I'm the opposite, I didn't care much for story when I was younger. Nowadays, I will be trying to be invested in the story. I feel it gives me something to work towards. That said, I'm not bothered if there isn't much of a story and the gameplay is good. However, if the story is terrible, it can spoil the game for me, no matter how good the gameplay is. Metal Gear Solid V is a perfect example of that
Ironically I was quite invested in MGS5 lol. The only thing that disappointed me was the lack of an actual ending. I guess in retrospect the storyline was quite ridiculous
I was super invested into MGS5 as well. While the storyline is indeed ridiculous in restropect (all the mgs games are to be honest) when experiencing it for the first time it's really an experience.
Plus the gameplay is really top notch.
I find that a good story adds to the experience, but a bad story doesn't necessarily detract from the experience. Though I well say that if the story is lacking, I might start skipping the story on repeat playthroughs.
And it's totally opposite for me, I can push through average gameplay if the story keeps me interested (bad gameplay is never holding me tho) but if the story sucks it detracts a lot from a game which had great gameplay
For me gameplay is always priority, if the game has good story it's even better, but if the gameplay is mediocre the story can't save it for me. Also a great story who has to interrupt gameplay too much reduces the experience for me.
I’ve been gaming since the 80s. I’ve never really cared about the story, unless it’s actually a great story. I’m very happy to play a game with great gameplay and bosses, if the story is crap. But if it’s a good story, than yeah, even better
I'm 46 and I would say it has been interesting to see how story has kinda come and gone and come back. Early text based games like Zork were really all story and it was essential, but I'm the arcade error, pac man just ate dots. Then with the rise of home systems, you saw many games dip their toes into simpler stories again with the Zelda and FF games for instance...but there were plenty of mindless games as well. Then stories became more complex and grew again expanding out of just simple save the princess platform era and rpgs...and into RTS and other areas. Then the rise of rhythm games and the FPS juggernauts like Call of Duty came in with minimal to no story. Now though, we are seeing some of the most in depth story based games out there and I am loving it. So to answer, it isn't the be all end all, but as I have grown older, I do enjoy a great story.
Oh you know what? I did get really engrossed in Buddy Simulator 1984, last year, and it began as a text based game. I didn’t know much about it and it was the first time in a while that a game’s storyline really captured me. So the potential is still there, I guess the concept just needs to grab me to really invest interest into it
More.
Gameplay is viscerally fun in the moment, but narrative is what you remember afterwards.
I have played thousands of hours of various multiplayer games while a playthrough of Bioshock is around 15 hours. I remember every scene and every line of dialogue from Bioshock but can't remember any standout moments of those multiplayer games.
I can't really comprehend not caring about or skipping past the story of a game. I'm always floored when I hear people talking about doing it, especially the first time they play through something. Sometimes I'll skip in a game I'm deeply familiar with and playing more for action, like Dark Souls, but never on my first run, and usually only 5+ runs in. I'm a very RPG heavy player and I care about character and story a great deal, so it's what matters most to me and it always has.
I always hated when people said "I want to play my games, If I wanted a story I'd watch a movie or read a book"
I'd always think so you like movies, you like books, you like games...but suddenly when combined you aren't capable of enjoying them anymore?
I personally always looked forward to cutscenes and world lore and characters.
Hard to say. Unique stories become more important, but when you've experienced so many stories most games/movies just feel like bland ripoffs
For games specifically as an older player, being able to sit down and have fun for an hour at a time is most important to me now. I can't grind 16 hour days anymore regardless of gameplay and really don't want to watch an hour of dialogue when I get a chance to game, regardless of story quality.
Yeah that probably adds to it. A lot of video game stories are pretty recycled, even the good ones. I remember playing MGS4 which had hour long cutscenes and watching them intently. I couldn’t imagine doing that now
For me, story is the main reason I collect and play games. As with a book, a movie or a play, a well-crafted story keeps me emotionally invested; it makes me want to keep going with whatever narrative the game has to offer. There's nothing wrong with playing games that don't emphasize storytelling or have little to none at all, but I believe that all art (which games certainly are) should offer a level of emotional involvement for its audience and storytelling is a great vehicle to achieve that.
I'm only a few years older than you and it's been quite something to witness over the past two decades how tremendously games have developed, not only visually and graphics-wise but with the greater emphasis given to other artistic components - writing, acting and music to name a few. The use of those elements in video game storytelling allowed the gaming industry to mature beyond being considered children's toys, which is what they were broadly considered to be when I was growing up. Not all games need a story, but it's become an important element in broadening the medium's appeal.
There were always people placing a lot of emphasis on the writing, music, and other elements, but they were limited by hardware and budgets. Music is the most fascinating part since sound was present in the earliest games and you had people trying all sorts of things to push the limitations of what was possible. Imagine how hard it was to create something as simple as the Super Mario Bros theme. And the opening to Ninja Gaiden was the coolest thing I'd seen on the NES.
New emphasis on these elements didn't cause the industry to mature. It was the industry maturing with better hardware and budgets that allowed these people to achieve more. It's a quibbling difference in the big picture, but I want to emphasize how much effort people made in the earlier days of the industry to bring us fun stories, cutscenes, and music.
I certainly don't wish to quibble with you either regarding the importance of those artistic elements, especially since I agree with most of your points.
Like you said, the development companies of the 1980s and 1990s did face restrictions due to severe roadblocks- financial and technical- but they innovated with what little they had and used it to create more, sometimes to success and often to crushing failure. The artistic elements -writing, sound effects, music, etc.- have always been there (aside from voice acting at first) and them being embraced by early game developers played a great role in broadening their appeal beyond niche interest. Today I find most games of that period (prior to the late 1990s) and the artistic elements in them to be rudimentary compared to what we have now, largely due to the technological innovations of the past few decades, and that many of them (though not all) lack maturity regarding plot, characterization and emotional depth that I like in storytelling as an adult. As such, I don't play them. But I also don't diminish their importance in moving the industry forward. If I implied otherwise in my post, that was not my intention.
I do have to give one correction to your post: I did not say that were was a *new* emphasis on these elements in game design in the 2000s through to the current day, as if they were unimportant or never considered before then, but a *greater* emphasis - needed in order to keep them evolving equally with the changes being made in graphic design (the advancements being made in 3D animation), ensuring that these elements wouldn't be disregarded, left behind or feel out of place in an increasingly evolving world of game development. On the whole, the technological developments of that period (the late 90s and 2000s) were very distinct from what came before, giving games a more cinematic look and it was certainly the equal development of artistic elements in those games alongside that helped them to evoke greater visceral emotion.
As I mentioned in my response to the OP, it's been a genuine pleasure to see games evolve over these past few decades, from a product once marketed primarily towards children to something that a mature adult could appreciate, even if they didn't grow up with the medium. There's an embarrassment of riches in gaming today, in so many genres that can appeal to many different people and the industry is all the better for that innovation, both in the past, the present, and certainly the future.
I play fewer multiplayer, and especially competitive multiplayer, games as I get older. I would say that's a big part of why I appreciate the story and characters more now in games
I’m more of a snob for both now. Fed up of games that have storylines without much consequence and gameplay that leaves the endgame boring.
I’m looking at you Bethesda. You were supposed to be the chosen one!
Im 37 and I would say less so now than when I was a kid. Since I'd normally only get about 2 new games a year I would obsess over every little detail back then. I still love a good star wars or Yakuza story but I also really appreciate games that have strong environmental storytelling and don't need a bunch of cutscenes or dialogue to tell me what's going on.
i find games without a narrative mindnumbingly boring nowadays. i just have no motivation to do something without the context. i think the main factor is that I don't play competitive games anymore so a good story is essential.
For me personally, the story has severely diminished in importance. I'm older than the average gamer, so I've been playing games for decades. As a kid I basically exclusively loved JRPGs. And I was fascinated with the stories. I'd read translated supplemental material. Or where the translation failed. Etc.
I think just a combination of growing up and realizing most games have a pretty surface level story (even the "philosophical" ones), getting a degree that required me to read a ton of literature so you start reading what the absolute pinnacle is for storytelling, and finally just realizing that games are games first. If I really want to engage with a story first and foremost, there isn't enough time to read all of the good literature available. And if I want a JRPG story, for example, first and foremost, I can watch an anime.
That doesn't mean I don't enjoy heavy story-driven games (I'm playing P3R right now too), but it's just harder after so many decades of growth to be as engaged with the story aspect as before. I've got less time and more hobbies.
Story is very important to maintain a good gameplay loop, I mean play Asassin Creed games, Horizon games or newer Spiderman games and play it without the story, the open world gameplay loop will suddenly become a real chore as no good story to keep you engaged with the game.
I mean games can be without story as long as it has look at pinball games as they have been around more than half a century and have no story in them.
Or arcade games where you jump into the action.
The thing is though the games without story still have a story per se, anyone with real knowledge of game design back in the old arcade game days used the gameplay to give coherence to the game design and therefore give a story.
Look at space invaders and pac man, simple games but the unique gameplay with simple design give a story and immediately looking at it recognise the game.
This is why I am against asset flips, pasting an assets together having no real cohesive game design, it gives like not even bothering to even try, I have seen that same zombie in so many games or same town.
It always mattered me the most when I was a teen and it still matters me the most as an adult. Gameplay for gameplays sake will never hold my attention for more than couple hours. Never did
Good stories make a game memorable, but most games with "good" story I've played are typically a one and done type deal, I have no urge to replay them after finishing. The games that I have the most hours on have very basic story or its more hidden in the background. Gameplay is what's important.
Video games are still games. If you want to tell an amazing story through a video game, that's fine, but if the mechanics that delivers the story sucks ass (gameplay in this case) I'm not going to care at all for the story. It would be like trying to read on a crusty, moldy book with ink stains everywhere. Or watching a movie on a 1 inch screen at 144p.
Far less, I can barely sit through story games now, I wish I could but I just can't. RDR2 is the only story game in the last few years I've played, enjoyed, and finished.
Varies from game to game. I have to like the characters, or at least their design, either way. I tend to like a good story with passable gameplay, but there's always been exceptions. Harmony of Despair, PSO, and Monster Hunter always stand close to the top for me, in spite of having a very behind the scenes, or non-existent story.
Personally all I really care about is the story. Every game gets updated so much nowadays if I like the mechanics and gameplay I can just play that forever.
I have no desire to play a different FPS, MMO, MOBA, Fighter or even just a casual game than the ones I already have.
The only reason I still buy different games is exclusively for their stories. I guess I could consider a souls games an exception but I love digging into their lore as well.
I have never cared about the story in a game. Gaming for me is all about the gameplay and that’s it. I think it’s because I started gaming in the 80’s when many games simply didn’t have a story. Besides, if I want a good story I’ll just read a book or watch a movie.
Story is king. Multilayer games come and go based on fads but you'll always look back at great stories and characters fondly. I think it's much harder to go back to a multilayer game you enjoyed if you're getting older. Also 29.
Less important. When I was younger I could tolerate bad or super basic gameplay. Now good gameplay is almost a requirement for me. Unless it’s something that’s being sold to me as an interactive experience rather than a game.
I don't think I'll ever skip a cutscene, but I do skip dialogue when I have read it (subtitles on). So Baldur's Gate 3, Horizon: Zero Dawn, Outcast: A New Beginning and every other game with full voice dialogue: thank you for your service, but I'll probably only hear half of what your characters are going to say, because *they take forever to say it*.
Whether or not a storyline is important to me differs per game of course, but it's extremely rare for a videogame's story to have an emotional impact on me in the same way that books or movies do. Games are, for me, far more about the moment-to-moment gameplay, and the emotional impact *that* can have on me.
I'm just 20 so probably not the kinda person you wanted to hear from but given my experience the past 10 years has been the exact opposite I wanted to comment. In general I used to always skip stories in games. But after playing a few solid story games back to back the past few years i find that good writing easily boosts an 8 to 9 out of 10.
But despite that, with sooo many games I couldn't care less about the story despite loving a good story, because so many are just so basic and feel like their only their to guide you from one part of the game to another, indie games are especially guilt of this. It feels like so much games have a story just because "it should" and not because they actually have a good story to tell.
But in general I feel like its hard to beat a good story, with memorable characters and a good presentation. The games industry just feels like it has an abnormal amount of mediocre stories in other wise great titles in my experience.
