(A 18 minutes reading, approx)
There are a lot of common templates or structures for stories, the most well known is the hero's journey, also known as the monomyth, that involves a hero who goes on an adventure, is victorious in a decisive crisis, and comes home changed or transformed.
Popularized by Joseph Campbell, who was influenced by Carl Jung's analytical psychology.
The objective of this narrative structure is to analyze stories as aspects of the human psyche and not so much as an aid for creating a narrative. This model is very popular in cinema due to its influence in early disney and pixar´s work.
Another common template for telling stories is the Three-act structure or Aristotelian structure (Poetics c.335 bce) that divides a story into three parts (acts), often called the Setup, the Confrontation, and the Resolution; or Acts 1, 2 and 3.
Modern script-writers also consider a 4rth part, after the climax, the denouement; a term that also has its origins in theater.
This doesn't always develop in a linear fashion. Many stories start in the middle of Act 3 and work their way back to Act 1 before concluding in Act 3 again. It’s also not a hard rule, do what works for your narrative, however I do find it very useful for production and organizational purposes, and that is why I think it will be useful to see how videogames make use of this structure and the many ways we can subvert it or take advantage of it for the sake of production prioritization, specially on indie or lower budget titles.
First Act
The first act typically starts with exposition, scenes that establish the world of the story. If the story contains supernatural elements, the rules of the supernatural world would be established here. This act should also establish the ordinary world of the story’s main character, their day to day life.
Before the act is over, however, an inciting incident should occur, that pulls the protagonist out of their normal world and into the main action of the story.
The act concludes with some sort of turning point that launches the action into act two.
Examples of games with a very traditional (and effective) Act 1 are both Half Life 1 (1998) and Half Life 2 (2004).
In the first game you start on your way to your workstation, in an iconic train ride, the player gets to briefly interact with the people working in Black Mesa and see the installations on their normality before the alien invasion starts.
In the second game you start already under alien rule (also in getting off a train) you see how broken everyone's spirits are, hear rumors of stuff being put into the water, and see the heavy military presence. You establish contact with the resistance through Barney, a former security guard we knew in the first game that has been working undercover in the enemies ranks. Before you know it you are escaping through the roof of the city building before being rescued by Alex and finally taken to another familiar face. Before long you meet the whole gang of new and returning characters, including Doc’s head crab pet.
The beauty of this opening sequence is that you can pace yourself as a player, rushing to the important beats, or taking your time, talking with the people in the train station and seeing how bad things are.
You can see the military harassing people on every alley and building and head how the citizens react to this.
This design accommodates the majority of play styles and leaves even the more impatient players somewhat satisfied. You are taught the new physics-based mechanics in a natural way so the player never feels that is playing a tutorial.
The sequence is punctuated with the player putting on the HEV Suit and the Half Life theme song starting at the same time and after that suffering a teleporting accident reminiscent of the first game’s resonance cascade incident, before being reunited with your trusty crowbar.
The Black Mesa (2020) opening sort of combines the opening styles of the two original games, being longer than both. You come across a bunch of characters going through the motions of work, hear their petty arguments and daily interactions getting a real feel for the life in the Black Mesa facility.
The interactions are well paced and some even serve to teach you how to use the controls, like a scientist asking for a roll of toilet paper that you can fetch using the physics-grab mechanic.
There is even a scientist that will give you a whole lot of exposition about the new vs old HEV suit if you keep talking to him, some foreshadowing future gameplay scenarios like telling you that the suit was going to have an underwater breathing apparatus but it was discarded.
In a peak interactive-comedy moment the whole dialog ends up with him saying “I'm not one for idle chatter, Gordon” if you exhaust all of his dialog barks.
You start hearing more and more talking on how unusual that day’s test will be so by the time that everything fails not only it was correctly foreshadowed but you now know the people working there, so you are more likely to care about the disaster and death that is unfolding, in contrast to the original game, where the sequence goes by really fast.
After that is almost the same as the original, with the whole opening act ending with Gordon obtaining his signature weapon.
Also we learn that before the adventure Gordon had a ponytail, and if that is not crucial plot information I don't know what it is.
God of War (2018) also has a traditional first act, with the wife or our protagonist dying, having to fulfill her last wish, and a new god finding Krato’s home and starting a fight.
We don't know how these two things are related at the time but we will start to tie things together on the journey while the characters continue to evolve, before changing forever after the climax of the game.
