Videogames Have Terrible Worldbuilding

[@ArchitectofGames]

Deep in the mists of time, before the ShadowSingers drew their first breath, there was an ancient myth whispered in the hallowed halls of the Justicars that forged the world of Eld're'apos'roph that when the fourteenth Scion of the Sun God Solibridus did pass then the world would be forever ch- actually, you probably know all this already long story short is that if you want more videos you need to give me money: www.patreon.com/ArchitectofGames It really is the end of an era, no more tired jokes about me slagging off twitter any more (at least for the time being) I'm on bluesky now!: bsky.app/profile/architectofgames.bsky.social

[@rogercruz1547]

Stories sells games, world building sells sequels, spin-offs and merchandising.

[@youhavegottobekidding]

Why do you think physical currency makes no sense in the world of Cyberpunk?

[@sealeo5772]

Lore audio log #1: I sure am glad to be starting my new job as a scientist at the wolves with chansaws for teeth breeding project! Lore audio log #2: ahhhhhhh oh god help me, the wolves are eating me with their chainsaw teeth as I record this. Hopefully I can make sure this is properly recorded and the physical record is left intact.

[@GreenBlueWalkthrough]

Now imagine if that wasn't in the game and you were just fighting wolves with chainsaw for no reason.

[@betty_wayne_78]

Borderlands 2 has an audio log that is almost exactly like that

[@SaHaRaSquad]

@@GreenBlueWalkthrough So Ninja Gaiden basically. To be fair it's actually got katana-wielding demon dogs that throw explosive shurikens, but whatever.

[@Nodiee1]

​@@GreenBlueWalkthrough ah yes, because the only alternative to bad world building is no world building.

[@RoamingAdhocrat]

"I never thought wolves with chainsaw teeth would eat _my_ face!" sobs scientist who worked on the Wolves With Chainsaw Teeth project

[@ZCSilver]

This isn't some special problem with videogames. There's a ton of books, shows, and movies that all fail at this too. I'd say the majority of all media fails at it, with the really good stuff in any medium succeeding.

[@alastairvanmaren5243]

Maniac is an example of a TV show that really gets it right.

[@myboatforacar]

The threshold for being invested in things is something that varies from person to person and work to work. I, for example, find it easy to "care" about a world without a compelling "reason". Nothing wrong with either of us, just something that makes us different. :)

[@Retrofire-47]

because most media is commercial first passion second. World-building is emblematic of passion in the creative process

[@FelipeKana1]

Nah you're wrong. Videogames fail at this way more often.

[@qwfp]

I think the difference is that if a book fails at that, it will probably fail as a book. But if a video game fails at that, it can still be a commercial success. Not saying that every successful book is perfect, but games have a lot of other things to offer, so there's more "forgiveness" there, in some way.

[@armelior4610]

I think the title should have been "Videogames have terrible exposition" since it's more the way the lore is presented than the lore itself that seems to be the main point

[@valhatan3907]

Yeah, it's like some of 'these' developer begging you to read the geography-book-lenght wiki. I'm not against it tho, but I think the lore should be clear but enough to pique curiosity to read it more.

[@MB-zb1oz]

100% this. Lots of games have great worlds, but when they try to pull you in with some generic "You're the chosen one!" or some version of telling you what's interesting instead of showing, it can be hard not to roll your eyes.

[@dojelnotmyrealname4018]

Also should have the word "Some" in front of it. Some video games actually do a decent job of worldbuilding.

[@One.Zero.One101]

A common mistake studios make is doing an info dump when it's not yet relevant. So you forget about it 3 hours later because you're too focused on learning the mechanics of the game. So when you come across it 3 hours later you think to yourself "Wait who's this guy again? What did they say about this city? I'm trying to remember the exposition dump at the start of the game". Info should be presented as they become relevant.

[@GreenBlueWalkthrough]

@@valhatan3907 I mean if it was a book it whould be the first chapter and be forced reading inorder tio understanbnd the book... Unlike any video game where the ingame like is just their for reference at most or completely for players who want it... Like I can't think of any game where the ingame wiki was required for gameplay... Like even DCS world only has the wiki because it's a genre staple and is utterly pointless in gameplay or for player enjoyment as it's just a Wikipedia rip database... So the info in the wiki has no relation to the gameplay at all and when it does it's consdnce.

[@Munkee1980]

small nitpick, or maybe I just missed something. to me the presence of physical money in cyberpunk made sense, on account of exchanges of physical money being harder to tie to a person, than transfers to or from their accounts, and since illegal trans actions happen from street levels up to government or corporate level, it makes perfect sense to me, that even in this fictional universe, old fashioned hard cash still exists.

[@turbo8628]

Not played cyberpunk but in a digitally run world, the criminals using a physical currency makes complete sense and i applaud the extra effort.

[@KasumiRINA]

@@turbo8628 yes, almost every space opera sci-fi universe has it, credit chits in Mass Effect are used by smugglers, and Star Wars has physical currency too.

[@theapexsurvivor9538]

​@@KasumiRINAhell, the prequel trilogy starts with an example of digital currency being rejected in favour of physical because the characters were on a planet controlled by a crime boss and so the digital currency was virtually worthless as it couldn't be used for essential services, and thus wouldn't be accepted anywhere.

[@chillax319]

@@turbo8628 I mean even in the Cybrerpunk 2077 corpo intro you are given loads of physical cash to hire a hitman for another high positioned person from the company you work at, just so it's going to be harder to track down who ordered a hit.

[@DanieliusGoriunovas]

And more over - when all digital actions are dangerous, just using physical paper/plastic is way safer too. Why risk losing all your digital cash if you can just hoard it safer in your pants.

[@flint33]

"Getting people to care, is much more important than giving them all the answers" Is a fire line

[@valhatan3907]

🔥✍️

[@GreenBlueWalkthrough]

But that makes zero sense as you are playing the video game so you have enough reason to care about the video games lore... Not tio mention that having lore people care about is massive important in video games if it wasn't then why do all video games have lore for and foremost? IE the intro/boot cutscene? Also why box arts never have gameplay on the front but art that showcases the lore instead? Yes they are some gamers who sometimes skip a game' s lore entirely but that is their preference and not the games job... like Super mario showcases this in the fact that the vast majority of people don't think it has lore... Despite having some of the strongest, deepest and most consist lore in fiction's history. Like how is it the devs fault that 90% of players will skip all the lore of all Mario games even the RPGs?

[@ashtonhoward5582]

​@@GreenBlueWalkthrough nah.

[@One.Zero.One101]

Some devs think info dump is equivalent to world building. It also matters HOW you present the info. Sticking them in the glossary is lazy world building. You gotta weave it into NPC conversations, or personal journals, or news reports from the radio, or company logs. For example you overhear NPCs talking about how the Baron is keeping a silver sword in his vault.

[@One.Zero.One101]

@@GreenBlueWalkthrough I think you completely misunderstood the point of this video. You took it as "Everybody hates lore and we should get rid of it". That's not what people here are saying lol.

[@XX-sp3tt]

0:54 When Legend of Zelda came out, kids were still used to Atari games where the villain existed only in the manual and only as a vague concept in game. That the evil wizard existed in game and that the game had an actual ending was mind blowing. Like most things about Zelda 1 at the time.

[@malfegore_7043]

16:45 "In Dishonored for example..." *shows box art of Thief* Damn bro you didn't have to do them dirty like this lol

[@eadbert1935]

he did the same thing earlier with -system- bioshock ^^

[@coadster7]

I came to the comments just for these two questions lol

[@СавелийБратухин-и1о]

And nobody noticed the same thing with Prey? Damn…

[@eileen1020]

He did this with the Witcher right at the start, showing an adaptation of Roald Dahl's The Witches alongside actual Witcher content.

[@cv5953]

He's out of line, but he's right

[@michelvoortman4725]

A world should be interesting without the players involvement. In tabletop roleplaying we call this World in Motion. It shouldn't just be a set of locations and npc's that get activated by the players presence. It should have a future it is moving towards. In other words it should be moving and not a static setting that only gets moving by the players actions. It should also have a past and conflicts really work.

[@solsystem1342]

I'm unsure that it should be heading towards "a" future. In my opinion I think it's more interesting to have other people/factions working towards their own goals. That creates an environment where the player's actions help shape the world very naturally. If they help one side of a war then they'll get an advantage in pursuing their goals and if they instead help someone recover a gemstone to connect fast travel points that'll happen while the war continues to resolve without player interference.

[@One.Zero.One101]

The thing that really kills my interest in a city or town is when the buildings are just a facade, they have no interiors. The NPCs have no lines and they just stand there. The city has no function so I discover them on the map never to return again. It's like those fake North Korean cities where the buildings have a front-facing facade but if you look behind it's actually not a real building.

[@GreenBlueWalkthrough]

I mean World in motion is something you can't take out of a video game given the format... Like if you want a video game without the world being in motion you just don't play the video game or don't do those quests. Which is concept that a few games and a bit more optional content have showcased.

[@GreenBlueWalkthrough]

@@solsystem1342 I meam that is just good story telling that the vast majority of games have.

[@GreenBlueWalkthrough]

​@@One.Zero.One101 I mean that is just a limit in story telling that is famous with Hollywood movies... Which their are very few games that do showcase everything a world has to offer but they are very rare and far between... With the most famous being Minecraft. Also that is a major element in theme parks is making the park belivable enough that most people become imerese in the park. Which is how all but those few video games work as it's impossible right now to fully flesh out a world. And if it was the vast majority of games would not as it would be bad design for them. And 99% of game genres would not work if they were fully open world.