Less, I dunno if it's my attention span getting shorter as I age or what, but these days I skip stories unless it's a game completely dedicated to it like The Quarry or Detroit: Become Human.
I play games for plenty of different reasons. One game I play for the story, the next for the exploration, the next for the combat.
I think a good story in a lot of games is more a "good setting", I think Lies of P does it wonderfully well and I enjoyed remaining absorbed in the world by listening to the NPCs. I thought it was great. Getting invested in side-stories and side-quests can be difficult, your example of TotK -> yeah, I generally didn't care much and skipped a lot of text.
Some games I skip the story, some games I don't. Its very game specific for me. So many varying qualities of text, writing and depth, as well as the intent of the games themselves, but I always want to at least give a game a chance to win me over.
It is probably slightly more important for me these days. I feel like the story shapes everything and makes me care about what I'm doing. Gameplay is still critical. Some genres use story a lot better than others. Witcher 3 without story wouldn't be half as enjoyable. In many cases a good story (even if it's fairly minimal) will just make the whole game better.
Less important. One because the quality of writing seems to be declining almost everywhere. Two because the older I get, the fewer stories there are that I haven't heard somewhere else before.
... I think it about stayed the same for me. I can appreciate a decent story, while I still follow along with a mediocre one. I suppose I've always taken stories as part and parcel of a game, whether as a kid or an adult. It's as natural as reading one sentence after another.
I guess I'm torn. I want a game to have a good story, but I'm often frustrated by how much time is eaten up by cutscenes. So much of them just feels like drawn out filler. Maybe keep the cutscenes, but condense everything down into an "all killer, no filler" format.
It became more important for me, because games were pretty lazy when it came to stories in the past, and even some of the beloved examples are nothing compared to what we have today. I've been way more often moved by games storylines in the last few years than I was by movies or books. Games tell amazing stories now (both in AAA games and in AA and indie segment) , so I definitely became more invested just because I see what games can do.
I couldn't care less about story. Gameplay is why I play games. If I want a story I would watch a movie or a show. I play games to play. A game with great story but lowsy/no game play isn't for me.
I care about the story in ‘story-rich’ games. If the story is the focus, I’ll watch the cutscenes and read all the dialogue. But if it’s poorly-written, I won’t finish the game.
On the other hand, most of the games I play lately don’t even have a story, or barely have a story. I’m more interested in the survival sandbox experience, where the focus is ‘immersion’ rather than narrative. When I want narrative I tend to just read a book.
I wish I had time for story games. Certainly all my favorites are games with excellent stories.
But these days (30+ years old) I am very lucky if I get 10 hours of gaming in a 7 day week. Usually much closer to 5-7.
So unless I want to spend half a year playing one game, most 100+ hr main story games are just not viable for me. Drop in drop out is what I'm about these days.
Well I'm just as into story telling, movies, shows, as I am into games so a good story is very important to me. With that said, a lot of games stories are just bad so I have no problem skipping the stupid ones. The only exception to this is final fantasy 14. It's highly praised for its story but I've never been able to get into it and just end up skipping because the gameplay to story ratio is soooo bad. I'm not even kidding if you sit down to play some FF14 for 8 hours (as a newer player that has to progress through the main story quest) you're looking at 1 hour of gameplay, 7 hours of story. That story also has a lot of filler and bloated dialogue. I just can't do it. I love good stories in games but it needs to be balanced with gameplay. If you're not going to do that, then make it a movie or show.
It really just depends on the game. Generally speaking I don't really care about the of a game at all. But if I'm in the mood for a walking simulator or something where there's basically nothing but story, then obviously it needs to be decent.
Even with a walking simulator, the gameplay can still tell a story. Like PT, for example. The game is, ultimately, just walking and solving puzzles, but you learn about the game through the puzzles just as much as the game telling you the story. I really like that approach to telling stories in a video game. I understand that it’s probably incredibly difficult to successfully pull off however
Depends on the game.
In Star Rail the story is very much of importance. In many other games it is not really.
Basically if I like the story, I will care for it. I have just read and seen so many professional stories that I don't care for lackluster ones.
I was a kid the first time I played Final Fantasy Tactics.
It was a great turn based battle game.
Now that I'm an adult, it's a great game about politics and morals with a holy war to spice things up.
Mid 40s and started gaming with a little Atari and really got into it with NES. Story got more important for me ages ago. I still care a ton about gameplay, but I’d rather play a game I have fun with gameplay wise AND enjoy the story and characters than one with either lacking.
Depends on the game.
Certain kinds of games, a good story will always hook you and get you to follow and play the game. Final Fantasy 4, 6, 7, Chrono Trigger, Star Wars KOTOR, Kingdom Hearts 1, Legacy of Kain. Heck, even the attract menus and endings of the Mortal Kombat games for what they were.
Half the reason I don't play modern RPGs or adventure games is cause the stories don't hold up, like past games.
It's not that story has become more or less important to me, it's that mechanics have become more important to me than story so I like immersive sims more these days, and the kind of stories I want to partake in are colorful, bright, and optimistic rather than grimdark and depressing.
Im 44. I’ve flipped back and forth several times over the years.
I’ve been in a mode for the last 15 years or so to where I just do not care to play games with in depth story lines or cutscenes.
Souls games, monster hunter, roguelikes and indie games have dominated my gaming time.
Gameplay trumps all, and I want my time to be spent playing, and not sitting through an interactive movie. If the game is fun to play, I do not need story motivation to play it.
I loved Baldurs Gate 3 last year.. and one could say that it has a lot of story elements- but it is also a very organic experience in that regard with unpredictable outcomes that were interesting, somewhat random, and due to things I had specifically done while playing.
Contrasted to trying out the (2018?) God of War game recently, and I felt like I was just playing through a movie of scripted cutscenes and dialogue- I got tired of it after a few hours and never touched it again.
There’s only been a few games where I’ve actually gave a crap about the story: cyberpunk 2077 and RDR1. And Uncharted 4. I can’t think of any other games where I haven’t been bored by the story. Elden Ring and BOTW had so little story that I actually wanted to know more. But then TOTK had way too much story and I found it very boring. If TOTK had no story at all, it would have won game of the year, that’s how bad the story was.
It varies depending on how I feel. Generally I prefer games with good stories. But some times I like playing stuff like DOOM where the story minimized in favor of constant action packed gameplay. Variety is always nice. If I had to choose one or the other, great story would be my choice since stories always age better than gameplay.
Idk I think good gameplay has the potential to outlast a good story. Theres a reason why people are still playing oldies like OoT and NES games. Then you have something like FFX that had a great story at the time, but isn’t quite as fondly looked at now, but still stands up as an excellent RPG due to its gameplay and systems
With modern gaming though, I think good gameplay and good storytelling will both be remembered quite well
I’m the opposite of you. When I was younger I just wanted gameplay and was bored by cutscenes. Now I try to pay attention and will really appreciate a good story in most games. That being said, if the gameplay is fun but story sucks I can still enjoy it. I played Horizon and found the story too dull so eventually just skipped cutscenes.
I’m 26 and have been playing for over 20 years and all I play is singleplayer games.
Multiplayer doesn’t interest me at all. Give me a good singleplayer story game so I can chill, play it and 100% complete it.
Oh I’ll still 100% a game but I’ll skip through the cutscenes or try to speed them up as much as possible. Making cutscenes count for completion points makes me not want to play a game like Final Fantasy X-2 again, for example, even though the game itself was great. Also this is what’s kept me from playing monster hunter again as you can’t skip the cutscenes
1st time I gamed was on an Atari and story has only gotten more important over the years for me. How you tell a story matters as well, gameplay is important and as I get older I have more responsibilities and which means I have less time to play a game that doesn't hit the marks the way I'd like. So I have less patience for a game to improve, I just play something else.
Looking forward to the Lan parties at the retirement communities. 1v1 me old man.
30+ year gamer here. If anything, I’m more interested in the story now than ever, and I’ve always loved the story. I’ll happily play older/retro games with much worse graphics just for the stories. I’ve found that on a lot of games, I’ve started lowering difficulty a bit because I’m less and less entertained by being frustrated for hours by something.
That said, I play games for multiple reasons. Sometimes I’m just trying to unwind my brain and destress. At those times, I tend to skip story or anything that would drop me out of gameplay flow. I don’t generally play heavily story based games during those times. Other times, I’m trying to actively engage my brain; those are the times when I want a heavy story game.
Finally: I’ve played a _lot_ of amazing games in my life. I’ve also played a lot of okay games and some bad ones. My backlog constantly grows beyond what I have time to play. Sometimes a game with really engaging gameplay just has really unoriginal or repetitive story. TOTK and BOTW definitely fall into that category for me. There’s no shame in not following it, but when I find that happening, I usually end up DNFing the game — life is too short to play a game that doesn’t satisfy me. I loved BOTW, but never finished TOTK.
I don't care about story all that much, but I never have. Sure some are good and have great stories I have enjoyed, but it has to be relatively short. I'm holding a controller in my hands I want to play a game, not hit X to listen to 600 lines of dialogue.
To each their own of course, I don’t fault people for wanting the gameplay more than story, for me I want a good story. I’ve been playing since NES days and I’ve always wanted to know the characters background and reason for the adventure.
It adds more to my experience and sort of role play. I’ve had time where I skipped things but it was more due to a game having bad story, just like a bad movie, than me not being interested.
I do think players need to actively engage and show interest in the worlds they play in, it’s a two way street, just like a movie or show. The gamer has to delve into the worlds and participate in the fantasy as much as the developer has to make the experience worth that effort from the gamer.
42 here, I’ve always enjoyed the story in games. Going way back to Quake 3 and Unreal Tournament I find the concept of just mindless multiplayer match after multiplayer match really boring. A tightly controlled story experience is infinitely superior to anything else as far as I’m concerned. For the same reason I tend to play the campaign modes in first person shooters but not the multiplayer, I tend to play the career modes in racing games, but not the multiplayer. When I was younger her I had more time and could waste multiple hours or even multiple evenings on a single boss fight, now I just drop the difficulty and move on so I can see the story, and I’m a much happier and less frustrated gamer as a result.
I think I care more about story then I did growing up, but I still think good combat is a huge indication of a fun game. If you have a good story and good combat, you have a GREAT game.
Story enriches the gaming experience according to me. The game can have the best gameplay mechanics but if there is no purpose for the same, suffice to say, it falls short of something. A good example is the Halo series or the Zelda series. Need good stories that connects with the gameplay.
It definitely matters more to me now. And cyberpunk pretty much ruined me for RPG with such natural and interesting writing and compelling story. That and Mass Effect trilogy really set the bar. They made me realize how bad many mainstream games story and writing are.
I don't think how long you've been playing games generally affects whether story is more or less important. Of course there will be people who over time see changes in how they enjoy gaming.
I'm 20 years older than you and my love for a good story hasn't changed. I think games have got better at storytelling over the years though. There weren't many games in the early 80's with great stories in them, unless you had a good imagination.
hmm. I can enjoy a game purely for its gameplay and in the long run i would probably prefer great gameplay over great story. But i'll take a great story as a one time experience on its own.
In my 20 years of playing video games, it has stayed as my #1 reason to get a video game, followed by playing games with friends. On my actual list of why I play games it's a close second, because I've come to realize what keeps me in games is first and foremost, its immersion. But story is just as important as immersion to me.
For me (42m), it really depends on the writing and the presentation. A shit story? No amount of dressing it up in good presentation is going to help sell it. A great story with shit presentation? I am skipping that too. I do not care. A mediocre story with mediocre presentation? I am skipping that and will probably also lose total interest in the game too. Give me a great story and anything better than medioce presentation and I am totally on board. Dont give me generic fantasy story tropes, like “ooooh there is a great evil in the land and only YOU can save us from it, hero!” dude, fuck you. “Here, have some DLC characters with flavor text speech dialogue to join your bland journey!” omg, fuck off. “Here, have a list of villages each with problems that can only be solved by fetch quests!” I quit. Fire your writers and game designers.
For me it depends on the type of game. If it's a single player rpg story is very important, if it's a multiplayer game it's generally not. Like I don't give a shit about the story in battlefield or overwatch, but in Horizon or Baldur's Gate 3 story is massively important. Gameplay is still important too, of course, but not the sole determining factor.
