Immersion and Linear Progression

by kapowaz, Friday, July 26, 2013, 02:03 (3933 days ago) @ Cody Miller

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.

The original Deus Ex. Hardly an experiment, and definitely mainstream.

Deus Ex does present the player with much more choice in the narrative, but it's still pretty much just smoke and mirrors: there are a grand total of three possible endings, and so whilst the route you take there might be different the outcome is really just one of a set of narratives where you mix and match parts. The original Colony Wars did the same thing, but had five final outcomes at the end of an overlapping tree structure depending on mission outcome. These are actually the examples I was thinking of when I said experiments, because as much as they were interesting they haven't massively influenced mainstream games that followed, and linear narrative has remained the dominant form.