Most of Sony’s cinematographically games (Example: The Last of Us) have a traditional structure, with very clear acts due to their desire to emulate movies.
The most important function of the first act is making us care about the characters. That’s why The Last of Us (2013) works so well. We play as Sara and then watch her die, we feel Joel’s pain and instantly connect with him, the character we will play for the rest of the game.
Second Act / Middle
A story’s middle act consists of a rising action that leads to a midpoint, then devolves into a crisis. The second act typically ends with another turning point that makes it seem as if the protagonist will fail. This is sometimes called the “dark night of the soul.”
In video games this is where we usually spend most of the running time.
The Aristotelian structure possesses a property called Fractality or Nesting which means that each act itself has a Beginning, Middle, End and denouement; and could work as a complete story by itself.
Narratives with high Fractality indexes usually are more robust on the narrative side and work better for the audiences (not a hard rule, but a tendency).
Useful to consider when creating episodic content or a big story.
The anime series Attack On Titan (2013) (Shingeki no Kyojin in Japan) made theatrical releases that basically are the plot of each season condensed in 1 and a half to 2 hours movies.
This is possible thanks to the Fractality property, that works also to simplify a narrative, not only to add complexity.
We will see more about the Fractality property in future papers when looking at Engagement Curves, and some more interesting examples of this being used in video games in the section Missing First Act and Novel approaches.
Third Act / Climax.
The third act begins with what’s known as a pre-climax. This consists of events leading up to a climactic confrontation in which the hero faces a point of no return: they must either prevail or perish.
The climax is the scene or sequence in which the main tensions of the story are brought to their most intense point and the dramatic question is answered.
In video games this usually comes with the addition of a boss battle. Not every game can pull this off, and we often see videogames with clearly tag on boss battles that don't fit the tone of the game at all. For a boss battle to work needs to serve as a climax both in the narrative and mechanical sense.
God of War 3 (2010) serves as the end for the Kratos vengeance story where he finally manages to kill his father Zeus. After devising a plan that implies sacrificing the young Pandora to obtain a weapon to kill Zeus, Kratos doubts his mission and tells Pandora he will find another way to obtain his revenge without killing her. It is implied that Kratos has grown fond of Pandora since it reminds him of his own deceased daughter.
Before Kratos and Pandora can leave the area Zeus appears and combat ensues.
This time the combat becomes more akin to a traditional one on one fighting game, giving us a mechanical surprise that fits the theme of personal struggle, while maintaining all of the other controls of the game, and even ending with the type of brutal QTE that have been present in the rest of the game and series to this point.
By the way, if you want to know more about the role of QTE Design and Embodied Meaning Making in narrative I recomend this blog-post
Pandora then throws herself into the flames in order to give Kratos the ultimate weapon to kill Zeus. Kratos tries to stop her, putting once again his personal vendetta on hold in order to protect another life, something that would lead to more personal development further into the climax and set the bases to the new GOW franchise from 2018. However Kratos is not there yet, and once Zeus reminds him of his dead family he snaps and let’s go of Pandora to attack Zeus.
Kratos approaches the Box but discovers that it is empty, Pandora’s sacrifices have been in vain, something that Zeus is more than happy to point out.
All of this sequence including the battle was the pre-climax, now the real climax of the game begins.
We expected a battle with Zeus but; in classic Climax fashion, the game subverts our expectations and interrupts Kratos mid fight with Gaia swaling us. The battle continues inside the Titan where we stab Zeus and the Titan’s hearth with the same swing. Kratos thinks Zeus is dead but of course this is not the case. The Thunder god strikes kratos making it lose all of the weapons and power ups he has obtained in the course of the trilogy.
Just to drive the point further home we get a 4rth wall break where the UI power gauges drain being a literal way to represent Kratos losing all the divine power he has collected. The UI finally breaks in a dramatic way.
I talked about similar narrative techniques in Forget the game mechanics, it is time to cry.
In the end Kratos manages to break free and kill Zeus. Everything was seemingly for nothing, since the world has been completely devastated due to Kratos' vengeance. However he reflects on his deeds and decides to sacrifice himself to restore hope to the world. I know this is a controversial ending for the franchise but it was one of the few possible endings that made sense from a narrative standpoint. Having Kratos just destroy everything, learn nothing and not grow as a character would have been a really empty experience. However with this action Kratos finally breaks free from the controls the gods exerted over them, and most importantly, let go of his rage. Everything is set then for the more mature Kratos that we saw in the 2018’s beginning of the new duology.