[@eluvianii]

One of the things that pull me in the most about the Trails series. Learning about trade routes is a lot more engaging when instead of getting a dry notification about how they have been disrupted, you approach this random person who tells you he'll have trouble making ends meet this month because the ship you were already looking into for completely unrelated reasons never arrived with his stock

[@vazazell5967]

If only Trails didn't look as the pure distillation of genetic Japanese medival. Like seriously it and Ys have the most boring look ever

[@ThreeKes]

I loved it when in-universe books became relevant to the story. Unfortunately entries past Cold Steel have no new books anymore. But they added more sci-fi elements in Daybreak 2 and Kai no Kiseki. I‘m enjoying it a lot.

[@KasumiRINA]

@@vazazell5967 I actually adore the look of Trails and Ys, it has very steampunkish setting with trains and airships instead of generic western fantasy that for some reason has full plate armor, swords, but no polearms, cavalry or gunpowder. It's also COZY.

[@vazazell5967]

@@KasumiRINA wait, ys isn't generic fantasy? It has generic isekai faces and avdol is definitely a sword guy

[@Aaronrules380]

@@vazazell5967calling trails Japanese medieval is hilariously wrong. Even sky is more industrial era, and the hyper advanced tech growth of the setting means that by Daybreak you’re literally going around a modern city with a net cafe

[@fearingalma1550]

"when it comes to worldbuilding, games have no choice but to tell" I disagree with this statement on a fundamental level. Half Life 2 is a masterclass on how to cram tons of information about a setting into the visuals on-screen. Why is the water level so low? In the beta documents they had a clear explanation, but in the game it goes completely unaddressed and the player is left to contemplate. We get a couple of newspaper clippings and recollections of characters delivered offhandedly as the most direct explanation, but the art and architecture- the violent collision of Combine technology scraping away what's left of the world, empty playgrounds, propaganda broadcasts, leftover artillery shells, etc. are mostly communicated through the design of spaces.

[@dirtywhitellama]

Yeah that was a weird assertion to me just minutes after "see this world building with this cop who forces you to pick up a can for no reason".

[@NostraDavid2]

All those years, and I never really realised that the water levels were unnaturally low in all levels... 😶

[@user-rx3xl7zn1u]

I would add that interacting systems make a game feel alive. The STALKER games were the first time I discovered this. For one of the first missions you have to retrieve something from a farm that 'bandits' have taken over. Having dispensed with the bandits and returned with said item, I found a military patrol had dispensed with every individual in the STALKER camp. Another time I found the military engaged in a fire fight with the bandits. System interaction like this makes games feel much more alive. They also tend to change based on player interactions with them, which again, makes for an engaging world.

[@Zaczac111]

That military patrol is only meant to spawn if the checkpoint is attacked. It is pretty cool though that you can have your entire early game drastically changed for one thing; STALKER was purposefully designed to have a living world like that. They even had to tone it down, as the original idea had it where NPCs could complete quests, the very same quests that the player is supposed to do.

[@One.Zero.One101]

Yeah STALKER had a very basic story but I found it more immersive than other bombastic stories. It's not about the twist and turns or the big reveal or the photo-realistic graphics, it's about making the audience feel this is a real functioning world. So many games have great graphics and great architecture but the city feels like a facade and the people feel like they are robots in a theme park.

[@KA1N3R]

Well, yeah, but emergent gameplay systems is a completely different topic tbh

[@Smeelio]

I totally agree, STALKER has incredible ludonarrative worldbuilding in many ways. One of my favourites bit in any videogame ever is in Call of Pripyat, where you hear a radio transmission asking for help in one specific area, but you can't pinpoint exactly where it's coming from or what to do, so you have to continue on, and indeed you might pass through this area a bunch of times throughout the game and be as clueless every time as you are the first time. As you progress through the game and become a more skilled, well-connected, and richer Stalker, you slowly upgrade your anomaly detector, until eventually you get the best one in the game, which is an experimental prototype created by a scientist you can get pally with. If you return to the radio transmission area, I won't spoil it more than I already have, but you are finally equipped to detect the anomaly causing it. It's just such a cool way of showing mechanically AND narratively how being a stalker works, the terror of anomalies, the progression of the zone and your place in it, the history of what has gone down in the zone in the past, and more, all wrapped up in a mystery that haunts you throughout the game and gives a great pay-off.

[@vlim5601]

A Life, my beloved...

[@PositiveBlackSoul]

Important to note that a Codex writer doesn't have to be omniscient. Dragon Age does a great job with it's Codex by having each entry be a quote from an in-universe text. None of the information is unbiased and it tells you so much more about the world that way as if it just told what's actually up.

[@LimeyLassen]

This can backfire. I found the in-game books in Baldur's Gate 3 so biased and contextual that I can barely even tell what I'm reading.

[@SnatchedCafe628]

So, in summary: - Make players care about the world, before getting in-depth about the lore - Lore DENSITY is the name of the game, not lore WIDTH - Don't just present all the details, make the players work for it I'm making a setting for a D&D campaign and I saw this video, thanks, Adam!

[@OzixiThrill]

Except: -You can't do that without the players being receptive to lore in the first place. -Balancing the "density" of the lore for even just a single individual is hard enough; Doing so for a table can sometimes be an outright impossible task. -Once again, a situation and table dependent issue. If a player made a reasonable backstory and their character ought to know some details you'd rather not share, it would be counterproductive to deny them the information.

[@dirtywhitellama]

Video games and TTRPGs are pretty different mediums, but I think your takeaways still work. Just don't expect a TTRPG to work the same in general as a video game, your players have far more agency than any video game character ever can.

[@tavoreparan8091]

It's not just density; it's also reasoning. Like, "has two sisters" is an irrelevant factoid. But "there's a bunk bed in the other room, with pictures of someone and two younger girls strewn around" is evocative. And then you ask, "Why are these sisters relevant? How do they inform the character of this person, even if we never meet them?" Maybe they're the older sibling, and they have experience handling two brats fighting. Maybe they're younger, and reminisce about how nice it was to be taken care of. And so on. Environmental storytelling, basically.

[@nakenmil]

At around the middle of the video, I realized that the advice being given, and the conclusion reached is ESSENTIALLY "show, don't tell."

[@jasonreed7522]

But also make it inherently interesting. A leader dossier saying "David has 2 sisters and is a practical dude" is inherently less interesting than "David recycles corpses into the food supply". Does the lore feel like a generic history book listing facts, or is it actually compelling on its own merits. And i agree with the conclusion that world building is about how you convey lore/info and not the lore itself. Basically you can just list your facts and have realistic corporate emails on the computer terminals. In fallout most of those terminals explained the current state of a facility with some hilarious cartoonishly greedy corporate logs.

[@gabrote42]

​@@jasonreed7522 In Stars and Time is very efficient with it's background info and everyone thinks it's fascinating. The Hyperspace Anthology has lore and systems on par with stuff like The Deathworlders but only people that are quite obsessive can process it effectively due to being all in item descriptions and fragmentary.

[@momom6197]

The thing with "show, don't tell" is that people need it to be shown to them, not told.

[@nakenmil]

@@momom6197 touché. XD

[@vlim5601]

And also "less is more"

[@thegigachad5038]

The big issue is worldbuilding means two things. There's building the world behind the scenes, and there's conveying the world to the audience. The video focuses on the latter, which is for sure important, but the former matters too. It generally is a good idea to write out those blurbs about how many sisters the minister had, and how profitable your companion's mother's friend's boot shop was, because that helps make sure that things are consistent, don't leave giant plot holes or unexplained portions, and that the world is actually engaging. The thing most worldbuilders miss is that that collection of lore should be highly connected. The minister's sisters appear in other places, or echo the minister's relationship with her aides; the boot shop was run out of business when the Cows Came Home. Then the cows, and the aides, and the sisters all have their own lore. Or for the scanner games, creating a whole ecosystem and thinking through the interactions in it. Doing it this way means that conveying the world happens a lot more easily and naturally. There's multiple different ways to get each piece of lore, directly from the source, or from things it's connected to. And the order in which you get those pieces alters the way you see the end result. Language/culture games like Heaven's vault and Chants of Senaar take this to the extreme, and make it the whole game. Plus this way you wind up with so much lore that it's much easier to leave out all the weaker parts that are less connected. Maybe save them for a director's commmentary ng+ setting. Basically, the solution isn't actually less worldbuilding. It's doing more worldbuilding behind the scenes so you can pick only the best bits to put into the game. (Disregarding some shortcuts you can take to cut down on work.)

[@sirjmo]

There is one issue with your solution... The big companies will NEVER be able to resist not putting everything they made into the game, despite how bad it might be. Even though it's a great way to bootstrap the wiki of the game, by dumping 'the weaker official lore details nobody should care about' online for the lore fanatics.

[@Mockingdragon]

Yep...as a fantasy book editor, this is a huge thing amateurs get wrong. The writer needs to know everything they possibly can about how things work behind the scenes, and only a small percentage of that knowledge needs to be exposited so the audience knows.

[@GnarledStaff]

This comment needs an award and its own platform so I can share it with noobs.

[@rocketmancmbn]

No game has hooked me with its lore faster than Control. Answers to questions and details lead to new questions and so on.

[@CelebornArt]

Really interesting. For me it's the other way around. Control was one of the games I couldn't care less about the story and world, loved the mechanics though.

[@GonziHere]

Show don't tell - games have to tell... No. They do not. What you are describing is largely the "show" part of that saying. I can tell you that Carl is sad, or I can show you, that Carl doesn't bother shaving. For games, this is rather "interact, don't tell" (or some variant), where the example with the water is exactly that. Water is currency, it has weight, it needs to be carried, etc... That's EXACTLY what that saying stands for in books/movies/everywhere else.

[@Silverstar114]

I think the most important upside of audio logs is that it's doesn't force you to stop playing the game. The program with written logs is that if I go too long without checking them, I end up with so many that I get overwhelmed and never read any of them.

