re not looking at anyone here), and it seems the balance might break again? The debate is alive and we’ll keep an eye on how it develops.