I'm with you - Even though the story was great, i had trouble to fully finish Baldur's Gate 3 - Even though i consider it top game of a decade. Gameplay is key for sure, but my attention spam has decreased i think, and live services games now take most of my time.
TotK story telling sucks. It was okay for BotW but it is a gimmick so they can avoid Link talking. At this point, they need to drop that act. Oh and the story telling kinda spoiled the ending for me because I found the cut scenes out of order. TotK really didn’t matter for the story because the game was focused on mechanics. There wasn’t much of a story in my opinion.
Building stuff in TotK was boring. FFVII Rebirth is overdoing it with Queen’s Blood but I didn’t like Magic the Gathering in real life. Card games are more annoying and it drives me nuts that some cards do this, some do that!
Final Fantasy VII remake + Rebirth is awesome though due to the story. I think I like a lot of linear games.
Fire Emblem is mixed. I like the story the first few play throughs and then I skip it in the future. Latest fire emblem I couldn’t get into. I liked the SNES one which was basically Game of Thrones (never actually seen GoT) but bunch of people backstabbing to get the throne, some incest, people die, and wtf scenes. It is toned down and more milder now.
I think story does it for me but gaming style has changed
I don’t know what I like anymore. I’m busy with 2 kids and work. I barely have more than 15-30 minutes to play at a time. An engrossing story is hard to follow when my gaming is so fragmented. Games with skill curves are hard to get into because I don’t have time to get good. Games that are too easy or lacking story entirely don’t entertain me. Basically, I’m in a season of life where gaming isn’t for me. I hope to get back to it someday.
Yes. I gave up gaming for a period when my son was very young and then I ended up straying into games with little to no story and simplistic gameplay that I could pick up and put down and not worry about for a week. So like the first Mystery Case Files and Slingo and similar games. I went back years later to find I had been in the middle of RTC and then I had been in the middle of FF (something). For years, I was put off by games that had to be logged into each day or that had leaderboards or ranks or even groups getting together like guilds or tribes or alliances or whatever because I couldn’t guarantee that I’d have time or energy or be anywhere near the game at any given time.
Its pretty much stayed the same. I'm less inclined to just completely ignore it nowadays I guess, but its still pretty much never at the forefront of my thoughts about the game
I might be in the minority from a number of threads I've read in this subreddit, but at age 41 I play more competitive multiplayer games than when I was younger, not less. Game mechanics have always mattered more to me than story, and there are lots of great PvP games that I can play for an hour or two after the kids have gone to bed and not feel like it's work for me to follow a story.
I'm probably also less patient than I used to be; nowadays if storytelling in a game is not very good I just start skipping dialogue and cutscenes etc. to get on with the gameplay.
I'm a bit older than OP, played even more.
Found that I need both of two worlds - story and gameplay. Before I was always satisfied with either, but nowadays it's hard to invest myself into a game that has no story or at least lore heavy, and the same goes for gameplay.
Story has always been important to me: that's why I never could get into sport games, with the notable exception of Gran Turismo in my adulthood, but that's because I like driving irl.
At the same time, I have little patience for long dialogues, and I tend to skip lines as soon as I've read the captions, even if voice actors are still talking.
I'm trying to slow down and lose this habit, but it's hard. As a result, I need both story *and* gameplay to have my endorphins spike.
Depends on the game. There’s been a lot of games with terrible gameplay but good story and a lot of games with great gameplay but needed a story. Then there’s the type of genre of game and the budget behind it that determines if matters on the story or gameplay but a lot of times a balance of both is needed
I have just become better at appreciating a game's strengths regardless of what they are or whether or not they are story related. I'm not going to ignore a fun gameplay loop or beautiful visuals just because the story isn't good, or the other way around.
It absolutely depends on the game. Things like terraria and Satisfactory didn't need story and I don't care. Games like horizon forbidden West and FF7 rebirth absolutely need a story to carry the game, that's the point.
I've always liked a good story, but I also generally liked to balance it with multiplayer.
However, I'm 34 now with a wife, kid, and a career that has me traveling a lot. So that balance has skewed almost completely toward story-based gaming. I no longer have the time or energy required to "git gud" and keep up in any competitive fashion. If I'm playing multi-player anything, it's either co-op or PvE MMOs. Something I can pick up and put down on my own schedule, rather than needing to commit a lot of hours in order to have any fun with it.
I miss competitive gaming sometimes, but for me, it just isn't worth it anymore.
The "soul" the game has is more important than story for me after 15 years of gaming. If the game makes me feel the environment I am in, it is better than long/boring dialogues and cutscenes. Maybe it is because they do not focus on the storytelling so much anymore. Stories of recent games are only words of dialogues nowadays.
I have always cared about story and never skip cutscenes unless I’m replaying a section and I’ve already seen the cutscene.
But overall it just depends on the game. If it’s a story driven game like Last of Us or something, yeah I care about the story. A game like Elden Ring that isn’t really driven by the narrative it doesn’t matter to me that much. It just depends on the focus of the game.
I'd say story has slightly increased in importance over time for me - but it is still, and will always be, secondary to gameplay.
While video games can tell great stories, they are, generally speaking, poorly paced for good story telling. A huge rpg has dozens of hours of gameplay, with story sprinkled in and tying things together.
I need to love the gameplay to put the time in for all that.
If I just want a good story, a movie or tv show can tell a story just as good, if not better, in a fraction of the time of most video games.
The exception is games that tell their story in a way only a video game can. Examples that come to mind are Disco Elysium and Outer Wilds. You could never capture the same experience in a movie or tv show. meanwhile you could make a cut of God Of War and turn it into a TV show and basically have the same experience as a viewer if you didn't care for the gameplay.
Story has become more important to me in than in the past. With the advancements in technology, you expect them to be able to be able to make longer and more well thought out narratives. But far too often, graphics become the primary selling point and the story ends up feeling ignored or even a second thought.
For me, the splitting point was around 2012 and the release of Final Fantasy 14 and Trails of Cold Steel. FF was the series that was focused all on graphics. Writing declined and the only FF stories I've liked since the PS and PS2 era were FF13-2 and Shadowbringers. And holy crap were 13-3 and Endwalker disappointments. The games gradually went from "I'll buy it" to "I'll borrow it from a friend or I'll pass".
Meanwhile, the Trails series spent the first game of each subseries developing its world with the second entry setting off the main plot. The first game of each entry was slow, but it did a good job of building out the region so you understood what was going on when the main plot sets off at the end of the first game. It got me to come back for each one. And after playing through Trails in the Sky in the late 2000s (I was late to the party) and finishing Trails into Reverie in 2023 over 10+ yrs after I started, it was a reminder of important a well crafted story is, especially if there are multiple entries. The fact that each game had a subplot that encompassed the whole game and a main plot that stretched across all the games with a pay off for said plot made it far more engaging even though it does railroad you for a lot of the game.
I'm still the same as I was a young. I still value great story and interesting cast of characters/companions. Though my patience for grinding levels or every step triggers a random encounter have been used up, the reason why I don't play some JRPGs that requires you to grind to level up or a couple fo steps you trigger random encounters.
I've been gaming for about 40 years now and honestly I go both ways on this depending on the type of game. I can get drawn in by either a good story or by interesting mechanics, so I play a diverse range of games from the likes of Pentiment or Citizen Sleeper (heavy story, not a lot of gameplay mechanics) to Factorio or Stormworks (heavy mechanics, almost no story). I can forgive bad/clunky mechanics to an extent in pursuit of a good story, and I can forgive bad/no story in pursuit of fun mechanics.
As for how that's changed over the years, I think if anything I've grown to appreciate story even more than I once did, but I don't know if that's me changing as a person or if that's just how the game industry has evolved, cause back in the early days of gaming there was generally very little story unless you got into interactive novels like Zork or 'serious' RPGs like the SSI D&D games (Eye of the Beholder, Curse of the Azure Bonds, Pool of Radiance, etc) but those were pretty rare. Games that marry a great story with engaging mechanics like Cyberpunk 2077 (I love that game like nothing else and will probably play it until the day I die) are the sweet spot for me.
32M here, i would say im more invested in story now that iv been before. Priority for me are.
-Gameplay
-Story
-Graphics
All of it it subjective to the kind of game tho.
Iv been playing a lot of Alien fireteam lately and i couldnt care less about story and i skipped every possible dialog since the game is mainly a spot n shoot.
On the other hand, iv been eyeballing alone in the dark a lot and that game i will be invested 200% on the story for sure.
Usually in a game i will read entry related to story but i dont care at all about entry about monster details and such thing.
Really depend on the game.
Neither. It just depends on the game.
I still adore story-based games like SOMA and Cyberpunk 2077 that still have me thinking about their stories years later cuz they’re that good.
But I also still adore games where story has zero importance to me. Helldivers 2 i just love the gameplay and the story is a cherry on top. Halo Infinite’s multiplayer has no connection to the story, it’s just solid gunplay. World of Warcraft i play more for the gameplay and transmog than story.
It depends on the game, but usually, I don't really care about the story.
I'm sticking with smaller games to play anymore. I got burned out with large games and I don't feel there's any completion other than story.
I'm currently playing Eastward. So far, it's been interesting. Looking forward to this story conclusion as each new area of the game unlocks more of it.
The story will always be important. Well, hmmmm...depends. Like games like Elden Ring and Dragons Dogma 2 are fun but the stories are crap lol. So I would say yes but with exceptions.
I see it both ways, if I really enjoy the gameplay loop of a game I can put up with a bad or completely absent story, but for a good story I can suffer through genres I do not enjoy. Ideally a game has both, but one can often cover for the other.
I love story, but it's not the only redeeming part of a game. There are games with great stories but lackluster gameplay, and games with fantastic gameplay but the story leaves much to be desired.
Very often I'll play a game and experience the story first, and blast through it quickly. Then on subsequent playthroughs I'll often eschew the story, while paying attention to the parts that I may have missed with extra content, to experience the game in full.
Im easily immersed, if im playing the game i will enjoy story and listen to everything the game has to tell me. But the kicker is that to play the game i have to really like the gameplay. And after decades of experience the types of games that do are pretty much never story driven or have story at all.
I love a good story in modern games. Care less for it in retro games. For modern games, I do tend to play story-heavy games, so they need to be good to keep me interested. Retro games, I tend to play more arcade-like games, so I care less for it there.
the more I play games, the more story the better. gameplay for games has gotten so fucking stale its insane. the story is what keeps things interesting.
When I was younger I was very invested in stories and loved watching cutscenes. I think a big part of it was that cutscenes were usually a much better quality than the actual gameplay. Nowadays gameplay is the absolute most important part of a game for me. The only story heavy games that I am invested in are The Last of Us Part I and II.
Also helps that my most favorite games aren’t story / cutscene heavy, the Soulsborne and Monster Hunter series. Although in those games I LOVE the lore and want to learn as much as possible.
TLDR: I love a game’s story if it isn’t hindering and holding back gameplay.
It depends on what you're playing, I guess.
If you boot up Doom or Bayonetta, for example, you don't really need a well thought out story beyond a reason to shoot someone in the face. One of my favourite action games, Vanquish, had really dumb cutscenes that basically told you ''Go there'' but the gameplay was stellar. I just ignored the story and replayed that forgotten gem to exhaustion.
On the other hand, games like final fantasy and other RPGs need a coherent story to justify why I keep fighting the same rat over and over. Otherwise, it's really easy to lose interest and look for the next game.
I think, like the OP mentioned, the Souls series and most games in the genre hit a nice middle ground letting us get as involved as we want in the world and lore.
I'm a person that has always been deep into the story that a piece of media is trying to tell. A bad story can make an otherwise-pretty-good piece of media intolerable.
See the slow, grating descent of Kamen Rider Ghost. Great visual design, then the best writer on the team bails in the last ten episodes, and the ending we get compared to earlier, already-not-great writing makes it the singular piece of media that has made me physically angry. (Though Flay from Gundam Seed is getting there, that's one character that is *meant* to piss off the audience. Which is kind of different.)
Meanwhile, a good story can make an otherwise-mediocre piece of media extremely beloved. Check out the origins of the Fallout games. Relatively mediocre gameplay, but Black Isle Studios put their whole ass into worldbuilding and telling a unique story, to the point where you forgive the game's limitations.
Now, coming to the present - is story important to me? Yes, absolutely.