[@KasumiRINA]

True! Huge contrast after playing Arkham Asylum where I find a log and it keeps playing as I explore vs Tomb Raider Survival trilogy where Lara stops in the middle of a crumbling temple to read a letter from 15 years ago.

[@takoburrito5876]

seriously, if I wanted to read a book I'd read a book. audio logs help make it suit better to a game. Tho I am strongly in favour of glossaries in games to give you quick summaries/reminders of certain points, like races or factions or whatever.

[@paulamblard3836]

"why so mush video game world building are bad" : Because "interesting world building" and "recount it in a captivating way" are 2 hard things (especialy if we compare it to the bests ; it is hard to be in the bests) And it it not specific to video game, lot of book also fail to it.

[@ferrisffalcis]

this video has made me realize that my brain is dysfunctional because everything that was said about "good game series" is what turned me off "good games" and the "bad game" examples are the stuff i like. oh no nothing annoys me more than character centric stories with flimsy world building and zero explanation for why things work that way. meanwhile give me a 2 hour cinematic setting up a world's magic system and never stick off of it and you'll have me hooked (ff14 my beloved) meanwhile im out here in fire emblem treating my "beloved character drama" units as stat blocks and killing them for my entertainment because funny man on horse go brr this also explains why most of everything i like ends up becoming a niche hobby that very few people enjoy and isn't profitable edit: in retrospect, i think my problem with this essay is that it's 10 minutes of explaining the concept of "plot hooks" and 15 minutes of explaining "show don't tell" and then completely forgetting to acknowledge that a plot hook can be something *other* than a character, and ommitting a lot of information about the games that are called "bad" while praising things that are called "good" in other games without much.. thought put into it, i guess. it's an opinion piece, and i respect it as such, but it's the first time i came out of a video essay disagreeing with pretty much every word of it love your work btw, don't mean this as a hostile takedown or anything

[@rin_reverie]

The funny thing with using XB2 as an example of infodumping not working is that the game’s worldbuilding in of itself, once it actually gets going, is really damn good-it just takes like 30 hours to get going both narratively and gameplay-wise, which is really damn weak compared to the rest of the series. Monolithsoft seems to have mostly learned the right lessons from that game in 3, with the big lore dumps being saved for climatic parts of the narrative and tied directly in with important characters… though perhaps they shifted a bit too far towards show, don’t tell, considering how obtuse some of the ideas in that game are.

[@ArchitectofGames]

Yeah XB2 has some genuinely great stuff in the back half once you've waded through all the setup and anime nonsense - the whole reveal of how XB2 is connected to the original game is my favorite bit and no-one got to see it!

[@maynardburger]

@@ArchitectofGames XB2's worldbuilding is intriguing regardless of whether you know it'll ever connect to the other games at all, though.

[@Stirdix]

I think XB1 has one of the best "setting description openings" of the series: seeing the titans fighting is cool, then they bring you down into big "human-Mechon war" which provides all the background context you need. Normally "here's how the world is" openings are... let's say "inadvisable," but the premise is kept tight enough (and easy enough to grasp) that it can be presented quickly yet stay in your head (unlike more typical a "here are the four countries in this world" fantasy opening).

[@IdToaster]

The original xeno game - Xenogears - had a really interesting world built up; a lot of how they revealed it was pretty good, but not perfect (especially once the budget ran out and Disc 2 happened). I don't know how to feel about Xenosaga though; I don't think I ever finished the first title. That one definitely took awhile to get into.

[@ShallBePurified]

Xenoblade 1 and 2 have incredible world building with how each nation and race have their own culture, and side quests reflect this. Xenoblade 2 has political conflict that isn't part of the main story but it exists in the background and in character dialogue. Xenoblade 3 has a lack of culture, which actually tells you about how the constant war does not allow the people to develop a culture, because of their constant need to survive. Races and gender also don't matter compared to the last 2 games. Xenoblade has incredibly good details that add to the world building.

[@Yora21]

Videogames can absolute "show, don't tell". This whole video is a very good explanation of what showing means in the context of videogames. This is what it means to show the world. Let the players ask questions about the world and discover the answers, instead of giving them text to read or listen to.

[@ArcNine9Angel]

Yay Alpha Centauri mentioned! Warms my heart to see this game still lauded after all these years. For anyone curious, the game also had a novel behind it that would explain more in detail the events leading up to the colonization effort, the assassination of the appointed captain of the colony ship, and the dystopia doom that befell our Earth behind them. In-game it reveals story sequences as well that hint and lead towards the canon events that happen post-planetfall, with plenty of room in that narrative still for alternative paths of the faction you play as or against. It's an old game, but I highly recommend it!

[@LimeyLassen]

I thought the worldbuilding in Civilization: Call to Power was really fun too. It's the only traditional Civ game I've played where you can build stuff like mind-control pylons and eco-terrorist commandos.

[@aturchomicz821]

@@LimeyLassen "The Eco Transit decreases automotive pollution without taking automobiles away from the people" Aww yeah now this is peak Neoliberal cringe, I love it

[@Kitsune2Megafan1086]

My teacher does not like Alpha Centauri, very disappointing.

[@yaksher]

One of the issues that happens surprisingly regularly with games is that you get sent to prison. And they take away all your items, so if you're a melee character you have to like sneak around till you get to the chest with your stuff. But if you're a mage, you can just... keep casting? Skyrim and Divinity Original Sin 2 both do this as examples that immediately come to mind and it's always a little immersion breaking.

[@gaminreasons8941]

I mean, unless the societies have proper counter measures to magic you aren't going to cut off a Mage's access to magic. The best a primarily mundane society (like Skyrim) can usually do is bind your hands/cover your mouth, weirdly enough we see this in the Intro to Skyrim, all of the Prisoners (Including you, someone who at minimum knows Flames and Healing) have their hands tied and Ulfric (who can use Shouts) has his mouth covered. The best excuse I have as to why they don't do that while you're in jail is because they don't want it to be too hard for you to escape prison if that's what you wanna do.

[@yaksher]

@@gaminreasons8941 well the problem, both mechanically and narratively (given that a bunch of random bandits are mages), is the asymmetry between mages and non-mages. A society which both "has a concept of jail" and "has random bandits which cast magic" probably has a way to suppress the magic.

[@gaminreasons8941]

@@yaksher I don't dispute that, my point is that even Mundane people can imprison Mage's, it's just that if you actually DO that it can make it extremely difficult for pure Mage characters to escape if that's intended as an option and that's why they do it that way, it's not so much a narrative decision it's more about not punishing the player too much. Now that's not to say it's impossible, using Skyrim as an example, your hands being bound will prevent you from casting spells and having your mouth gagged will prevent shouting, as proven by the Intro in Helgen, let's say that by default you are subjected to this whenever you get imprisoned, the first objective you have is to get rid of these restraints regardless of your character's abilities. That could be fun, or frustrating depending on how it's implemented.

[@yaksher]

@@gaminreasons8941 I don't see how this is different from the weapon-using characters, who are left with nothing until escaping and getting their gear back? If we ignore the world building-which is what this is ultimately about, but whatever-from a gameplay perspective it makes no sense to radically favor spellcasters over weapon users in these circumstances (not that it matters much either way given how little of the game it makes up). Like, they already made the choice to make weapon-users subject to this. Why is the choice different for magic users? It doesn't make sense from a world building perspective or from a gameplay one.

[@gaminreasons8941]

@@yaksher Because unless you have magic shackles that cut off magic users from their abilities (again, low-magic societies wouldn't have this), the only way to prevent spell-casting is to physically restrain them in a way that prevents them, and that usually entails binding their hand and/or gagging them. And even if you DO have magic-canceling bracelets, that creates another entire can of worms for the world building. The problem this creates is that if you want that character to be able to escape you basically just rendered them helpless from doing ANYTHING. Guards aren't gonna just keep a convenient sharp object to cut binds and if the restraints are metal good luck breaking them without making a lot of noise. Why are Thieves favored when put in jail? You always get a free lockpick. And Stealth is literally the perfect skill to make your escape with. Why is the Chest with your stuff in it in the same building as you? That should be somewhere else entirely just to make sure that if you do escape that they know where to look first. Honestly why don't they just chain you to the wall? It's not like you need to move around that much. Too much realism would make it unnecessarily difficult.

[@DadamWrites]

I've been saying for a long time that videogames as a medium have an opportunity for roleplaying and worldbuilding on an interactive level, and yet it feels so rare for the gameplay to be integrated into that worldbuilding. In video gaming, a "roleplaying game" seems to refer to any game with a leveling system and stats, and that's such a missed opportunity.

[@LimeyLassen]

I think RPG is kind of an outdated term, anyway. You could just say "fantasy adventure game" and you'd be 90% right.

[@DadamWrites]

That's fair - I guess what I'm getting at are things like cutscene deaths. Situations where the player has no control, the narrative death occurs by some mundane means. Then the player goes into combat, drops an actual meteor on the bad guy, and the bad guy just walks away in the next cutscene. That kind of dissonance between gameplay and narrative is weird to me.

[@Linkdouble0zero]

It's a byproduct of the early days of genre conventions. Early RPG's were much closer to their inspiration with the consequences of your choices that led to unique narrative places and emergent gameplay experiences, up to and including softlocking the endgame because you've destroyed every relevant path to get there. Over the decades the genre became lazier. Improved storytelling, perhaps, but at the cost of the roleplaying part.