Another great example both in narrative and game design is the Soul of Cinder in Dark Souls 3 (2016), this not only serves as the end boss of that game but as the final boss for all of the original trilogy (at least until the release of the DLCs).
As the manifestation of the souls of all those who have linked themselves to the First Flame through history this enemy possessing all the abilities of the previous Champions so mechanically is a fitting final test for the player, facing it with every kind of move that can be made in the game (miracles, pyromancy, range, mele, grabs, etc).
We could say that the Soul of Cinder in a way is a representation of all of the players that have beat the Dark Souls’ Games, with all of their diverse playing styles.
In the second half of the battle the Soul of Cider starts to imitate the movements of the first soul that it consumed, Lord Gwyn, the final boss of the first Dark Souls (2011).
Additionally the boss gains the Sunlight Spear, a miracle that was never performed in the original boss fight but was a crucial part of the Lore of Gwyn’s character, even appearing in the opening cutscene of the original Dark Souls (but strangely not on that boss fight itself), so its inclusion is welcomed.
Not only the movements change but the background music is a remix of the original theme song.
The Soul of Cinder boss fight is a great example of all the areas that narrative design encompasses and can help with. Not only the story benefits from following a narrative structure but as we saw with this example the character design, the animation and the music composition are other areas that can support and enhance the player experience when taking these narrative structures into account.
Denouement
Finally the story de-escalates in a denouement, where the events of the climax wind back down into a new normality, but with the internal (and sometimes external) world of the characters forever changed.
In videogames the “world forever changed” takes an even more literal sense sometimes, with events reshaping the scenarios the player can explore or the tools at their disposal.
The Denouement Problem in Open World Games
In Open World Games, after the ending mission/sequence is completed, players usually expect to be able to keep playing. This could appear counter intuitive since maybe the story wraps up with the main character dying, but in a game genre all about freedom, removing that freedom at the end tramples one of the pillars that the narration also builded upon.
Fallout 3 (2008) received a lot of backlash for its ending where you player character died and your playthrough was over. Not only that, you had several companions available that could resolve the main issue with their skill set, such as the Supermutant that was immune to radiation but he tells you that he doesn't want to rob you of your glorious sacrifice, so the ending felt even more egregious for most players.
Once the DLC Operation: Anchorage (2009) was released, Bethesda fixed the ending, eliminating the character death from the plot and adding more options to solve the logic issues.
Charon's Dialogs before (Top Row) and After (Bottom Row) the Anchorage Update.
Fawkes' Dialogs before (Top Row) and After (Bottom Row) the Anchorage Update.
Fawkes even pokes fun at the illogical original excuse for not entering the radioactive chamber with additional dialog.
Fallout 4 (2015) had the post main story content in mind in its structure itself, you can continue to build up your settlements, caravan routes, continue your companion’s quests, and any other secondary quest that you were missing.
In Red Dead Redemption (2010) after John Marston (the main character until that point) dies, players take on the role of his son, Jack Marston, years after the events that ended the life of his father.
As Jack you get the "Remember My Family" quest-line, which allows you to hunt down and get revenge on Edgar Ross.
Jack becomes the player character for the rest of the game, even getting unique voice lines and dialog options. You inherit most of John Marston's weapons, horses, safehouses, and outfits. You maintain the progress in most Strangers side-missions, you can continue completing the hunt of the Legendary Animals and you get access to three exclusive law enforcement outfits.
This is a really interesting and creative way to solve the Denouement Problem present in Open World Games, at the same time providing catarsis and closure for the players.
Missing or Eternal First Act
In video games we often suffer from a missing Act 1, because of the need of many games to jump right into the action. Since Act 1 is almost all set up, it is hard to do it in an engaging and interactive way (a must for video games), at least if you do it in the traditional way.
An example of a poorly thought out first act can be found in Persona 4 Golden (2012). This game suffered from a pretty long traditional first act where you get control of your character after 15 minutes of cutscenes and text, after that, almost 2 hours pass before we use the main mechanic and name-sake of the game, the personas.
Before that the only interactions are menu choices and walking short distances.
Be mindful that this long and slow first act was especially aggravating since Persona 4 Golden was a Playstation Vita title, so it was meant to be played on the go.