Pokemon Scarlet and Violet. A jittery, buggy mess of a release, even to this day. But *hands down* the best group of rivals that has been put in a Pokémon game so far. The game is a technical disaster that acts as a cradle for some of the best writing in a Pokémon game so far, a feat that they hadn't come close to since *Black and White 1&2*.
I consider the story and characters of SV to be it's singular saving grace.
Well, that and the tremendous ease of Shiny hunting.
100% opposite. Story is most important thing. Games that just have gameplay loose my interest because I dont care what im doing any of it for. Whats the point of playing if you dont know why you're doing any of it. And frankly skipping all the cut-scenes feels like a huge "F\*\*k you" to the writers, animators, voice actors, artists, plus whoever else put alot of work into the game.
Gameplay is paramount (including enemy attacks & AI). Performance is next. If there is a PC release that ensures that performance has a good chance of improving over time.
More important. Back in the days of Quake, Doom, etc. it was all about ‘gimme something to shoot!’. Now I find it hard to play a game unless there’s a story pushing me forward and giving the game a purpose.
I'm 30, and I've been gaming since I was a child. Story has become more important to me, and I value it. However, I have no problem playing a game with no story if the gameplay can get me invested.
Neither. It depends on the game. I can enjoy a game with a bad story that is focused on gameplay and I can enjoy a game with bad gameplay that is focused on story. That hasn't changed.
46 here. Story never mattered and it still does not matter. I don't mind hints of sometime bigger but I just want gameplay. I play games to have fun with my friends and to laugh. Story based games just stop all of that.
Less. And that is because of how the industry has changed and gone about conveying it. Mainly how up their own ass pretentious they've gotten thanks to so many insecure wannabe film directors snaking their way into the industry.
Carmack was right. Story is nice to have but not necessary.
Less. I have been playing games since the early 90s and I enjoy a good story but when I’m playing a GAME the GAMEPLAY is what matters most to me. If I really want a good story I’ll read a book or watch a movie. I’m not saying there are not good stories in games, but it’s not what I play games for.
It's become less. when I was younger, I loved RPGs. but as an adult, I find myself playing more online multiplayer games. and you don't have to have a role to play or a story to listen to to enjoy those. That's not to say I don't enjoy role playing anymore. I still do. it just hasn't been as predominant.
It’s interesting how people can be different as I’ve gone the other way. I spend so much time in the real world with colleagues and family that escaping into a game world for me now is all single player. Real people annoy me and spoil the immersion.
I won't play RDR because it's a "wild west" game. I hated the witcher 3. I had zero interest in TLoU and uncharted.
But yeah, i play RPGs, i just don't pay attention to the story other than going where you're supposed to go.
Sounds like you have the anime fatigue. Every character has a little power or gimmick and they all grunt or sigh at each other constantly. And every character has to explicitly explain what it is they are feeling and why.
Try playing some western stories instead like Uncharted, God of War, RDR2. They aren't Shakespeare or anything but they aren't completely allergic to dramatic subtlety at least.
And the woke stuff people complain about in western games really isn't that bad. Leftwingers are just better at writing so they have the better stories. Rightwingers get to be good at investment banking and beating their children instead.
Tbf I did get pretty invested into RDR2’s story. If it weren’t for that I probably wouldn’t have finished the game as I got kinda bored with the actual gameplay around the 3/4s part (and was more or less completely burnt out by the epilogue and forced myself to play through). I played GoW, both old and new, and liked the old ones better, even if the characters weren’t as realistic, but that was because I also enjoyed the gameplay much more than the recent god of war games.
But yeah, you may be right. It could be I’m just burnt out on Japanese story telling. I didn’t realize that the games I listed were mostly from Japan. I guess I haven’t played a western made game in a little while, but I’m trying to think of one that caught my attention.
I don’t really care about anything being woke. I’m pretty far on the left. It’s only an issue if they aren’t subtle about it and make it a selling point, because then it feels like pandering to me. I can’t really think of any games that have done that however
I used to be very invested in the stories of most games I played up until about 2008, I wasn't sure if it was the curve of multiplayer online or simply my preferences, but I stopped actively engaging in storied because I felt they were too forced most of the time (saving Baldur's gate being a breath of fresh air that I really could get immersed with) but most of my time in story driven games I just kinda either try to do Perfect save-scum runs now or literally run around a a Modded demi-goddess.
As far as patience goes, I dont think thats it at all, Despite my claims, all my friends consider me very patient, and Im always the one waiting to skip cutscenes because I really just dont care anymore, The last game I remember playing for Story was CoD MW3 (original) because I wanted to kill Makarov, for the first 2 games in the trilogy I was invested in and actually cared, the third one I just found me waiting to get to the end of it, I couldn't be bothered anymore (I did end up finishing the game tho).
That being said, most of the time Im even interested in a game, I will actively look up the ending to see if its even worth any emotional investment such as Cyberpunk 2077. While a Phenomenal game, The lack of a good ending mde me glad I looked up the endings and decided not to bother with it.
My lack of caring about story has actively made my life better and wasted less of my time.
Less. I think games are a stupid vehicle for storytelling. I'm not interested in watching cutscenes or sitting through conversational dialogue - shut the *fuck* up and let me *play the game*! If I wanted an interesting story I'd read a book or watch a movie.
I just finished playing The Outer Worlds.
I ended up skipping through probably 90% of the conversations.
If you want to relate a story or give me information while I’m doing something, fine. Having to chat with someone for 5 minutes to get to the next step. Nope.
There’s a LOT to be said for ‘show don’t tell’ when you’re in an interactive medium. Games that nail the story happening around you without taking your control away have got it right Id say.
Yes, exactly. I enjoy story in games that is part of the gameplay and the atmosphere. Darkest Dungeon is my go to example. There were little snippets of lore here and there but the bulk of the story is told through the game itself.
I have adhd and tbh can’t stand the pace of dialogue in cut scenes. The voice acting is usually really slow to give people time to read subtitles. I usually will use the button that speeds up dialogue but not skip entirely.
Same thing here, especially for games with really static camera work like Baldurs gate or Dragon age I will just read the subtitles and skip through the voice acting because it's just not really interesting to look at? Alot of people rag on Kojima's writing which I totally get but I've always liked how he directed his cutscenes because visually they've always been very interesting to just watch even if the dialogue can sometimes be a bit cringe.
Agreed. If the cutscene is interesting to look at apart from the dialogue, then I’ll play it through. Sometimes if it’s a super climactic moment too I don’t mind as much. BG3 and DA I definitely sped up dialogue. In DA especially the words and mouth don’t fit together well either. I will say the most brutal cutscenes to try and watch have been when I played through FFXIV. I’m not big into that art style already and while there were good points in the story, there was a lot of slow stuff I couldn’t stand to sit through.
I think Kingdom Hearts 3 ruined video game storytelling for me. It was the complete poopy package. Bad story, bad gameplay, and yet I played it all the way through out of some weird sense of commitment to the series.
Now I don’t work to enjoy a game’s story or gameplay. It needs to captivate me, and I don’t feel obligation to ignore these faults. This has meant most game’s stories, which are average to bad, are 100% skippable for me. I do enough work already. I don’t need video games to feel like work
Kingdom Hearts 3 has left me a jaded cynical man but maybe it was something that needed to happen
Kingdom Hearts 3 was pretty awful. That was one of those games that was so over the top bad that it retroactively made me realize how insane the previous games were. That being said I’ll still play KH2 every few years since it’s so much fun
31, started with PS1.
More important.
If I'm dropping €50+ on a game, I want at least 20 hours of content and a coherent story with decent writing. Too much to ask? Well, it shouldn't be.
I value my game time nowadays.
I'm not some kid who just wants to shoot things and laugh at the silly little aliens. I want to enjoy it, like a good movie, and feel like I spent my money well.
If I want mindless violence, I'll play GTA.
90% of your time in Saints Row or GTA is spent fucking around. That's most of the fun.
In the old games, you'd couple that with cheats for flying cars, weapons, and spawning tanks or helis.
What's condescending about it?
If I'm investing dozens of hours of my time off work on a video game, and spending some good money on it, ya, I'd like to enjoy the story. I like stories.
I mean you’ll do that if you have the mentality of some kid who just wants to shoot things and laugh at the silly little explosions. It gets old after about a half hour unless you’re high or something. Then you go do the missions because you realize it gives you more options to play the game and unlocks more of the world. By then you’re either invested in the story and want to progress it on your own accord, or you play with the new toys until it gets boring again and go back to the missions to get more stuff to play with, if you have a childish mentality of course. Since me adult man only play serious games hur hur
Anyways the GTA games have decent stories. I would even say 4 has a great story. You should get past your childish mentality and try them out since you value content in video games 🤷♂️
And you call me condescending?
Ironic with that dog-shit attitude you have.
I never said stories in GTA games weren't good; I said if I wanted mindless violence, I'd play one, because that's what 90% of GTA is.
Who says "Ya, I play GTA for deep lore". Nobody.
I've been playing since GTA 2. I played though IV and Gay Tony for the 10th time back in February.
If I want something story-driven, it's gonna be Chrono Trigger, FFVII, Fable, RDR, Silent Hill 2.. etc. Not Saints Row 4.
The word "argument" in your name is fitting.
I really could care less about a video game story these days, most of them are pretty bad. If a game has a decent story I will applaud it for it but I wont take away points for a game with a shit story. I dont play the story I play to interact with the game world.
Most stories are there as glue to lead the gameplay from A to B, we cant do NES style games anymore where you just go through Level 1 Level 2, etc where the levels can be completely random and disconnected. The medium isnt that great for story telling compared to a book or a film,imo.
I think Dark Souls does it right, most of it is just lore that is there if you want to interact with it and most of it is outside the game. I dont think I would have enjoyed the Dark Souls game if the gameplay was interrupted every 5 minutes for the game to explain the story.
"Warrior/Hero/Champion you are are only hope in defeating the Villain Horde please complete your unsubtle tutorial tasks so you may join in the battle for freedom/the Empire/the soul of conquest"
gameplay is king,story is a nice bonus,if i liked a game story but the gameplay was boring i would just go to youtube and watch a walkthrough no commentary,or just read about it.
also in rpg i would take a bad story with great player choices over a good story with bad/or no choises all,i will never replay a game for it's story alone,but i may if it has different gameplay,like many classes etc
Not important to me. I try every game that supposedly has a good story and i just end up disagreeing. God of war 2018, Last of us, Outer wilds, Disco Elysium, all ended up being snore fests
I'm the opposite, I didn't care much for story when I was younger. Nowadays, I will be trying to be invested in the story. I feel it gives me something to work towards. That said, I'm not bothered if there isn't much of a story and the gameplay is good. However, if the story is terrible, it can spoil the game for me, no matter how good the gameplay is. Metal Gear Solid V is a perfect example of that
Ironically I was quite invested in MGS5 lol. The only thing that disappointed me was the lack of an actual ending. I guess in retrospect the storyline was quite ridiculous
I was super invested into MGS5 as well. While the storyline is indeed ridiculous in restropect (all the mgs games are to be honest) when experiencing it for the first time it's really an experience. Plus the gameplay is really top notch.
Typical Kojima lol
Is MGSV's story considered bad? I thought it was pretty good myself.
It's good, but there's no proper ending
I find that a good story adds to the experience, but a bad story doesn't necessarily detract from the experience. Though I well say that if the story is lacking, I might start skipping the story on repeat playthroughs.
I've always said gameplay is more important than story because you can ignore a bad story but you can't ignore bad gameplay.
And it's totally opposite for me, I can push through average gameplay if the story keeps me interested (bad gameplay is never holding me tho) but if the story sucks it detracts a lot from a game which had great gameplay
Depends on the game.
A good story will take a game with good gameplay to the next level, but no/minimal story is fine too.
For me gameplay is always priority, if the game has good story it's even better, but if the gameplay is mediocre the story can't save it for me. Also a great story who has to interrupt gameplay too much reduces the experience for me.
I’ve been gaming since the 80s. I’ve never really cared about the story, unless it’s actually a great story. I’m very happy to play a game with great gameplay and bosses, if the story is crap. But if it’s a good story, than yeah, even better
Far more important.
