Narrative in video games and how Filmustage deals with it

It is not a secret that the game dev industry has become one of the most attention-grabbing in the entertainment field. What is particularly interesting there is a special way in which game developers tell stories through their interactive art. Simply put, games also may have a narrative, and it works in a very different way than in movies!

First, of course, we want to define what narrative is. It sounds very simple: a self-generated narrative about some set of interrelated events presented to the reader, listener, or viewer as a sequence of images. Philosophical and cultural debates have been forming around this term for years, but many agree that narrative always describes an action, and therefore it can be compared to a plot. It’s important to understand that although narratives are prominent in video games, not every game has a narrative.

Thus, narrative naturally exists not only in cinema but has also successfully spread to the game industry. For example Naughty Dog’s Uncharted series and The Last of Us, those games are very cinematic and there are a lot of games that look like films already or even films that are adapted into games.

And, this is very serious, it is worth distinguishing several types of game narratives, which you can identify right now in your favorite game.

Let's start with the linear narrative, which develops purely sequentially. Action after action. Mission after mission. The player hardly has a chance to deviate from the main task - to reach the finale. The linear narrative seems to imply that the player is a semi-passive spectator. Resident Evil 2, could be taken as an example.

Moving on is the opposite of the first type: the nonlinear narrative. Simply saying, the branched plot implies that the player is free to decide the ending. The choice is the main feature of a nonlinear narrative. Think of Disco Elysium.

With the string of pearls narrative (defined by Chris Stone in Game Developer), the story has its main line, but the player has the ability to deviate from it. For example, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of The Wild.

Thus, in games, along with narrative comes of course the scripting craft. In fact, the demand for screenwriters for big video games can now be comparable to the movie market. If you google a photo of the script for the hit Grand Theft Auto V, you'll see a huge amount of text that must have required a meticulous script breakdown. At Filmustage we can't imagine how much work and time was put into breaking a script of such a huge game.

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Now close your eyes and imagine that you can load your multi-page script into the program and in a couple of minutes get a script breakdown for your team. All the fascinating universe of the game can be easily analysed and divided into the critical elements for further game development and the detailed designers' work .

Sounds like a dream, but together with Filmustage pre-trained neural network, you can easily and quickly get a decent result in a matter of minutes. Moreover, once the AI has done its job, you're free to edit and customize your breakdown or use a reference board for visualisation! The Matrix Awakens on the Unreal Engine 5 has already proved revolutionary in the gaming industry, so be on the cutting edge together with Filmustage.com.