10 Storytelling Clichés In Video Games That Need To Die

4. "This Is Super-Urgent" But…

Prime Offender: Fallout 4, Mass Effect 3, The Elder Scrolls: Skyrim

From a storytelling perspective, one of the major problems with open-world games is the fact that you have both the main questline - and about a thousand side-quests.

Take Fallout 4. Your son’s been kidnapped. That’s kind of a big deal, unless you’re literally the worst parent in the world. You need to save him, but – Ooh, look, this guy wants me to kill some bandits. And I need to build a house. And…

Ultimately, the player’s actions don’t match the loosely established character of the protagonist. As a game, that’s great – Bethesda can throw as many diversions as they want at us.

As a narrative though, it fails, because no parent is going to collect random junk when their kid is being held against their will - unless that parent is Dr. Henry Jones Sr. teaching his child self-reliance.