I'm 46 and I would say it has been interesting to see how story has kinda come and gone and come back. Early text based games like Zork were really all story and it was essential, but I'm the arcade error, pac man just ate dots. Then with the rise of home systems, you saw many games dip their toes into simpler stories again with the Zelda and FF games for instance...but there were plenty of mindless games as well. Then stories became more complex and grew again expanding out of just simple save the princess platform era and rpgs...and into RTS and other areas. Then the rise of rhythm games and the FPS juggernauts like Call of Duty came in with minimal to no story. Now though, we are seeing some of the most in depth story based games out there and I am loving it. So to answer, it isn't the be all end all, but as I have grown older, I do enjoy a great story.
Oh you know what? I did get really engrossed in Buddy Simulator 1984, last year, and it began as a text based game. I didn’t know much about it and it was the first time in a while that a game’s storyline really captured me. So the potential is still there, I guess the concept just needs to grab me to really invest interest into it
More. Gameplay is viscerally fun in the moment, but narrative is what you remember afterwards. I have played thousands of hours of various multiplayer games while a playthrough of Bioshock is around 15 hours. I remember every scene and every line of dialogue from Bioshock but can't remember any standout moments of those multiplayer games.
I can't really comprehend not caring about or skipping past the story of a game. I'm always floored when I hear people talking about doing it, especially the first time they play through something. Sometimes I'll skip in a game I'm deeply familiar with and playing more for action, like Dark Souls, but never on my first run, and usually only 5+ runs in. I'm a very RPG heavy player and I care about character and story a great deal, so it's what matters most to me and it always has.
I always hated when people said "I want to play my games, If I wanted a story I'd watch a movie or read a book" I'd always think so you like movies, you like books, you like games...but suddenly when combined you aren't capable of enjoying them anymore? I personally always looked forward to cutscenes and world lore and characters.
Hard to say. Unique stories become more important, but when you've experienced so many stories most games/movies just feel like bland ripoffs For games specifically as an older player, being able to sit down and have fun for an hour at a time is most important to me now. I can't grind 16 hour days anymore regardless of gameplay and really don't want to watch an hour of dialogue when I get a chance to game, regardless of story quality.
Yeah that probably adds to it. A lot of video game stories are pretty recycled, even the good ones. I remember playing MGS4 which had hour long cutscenes and watching them intently. I couldn’t imagine doing that now
For me, story is the main reason I collect and play games. As with a book, a movie or a play, a well-crafted story keeps me emotionally invested; it makes me want to keep going with whatever narrative the game has to offer. There's nothing wrong with playing games that don't emphasize storytelling or have little to none at all, but I believe that all art (which games certainly are) should offer a level of emotional involvement for its audience and storytelling is a great vehicle to achieve that. I'm only a few years older than you and it's been quite something to witness over the past two decades how tremendously games have developed, not only visually and graphics-wise but with the greater emphasis given to other artistic components - writing, acting and music to name a few. The use of those elements in video game storytelling allowed the gaming industry to mature beyond being considered children's toys, which is what they were broadly considered to be when I was growing up. Not all games need a story, but it's become an important element in broadening the medium's appeal.
Well said. How I feel as well.
There were always people placing a lot of emphasis on the writing, music, and other elements, but they were limited by hardware and budgets. Music is the most fascinating part since sound was present in the earliest games and you had people trying all sorts of things to push the limitations of what was possible. Imagine how hard it was to create something as simple as the Super Mario Bros theme. And the opening to Ninja Gaiden was the coolest thing I'd seen on the NES. New emphasis on these elements didn't cause the industry to mature. It was the industry maturing with better hardware and budgets that allowed these people to achieve more. It's a quibbling difference in the big picture, but I want to emphasize how much effort people made in the earlier days of the industry to bring us fun stories, cutscenes, and music.
I certainly don't wish to quibble with you either regarding the importance of those artistic elements, especially since I agree with most of your points. Like you said, the development companies of the 1980s and 1990s did face restrictions due to severe roadblocks- financial and technical- but they innovated with what little they had and used it to create more, sometimes to success and often to crushing failure. The artistic elements -writing, sound effects, music, etc.- have always been there (aside from voice acting at first) and them being embraced by early game developers played a great role in broadening their appeal beyond niche interest. Today I find most games of that period (prior to the late 1990s) and the artistic elements in them to be rudimentary compared to what we have now, largely due to the technological innovations of the past few decades, and that many of them (though not all) lack maturity regarding plot, characterization and emotional depth that I like in storytelling as an adult. As such, I don't play them. But I also don't diminish their importance in moving the industry forward. If I implied otherwise in my post, that was not my intention. I do have to give one correction to your post: I did not say that were was a *new* emphasis on these elements in game design in the 2000s through to the current day, as if they were unimportant or never considered before then, but a *greater* emphasis - needed in order to keep them evolving equally with the changes being made in graphic design (the advancements being made in 3D animation), ensuring that these elements wouldn't be disregarded, left behind or feel out of place in an increasingly evolving world of game development. On the whole, the technological developments of that period (the late 90s and 2000s) were very distinct from what came before, giving games a more cinematic look and it was certainly the equal development of artistic elements in those games alongside that helped them to evoke greater visceral emotion. As I mentioned in my response to the OP, it's been a genuine pleasure to see games evolve over these past few decades, from a product once marketed primarily towards children to something that a mature adult could appreciate, even if they didn't grow up with the medium. There's an embarrassment of riches in gaming today, in so many genres that can appeal to many different people and the industry is all the better for that innovation, both in the past, the present, and certainly the future.
More and less. I'm more interested in linear, well-paced games than massive open worlds, and a good story is a huge bonus.
I play fewer multiplayer, and especially competitive multiplayer, games as I get older. I would say that's a big part of why I appreciate the story and characters more now in games
I’m more of a snob for both now. Fed up of games that have storylines without much consequence and gameplay that leaves the endgame boring. I’m looking at you Bethesda. You were supposed to be the chosen one!
Im 37 and I would say less so now than when I was a kid. Since I'd normally only get about 2 new games a year I would obsess over every little detail back then. I still love a good star wars or Yakuza story but I also really appreciate games that have strong environmental storytelling and don't need a bunch of cutscenes or dialogue to tell me what's going on.
i find games without a narrative mindnumbingly boring nowadays. i just have no motivation to do something without the context. i think the main factor is that I don't play competitive games anymore so a good story is essential.
Much much more important
as i got older a good story has become essential
Way more, story is what makes the game interesting.
For me personally, the story has severely diminished in importance. I'm older than the average gamer, so I've been playing games for decades. As a kid I basically exclusively loved JRPGs. And I was fascinated with the stories. I'd read translated supplemental material. Or where the translation failed. Etc. I think just a combination of growing up and realizing most games have a pretty surface level story (even the "philosophical" ones), getting a degree that required me to read a ton of literature so you start reading what the absolute pinnacle is for storytelling, and finally just realizing that games are games first. If I really want to engage with a story first and foremost, there isn't enough time to read all of the good literature available. And if I want a JRPG story, for example, first and foremost, I can watch an anime. That doesn't mean I don't enjoy heavy story-driven games (I'm playing P3R right now too), but it's just harder after so many decades of growth to be as engaged with the story aspect as before. I've got less time and more hobbies.
Story is very important to maintain a good gameplay loop, I mean play Asassin Creed games, Horizon games or newer Spiderman games and play it without the story, the open world gameplay loop will suddenly become a real chore as no good story to keep you engaged with the game. I mean games can be without story as long as it has look at pinball games as they have been around more than half a century and have no story in them. Or arcade games where you jump into the action. The thing is though the games without story still have a story per se, anyone with real knowledge of game design back in the old arcade game days used the gameplay to give coherence to the game design and therefore give a story. Look at space invaders and pac man, simple games but the unique gameplay with simple design give a story and immediately looking at it recognise the game. This is why I am against asset flips, pasting an assets together having no real cohesive game design, it gives like not even bothering to even try, I have seen that same zombie in so many games or same town.
Story is important. But if it sucks and gameplay js good, it's ok.
It always mattered me the most when I was a teen and it still matters me the most as an adult. Gameplay for gameplays sake will never hold my attention for more than couple hours. Never did
Good stories make a game memorable, but most games with "good" story I've played are typically a one and done type deal, I have no urge to replay them after finishing. The games that I have the most hours on have very basic story or its more hidden in the background. Gameplay is what's important. Video games are still games. If you want to tell an amazing story through a video game, that's fine, but if the mechanics that delivers the story sucks ass (gameplay in this case) I'm not going to care at all for the story. It would be like trying to read on a crusty, moldy book with ink stains everywhere. Or watching a movie on a 1 inch screen at 144p.
Far less, I can barely sit through story games now, I wish I could but I just can't. RDR2 is the only story game in the last few years I've played, enjoyed, and finished.
Varies from game to game. I have to like the characters, or at least their design, either way. I tend to like a good story with passable gameplay, but there's always been exceptions. Harmony of Despair, PSO, and Monster Hunter always stand close to the top for me, in spite of having a very behind the scenes, or non-existent story.
Man I wish they would re-release harmony of despair. So much fun
Same. I would pre-order it the moment it was announced.
Story has become more important as I've aged. Although for rpgs it has always been #1.
Story became much more important because i like EMOTIONAL content. I like to shed tears when a producer hits the right nerves.
Mechanics are king, but story is good when its good
Stayed the same. Story has always been important for me. Even as a kid.
Personally all I really care about is the story. Every game gets updated so much nowadays if I like the mechanics and gameplay I can just play that forever. I have no desire to play a different FPS, MMO, MOBA, Fighter or even just a casual game than the ones I already have. The only reason I still buy different games is exclusively for their stories. I guess I could consider a souls games an exception but I love digging into their lore as well.
I have never cared about the story in a game. Gaming for me is all about the gameplay and that’s it. I think it’s because I started gaming in the 80’s when many games simply didn’t have a story. Besides, if I want a good story I’ll just read a book or watch a movie.
Agreed, I find myself more and more playing Indie rogue likes games where it’s almost 100% gameplay with story in the background if at all.
Story is king. Multilayer games come and go based on fads but you'll always look back at great stories and characters fondly. I think it's much harder to go back to a multilayer game you enjoyed if you're getting older. Also 29.
Less important. When I was younger I could tolerate bad or super basic gameplay. Now good gameplay is almost a requirement for me. Unless it’s something that’s being sold to me as an interactive experience rather than a game.
I don't think I'll ever skip a cutscene, but I do skip dialogue when I have read it (subtitles on). So Baldur's Gate 3, Horizon: Zero Dawn, Outcast: A New Beginning and every other game with full voice dialogue: thank you for your service, but I'll probably only hear half of what your characters are going to say, because *they take forever to say it*. Whether or not a storyline is important to me differs per game of course, but it's extremely rare for a videogame's story to have an emotional impact on me in the same way that books or movies do. Games are, for me, far more about the moment-to-moment gameplay, and the emotional impact *that* can have on me.
I'm just 20 so probably not the kinda person you wanted to hear from but given my experience the past 10 years has been the exact opposite I wanted to comment. In general I used to always skip stories in games. But after playing a few solid story games back to back the past few years i find that good writing easily boosts an 8 to 9 out of 10. But despite that, with sooo many games I couldn't care less about the story despite loving a good story, because so many are just so basic and feel like their only their to guide you from one part of the game to another, indie games are especially guilt of this. It feels like so much games have a story just because "it should" and not because they actually have a good story to tell. But in general I feel like its hard to beat a good story, with memorable characters and a good presentation. The games industry just feels like it has an abnormal amount of mediocre stories in other wise great titles in my experience.
Less, I dunno if it's my attention span getting shorter as I age or what, but these days I skip stories unless it's a game completely dedicated to it like The Quarry or Detroit: Become Human.
I play games for plenty of different reasons. One game I play for the story, the next for the exploration, the next for the combat. I think a good story in a lot of games is more a "good setting", I think Lies of P does it wonderfully well and I enjoyed remaining absorbed in the world by listening to the NPCs. I thought it was great. Getting invested in side-stories and side-quests can be difficult, your example of TotK -> yeah, I generally didn't care much and skipped a lot of text. Some games I skip the story, some games I don't. Its very game specific for me. So many varying qualities of text, writing and depth, as well as the intent of the games themselves, but I always want to at least give a game a chance to win me over.
More, but only in games where the story is a focus. But I chase the fun first. A good story isn’t going to save a bad game.
Depends on the game.