The series fixed this problem on its follow up, Persona 5 (2016) and Persona 5 Strikers (2021) starting the player in an fast paced action sequence that show almost all of the main mechanics and gave a hint to what the main conflict is going to be; before going back to the more slow and expository sequences.
Similar to Persona 5 and Strikers, Uncharted 2 Among Thieves (2009) starts with a short cinematic that shows the character bleeding, in a train hanging from a clift, before throwing the player right into the action. A memorable set piece followed by a slow traditional first act where we see the inciting incident that lead the character to be in this new adventure.
Creative Production Solutions
Daymare 1998 (2019) has a mini arc at the beginning that serves as it’s first act as well as the inciting incident to the game's true story.
Was also used by the developers as a demo, since it’s a perfect vertical slice of the game teaching the basic mechanics, the puzzle solving and the narrative style (with the traditional RE style documents).
The protagonist of the demo dies at the end of this 1st act, but they manage to insert an excuse into the narrative for another character to put on his mask (the clothes were already the same), thereby recycling the character model. A clear example of a narrative oriented entirely to the service of the project's production, as it should be.
This is a great example of the Fractality/Nesting property used to organize the production of a project.
In the case of Daymare 1998 they ended up making the whole game, but what if you release just the first act as a product? Would that work? According to the Fractality property, it should.
That is exactly what Konami and Hideo Kojima did with Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes (2014), that worked as a first act to the game Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain (2015).
They even later released both games as a single package.
This not only helped the audiences get to know some of the new characters and the setting before getting into MGS V, but provided crucial financing to “finishing” that project (finishing in quotes since apparently even with that Kojima ended up not finishing his vision).
So again, the Fractality property works for indie and AAA workflows just as well.
False First Act in Video Games
One of the particularities of videogames is the need to teach audiences how to experiment them. This is a problem that movies, books and other media don't have. After years of conventions have been put in place there is now a lot of commonality between games, making the tutorial sections not as necessary as before. However some games still need them because of complicated mechanics or other particularities.
This places more extenuation on the narrative, since now the designer needs to accommodate a section that sometimes can ruin the pace of a carefully crafted first act.
An alternative in this case is the use of a false first act, that is loosely connected with the lore of the world, but doesn't provide much more narrative connection with the rest of the plot.
Deus Ex (2000) has an optional tutorial mission that is recommended when selecting New Game, but is totally separated from the main plot. Furthermore this mission can be accessed again at any point from the main menu.
The training mission is set at the UNATCO Training Facilities and depicts JC Denton's training with UNATCO before being deployed for active duty.
The mission is divided into three map segments. The first map segment features general training, the next segment features combat training and the final map segment features covert training and a final test. Each segment has dialog featuring some important NPCs that will be your allies in the main game, so it has enough narrative to keep the player engaged for the duration.
This is a good solution for a game like Deus Ex that has many complex mechanics that need to be explained to the player and are hard to fit into a cohesive narrative.
Another great example of the False First Act can be found in Silent Hill 3 (2003). This intro section is framed as a dream, and is totally divorced from the main game. In it you learn the basics of movement, combat and examining objects, but the most important thing is that the creepy atmosphere of the game is quickly established.
This is a must for a game with a slow burn plot such as Silent Hill 3. Without it players that want to see cool monsters and creepy environments could have walked away after 15 minutes of the normal shopping mall exploration of the true first act.
This entire Intro will be skipped when beginning an Extra New Game, which makes sense, since the player is already accustomed to the mechanic, rendering the intro pointless.
You can also bypass this entire intro simply by dying.
Turning Points
Turning Points mark the event where there is clearly an act change, they are good candidates for the use of cutscenes.
A good example of this is Resident Evil 3 (1999), where those important moments in the story are marked with a cutscene.
Brad's death at the hands of Nemesis ends the set-up, showing the main enemy of the game in spectacular fashion, while also showing the Live Selection Outcomes’ System, that would be a new incorporation to the series and of course a strong sale’s point.
On the opposite end the falling nuclear bomb resolves the main conflict and marks the beginning of the new normality that is even revisited at the beginning of RE4, to show us the world changed forever.
The sequence is very satisfying since there are shots showing each of the important locations we visited in the game being wiped out by the nuclear blast, ending with an epic shot of the helicopter escaping.