[@aneonfoxtribute]

Shout outs to the Trails series of games (Trails in the Sky, Trails To Zero/From Azure, Trails of Cold Steel, Trails Through Daybreak). Definitely one of the peaks of worldbuilding. Every arc takes place in a different country on this sprawling continent, and the events that happen in these games affect each other. The NPCs all feel like they have their own lives going on, and you can follow their story from game 1 to the final game in the series and see how they grow and change. Major plot events from previous games will frequently be referenced because those are massive parts of the world, and organizations that were destroyed even before the events of the first game in the timeline will still be majorly important to characters across multiple different games because the organizations affected a lot of people. For example, there's a cult that was completely obliterated five years before the events of the first game in the series, and it was put into the spotlight in the fourth game in the series as a major focus. But even on the 11th game in the series, that cult is STILL relevant, and we're STILL meeting new characters who were affected by them. We learn what caused the cult to form and what happened to the people who managed to survive the destruction, and we even learn that they touched on incredibly relevant lore secrets that we the player don't have, all YEARS after we killed the only person who actually still believed in the cult's teachings. It's exceptionally well done. There are also full on book series in almost every game, which is pretty much "they wrote a full short story and threw it in the game". And these aren't just random throwaway book series like most other games, they're genuine STORIES! And just for the cherry on top, they're actually about real characters. The events of the story may or may not have happened in reality, but the people the stories are about are real. You'll read about a character in a short story, and then like five games later actually meet the characters that the story is about and hang out with them and learn what they're actually like and how they feel about being the main character of a popular novel. They even sometimes give reasons why the stories were written as fiction about these real people. For one book series, it's because a buddy got bored one day and decided "Fuck it, I'll right about these guys, they're interesting enough" (and then he killed himself off in the book for shits and giggles). For another, it's a silent call to action from an assassin's group for the members hunt down traitors from their organization that they don't want to publicize, so they published the actual escape attempt from the organization and passed it off as fiction. It's so fucking good.

[@planetary-rendez-vous]

It looks great but incredibly intimidating for a newcomer. I don't think I have the time to explore all the nooks and crannies even though I love little anecdotes like these that matter.

[@dojelnotmyrealname4018]

I wanna like Trails but the story repeats itself so freaking much.

[@aneonfoxtribute]

@@planetary-rendez-vous Yeah in terms of play order, it's actually very straightforward. You just go in release order. But there's a lot packed into these games.

[@twooty2148]

@@planetary-rendez-vous that's understandable, but one thing I kept in mind is that there is zero rush to explore this world, it's a marathon

[@siragon756]

@@planetary-rendez-vous Just take your time, the games won't go anywhere. To be perfectly honest, if you wait a few months, we're going to get a remake of the first game next year on the Switch (Trails in the Sky the First, if you want to go check the teaser) and it's very likely to be a perfect entry point for newcomers. Why not just pick it up when it releases and see if it's your jam?

[@damianspence]

I think a big part of this is that different people ask different questions. Some worlds will work for different people based on what questions they feel need to be answered

[@unvergebeneid]

I loved all the optional lore in Horizon because it didn't spell out some facts but gave you snippets from the lives of people living through an apocalypse we never got to see directly.

[@jannox8307]

Have to disagree on Metaphor's Strahl "side quest" example. It does exist primary within his "bond" mission, and outside of it does not being particularly a topic of discussion amongst street wanders. But it is not because of it's is "isolated" poor compiled world building nature, but rather because it suppose to be a story block in more broad narrative structure about Kingdom's dire sate. Not only destruction of his home town happened 12 years prior of when plot starts, but it also happened at times when "humans" were looked as plebs superstition. And even Strahl himself calls his family "small country side nobility", not much a "regional power". And u can quite notice on example of other ravaged places u visit through out the journey, that Strohl's was not a single case of dramatic human's activity or how overall depressing social economy constitution this country is. I would also add, that pretty much every "bond" quest line in Metaphor have this "what seems isolated", but actually connected to greater "world building" realization. Brigitta’s story line is great example of such. To deliver my general point, surface level interconnection of different story blocks isn't what makes "believable/good world building". Different episodes can pretty much coexist in one setting without any consequences on one another. Same like, if in real life a robbery happens, which tragically impacts one family life, at the meantime, on another street newpaper guy could not feel any weight from that, or be aware of such thing even taking place (especially, if crime rates are so high, so this is not really a news worthy topic. exactly like in Metaphor world).

[@jannox8307]

I would like to also add about the whole "exposition dump is bad, and early engagement is good" concept. FF13 and From software games would serve as examples of such. FF13 starts quite "engaging" with a big "jail break" sequence and a lot of actions and characters presented, while leaving "boring" world exposition aside (unless player figure out , that there is a codex menu). On a paper, it should be "right" way of narrative structuring to maximize audience engagement, but in reality a lot of critique in direction of FF13 is exactly about its "confusing" start, where game throw terms and strange words at u without explaining them properly. Elden ring/Blood born is another example. Sure, dramatic ambiguity and heavy lean of environmental storytelling is a fine soil for "Lore seekers" community. But, the mere fact, that most of the players are either "unbothered" about how compelling and deep lore in thous games is and play it as "game with cool bosses", or would rather prefer to watch a YT video, where some random guy would exposition dump(!) whole thing to u in 2h (instead of collecting thous evidences of lore themselves), is quite showing, i say. So, in my opinion, this question is not as binary as it might seems. And rather stands on idea if chosen style of information presentation is what u personally preferer. It feels wrong to me, to dismiss different narrative approaches as "not engaging and boring" just because it does not engage u specifically. There is certainty value in discussing theirs arguable flaws and cons, but ,probably, not in a light of" do that, because it is good and dont do that because it is bad".

[@aarlanng]

I agree, in my opinion (and its expressed in the video too funny enough) the job of worldbuilding is to be able to establish a framework of the world that's being built inside the audience's mind. Strohl's social quest gives me further insight into class dynamics, and what is expected of them. It gives me a glimpse of what refugees experience post human attack. It gives me a picture how the established fortified cities and ruling class treat these instances. By the very fact it isn't mentioned overtly in the major cities already reinforces the callous nature of the status quo and its indifference to various sections of society. I do wish your party members would at least have a line about it though, even if its just at the end. If there is any criticism I would levy on the social quest its that (and this is a problem that the persona games had too) they are so disconnected from the other party members. I want these people to feel more interconnected. Metaphor does a better job than say Persona 5, but its still lacking. Recently I finished up Hulkenburg's social quest and near the end she gets into contact with a group that another party member has history with. However that party member is never brought up, Hulkenburg just kinda does it herself. It was a perfect opportunity to showcase the bond between party members and not just between them and yourself. I'd have rather the bond quest progression be blocked until you manage to recruit said party member to help her out. I mean we're already not allowed to reject any of them from the party, and we already have social bond levels that are gated by your skills, so why not this too?

[@Nipah.Auauau]

@@jannox8307 I would like to add, Drakengard 3's "interrupted fairy tale" intro does a better job at setting the tone and hooking the player than anything they could've done with an "immediately drop the player into the action" intro.

[@jannox8307]

@@aarlanng After 70+ hours of my own gameplay, i lean more into agreement with ur criticism point. Setting related themes, which thous social bond quests do bring up, are usually getting reinforced later in other quests or main story plot in some fashion. Alas, team dynamic aspect got sacrificed in priority of personal arcs development. For such reason, even Gallica, inseparable MC companion, suddenly disappears when u decide to initiate these quests progression. Which is ,probably. to show autonomy that protagonist has by himself, if i had to guess. Luckily, field trip episodes are doing fine job on team synergy front. Although, i would personally prefer a little bit more of such. Certainty a step up from previous Persona games, i agree

[@geokou7645]

One of the video games with my favourite worldbuilding is the mod for Hearts of Iron IV called “The New Order: Last Days of Europe”. It’s literally just paragraphs of text but I’m so enraveled in it’s lore that I just love it

[@GreenlandRobot]

World building in games is similar to music; when done well it elevates the entirety and when bad something feels missing but is hard to explain why

[@QuantumHistorian]

Yes, somebody's put it into words! If I have to read one more sci-fi story where every major point of conflict is resolved by the discovery of an ever more ancient precursor civilisation with the magic tech to solve the problem at hand I'm going to throw the book / tv / pc out of the window. Confusing lore with world building is almost as irritating as writers (of games, shows, or books) that confuse back story with engaging characters. Telling the audience that little Johnny is mean to others because had a bad childhood doesn't make him deep, it just makes him a walking trope.

[@LimeyLassen]

I think the reason people keep going back to precursors, is because trapped dungeons are cool, and dungeons imply a lost civilization. It's kind of the path of least resistance.

[@gabrote42]

If you prefer sci-fi stories with practically no tech advancement beyond the local I recommend stuff like Swirl W@tch (and the whole Anthology it's a part off), although more than half of it is in the item descriptions that show up when yiu hit q in the inventory. Otherwise I recommend In Stars and Time for some truly awesome and _efficient_ worldbuilding done right. Indies 4 life!

[@maynardburger]

TLDR: Just make sure you have a great opening, worthwhile characters and great worldbuilding all at the same time. I dont feel you've really provided any solutions here, just pointing out the very obvious problems that exist in most all media for like a century when it comes to this issue.

[@MindMosaic82]

Great analysis! I love how you broke down the challenges of worldbuilding in games. I completely agree that strong character writing is crucial-Mass Effect’s approach to weaving worldbuilding into its party members is brilliant. I’ve also found environmental storytelling in games like Hollow Knight incredibly compelling. Do you think this minimalist approach will continue to rise, or are lore-heavy games making a comeback? Looking forward to more videos like this!

[@vincentcircharo8259]

5:10 A game that hits you hard and fast to get you to care reminds me of Dragon's Dogma Dark Arisen. I've never felt so compelled by a cutscene before. Right from the start, a dragon rips your heart out and eats it, fucks off, and dares you to come after him. I had to get revenge.