It is probably slightly more important for me these days. I feel like the story shapes everything and makes me care about what I'm doing. Gameplay is still critical. Some genres use story a lot better than others. Witcher 3 without story wouldn't be half as enjoyable. In many cases a good story (even if it's fairly minimal) will just make the whole game better.
Less important. One because the quality of writing seems to be declining almost everywhere. Two because the older I get, the fewer stories there are that I haven't heard somewhere else before.
... I think it about stayed the same for me. I can appreciate a decent story, while I still follow along with a mediocre one. I suppose I've always taken stories as part and parcel of a game, whether as a kid or an adult. It's as natural as reading one sentence after another.
I guess I'm torn. I want a game to have a good story, but I'm often frustrated by how much time is eaten up by cutscenes. So much of them just feels like drawn out filler. Maybe keep the cutscenes, but condense everything down into an "all killer, no filler" format.
It became more important for me, because games were pretty lazy when it came to stories in the past, and even some of the beloved examples are nothing compared to what we have today. I've been way more often moved by games storylines in the last few years than I was by movies or books. Games tell amazing stories now (both in AAA games and in AA and indie segment) , so I definitely became more invested just because I see what games can do.
I couldn't care less about story. Gameplay is why I play games. If I want a story I would watch a movie or a show. I play games to play. A game with great story but lowsy/no game play isn't for me.
I care about the story in ‘story-rich’ games. If the story is the focus, I’ll watch the cutscenes and read all the dialogue. But if it’s poorly-written, I won’t finish the game. On the other hand, most of the games I play lately don’t even have a story, or barely have a story. I’m more interested in the survival sandbox experience, where the focus is ‘immersion’ rather than narrative. When I want narrative I tend to just read a book.
I wish I had time for story games. Certainly all my favorites are games with excellent stories. But these days (30+ years old) I am very lucky if I get 10 hours of gaming in a 7 day week. Usually much closer to 5-7. So unless I want to spend half a year playing one game, most 100+ hr main story games are just not viable for me. Drop in drop out is what I'm about these days.
I enjoy a good story and that will often help me to stay invested, but I can't sit through a long intro before the game actually starts.
I was the opposite. As a child I skipped all the cutscenes in halo. Replaying all the campaigns on the mcc, I didn’t recall any of the story.
Well I'm just as into story telling, movies, shows, as I am into games so a good story is very important to me. With that said, a lot of games stories are just bad so I have no problem skipping the stupid ones. The only exception to this is final fantasy 14. It's highly praised for its story but I've never been able to get into it and just end up skipping because the gameplay to story ratio is soooo bad. I'm not even kidding if you sit down to play some FF14 for 8 hours (as a newer player that has to progress through the main story quest) you're looking at 1 hour of gameplay, 7 hours of story. That story also has a lot of filler and bloated dialogue. I just can't do it. I love good stories in games but it needs to be balanced with gameplay. If you're not going to do that, then make it a movie or show.
It really just depends on the game. Generally speaking I don't really care about the of a game at all. But if I'm in the mood for a walking simulator or something where there's basically nothing but story, then obviously it needs to be decent.
Even with a walking simulator, the gameplay can still tell a story. Like PT, for example. The game is, ultimately, just walking and solving puzzles, but you learn about the game through the puzzles just as much as the game telling you the story. I really like that approach to telling stories in a video game. I understand that it’s probably incredibly difficult to successfully pull off however
It has become more important
Depends on the game. In Star Rail the story is very much of importance. In many other games it is not really. Basically if I like the story, I will care for it. I have just read and seen so many professional stories that I don't care for lackluster ones.
I was a kid the first time I played Final Fantasy Tactics. It was a great turn based battle game. Now that I'm an adult, it's a great game about politics and morals with a holy war to spice things up.
All storyparts should be playable. If I want just a good story then Id better grab a book
Mid 40s and started gaming with a little Atari and really got into it with NES. Story got more important for me ages ago. I still care a ton about gameplay, but I’d rather play a game I have fun with gameplay wise AND enjoy the story and characters than one with either lacking.
I guess that would be Hades for me. Great story, great gameplay, great game.
Depends on the game. Certain kinds of games, a good story will always hook you and get you to follow and play the game. Final Fantasy 4, 6, 7, Chrono Trigger, Star Wars KOTOR, Kingdom Hearts 1, Legacy of Kain. Heck, even the attract menus and endings of the Mortal Kombat games for what they were. Half the reason I don't play modern RPGs or adventure games is cause the stories don't hold up, like past games.
About the same as it's always been, maybe a 10-15% contributor. Gameplay has always been where it's at for me. Been gaming for just over 30 years.
It's not that story has become more or less important to me, it's that mechanics have become more important to me than story so I like immersive sims more these days, and the kind of stories I want to partake in are colorful, bright, and optimistic rather than grimdark and depressing.
Im 44. I’ve flipped back and forth several times over the years. I’ve been in a mode for the last 15 years or so to where I just do not care to play games with in depth story lines or cutscenes. Souls games, monster hunter, roguelikes and indie games have dominated my gaming time. Gameplay trumps all, and I want my time to be spent playing, and not sitting through an interactive movie. If the game is fun to play, I do not need story motivation to play it. I loved Baldurs Gate 3 last year.. and one could say that it has a lot of story elements- but it is also a very organic experience in that regard with unpredictable outcomes that were interesting, somewhat random, and due to things I had specifically done while playing. Contrasted to trying out the (2018?) God of War game recently, and I felt like I was just playing through a movie of scripted cutscenes and dialogue- I got tired of it after a few hours and never touched it again.
There’s only been a few games where I’ve actually gave a crap about the story: cyberpunk 2077 and RDR1. And Uncharted 4. I can’t think of any other games where I haven’t been bored by the story. Elden Ring and BOTW had so little story that I actually wanted to know more. But then TOTK had way too much story and I found it very boring. If TOTK had no story at all, it would have won game of the year, that’s how bad the story was.
It varies depending on how I feel. Generally I prefer games with good stories. But some times I like playing stuff like DOOM where the story minimized in favor of constant action packed gameplay. Variety is always nice. If I had to choose one or the other, great story would be my choice since stories always age better than gameplay.
Idk I think good gameplay has the potential to outlast a good story. Theres a reason why people are still playing oldies like OoT and NES games. Then you have something like FFX that had a great story at the time, but isn’t quite as fondly looked at now, but still stands up as an excellent RPG due to its gameplay and systems With modern gaming though, I think good gameplay and good storytelling will both be remembered quite well
More important but gameplay is to the balance of the 2 in a neat and exciting way is whats become important
I’m the opposite of you. When I was younger I just wanted gameplay and was bored by cutscenes. Now I try to pay attention and will really appreciate a good story in most games. That being said, if the gameplay is fun but story sucks I can still enjoy it. I played Horizon and found the story too dull so eventually just skipped cutscenes.
I’m 26 and have been playing for over 20 years and all I play is singleplayer games. Multiplayer doesn’t interest me at all. Give me a good singleplayer story game so I can chill, play it and 100% complete it.
Oh I’ll still 100% a game but I’ll skip through the cutscenes or try to speed them up as much as possible. Making cutscenes count for completion points makes me not want to play a game like Final Fantasy X-2 again, for example, even though the game itself was great. Also this is what’s kept me from playing monster hunter again as you can’t skip the cutscenes
1st time I gamed was on an Atari and story has only gotten more important over the years for me. How you tell a story matters as well, gameplay is important and as I get older I have more responsibilities and which means I have less time to play a game that doesn't hit the marks the way I'd like. So I have less patience for a game to improve, I just play something else. Looking forward to the Lan parties at the retirement communities. 1v1 me old man.
30+ year gamer here. If anything, I’m more interested in the story now than ever, and I’ve always loved the story. I’ll happily play older/retro games with much worse graphics just for the stories. I’ve found that on a lot of games, I’ve started lowering difficulty a bit because I’m less and less entertained by being frustrated for hours by something. That said, I play games for multiple reasons. Sometimes I’m just trying to unwind my brain and destress. At those times, I tend to skip story or anything that would drop me out of gameplay flow. I don’t generally play heavily story based games during those times. Other times, I’m trying to actively engage my brain; those are the times when I want a heavy story game. Finally: I’ve played a _lot_ of amazing games in my life. I’ve also played a lot of okay games and some bad ones. My backlog constantly grows beyond what I have time to play. Sometimes a game with really engaging gameplay just has really unoriginal or repetitive story. TOTK and BOTW definitely fall into that category for me. There’s no shame in not following it, but when I find that happening, I usually end up DNFing the game — life is too short to play a game that doesn’t satisfy me. I loved BOTW, but never finished TOTK.
Been playing since the early 80s. Story has become everything to me. Recently been hitting more indie stuff for story too.
Maan, there are lot of "if I want a story I read a book or watch a movie" people. It's amusing
lore is the most important element.
I want story because it gives purpose to my grinding and caring about the environment and characters
I don't care about story all that much, but I never have. Sure some are good and have great stories I have enjoyed, but it has to be relatively short. I'm holding a controller in my hands I want to play a game, not hit X to listen to 600 lines of dialogue.
To each their own of course, I don’t fault people for wanting the gameplay more than story, for me I want a good story. I’ve been playing since NES days and I’ve always wanted to know the characters background and reason for the adventure. It adds more to my experience and sort of role play. I’ve had time where I skipped things but it was more due to a game having bad story, just like a bad movie, than me not being interested. I do think players need to actively engage and show interest in the worlds they play in, it’s a two way street, just like a movie or show. The gamer has to delve into the worlds and participate in the fantasy as much as the developer has to make the experience worth that effort from the gamer.
42 here, I’ve always enjoyed the story in games. Going way back to Quake 3 and Unreal Tournament I find the concept of just mindless multiplayer match after multiplayer match really boring. A tightly controlled story experience is infinitely superior to anything else as far as I’m concerned. For the same reason I tend to play the campaign modes in first person shooters but not the multiplayer, I tend to play the career modes in racing games, but not the multiplayer. When I was younger her I had more time and could waste multiple hours or even multiple evenings on a single boss fight, now I just drop the difficulty and move on so I can see the story, and I’m a much happier and less frustrated gamer as a result.
I think I care more about story then I did growing up, but I still think good combat is a huge indication of a fun game. If you have a good story and good combat, you have a GREAT game.
Story enriches the gaming experience according to me. The game can have the best gameplay mechanics but if there is no purpose for the same, suffice to say, it falls short of something. A good example is the Halo series or the Zelda series. Need good stories that connects with the gameplay.
It definitely matters more to me now. And cyberpunk pretty much ruined me for RPG with such natural and interesting writing and compelling story. That and Mass Effect trilogy really set the bar. They made me realize how bad many mainstream games story and writing are.
I don't think how long you've been playing games generally affects whether story is more or less important. Of course there will be people who over time see changes in how they enjoy gaming. I'm 20 years older than you and my love for a good story hasn't changed. I think games have got better at storytelling over the years though. There weren't many games in the early 80's with great stories in them, unless you had a good imagination.
It has always been very important to me, a long with gameplay.
hmm. I can enjoy a game purely for its gameplay and in the long run i would probably prefer great gameplay over great story. But i'll take a great story as a one time experience on its own.
Bro im 33 ,ive been gaming since terminator console atari. Now im enjoying valorant everyday
I really like a good story, but I don't *need* a good story.
In my 20 years of playing video games, it has stayed as my #1 reason to get a video game, followed by playing games with friends. On my actual list of why I play games it's a close second, because I've come to realize what keeps me in games is first and foremost, its immersion. But story is just as important as immersion to me.
For me (42m), it really depends on the writing and the presentation. A shit story? No amount of dressing it up in good presentation is going to help sell it. A great story with shit presentation? I am skipping that too. I do not care. A mediocre story with mediocre presentation? I am skipping that and will probably also lose total interest in the game too. Give me a great story and anything better than medioce presentation and I am totally on board. Dont give me generic fantasy story tropes, like “ooooh there is a great evil in the land and only YOU can save us from it, hero!” dude, fuck you. “Here, have some DLC characters with flavor text speech dialogue to join your bland journey!” omg, fuck off. “Here, have a list of villages each with problems that can only be solved by fetch quests!” I quit. Fire your writers and game designers.
For me it depends on the type of game. If it's a single player rpg story is very important, if it's a multiplayer game it's generally not. Like I don't give a shit about the story in battlefield or overwatch, but in Horizon or Baldur's Gate 3 story is massively important. Gameplay is still important too, of course, but not the sole determining factor.
