10 Storytelling Clichés In Video Games That Need To Die
"Random mutated boss" remains the only thing wrong with Arkham Asylum.
Video games can get real lazy in their storytelling, falling back in clichés we’ve experienced a thousand times before. Clichés so well-worn and familiar, in fact, that you can probably guess what’s going to happen before it occurs.
Often that’s down to narrative taking a backseat to gameplay, and when you stumble across these lazy stories, it leaves you wondering why the game even had a plot to begin with.
That said, Super Mario Bros. managed just fine without deep storytelling. You’re a plumber. You need to save a princess. Job done.
Why are you a plumber? Why has Daisy been kidnapped? Who cares, crack on with this super-awesome platformer. And that's cool.
It's the games with narrative pretensions for the lowest common denominator that need to quit. The ones that deliver super-simplistic crowd-pleasers that appeal to, and are understood by, the broadest possible player base. So forget about nuance, forget about memorable character arcs - just hurry along to the next gameplay sequence where stuff gets blown up.
These are the absolute worst clichés in video games – you know, the ones that really need stop, like, right now.
Oh, and watch out for minimal spoilers along the way.
10. Kill The Cutie
Prime Offender: Titanfall 2, Final Fantasy VII
Need a quick and dirty emotional punch? Easy. Kill the super-loveable character - the one that audiences have grown to love over the course of a few hours.
It’s sad, when you think about it, that the only way developers think we can connect with a story is by offing the cutest character in the game. There are so many ways to create an emotional bond, to stir investment in the plot, that this just feels like the easy way out. It requires zero thought.
Zero effort. Just pick the best sidekick and write him or her out of the script – preferably with a death scene that callously plucks at all the emotional chords without ever putting in the hard work.
Typically, this occurs to show you just how evil the bad guy is (as if we hadn’t guessed), or to force the protagonist to act. Or both. This is base-level storytelling; the emotional equivalent of waking up and discovering it was all a dream.