[@ttamecco]

also want to note that world building is not just for fantasy/sci-fi stories. Higurashi When They Cry has some of my favorite world building, and that’s just rural Japan in the early 80s. this is because world building is less about making up something cohesive: answering questions, and more about creating a sense of place. world building is a close sibling to atmosphere, so you can totally put a story in the real world, with all its infinite lore, and still have bad world building, cause your ability to make someone feel like they’ve been transported into the story hasnt been established

[@drgonzo123]

I’ll never forget the first time I played FF7. I thought the entire world was Midgar, the cyberpunk pizza city. It blew my mind when the adventure brought me out of the city and into the wider world. It’s why I love that game and the world it created. Plus the mystery around Sephiroth made him cooler than Darth Vader himself in my 11 year old mind.

[@KasumiRINA]

Final Fantasy managing to create amazing memorable planet-spanning worlds for more than 16 games in a row is insane achievement! More because Tactics world is one of my favorites.

[@geofff.3343]

I love how everyone misreads Ashley Williams as xenophobic when she's really just deeply mistrusting of the Council. The one scene they always point to is how you love a dog but you sic that dog on a bear if it means you live. People say, "See, she thinks aliens are dogs." No, she's saying humanity is the dog that the Council likes right now and finds useful but she's afraid that if it came down to humanity and the Galactic Community we would play the fending dog to the threatening bear. Honestly, as bad as ME2 was about making the Council as boneheaded as they did despite the irrefutable proof Reapers were real (honestly ME2 is the worst and killed the trilogy's chance of ending in a satisfactory way at all) it proves her right retroactively. Being mistrustful of the Galactic Council has informed many a renegade run, Ashley's not xenophobic, she might be humanity first, but it comes from a very real place that's not an unreasonable question to ask. Not because they're aliens, but because they're an intrenched institution that we've signed up for without really getting an idea for the lay of the land. Cerberus are the real space racists, but they do cool stuff so they get a pass because ME2 is again, the worst in the original trilogy. Whole damn DLC-ass-mission-stretched-into-a-full-story-ass-having game.

[@Gogoroth2]

This wasn't my interpretation, but I did always read her 'racism' as coming from a place of concern rather than actual hate. More like native-americans being wary of the white settlers rather than bigotry that comes from hatred. She's willing to be proven wrong and has an open mind.

[@Masarofia]

A rare ME2 diss, and I agree with you. I am always surprised to see it's the most loved one, the story took a huge hit with the addition of Cerberus and giant terminator 😢

[@TapirMask]

"I can't tell the difference between the aliens and the animals" - Ashley Williams idle chat upon first reaching the Citadel :D

[@KasumiRINA]

Ashley also literally says we should have segregated rooms for Garrus and Wrex. Is there ANYONE who trusts Williams over Vakarian? It's almost as if characters were written with flaws and they develop later (you can soften Ashley if you romance her AND you can harden Kaiden if you romance him), and Ash's entire problem is that she's being discriminated against BY HUMANS because human supremacists can't forgive her grandpa surrendering to aliens, and she decides to misdirect the blame. _Did you even talk to her,_ or just looked up opinions on Reddit? Also "I can't tell aliens from the animals" in Volus and Elcor embassy, REAL classy... literally try actually talking to her. She says stuff like that all the time. Oh and Council always being as useless as UN is realistic and not unique to ME2. Ashley having a good argument about COUNCIL being liars, which is a running gag in the series, doesn't make her right. Terra Firma guy, later, which she disagrees with, talks about "Peace in Our Time" policies being wrong, and he is ALSO right in same way broken clock sometimes is, but BOTH are for the wrong reason - they expect aliens to be the enemy, not the Reapers. Reminds me of some parties that say Europe or America are "invaded" by "aliens" while ignoring... actual invasions. You know, since Georgia in 2008. Mass Effect aged like fine wine calling out the future decades of future appeasement by politicians of all sorts _in 2007._ Mass Effect 2 is the best of course, upvoting contrarians won't change that.

[@aarlanng]

Here's my out of the left field example of good world building: The Ace Attorney games, specifically the localized version. The world of Japanifornia is comedic and not at all serious, but its creative application and its expression, along with the fact that it keeps coming up in such an absurd manner, leaves a strong impression on most players' minds. We all make jokes about the traditional american kotatsu and the 'hamburgers' Apollo has to eat, but the fact remains that this is engaging with the world that was being built. Fans come up with all sorts of ideas of how this specific part of America works, and most these ideas are meant to be humorous but it doesn't change the fact that people took the world that was given to them, and effectively embraced it, even creating fanbase spanning content based on the idiosyncrasies that exist and more importantly, what may exist, in this fictional world. As far as I'm concerned, if you as a player care about the game's world enough to engage with it, even just humorously, the worldbuilding has been done right.

[@LuvzToLol21]

Watch Dogs Legion had a neat feature where all cars in the game have a futuristic self-driving mode, you just set the destination and the car automatically pathfinds it's way there. Naturally you can also listen to the radio while driving. One of the radio stations played podcasts which explain the lore of the future London setting, like how ctOS came to be and how crypto became the de-facto currency in the UK. Given that some missions require you to drive all the way across London, I had many opportunities to hop in the nearest car, set the navigation, and just relax and listen to the podcast for a few minutes while I was driven to the next objective.

[@davidarlund4262]

I think that FF16 did something else special in this regard with their Active Time Lore. It's just text, but it's made selectively available to the player when it's needed, and in so doing prevented me from bouncing off the story just because I forgot which nation was which, or who this person I haven't seen in several hours is. And, reading it even more charitably, it presents knowledge your character should already know, without requiring a lore dump or interrupting the flow, in the case you didn't pick up on any subtle storytelling that occurred to present this to you already.

[@Speculaas]

11:34 physical eurodollars make a lot of sense. When the first net crashed, so did all the banks, thus digital money became obsolete for a short period of time.

[@kittymoo3297]

I fell in love with the Elder Scrolls games with Morrowind primarily because of the world building. Despite the fact technology has come a long way and the later entries in the series look and play a lot better. I'd argue none of them have quite come close to Morrowind when it comes to world building. The island of Morrowind still feels more well realized and alive to me than anything in Oblivion and Skyrim, and maybe a big part of that was just how big of a part that world building played to the main story. Which hooked me in and got me interested in learning more about the world.

[@stevethepocket]

That was because, I think, they handed creative control over to a different group of people for that game than had been in charge before, and afterward demanded that they hand it back. I don't know if the people behind Morrowind's weirdest stuff are even working there anymore. If not, I sure hope they've been able to attach themselves to some other studio and project since then.

[@TapirMask]

I'm currently playing through Morrowind for the first time properly after bouncing off a lot and I agree. There's so much dense intrigue between the different factions and viewpoints and it all directly links to the geography of the area you're in, whether it's Ashland tribes, the three distinct houses, or the encroaching Imperial gentrification. Each group has it's own set of beliefs on a range of topics from religion to slavery. Oblivion mostly pared all that down to separate aesthetics for each town. There's some stuff like how Leyawiin has conflict between a racist Imperial elite vs the Khajit and Argonian natives but it's mostly surface level or only in one quest. Skyrim brought the worldbuilding back in a lot more stronger way through the Thalmor/Empire/Stormcloaks, but it's mostly all related to that single issue and it's a relatively shallow one.

[@JeremyMotifs]

Derk-Karen Janbeld was just the beginning. None of us are ready for: Karen-Jan Derkbeld

[@OmegaGamer1989]

I love that he commented on that, but not "Mike Oxlong." 😂 Like idk if he missed that one or just chose not to address it but either way, well played, Mike.

[@umbra4540]

i'm only four minutes in, but the answer to the question "why is worldbuilding for video games so uniquely hard" isn't really a difficult one. it isn't uniquely hard. the world of video games with a primary draw of "ooh look at my graphics" often has the same effort put into it as movies with the same appeal. the thing that's unique about video games is that writing in video games, that is, storytelling, is seen as ancillary to gameplay and graphics by a lot of execs, and even some players. losing your writers on a project is a major hit, but the difference is obvious in that if it happens on a movie, everyone already knows the movie is going to suck. whereas if it happens for a video game, people don't recognize that that means the game's world is probably going to suck. it's not uniquely hard, it's just that people (here i mostly mean audiences, though it's definitely also executives) don't hold the same respect for video game writers that they do for writers in other media. edit after watching: i want to clarify in case it's not clear: when i say "writers" i don't mean writers of the lore compendium. writers need to have an active hand in gameplay development in games the same way they have an active hand in music, visual, and really everything development in other media. if you give me a game with compelling gameplay and a compelling book, that's less than the sum of its parts and you've failed to let your writers do their job. if you give me a gorgeous picture book and a compelling novel, i will care about it less than i care about a well made movie or graphic novel. writing isn't something ancillary to games (unless the game just isn't trying to tell a story. they exist and don't always suck), it's something that has to be baked in at a fundamental level

[@MeerKatReport]

I scrolled through the timeline and was going to just listen to the part where you had Chairman Yang from Alpha Centauri on the screen to learn what you were using the game to exemplify, but the snappiness and coherence of your editing, script and delivery kept me watching for the full essay, very nicely made. Thank you.

[@zacharron]

So much of worldbuilding to me is subtraction. Give the player a truly interesting but small nugget of information and let their curiosity lead them to the rest, aka Dark Souls, Bioshock and The Outer Wilds.

[@ChristianFu11er]

It’s all personal preference, but few settings have accomplished more interesting world building to me than The Oldest House in Control. It perfectly achieves the feeling like it’s not something constructed for you to gage your adventure in, but a truly deep reality where the objects locked behind safety glass are as engaging as your character’s supernatural powers.

[@Liratan]

This really reminds me of Tears of the Kingdom and how that game singlehandedly killed a large section of the Zelda theory community because after that game came out it became painfully obvious that Nintendo couldn't care less about their story. Sheikah tech and towers were no longer around not because of any logical reason but because it needed to be gone so the new shiny thing could take it's place.