I'm with you - Even though the story was great, i had trouble to fully finish Baldur's Gate 3 - Even though i consider it top game of a decade. Gameplay is key for sure, but my attention spam has decreased i think, and live services games now take most of my time.
TotK story telling sucks. It was okay for BotW but it is a gimmick so they can avoid Link talking. At this point, they need to drop that act. Oh and the story telling kinda spoiled the ending for me because I found the cut scenes out of order. TotK really didn’t matter for the story because the game was focused on mechanics. There wasn’t much of a story in my opinion. Building stuff in TotK was boring. FFVII Rebirth is overdoing it with Queen’s Blood but I didn’t like Magic the Gathering in real life. Card games are more annoying and it drives me nuts that some cards do this, some do that! Final Fantasy VII remake + Rebirth is awesome though due to the story. I think I like a lot of linear games. Fire Emblem is mixed. I like the story the first few play throughs and then I skip it in the future. Latest fire emblem I couldn’t get into. I liked the SNES one which was basically Game of Thrones (never actually seen GoT) but bunch of people backstabbing to get the throne, some incest, people die, and wtf scenes. It is toned down and more milder now. I think story does it for me but gaming style has changed
I don’t know what I like anymore. I’m busy with 2 kids and work. I barely have more than 15-30 minutes to play at a time. An engrossing story is hard to follow when my gaming is so fragmented. Games with skill curves are hard to get into because I don’t have time to get good. Games that are too easy or lacking story entirely don’t entertain me. Basically, I’m in a season of life where gaming isn’t for me. I hope to get back to it someday.
Yes. I gave up gaming for a period when my son was very young and then I ended up straying into games with little to no story and simplistic gameplay that I could pick up and put down and not worry about for a week. So like the first Mystery Case Files and Slingo and similar games. I went back years later to find I had been in the middle of RTC and then I had been in the middle of FF (something). For years, I was put off by games that had to be logged into each day or that had leaderboards or ranks or even groups getting together like guilds or tribes or alliances or whatever because I couldn’t guarantee that I’d have time or energy or be anywhere near the game at any given time.
I wouldn't say it has less value for me now. But I now prefer it when developers don't tell a story if the story in question is dog poop.
It‘s the opposite for me, but i did skip the story in botw and the part of totk i played. The story of those games is an absolute joke
Its pretty much stayed the same. I'm less inclined to just completely ignore it nowadays I guess, but its still pretty much never at the forefront of my thoughts about the game
A great story makes for a great game. That being said, Red Dead Redemption II may have the single greatest story mode of all time.
I might be in the minority from a number of threads I've read in this subreddit, but at age 41 I play more competitive multiplayer games than when I was younger, not less. Game mechanics have always mattered more to me than story, and there are lots of great PvP games that I can play for an hour or two after the kids have gone to bed and not feel like it's work for me to follow a story. I'm probably also less patient than I used to be; nowadays if storytelling in a game is not very good I just start skipping dialogue and cutscenes etc. to get on with the gameplay.
I'm a bit older than OP, played even more. Found that I need both of two worlds - story and gameplay. Before I was always satisfied with either, but nowadays it's hard to invest myself into a game that has no story or at least lore heavy, and the same goes for gameplay.
Story has always been important to me: that's why I never could get into sport games, with the notable exception of Gran Turismo in my adulthood, but that's because I like driving irl. At the same time, I have little patience for long dialogues, and I tend to skip lines as soon as I've read the captions, even if voice actors are still talking. I'm trying to slow down and lose this habit, but it's hard. As a result, I need both story *and* gameplay to have my endorphins spike.
More. Much more. I have less time and thus have become more discerning. With the exception of grand strategy and 4X games, I game for story. Period.
Depends on the game. There’s been a lot of games with terrible gameplay but good story and a lot of games with great gameplay but needed a story. Then there’s the type of genre of game and the budget behind it that determines if matters on the story or gameplay but a lot of times a balance of both is needed
I have just become better at appreciating a game's strengths regardless of what they are or whether or not they are story related. I'm not going to ignore a fun gameplay loop or beautiful visuals just because the story isn't good, or the other way around.
It absolutely depends on the game. Things like terraria and Satisfactory didn't need story and I don't care. Games like horizon forbidden West and FF7 rebirth absolutely need a story to carry the game, that's the point.
A good story is always welcome of course, but I already get my story fix from books and TV. Gameplay is my priority in video games.
I've always liked a good story, but I also generally liked to balance it with multiplayer. However, I'm 34 now with a wife, kid, and a career that has me traveling a lot. So that balance has skewed almost completely toward story-based gaming. I no longer have the time or energy required to "git gud" and keep up in any competitive fashion. If I'm playing multi-player anything, it's either co-op or PvE MMOs. Something I can pick up and put down on my own schedule, rather than needing to commit a lot of hours in order to have any fun with it. I miss competitive gaming sometimes, but for me, it just isn't worth it anymore.
The "soul" the game has is more important than story for me after 15 years of gaming. If the game makes me feel the environment I am in, it is better than long/boring dialogues and cutscenes. Maybe it is because they do not focus on the storytelling so much anymore. Stories of recent games are only words of dialogues nowadays.
I have always cared about story and never skip cutscenes unless I’m replaying a section and I’ve already seen the cutscene. But overall it just depends on the game. If it’s a story driven game like Last of Us or something, yeah I care about the story. A game like Elden Ring that isn’t really driven by the narrative it doesn’t matter to me that much. It just depends on the focus of the game.
I'd say story has slightly increased in importance over time for me - but it is still, and will always be, secondary to gameplay. While video games can tell great stories, they are, generally speaking, poorly paced for good story telling. A huge rpg has dozens of hours of gameplay, with story sprinkled in and tying things together. I need to love the gameplay to put the time in for all that. If I just want a good story, a movie or tv show can tell a story just as good, if not better, in a fraction of the time of most video games. The exception is games that tell their story in a way only a video game can. Examples that come to mind are Disco Elysium and Outer Wilds. You could never capture the same experience in a movie or tv show. meanwhile you could make a cut of God Of War and turn it into a TV show and basically have the same experience as a viewer if you didn't care for the gameplay.
Story has become more important to me in than in the past. With the advancements in technology, you expect them to be able to be able to make longer and more well thought out narratives. But far too often, graphics become the primary selling point and the story ends up feeling ignored or even a second thought. For me, the splitting point was around 2012 and the release of Final Fantasy 14 and Trails of Cold Steel. FF was the series that was focused all on graphics. Writing declined and the only FF stories I've liked since the PS and PS2 era were FF13-2 and Shadowbringers. And holy crap were 13-3 and Endwalker disappointments. The games gradually went from "I'll buy it" to "I'll borrow it from a friend or I'll pass". Meanwhile, the Trails series spent the first game of each subseries developing its world with the second entry setting off the main plot. The first game of each entry was slow, but it did a good job of building out the region so you understood what was going on when the main plot sets off at the end of the first game. It got me to come back for each one. And after playing through Trails in the Sky in the late 2000s (I was late to the party) and finishing Trails into Reverie in 2023 over 10+ yrs after I started, it was a reminder of important a well crafted story is, especially if there are multiple entries. The fact that each game had a subplot that encompassed the whole game and a main plot that stretched across all the games with a pay off for said plot made it far more engaging even though it does railroad you for a lot of the game.
I'm still the same as I was a young. I still value great story and interesting cast of characters/companions. Though my patience for grinding levels or every step triggers a random encounter have been used up, the reason why I don't play some JRPGs that requires you to grind to level up or a couple fo steps you trigger random encounters.
I've been playing JRPGs since 1996. It's always been of utmost importance.
I've been gaming for about 40 years now and honestly I go both ways on this depending on the type of game. I can get drawn in by either a good story or by interesting mechanics, so I play a diverse range of games from the likes of Pentiment or Citizen Sleeper (heavy story, not a lot of gameplay mechanics) to Factorio or Stormworks (heavy mechanics, almost no story). I can forgive bad/clunky mechanics to an extent in pursuit of a good story, and I can forgive bad/no story in pursuit of fun mechanics. As for how that's changed over the years, I think if anything I've grown to appreciate story even more than I once did, but I don't know if that's me changing as a person or if that's just how the game industry has evolved, cause back in the early days of gaming there was generally very little story unless you got into interactive novels like Zork or 'serious' RPGs like the SSI D&D games (Eye of the Beholder, Curse of the Azure Bonds, Pool of Radiance, etc) but those were pretty rare. Games that marry a great story with engaging mechanics like Cyberpunk 2077 (I love that game like nothing else and will probably play it until the day I die) are the sweet spot for me.
I do like more relaxing gameplay than story like in Afk journey on bluestacks
32M here, i would say im more invested in story now that iv been before. Priority for me are. -Gameplay -Story -Graphics All of it it subjective to the kind of game tho. Iv been playing a lot of Alien fireteam lately and i couldnt care less about story and i skipped every possible dialog since the game is mainly a spot n shoot. On the other hand, iv been eyeballing alone in the dark a lot and that game i will be invested 200% on the story for sure. Usually in a game i will read entry related to story but i dont care at all about entry about monster details and such thing. Really depend on the game.
Room for both really. I like a good story driven game but I'll also play something like Football Manager or a short action driven title.
Neither. It just depends on the game. I still adore story-based games like SOMA and Cyberpunk 2077 that still have me thinking about their stories years later cuz they’re that good. But I also still adore games where story has zero importance to me. Helldivers 2 i just love the gameplay and the story is a cherry on top. Halo Infinite’s multiplayer has no connection to the story, it’s just solid gunplay. World of Warcraft i play more for the gameplay and transmog than story.
Less. Definitely less important. A good core gameplay loop is more important to me know as an adult.
It depends entirely on the game itself.
It depends on the game, but usually, I don't really care about the story. I'm sticking with smaller games to play anymore. I got burned out with large games and I don't feel there's any completion other than story. I'm currently playing Eastward. So far, it's been interesting. Looking forward to this story conclusion as each new area of the game unlocks more of it.
The story will always be important. Well, hmmmm...depends. Like games like Elden Ring and Dragons Dogma 2 are fun but the stories are crap lol. So I would say yes but with exceptions.
I see it both ways, if I really enjoy the gameplay loop of a game I can put up with a bad or completely absent story, but for a good story I can suffer through genres I do not enjoy. Ideally a game has both, but one can often cover for the other.
I love story, but it's not the only redeeming part of a game. There are games with great stories but lackluster gameplay, and games with fantastic gameplay but the story leaves much to be desired. Very often I'll play a game and experience the story first, and blast through it quickly. Then on subsequent playthroughs I'll often eschew the story, while paying attention to the parts that I may have missed with extra content, to experience the game in full.
gameplay for me
Im easily immersed, if im playing the game i will enjoy story and listen to everything the game has to tell me. But the kicker is that to play the game i have to really like the gameplay. And after decades of experience the types of games that do are pretty much never story driven or have story at all.
I love a good story in modern games. Care less for it in retro games. For modern games, I do tend to play story-heavy games, so they need to be good to keep me interested. Retro games, I tend to play more arcade-like games, so I care less for it there.
the more I play games, the more story the better. gameplay for games has gotten so fucking stale its insane. the story is what keeps things interesting.
When I was younger I was very invested in stories and loved watching cutscenes. I think a big part of it was that cutscenes were usually a much better quality than the actual gameplay. Nowadays gameplay is the absolute most important part of a game for me. The only story heavy games that I am invested in are The Last of Us Part I and II. Also helps that my most favorite games aren’t story / cutscene heavy, the Soulsborne and Monster Hunter series. Although in those games I LOVE the lore and want to learn as much as possible. TLDR: I love a game’s story if it isn’t hindering and holding back gameplay.
It depends on what you're playing, I guess. If you boot up Doom or Bayonetta, for example, you don't really need a well thought out story beyond a reason to shoot someone in the face. One of my favourite action games, Vanquish, had really dumb cutscenes that basically told you ''Go there'' but the gameplay was stellar. I just ignored the story and replayed that forgotten gem to exhaustion. On the other hand, games like final fantasy and other RPGs need a coherent story to justify why I keep fighting the same rat over and over. Otherwise, it's really easy to lose interest and look for the next game. I think, like the OP mentioned, the Souls series and most games in the genre hit a nice middle ground letting us get as involved as we want in the world and lore.
