10 Reasons Video Games Are The Hardest Thing To Write
9. Whered My Level Go?
Even when youre an integral part of the development team, you might not always be around when some of the hard choices get made. Decisions to cut additional modes, game features or even entire levels are normally tense conversations between designers, producers and PMs, with everyone trying to juggle the numbers to avoid having to wield the knife. If youre a dedicated writer, chances are you wont hear that a part of the game is under threat until its already gone. If youve seen any form of game bible or documentation, youll probably have tried to match your story beats to the size and structure of the game you dont want six hours to pass with no plot developments, after all. For a writer, the consequences of these cuts can be disastrous; lets say level 2 was a moment of introspection in the desert where your protagonist meets a gruff father figure; its their conversation that convinces her to join up with the rebellion. That level no longer exists, but the conversation still needs to happen at that point in the story, so itll have be crammed in at the start of level 3 which, unfortunately, opens with the protagonist jumping out of a plane. You can stick a filter over the dialogue to make it sound like its happening via headset, but youve lost the emotional impact of the scene. A lot of sudden character shifts, odd plot-holes and rushed exposition in games happens not because the writer doesnt know how to write, its because chunks of their story are getting ripped away as a result of the development process. Scenes are cut from film and TV too, of course, but there you have a team of editors and producers working to sew the storys wound closed. In games, the writers often left alone with a needle and, if theyre lucky, a stick to bite down on.