[@ArchitectofGames]

We all bought the Hyrule Historia like chumps, only for it to be instantly invalidated with the literal next game - Tears of the Kingdom was just another nail in the coffin :(

[@TheLegendsOfTynedale]

Definitely one of your most insightful videos! World building is really hard to get right. It's the difference between something good and something great; the fine details. You've given me some great ideas to add to my own indie game. Nice one!

[@SangoProductions213]

Basically, games tend to answer "Why do I care?" effectively.

[@ryaniswhoiam5695]

Whiterun is divided into districts, one of which is called the Cloud district - which is where Nazeem most often hangs about. So it is an actually location every Skyrim player has been through without realising. There is some dialogue or a book or something that explains it early on I think, I remember learning it the last time I started a new playthrough

[@anotherbacklog]

Can feel the Kojima hate here. Lore and world building are like spices, just there to add flavor to the game. You can totally enjoy Monster Hunter without reading every the item description or hunter notes entries. You don’t have to know the lore behind Malenia or Radahn to get the satisfaction of finally beating them after getting pwned for like 700 times. Both have extensive world building and environmental story telling, and great fun if you want to digger after you mastered the gameplay. When the food is unpalatable without the spice, or when you cannot enjoy the game without understanding every bits of the world building then there’s something wrong already. Horrible world building is the chemical taste of artificial flavoring and coloring that ruins the appetite. Good world building can make a good game better, bad world building makes a bad game worse. Like cream In carbonara and pineapple on pizza, at the end it comes down to personal preference.

[@aturchomicz821]

Chad Tropico 4 & 5 once again, having you stare at caricatures to accept and finish quests, making you really feel like youre surrounded by the insanity of politics🗿🗿

[@Zanador]

Good video and point overall, but I don't really agree with the Metaphor example. It never really bothered me that almost no one mentions Strohl's town besides him because I thought it was made pretty clear that it was a tiny backwater town almost no one knew or cared about. Strohl is a "noble" but he's a noble of a small town - like being the mayor of a rural village with a population of less than 1000. Also it's not like Strohl is the *only* person who brings it up - his social link features another person who survived the attack, and implies the existence of others off-screen.

[@jtbolscher]

yeah, it’s comments like these that suddenly make me question everything he’s saying about games i know less about. i’m pretty sure this is even made abundantly clear from the first time you meet him! never is it implied to be a regional power or anything of the sort!

[@skylerthewise2156]

I demand an entire video exploring the lore of the thirteenth Age of Chaos and Lord High Exarch Thalamidius The Shadow's Banes greatest Crusade

[@LimeyLassen]

Against the riverlands!

[@1Kapuchu100]

So happy to see a Fallen London mention! Been playing that game for years (a bit on and off at times), but it's one of the most unique settings I've ever had the pleasure of playing. It is indeed slow, but if you get into the storyines, shit gets WEIRD and deeply fascinating. And remember: Do NOT Seek the Name!

[@davidcummins8125]

I think mystery is a key driver. Either in the explicit sense, by presenting speculative fiction and letting you explore the causes/effects of the central premise, or by simple absence due to an unexplained time gap or similar. Being confronted by your own ignorance and trying to fix it is it's own reward.

[@NevG27]

The key to world building, and this goes for any medium, is that it needs to feel lived in with aspects of the world effecting everything, whether you see it or not. A well built world is like an iceberg; the player/reader/viewer only sees what's above the surface, but there is so much underneath that builds up to and defines what is being shown.

[@Flat_Erik]

Caves of Qud oh my lord. 1 hour in you're like, is it a plant, is it a bird, no it is the sudden realization that my character will die in the next few turns. And 30 hours in you're like "Your thirst is mine, my water is yours". Incredible world.

[@dirtywhitellama]

I tried it a few times and kept bouncing off because of your first example unfortunately.

[@Flat_Erik]

@@dirtywhitellama it is very unforgiving and and needs some serious time and thought investment. If you generally enjoy this kind of game, maybe try 'Tales of May Ejal' or 'Dwarf Fortress' or 'Rim World' even : ) 👍

[@dirtywhitellama]

@@Flat_Erik yeah I've played all of them!

[@michaelburch530]

Live and drink, water sibling.

[@Ratstail91]

Concerning the iconic list of names at the end... yeah, it's getting to the point that I recognize a few - especially "and Chao".

[@marsverb]

One of the most fascinating examples of worldbuilding I've seen recently was in the RPG In Stars and Time. The devs obviously put a lot of thought into the greater world the game takes place in, but as the story is an extremely narrow one, taking place over one or two days (days that repeat, but that's besides the point), in one location, with only eight named characters, you don't learn about any of that greater lore beyond how it relates directly to the characters and the plot. Do you want to know *why* all the color in the world disappeared? Or an entire landmass for that matter? Too bad. This story isn't about those things so we're not going to distract you with them. But the fact that these answers potentially exist outside the scope of the game but within its world makes that world feel so much bigger than any game with pages upon pages of detailed lore.

[@gabrote42]

So true. Insertdisc5 also said in the blog before release that one of the ways they made he game feel very deep was focusing down on a few aspects of each country, like linguistics. If you know about carcinization, Crab being an insult is genius, which makes you see much more complexity where there really isn't. I love it.

[@donvitopatata]

I love how Library of Ruina did this. The game centers around an anomalous library, that has books with whatever you want in it. However to get a book, you have to "prove yourself" in a battle. Should you lose, you will turn into a book with all your information in it. You as the player are on the libraries side, trying to collect books to get "the one finished book". The gameplay loop is basically: Visual novel style dialogue -> battle -> visual novel style dialogue. You get a very well done story throughout the game that centers primarily on the maincast within the library, but each "guest" that comes to get a book from the library has their own background. Before each fight you see the moments before they enter the library from their pov, often revealing their status, personality and some stuff around them in a short manner. From small fry gangsters, to mercenaries, to monsters beyond human to some of the strongest in the world everyone is here. Should you defeat someone, you will unloch the enemies deck to use in a fight yourself, aswell as lore snippets as you got their book. These are often either their life story, some kins of philosophy they carry, observations of people around them or just them complaining about their job. It makes the world very compelling and paints such a big picture, even tho it rarely is directly focussed on.

[@sonickhable]

You use Xenoblade 2 as a negative example but i love the lore of the series. It's actually pretty great at keeping me interested all throughout

[@maynardburger]

Xenoblade is great cuz each game's setting and lore can stand on its own, but the interconnected aspects are basically just some cherry on top for the series nerds. It's a bizarre example to use as a game doing it wrong.

[@SaxoraMcOhn]

He didn't criticise the lore of the game at all. He showed the intro as an example of a lore dump, because it, unfortunately, is a lore dump.

[@rockotrex]

I'm not sure if he said it but, in many of the "bad" examples, it's not the worldbuilding that sucks, only the presentation and exposition of them, because so many of those games have incredible lore and worlds, it depends on how much you're willing to read and explore to know them.

[@jacobgoodrich6984]

>anime >good world building pick one

[@AFriendRemembers]

I must have missed that, although I had the video on in thr background... I've always thought xenoblade was one of the most intricate, best examples possible of designing the gameplay space around the lore of the story being told. The landscape literslly reflects the gods of the world the game is set in - both their relevance to the story and the mood / ambience / emotional thrust of the story beats in a particular area.

[@terricon4]

A good example of this done right, Unreal Tournament 2004. That was a game with an amazing world and setting, and it makes you interested, despite not needing to. In the campaign it starts as you're just fighting as part of the tournament, duking it out to even get in you're fighting some people, in the process learning a little bit about the setting but mostly just fighting the awesome combat. But then once in the tournament proper, they start doing missions where you are re enacting key battles or events in the past, and they introduce this in the intro, not as just a bunch of story, but as a brief summary of what this tournament is about, and then the detail is provided as they do a fly through showing your objectives, discussed as the key things that were done in the past to complete that battle or event. So what you see, is what you need to care about for gameplay, as well as story, but the little snippets they give, plus the world itself you see around you, tells you a lot more about the setting itself, and it's very digestible. They never go into super detail on anything, so the world always still feels a bit mysterious, but they don't have to, and if they did it wouldn't fit the pace, just let people enjoy it enough to know what they are doing and why, and to make their actions feel a little more grounded and interesting than just fighting eachother for the X time in the Y map again.

[@vezokpiraka]

I'm a gameplay purist. I really don't care what skin is put on something as long as it's fun to play. Luck be a Landlord is just a spinny slot game and I still love it and spent too much time in it. Vampire Survivors laughs in the face of lore. The dev claims it exists and someone keeps track of it, but I think it's just making fun of us. Even so, it seems that the games where the gameplay is the best it can be are also the games with the best lore. Like Hollow Knight or Nine Sols or so many others. There's a debate this year on which metroidvania is the best and the contenders are Nine Sols and Prince of Persia. It's an extremely tense debate, because Nine Sols has amazing worldbuilding, while Prince of Persia kinda forgot it should have it. But somehow Prince of Persia is the better game in my opinion, because it hits all the metroidvania beats so well including having my absolute favourite boss fight in any game with King Darius. Nine Sols meanwhile is insanely tight mechanically and you need to become a master at it just to progress and the game becomes so much more rewarding than Prince of Persia which is pretty easy. But the biggest thing people who think Nine Sols is better is the lore aspect. I dunno, I feel like great worldbuilding can lift a bad game to be better, but a great game stands on it's own with mostly basic worldbuilding.