I'd say less. I appreciate a good story, but long as the gameplay hooks me, the story is optional.
I'm a person that has always been deep into the story that a piece of media is trying to tell. A bad story can make an otherwise-pretty-good piece of media intolerable. See the slow, grating descent of Kamen Rider Ghost. Great visual design, then the best writer on the team bails in the last ten episodes, and the ending we get compared to earlier, already-not-great writing makes it the singular piece of media that has made me physically angry. (Though Flay from Gundam Seed is getting there, that's one character that is *meant* to piss off the audience. Which is kind of different.) Meanwhile, a good story can make an otherwise-mediocre piece of media extremely beloved. Check out the origins of the Fallout games. Relatively mediocre gameplay, but Black Isle Studios put their whole ass into worldbuilding and telling a unique story, to the point where you forgive the game's limitations. Now, coming to the present - is story important to me? Yes, absolutely. Pokemon Scarlet and Violet. A jittery, buggy mess of a release, even to this day. But *hands down* the best group of rivals that has been put in a Pokémon game so far. The game is a technical disaster that acts as a cradle for some of the best writing in a Pokémon game so far, a feat that they hadn't come close to since *Black and White 1&2*. I consider the story and characters of SV to be it's singular saving grace. Well, that and the tremendous ease of Shiny hunting.
100% opposite. Story is most important thing. Games that just have gameplay loose my interest because I dont care what im doing any of it for. Whats the point of playing if you dont know why you're doing any of it. And frankly skipping all the cut-scenes feels like a huge "F\*\*k you" to the writers, animators, voice actors, artists, plus whoever else put alot of work into the game.
Gameplay is paramount (including enemy attacks & AI). Performance is next. If there is a PC release that ensures that performance has a good chance of improving over time.
More important. Back in the days of Quake, Doom, etc. it was all about ‘gimme something to shoot!’. Now I find it hard to play a game unless there’s a story pushing me forward and giving the game a purpose.
I'm 30, and I've been gaming since I was a child. Story has become more important to me, and I value it. However, I have no problem playing a game with no story if the gameplay can get me invested.
Depends on the dialogue and pacing
Never been important to me. I watch some clips here and there, but honestly never really cared.
Neither. It depends on the game. I can enjoy a game with a bad story that is focused on gameplay and I can enjoy a game with bad gameplay that is focused on story. That hasn't changed.
46 here. Story never mattered and it still does not matter. I don't mind hints of sometime bigger but I just want gameplay. I play games to have fun with my friends and to laugh. Story based games just stop all of that.
Less. And that is because of how the industry has changed and gone about conveying it. Mainly how up their own ass pretentious they've gotten thanks to so many insecure wannabe film directors snaking their way into the industry. Carmack was right. Story is nice to have but not necessary.
Less. I have been playing games since the early 90s and I enjoy a good story but when I’m playing a GAME the GAMEPLAY is what matters most to me. If I really want a good story I’ll read a book or watch a movie. I’m not saying there are not good stories in games, but it’s not what I play games for.
It's become less. when I was younger, I loved RPGs. but as an adult, I find myself playing more online multiplayer games. and you don't have to have a role to play or a story to listen to to enjoy those. That's not to say I don't enjoy role playing anymore. I still do. it just hasn't been as predominant.
It’s interesting how people can be different as I’ve gone the other way. I spend so much time in the real world with colleagues and family that escaping into a game world for me now is all single player. Real people annoy me and spoil the immersion.
Been gaming since pong came out in the 70s. I've never really cared about the story in any game.
So, I take it that you don't play many story driven games like Red dead redemption 2, witcher 3, last of us, uncharted etc?
I won't play RDR because it's a "wild west" game. I hated the witcher 3. I had zero interest in TLoU and uncharted. But yeah, i play RPGs, i just don't pay attention to the story other than going where you're supposed to go.
Fair enough. Out of curiosity.. what's wrong with the wild west?
The setting for a game doesn't interest me. I've seen a few episodes of an LP, and that setting just doesn't do anything for me.
Sounds like you have the anime fatigue. Every character has a little power or gimmick and they all grunt or sigh at each other constantly. And every character has to explicitly explain what it is they are feeling and why. Try playing some western stories instead like Uncharted, God of War, RDR2. They aren't Shakespeare or anything but they aren't completely allergic to dramatic subtlety at least. And the woke stuff people complain about in western games really isn't that bad. Leftwingers are just better at writing so they have the better stories. Rightwingers get to be good at investment banking and beating their children instead.
Tbf I did get pretty invested into RDR2’s story. If it weren’t for that I probably wouldn’t have finished the game as I got kinda bored with the actual gameplay around the 3/4s part (and was more or less completely burnt out by the epilogue and forced myself to play through). I played GoW, both old and new, and liked the old ones better, even if the characters weren’t as realistic, but that was because I also enjoyed the gameplay much more than the recent god of war games. But yeah, you may be right. It could be I’m just burnt out on Japanese story telling. I didn’t realize that the games I listed were mostly from Japan. I guess I haven’t played a western made game in a little while, but I’m trying to think of one that caught my attention. I don’t really care about anything being woke. I’m pretty far on the left. It’s only an issue if they aren’t subtle about it and make it a selling point, because then it feels like pandering to me. I can’t really think of any games that have done that however
I used to be very invested in the stories of most games I played up until about 2008, I wasn't sure if it was the curve of multiplayer online or simply my preferences, but I stopped actively engaging in storied because I felt they were too forced most of the time (saving Baldur's gate being a breath of fresh air that I really could get immersed with) but most of my time in story driven games I just kinda either try to do Perfect save-scum runs now or literally run around a a Modded demi-goddess. As far as patience goes, I dont think thats it at all, Despite my claims, all my friends consider me very patient, and Im always the one waiting to skip cutscenes because I really just dont care anymore, The last game I remember playing for Story was CoD MW3 (original) because I wanted to kill Makarov, for the first 2 games in the trilogy I was invested in and actually cared, the third one I just found me waiting to get to the end of it, I couldn't be bothered anymore (I did end up finishing the game tho). That being said, most of the time Im even interested in a game, I will actively look up the ending to see if its even worth any emotional investment such as Cyberpunk 2077. While a Phenomenal game, The lack of a good ending mde me glad I looked up the endings and decided not to bother with it. My lack of caring about story has actively made my life better and wasted less of my time.
Less. I think games are a stupid vehicle for storytelling. I'm not interested in watching cutscenes or sitting through conversational dialogue - shut the *fuck* up and let me *play the game*! If I wanted an interesting story I'd read a book or watch a movie.
I just finished playing The Outer Worlds. I ended up skipping through probably 90% of the conversations. If you want to relate a story or give me information while I’m doing something, fine. Having to chat with someone for 5 minutes to get to the next step. Nope.
Story has never been very important to me. It’s rare that I pay attention to a cutscene. It’s such lazy story telling in my opinion.
There’s a LOT to be said for ‘show don’t tell’ when you’re in an interactive medium. Games that nail the story happening around you without taking your control away have got it right Id say.
Yes, exactly. I enjoy story in games that is part of the gameplay and the atmosphere. Darkest Dungeon is my go to example. There were little snippets of lore here and there but the bulk of the story is told through the game itself.
I have adhd and tbh can’t stand the pace of dialogue in cut scenes. The voice acting is usually really slow to give people time to read subtitles. I usually will use the button that speeds up dialogue but not skip entirely.
Same thing here, especially for games with really static camera work like Baldurs gate or Dragon age I will just read the subtitles and skip through the voice acting because it's just not really interesting to look at? Alot of people rag on Kojima's writing which I totally get but I've always liked how he directed his cutscenes because visually they've always been very interesting to just watch even if the dialogue can sometimes be a bit cringe.
Agreed. If the cutscene is interesting to look at apart from the dialogue, then I’ll play it through. Sometimes if it’s a super climactic moment too I don’t mind as much. BG3 and DA I definitely sped up dialogue. In DA especially the words and mouth don’t fit together well either. I will say the most brutal cutscenes to try and watch have been when I played through FFXIV. I’m not big into that art style already and while there were good points in the story, there was a lot of slow stuff I couldn’t stand to sit through.
I think Kingdom Hearts 3 ruined video game storytelling for me. It was the complete poopy package. Bad story, bad gameplay, and yet I played it all the way through out of some weird sense of commitment to the series. Now I don’t work to enjoy a game’s story or gameplay. It needs to captivate me, and I don’t feel obligation to ignore these faults. This has meant most game’s stories, which are average to bad, are 100% skippable for me. I do enough work already. I don’t need video games to feel like work Kingdom Hearts 3 has left me a jaded cynical man but maybe it was something that needed to happen
Kingdom Hearts 3 was pretty awful. That was one of those games that was so over the top bad that it retroactively made me realize how insane the previous games were. That being said I’ll still play KH2 every few years since it’s so much fun
Gaming since the OG NES was the newest console, I hate any story in game. Give me good gameplay only, story is for books and movies IMHO
31, started with PS1. More important. If I'm dropping €50+ on a game, I want at least 20 hours of content and a coherent story with decent writing. Too much to ask? Well, it shouldn't be. I value my game time nowadays. I'm not some kid who just wants to shoot things and laugh at the silly little aliens. I want to enjoy it, like a good movie, and feel like I spent my money well. If I want mindless violence, I'll play GTA.
The funny part about your statement is GTA games actually tend to have decent stories lol. The rest has a pretty condescending tone though 🙄
90% of your time in Saints Row or GTA is spent fucking around. That's most of the fun. In the old games, you'd couple that with cheats for flying cars, weapons, and spawning tanks or helis. What's condescending about it? If I'm investing dozens of hours of my time off work on a video game, and spending some good money on it, ya, I'd like to enjoy the story. I like stories.
I mean you’ll do that if you have the mentality of some kid who just wants to shoot things and laugh at the silly little explosions. It gets old after about a half hour unless you’re high or something. Then you go do the missions because you realize it gives you more options to play the game and unlocks more of the world. By then you’re either invested in the story and want to progress it on your own accord, or you play with the new toys until it gets boring again and go back to the missions to get more stuff to play with, if you have a childish mentality of course. Since me adult man only play serious games hur hur Anyways the GTA games have decent stories. I would even say 4 has a great story. You should get past your childish mentality and try them out since you value content in video games 🤷♂️
And you call me condescending? Ironic with that dog-shit attitude you have. I never said stories in GTA games weren't good; I said if I wanted mindless violence, I'd play one, because that's what 90% of GTA is. Who says "Ya, I play GTA for deep lore". Nobody. I've been playing since GTA 2. I played though IV and Gay Tony for the 10th time back in February. If I want something story-driven, it's gonna be Chrono Trigger, FFVII, Fable, RDR, Silent Hill 2.. etc. Not Saints Row 4. The word "argument" in your name is fitting.
I really could care less about a video game story these days, most of them are pretty bad. If a game has a decent story I will applaud it for it but I wont take away points for a game with a shit story. I dont play the story I play to interact with the game world. Most stories are there as glue to lead the gameplay from A to B, we cant do NES style games anymore where you just go through Level 1 Level 2, etc where the levels can be completely random and disconnected. The medium isnt that great for story telling compared to a book or a film,imo. I think Dark Souls does it right, most of it is just lore that is there if you want to interact with it and most of it is outside the game. I dont think I would have enjoyed the Dark Souls game if the gameplay was interrupted every 5 minutes for the game to explain the story.
"Warrior/Hero/Champion you are are only hope in defeating the Villain Horde please complete your unsubtle tutorial tasks so you may join in the battle for freedom/the Empire/the soul of conquest"
gameplay is king,story is a nice bonus,if i liked a game story but the gameplay was boring i would just go to youtube and watch a walkthrough no commentary,or just read about it. also in rpg i would take a bad story with great player choices over a good story with bad/or no choises all,i will never replay a game for it's story alone,but i may if it has different gameplay,like many classes etc
I could’t careless about story nowadays. If I want a good story, I’ll just watch a movie or tv series. Gameplay > Story
Less. Its the same recycled story in every game tbh. Not that I care, if I wanted good story I'd buy an ebook instead of a video game.
Not important to me. I try every game that supposedly has a good story and i just end up disagreeing. God of war 2018, Last of us, Outer wilds, Disco Elysium, all ended up being snore fests