RE3 is a very useful case from the point of view of narrative tools oriented to production, since it was a game that was originally going to be a spin off and was converted into a main numbered title. The budget was very limited, especially for cinematics, so the narrative designers had to choose where to place them very wisely, and it's no coincidence that they chose the plot's turning points.
Mid Point or False Endings
In narrative Midpoint or False Ending are points of no return for the protagonist, where they get very close to their goal (sometimes they get further away too), only to turn 180 degrees and go in the opposite direction.
Going back to Resident Evil 3 when the helicopter is shot down by Nemesis is a good example of a MidPoint in a game’s narrative. There is a release of tension before the event and a cinematic that cuts off what is falsely presented to us as an ending, just for all hope to be completely annihilated, the only escape from the city burning right in front of our protagonist, getting infected with the virus, and having to navigate a new scenario, new boss battles and a mutated and more aggressive Nemesis.
The Midpoint is usually a very high point of tension and could even serve as a cliffhanger ending if the story were to stop there. Very useful at the production level, since if we get there we know that at least we have a structurally ordered and complete narrative, if we continue then we have to continue until the end of the 3rd act.
This False Ending is removed from the remake, which in my opinion makes the narrative suffer. Although the pace is maintained quite well, being an extremely short game, the narrative complexities of the original game are lost as well as the fractal property of the narrative that was respected in the original story.
Case Study: Lots of turning points
In Parasite Eve 2 (1999) is a very interesting game example structurally, as there are several turning points that could act as midpoints, which could indicate that the project underwent several periods of expansion.
The first clear midpoint is the battle against No. 9, the main antagonist of the game or at least the one who has had this role until now.
The encounter is even punctuated by an in-game cutscene at the beginning of the battle and a rendered cutscene at the end, where fundamental information about the character is revealed.
Nr9 calls Aya by the name of Eve which activates a mysterious new power that makes Nr9 burst into flames, at the same time that Aya has some sort of flashback.
Special agent Kyle Madigan seems to want to betray our protagonist that saves herself by using a new previously hidden power. It is also implied that she has regained part of her memories.
It reminded me a lot of the endings in Resident Evil movies, where it always seemed like something incredible would happen in the next movie but nothing ever happened or connected to what came before. Everything was mysteriously resolved off camera. This is the exact opposite of good storytelling. Not the case with Parasite Eve 2 fortunately.
Returning to Parasite Eve 2, this cutscene that could have easily served as the final cutscene in a smaller game, or as the end of an episode in a series format, is followed by a cutscene in game engine where the tension drops and the new problem is raised, the game is now played at night.
After a little more gameplay, Madigan informs us that he has continued investigating and there is a hidden military site near the inn, connected to it by an old mining tunnel, which would explain all the monsters that roam the area. Madigan suggests going to that site but our protagonist decides to sleep on it. A dream reveals more information related to Nr9 that could explain why he did not kill our protagonist despite several opportunities to do so.
A cutscene plays, where we see Glutton, the biggest enemy we have encountered in the game so far; followed by a boss battle with it.
After this battle, the owner of the auto-shop thanks us for saving his life and gives us his truck with which we can go to the mysterious military base.
This is where the first disc ends, but the cutscene that follows at the beginning of disc 2 could very well have been the end of the game, showing a new type of seemingly more intelligent enemies watching the truck as it heads towards the base, with the moon in the background.
This is immediately followed by an in-game cinematic where the tension builds and we face these creatures.
Again False Ending with a pre-rendered cutscene that could have served as the end of the game, quickly followed by an in-game cutscene, much cheaper to produce, that tells us that it is not the end and continues the narrative.
Conclusions
Besides the informational aspect and the oddities here and there, the main point I tried to convey with this article is how narrative structures can be used not only as a template to enhance engagement or streamline narrative creation; but as a tool to aid production and inform designer and producers' decisions.
These narrative techniques are especially valuable in indie or lower-budget titles, where maximizing narrative impact in a short amount of time as well as using resources in an effective manner are of utmost importance.
Thus, adapting and occasionally subverting traditional narrative structures allows developers to prioritize both storytelling and production efficiency, resulting in immersive and well-paced gaming experiences that captivate players while supporting the practical demands of game development.
Share some tips
Now, I'm asking you, dear reader.
What other techniques (narrative or otherwise) have you used to plan the production of a video game?
Any other examples of games that subvert the narrative structures described here?
Please let me know in the comments below.
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