Immersion and Linear Progression

by Xenos , Shores of Time, Thursday, July 25, 2013, 09:56 (3933 days ago) @ kapowaz

You talk about these things as if writing optional, non-linear narrative is just a simple problem to solve. I think the very fact it doesn't exist (a few experiments aside) in mainstream video games is a good demonstration that it's far from simple.

Yeah I have to say this is one of the main reasons why the story for Mass Effect 3 ended up annoying (or enraged) people so much. They had put 3 games worth of decisions into the series and it turned out that their decisions barely mattered for the story. Honestly I was not disappointed because I really wasn't expecting something vastly different depending on how I played the game because I know how ridiculously difficult it would be to write a story (especially one with as many cinematics as Mass Effect) that changed drastically based on your decisions. Not that I am saying people were wrong to be annoyed, but it honestly would be very surprising to me to see a modern game that has a lot of actually branching and changing story.