[@finaldusk1821]

It certainly depends on the kind of game and target audience, no size fits all when it comes to why we all play games after all. Just compare the discourse in the Fire Emblem community between fans of Three Houses and its successor Engage. Even by Fire Emblem's flexible standards, the series made a jarring jump from its most objectively complex and layered history ever, to one that could rival some of the series' very earliest games in its simplicity. On paper at least, Engage is great for gameplay purists like yourself and I'm happy for those who liked the game, but story enthusiasts like us were left without any reason to care about or discuss the game once its credits had rolled, everything was just so cut-and-dry. Conversely 3 Houses was an absolute joy for us story enthusiasts and remains so many years after we finished playing it, yet other players rightly found its gameplay to be stilted and lacklustre, due in part to its reduced focus and it being bent to serve the story. One game compromised the series' storytelling, the worldbuilding being a big part of that, in service of better gameplay. The other compromised on gameplay to tell a better story and hinged its worldbuilding as a primary appeal of that story. Objective mistakes in both games notwithstanding, neither focus is necessarily better, they're just appealing to a different crowd.

[@gabrote42]

I recommend Sleeper Service games then, their lore is super good but mostly optional. If you want to get into games with lore, check out In Stars and Time

[@johnholleran]

The way Outer Wilds uses lore fascinates me- the lore is such an integral part of the game and every line is carefully crafted with meaning

[@a_d_z_y__]

11:40 actually, the advantage of physical money is that it's naturally hard to trace

[@clovermite]

I think a great example of the difference that proper organic worldbuilding as a "reward" makes is the difference in feel between Geneforge 1 and its sequels. In the first game, everything is a mystery. You witness the ruins of these abandoned laboratories that use magical bioengineering to power ALL of the technology. You get exposed to mechanisms that seem rather strange (how does a stone door automatically sense when you are close so it can open?) and then later learn the details as a reward for exploring a new location in the game (the doors possess magically created vines in the walls and floor that hydraulically lower and lift the door based on your weight pressing down on the floor in front of the door). Everything new location in the game revealed something fascinating and unique about how this shadowy group of elitist biowizards structured their society (not too dissimilar from how Bioshock later did). But then in Geneforge 2, and even more pronounced in future series, all of that is just basically gone. The game creator basically took the same rough formula for the plot points and factions and just repeated them all over again in the second game. It even assumes you're familiar with the world after the first, and therefore doesn't really spend much time creating new and interesting things about the world to learn. You just trudge through this, now, soulless world that's cynically just revisiting the same story beats as the previous games, just with slightly different stats and monster designs.

[@AnnaTheFallMaiden]

the section about cyberpunk's police force doesn't make sense to me they're suuuper scary, so they never get used and im supposed to rationalize this how?

[@cubicinfinity2]

I said I don't think a bestiary scanner is that much better than collectable documents lying around, but now realized the difference is that you can scan at any time. Even if you've learned you don't have to read the document right away (because it is collectable), you still feel like the best time to read it is now because the devs likely put it there for a reason.

[@cleonanderson1722]

Seems like a lot of water for your premise is being carried by universalizing the valence of your subjective experiences to diagnosis "objective" problems that aren't really convincingly illustrated. Won't disagree with most of the nitty-gritty spirit of effort and care in -> quality out but for me the initial presentation of your thesis rolled eyes and fell flat.

[@ThePiachu]

Reminds me of the good old video essay of "Shandification of Fallout", aka "what do they eat?" question...

[@CheshireCad]

It's saddening that FromSoft games, which are frequently lauded for their excellent worldbuilding techniques, tragically suffer from the studio's notorious over-ambition and terrible time management, with massive chunks of the game being cut during its last-minute crunch, including large swaths of its lore. When you try to become invested in its world and characters, you'll incessantly run into the problem of extremely interesting enemies and setpieces having... literally no mention whatsoever anywhere. There aren't even any contextual clues. You brought up three excellent examples in Elden Ring alone. It betrays your investment in the world by frequently leaving you with only one possible conclusion: It's a videogame asset, put there to fulfill a gameplay purpose or to look mysterious/cool/creepy. Maybe another game could get away with that level of incompleteness, with the expectation that not everything has an answer. But the fact that they and the community push you to rigorously examine everything in search of lore, means that you're constantly left disappointed.

[@silent_reaper999]

But thats the point to buy game from the publishers view for the customer

[@aurtosebaelheim5942]

I recently heard the argument that Souls-series stories are best engaged with as archaeology rather than as traditional stories. You're finding little pieces of a greater whole and that's enough to get 90% certainty on some events but anything outside of that will always be speculation - just like at a dig site you can be 99% certain you're digging up a house and the things found there give you hints about the lives its occupants must have lived, but you'll never really know who they were or what happened there. The games push you to assemble a possible picture of past events, they don't expect you to conclusively prove what happened nor do they give you the tools to do so. In that regard the missing lore is largely immaterial. Some things are just inexplicable, the ravages of time have eradicated any and all meaning from them. The cool dude with a funky sword and no lore goes from being an underdeveloped game asset to the tragic sole remnant of a completely lost history, look on his works ye mighty and despair. Straid from DS2 most clearly embodies this - a man who's been petrified for longer than the current kingdom has existed, his homeland so thoroughly destroyed that no trace of it remains and at least one new nation risen in its place and is now entering its twilight years. Likewise with the Asylum Demon in DS3 - of course we the audience know what it is, but within the world it is without context, it's been around long enough to have literally fossilized and now it's just a thing left over from an unknowably distant past. The world is old beyond comprehension, time strips all meaning from things but nothing can truly die, hollow remnants will always remain.

[@aturchomicz821]

Now if only the Souls genre would actually be fun lol

[@vlim5601]

@@aturchomicz821 There's nothing wrong with not enjoying the gameplay, but they're objectively fun otherwise it wouldn't be one of the most prevalent genres for the entire past 10 years.

[@obsidianflight8065]

I remember reading a book in skyrim I found in some random house, it detailed how to make a potion. obviously the first thing I did was try and find the materials for said potion, but they didn't exist! to be fair, fictional books often make fictional materials and such for their stories, including mythology. but I was so sad that it didn't exist, especially since I was trying to figure out how to make potions for a while and couldn't find any resources in game about it but it didn't even look like it was a fictional book, it looked like it was a book to show a moral of some sort (although I couldn't tell you what that would have been) and seemed plausible, like the boy who cried wolf being plausible

[@straef1042]

Hit the nail on the head with your point about FF14. It dumps so much background information about historical events and different races and so on, and a bunch of long cutscenes and story dumps even when trying to unlock alliance raids, for example. I forgot 90% of the ARR storyline and skipped the cutscenes related to the Bahamut and Crystal Tower raids altogether, as I was in a rush to unlock certain features and catch up with the following expansions. Years on, during later expansions, and after watching certain KZbin vids going into FF14 history, I felt like I missed out. I still feel like forgetting a large amount of ARR context isn't really my bad, but poor pacing on the game's side, as well as time itself passing by :p

[@vazazell5967]

The amount of not caring I've kept accumulating as I've played ER only to culminate with marikagon being never explained was so insanely disappointing. It's no dark souls

[@Drkfire_Yt]

Er has multiple hints throughout the game that marika and radigon r the same person, by both npc conversations and litterally in world architecture. Er explains the lore just as much as any dark souls theres just way more of it. Litterally if u explore er the world tells u alot and if u think about the things uve seen alot of things will become more understandable as u progress. Er's world building is amazing, but unlike most games the litteral world itself is wat tells the story because theres vry little dialogue and just like in our own world we hafta put the things we find together on our own and learn from the world, the ghosts, the few npcs and cutscenes and the short item descriptions.

[@pievancl5457]

compared to Dark Souls or Bloodborne, I was completely uninterested in ER lore for most of my first time through. however, around the end of the game I started becoming interested in the underground areas and wtf happened since they were so visually striking. i didn't even finish my first run- i restarted the playthrough from the beginning, except this time i went in with fresh eyes and a renewed interest in the world. after its all said and done, and after hours of conversation and perusing the elden ring reddit, watching content on elden ring, etc., I think the lore of ER tops Dark Souls. the themes and narrative is way more intriguing, and the depth of the world is incredible, especially with how rich each environment is with lore, way more than Dark Souls. I love the way FromSoft tells stories and makes games. My first playthrough is why- i already loved the game even though I had no engagement to the story or lore at all, all because of the systems and gameplay and art; however, i now love the game on an entirely new level because of the hook of the lore and story, and all it took to pull back the curtain was one corner that interested me enough to begin pulling threads. it's great when a game is fun enough that it can stand by its systems, exploration and combat alone; it's even better when you can enjoy it in deeper levels too- and yet, if you don't want to, you don't have to- there are no 20 minute cut scenes to sit through. it's just another check in the box of player freedom and choice.

[@sir_coma60]

I like it when some stories just leave certain coincidences or mechanics of the world unanswered. It would be as if divine intervention blessed the events of the story, granted not in a way that undoes character agency. Like the weather being just right at the pivotal moment to overturn the battlefield, or why spirits exist in a particular setting.

[@ivanbluecool]

It's why I love the tales of series. The character development and movement of the heroes and villains constantly running around the world makes the story feel life like in knowing they aren't just waiting like in some games where it feels like the world is waiting for you to do anything

[@ArchitectofGames]

That reminds me I need to get around to playing some of these games eventually!

[@ivanbluecool]

@ArchitectofGames oh yeah. Tales of graces is getting a remaster soon. I'd start with tales of xillia or tales of abyss myself for new comers as they give you the perfect start to the way they develop characters

[@darthtace]

​@@ArchitectofGames I would also recommend the Trails series while we're at it -- which they will be remaking the early installments of starting next year, meaning the main barrier to entry (the *ancient* gameplay) will be gone. Geoff over on Mother's Basement has a good (old) video over it, but there isn't better worldbuilding in any JRPG, and maybe any video game period. The best part is that, as the games progress, EVERY villager in EVERY town will change what they say as the story progresses. They might react to the overarching progress of the story, but it's just as likely they'll be going on their own entire character arc -- finding love and getting married (and going on a honeymoon in the next installment), or getting lost, found by you on a sidequest by their niece, then having to deal with their broken relationship with each other (and eventually finding him again 7 games later). They don't have the best storytelling or gameplay, to be clear -- the main draw is the worldbuilding and character interactions. But it's a masterclass in how amazing a world can be when every single aspect of is deliberately connected together.

