Halo 4 - Inside the Gaming Studio: Lead Writer Chris Schlerf Talks Master Chief

Cinematic techniques can be used to create better Gaming Experience

I don't think that there is anything particularly wrong with games being like movies. That might be a bit controversial for some people as I know there€™s a degree of €˜sibling rivalry€™ that goes on out there between the two which I€™ve never quite gotten. To my memory, at least, it€™s not like people were criticizing text-based adventures for being too much like novels€ Historically, every artistic medium has leveraged the ones which came before it. When movies debuted, the same arguments were being had over the degree to which they could or should be emulating the stage experience. These are healthy discussions to have; they lead to innovation and new perspectives that we might not have if the approaches we take weren€™t being challenged. In practice, film and (many but not all) modern 3D games utilize a lot of the same tools and techniques. To not leverage the experience that has gone into creating other works of art seems a little short-sighted. Contrary to the beliefs of a certain segment of gamers, cinematic cameras or a linear, Campbell-esque story aren€™t some heretical bastardization of the gaming medium; we€™ve seen some very, very good titles that have used precisely those techniques. Does that mean it should be the standard by which all games are created? Of course not - that would be idiotic. The glory in making a video game is that there€™s no practical reason we have to be constrained to a single €˜standard€™. Our palette is far broader than in any other creative medium. Why limit ourselves to only being X but not Y? There seems to be a great deal of discussion out there about what games should be as opposed to all the millions of things they can be. But back on topic - if there is any €˜dangerous€™ aspect to specifically opting for a more cinematic presentation in your game, I€™d say it€™s that there€™s a risk of using those techniques as crutches as opposed to making the creative decision to employ them. Which is probably why you see some backlash against cinematics in games; they€™re frequently the easy answer as opposed to the best one.

Currently, I feel like the auteur-driven game is a bit underrepresented in our industry. Again, when we think of someone as an auteur, we think of them as an innovator. A unique creative voice. An artist who can be easily identified by their work. I€™m not entirely sure why we don€™t have more of those types of developers (which is certainly not to say we don€™t have ANY), but I€™m of the opinion that we€™ll need them and in greater numbers if we want to gain the same respect that other art forms have. That being said, the auteur-driven project is just one small slice of any medium€™s output. Studio movies are predominantly NOT auteur-driven; you€™ve got seasoned directors who do a job but either don€™t have a personal stamp or aren€™t allowed to because they don€™t have the clout. Big-name bands frequently have their albums tweaked, poked, and prodded by their record labels €“ and sometimes outright rejected. How many authors out there aren€™t subject to the whims of their editors/publishers/etc? Auteurs are a crucial aspect of any creative ecosystem, but not typically the most dominant one.

It€™s funny; we were just having the great €˜will there be a Citizen Kane of video games€™ debate in the office just this week. Really, time is the decisive factor here €“ Kane was certainly respected when it came out, but it wasn€™t a financial success, didn€™t win Best Picture at the Oscars, and made Welles a pariah in many ways. Only after years of film criticism did it rise to become the sort of artistic barometer that it is today. Obviously, we already have many great game stories which may stand the test of time. Will there be that one, transcendent game that will be referred to for years to come as that high water mark even by people who never played it? I think so. But we€™re also still stuck in the €˜Roger Ebert€™-era of people asking if video games ARE art, much less what is the pinnacle of that expression. And generally, when we start talking about stories on that level, the ability to capture the human condition tends to be one of the qualitative traits we look for. Will that hold true for games? I don€™t know. Maybe. Maybe not. Personally, I hope so. Aside from simply reveling in the instantaneous visceral feedback many games give us, it€™s just as exciting for me to find new ways to make people think and reflect, as opposed to just reacting and moving on. There are all sorts of discussions out there about player agency, and the silent protagonist vs. the developed character, and to me, these are all just different techniques trying to reach that same end: exposing players to experiences which they wouldn€™t normally be exposed to. The next question creatively we have to answer as a medium, I believe, is - what message are we trying to convey through those experiences? What mirrors do we want to hold up to people?

The topic of how indie games fit into this picture brings us back to the speed with which we€™ve been maturing, and as the form moves forward, will it be those developers who are more agile and experimental who pull the rest of us along? You€™re talking about smaller teams with greater freedom and less moving parts. In situations like these, the €˜totally crazy€™ idea is less likely to die on the vine when the stakes are lower. From a storytelling point of view, that€™s an incredibly exciting place to be. Thus far, a lot of what I€™ve personally been exposed to coming out of the indie scene has been more mechanics-based, but just as the larger industry as a whole has seen story become more important in its development, there€™s a good chance you€™ll see a similar trajectory with indie devs and that you€™ll see more storytellers rolling up their sleeves and diving in.