Over the past decade, unhindered by disk space limitations, video game stories have been growing steadily longer. Is that a good thing?
Written by Perrin Smith, Graphics by Tyler Lowe, Images sourced from Telltale/Skybound Entertainment and CD Projekt
Savannah’s low cityscape crests the horizon. The deep chug of a train pounds quietly beneath a string-based soundtrack. A cloudy orange sky looms over those old Southern buildings. For Lee and Clementine, the two main characters in “The Walking Dead” season one, this is the end of the line.
It’s a sickeningly poignant moment. Clementine, an 8-year-old girl, knows her parents are in the city. Lee, her 30-something guardian, has long-since realized that they are most likely dead. But he’s promised to take her here. The moment, which kicks off episode four of the game, is both uplifting and unnerving.
It’s precisely the emotion the story nails.
“The Walking Dead” was a groundbreaking, now discontinued, game series first released in 2012. It attempted to change the way games told stories. Eschewing traditional structure, it released episodically — with five two-hour episodes released between April and November of that year.
Buzz around the game was initially directed at its unusual release model. Instead of launching a contained, singular experience, its success would depend on players returning over nearly eight months. It was risky, and it worked. The method was repeated until the fourth and final season in 2019.
“What are you doing to add a little chaos to the process?” asked Chris Millis, chair of SCAD’s writing department. Stories need to be told in the way that suits them, and, oftentimes, adhering to traditional structure can obfuscate the narrative.
Stories can be told in myriad ways, but every medium has a traditional approach to narrative. In film, movies target a 120-minute runtime. Why? Because it’s a general baseline for how long an audience will stay engaged in a story without distraction. If it lasts longer, like “The Irishman” which clocks in at 210 minutes, it runs the risk of losing the viewer.
Video games are no different. While there is no determined correct game length, story length, when tied to gameplay, is crucial to get right. Just like a movie, a game that runs too long will lose the player.
“The Walking Dead” proved successful partially because it committed to its unusual form. The story was crafted around a shorter experience like TV. The first season, for instance, takes just more than 13 hours to complete.
Out of the top eight highest-grossing games since 2010, the average time to complete a game’s main story and narrative content is 66 hours and 45 minutes. Of those, three games have playtimes more than 100 hours. The most notable is “The Witcher 3,” which clocks in at 101 hours, and like “The Walking Dead,” won dozens of Game of the Year awards and critical praise for its narrative.
“Our modern, typical thinking about storytelling is ‘what’s the big idea?’ and ‘what’s the gimmick?’,” said Millis.
It’s easy to label episodic structure a gimmick. It is. But so is “The Witcher 3’s” boastful 100-hour narrative.
“The Witcher 3” drew criticism after its release in 2015 for its bloated story. It was compelling, but many critics argued that it was too long. The developer, CD Projekt, later said that metrics backed this up. A reportedly large number of players stopped playing late into the story and never came back. The discovery was part of the developer’s impetus for shortening their most recent release, “Cyberpunk 2077.”
Shorter stories keep people engaged for a longer period of time. Part of the joy of experiencing any story is seeing how it concludes. If a narrative loses its audience before the final image, word or button press — then the writer has lost control. But what makes shorter stories work?
“It has to do with the emotional core,” said Millis. When a story is ballooned by its 100-hour length, it takes too long to reach the point of the narrative, which is intrinsically tied to character.
“The Walking Dead” succeeds where “The Witcher 3” fails not because it has better characters. Instead, it’s successful because players arrive at compelling character interactions, revelations about their motivation and moments of narrative impact sooner.
Over five episodes, Lee and Clementine forge a bond like father and daughter. The game hyper-focused on this relationship, allowing it to blossom or decay through choices the player makes. By stripping away everything superfluous except the core narrative, their relationship becomes the primary element players are invested in.
Conversely, “The Witcher 3” tries to bond players with a similar father-daughter relationship. It succeeds in the long run, but how many players stayed around to experience it?
A shorter story isn’t always the solution. However, “The Walking Dead” proved a video game’s story could unfold in an original way and did so by investing players in the outcomes of its narrative quickly — through character and the tools of short fiction.
By the end, Clementine stands alone in a grassy field. No more Savannah, no more train. The soft, aching swell of Alela Diane’s folksy chords played on “Take Us Back” are the cap on the player’s emotions. Then, it cuts to black. There’s no finite conclusion, only the experience of what led her here.
The hauntingly stark moment is evidence of a short story told well, the outcome of a commitment to form. It’s the experience of a game’s narrative relayed correctly.