[@dontstealmydiamondsv3156]

@@ivanbluecool Its a great series. Although I certainly have doubts about the direction its going in recently. idk if that's the broader consensus or if I'm just being a boomer

[@ivanbluecool]

@@dontstealmydiamondsv3156 oh no you're totally justified about it. Zestiria arise were very bad overall. I would say some older games are meh too like Symphonia 2 xillia 2 for gameplay and pace But lucky enough we'll be getting tales of graces the best gameplay combat ever soon enough.

[@CreativeExcusesGaming]

Neon was so frustrating as a setting because parts of it were so well built out and interconnected that when I did care about it enough to try and take out the local despot in every way the in game logic and even some characters said I should be able to and I was thwarted by the essential npc function, I was just mad. Neon is such a cool city that was very fun to explore, but the fact that you get the impression that you can take out the despot either manually or even through blackmail being released, but you actually cant, sucks. It made it feel too gamey 😢

[@nifftbatuff676]

These days infodumping is the most sufferable part of the experience.

[@donatodiniccolodibettobardi842]

Considering that gameplay is just as important if not more important than characters and narrative, I'd argue, that gameplay can also hook you in on the worldbuilding and the lore. Actually a good lore can circle you back around to interesting characters and narrative to contextualize your gameplay and more local, present narrative. Or just make you curious about what else is going on. But most of our specie are social creatures so it makes sense that a compelling character in a tense situation is an easiest hook available, assuming you can pull that off.

[@vinsplayer2634]

I also think that unlike movies and books, games should have as little dialogue and cutscenes as possible. In all mediums of stories, environmental worldbuilding is an effective tool, but in video games, other forms of conveying story are usually annoying and should in my opinion always be reduced to the minimum. In my opinion only detective games should have dialogue and cutscenes. Multiplayer games can also have a chat, but I think that's a little different.

[@KasumiRINA]

Hard disagree. Games that I loved the most are ones heavily rely on cutscenes like Mass Effect, Resident Evil and Metal Gear, and one of the trends in open worlds I hate is how you can run for hours without a zoom-in and just generic dialogue in background.

[@vinsplayer2634]

@@KasumiRINA I guess it's up to personal preference, but I've always found it annoying when games use dialogue and especially cutscenes. I play games for gameplay, not for a story.

[@bartolomeus441]

Making small, well-designed areas with rich environmental storytelling to make the world feel authentic is a really clever trick, I haven't thought about it before. One exposition method I really like is making lore layered. Playing only main quests teach you enough about the world to understand the main story and the further you go from the main storyline, the more hidden world information you get, with secret endings or facts that change you whole view on the world for the most thorough players.

[@Cezzmart67]

The Xenoblade/Xenosaga/Xenogears series are all connected, I think its amazing worldbuilding

[@michaelburch530]

I love that you name-checked the Fallen London universe here, as it was written largely by Alexis Kennedy, who has literally penned an entire book called "Against Worldbuilding"

[@davrielcane4374]

thank you so much for highlighting Qud's amazing worldbuilding!

[@sircrashtonii9718]

As a long time player and game developer, this video answers a lot of questions that I've been trying to figure out for a while. Thanks!

[@jedimasterpickle3]

Yeahhhh hard disagree on FFXIV A Realm Reborn. It's slow paced, yes, and the overall plot is pretty basic, but in terms of worldbuilding? It's a fantastic foundation. We would not care about Ishgard if we didn't go through Coerthas and deal with their nonsense firsthand. The bloody banquet at the end of 2.55 hits harder when you start in Ul'dah and first meet Nanamo as that girl by the Sultantree. A Realm Reborn has you start as a fresh adventurer, and your character slowly gets involved and learns about regional politics and struggles, and I think the quest design reflects this. Sure, there's a couple too many wild goose chases (the lead-ups to Titan and Garuda are a bit much), but it was well-received at the time and has been trimmed down since.

[@losgann]

He didn't say FFXIV had bad world building, he said that players often don't really care about it until they're much more invested compared to something like FF16 that starts with a bang. It's a big part of why Squeenix offers so much content as part of the XIV free demo.

[@jedimasterpickle3]

@@losgann I thought his point was that if players didn't care or if a game made it hard for players to get invested, that was bad worldbuilding? I agree that 16 starts off on a much stronger foot and is a lot easier to jump into, I just think ARR is a bit unfairly looked down on.

[@MilkCalf]

I can't recall much from my attempt at playing that game beyond evil people with dark magic and protag falling unconscious constantly due to some connection to light. I remember reading a lot of text and it still just boils down to light is good and dark is bad.

[@jedimasterpickle3]

@@MilkCalf Yeah that's a fair summary of 2.0. It does get a lot more nuanced than that, but not in the base game. It's still a big time investment to get past anything beyond "decent MMO story"

[@AeciusthePhilosopher]

Another factor here is theatre of the mind: the human mind is a fantastic story telling device that’s great at thinking of immersive ways to fill in the gaps. But the more there’s already there, the less there is left to fill in. This is why a combat log in dwarf fortress can feel so much more visceral than a combat full of lovingly rendered animations, or why stand ins can feel more evocative than beautifully built and painted miniatures: the less work our imagination has to do, the less we see the intended experience and the more we just see what’s actually in front of us: a flashy animation or that particular miniature, rather than what it’s supposed to represent.

[@johnnyexponential7229]

Derk-Karen Janbeld here. You've really got no idea how far I'm willing to take this nonsense. Buckle up for an extremely slow and faintly droll thrill ride.

[@eldred7779]

My seatbelt is loosely fastened in anticipation

[@johnnyexponential7229]

@@eldred7779 not too tight now. This is a slow -moving ride. In fact, you're probably alright without the belt for about a month.

[@herb2110]

The three lessons I got from this: 1. Make sure to get your player invested in the world before you spend too much time telling them about it 2. Keep the lore focused on what's actually important and interesting first so you don't bog it down with pointless trivia 3. Use gameplay features to more naturally explain the world and strengthen the player's connection to it

[@silverdust4197]

Daggerfall and Morrowind have great world building.

[@matfoxbidule7601]

Oh shit, Fallen London mentioned! I absolutely adore the approahc to world building Failbetter and Alexis Kennedy have

[@LimeyLassen]

I was frustrated with the design of Cultist Simulator but I love the story so much I bought Book of Hours anyway and crossed my fingers they'd fix it.

[@SpoopySquid]

As someone working on a fantasy book, i find myself falling into these same traps regularly. Some level of world building is necessary but there's always an urge to fall down the lore rabbit hole to the point you're spending more time building a glorified wiki than you are creating a compelling story

[@thehearingaid]

I'd say that can be good for you to know but the reader doesn't need to be aware of everything.

[@LiraeNoir]

I think the main rhetoric development, the main argument of the video, is totally wrong. And weirdly I think Adam agrees: 14:24 "all the lore the game [Starfield] throws at you is basically pointless, regardless of how good it may or may not be". That sentence is right: because the game has many problems, we don't care about the setting (the fictional world) that was created, or "word built". So no, what's missing or forgotten or missed as to worldbuilding is not to make players care. Caring is absolutely critical to enjoy a game, as its a close synonym to engaged. But it's not part of worldbuilding. At all. The most common example is probably rpg (I mean real rpg, tabletop with pen&paper): a badly designed badly written setting can be under a great adventure made and animated by a great and very engaging gamemaster, while the best setting in the world can be made to be hated by a very bad gamemaster frontloading hours of boring exposition. Any rpg veteran would had flashback reading that sentence, it's a pain we have all experienced at some point. Or a good vs bad-boring teacher. Same thing, presentation can make a subject you like boring and hated, while a great teacher can make any academic subject engaging.

[@balduinvontrier128]

Me: How did my favourite games do this again? Favourite games: "Welcome to the colony!" *BANG*

[@F2PAlius]

Genshin impact has good lore, good world setting, and amazing stories to tell, but most of the juicy stuff is locked behind multi hour long questlines with no voiced dialog. Like seriously. A story about a melusine with paintings that fortell tragedies, not voiced. A story about an entire lost city underwater, not voiced.

[@FlamboyantAsBurningInferno]

Amaurot Theme from Final Fantasy 14 as background music hits me soo hard!

[@Mockingdragon]

I do have to say the BG3 example didn't ring true for me...that may have been a situation where the hook was TOO powerful and actually took away from my interest in the rest of the world. I was so focused on getting this THING out of my head (and also distracted by the fact that the game seemed to expect me to already know how bad things were) that I did not care about any of the early sidequests. I didn't want to get involved with the grove or figure out what was in the ruins, I wanted to *get this thing out of my head*.

[@KasumiRINA]

BG3 absolutely overdoes the rushing you early on, I almost missed the ENTIRE Goblin Camp area sidequests before visiting ANYTHING else by immediately beelining there after first Grove visit AND having the fight with shaman, thankfully NOT getting the rest of the camp hostile. The game makes it sound like your three options are Grove, Goblins and Creche and that dealing with infection is the first main story point BEFORE everything else. Also it makes it seem like Goblin attack is imminent so I rushed there not understanding it's the final part of chapter 1, and creche is in chapter 1.5 instead tho that at least is gated very well with that OP encounter and warnings.

[@terricon4]

And after watching this, also just realized how glad I am no one tried to patent Audiologs early on... imagine how much that would suck if they weren't used in so many games...

[@KasumiRINA]

True. Some gaming patents absolutely hurt the industry at large like Namco patenting minigames during loading screens and Bioware patenting the dialogue wheel, and for how much people love numbered choices, ALL non-Bioware games having those gets grating.