If you look at the last 15 years of games, compared to the 15 years that preceded it, the biggest change is story. Yes, games have gotten technically more proficient and are far larger and better looking nowadays. Yes, online integration has forever changed the fabric of video games and 15 years ago we didn't have day one patches, battle passes, endless microtransactions, or live-service ecosystems. But despite all those changes, I still maintain that story is the biggest evolution, and that’s why it's disappointing to see so few games take inspiration from the phenomenal experience of 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Nier: Automata.
Games have always had a story, in the sense that they've always had a loose narrative structure holding them together. In 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Super Mario Bros., Mario had to rescue the princess. Technically that's a story. Beginning, middle, end. Characters. It's a story. But it's not much of a story. It's like the stories you used to make up for action figures as a kid. It exists, but it's only really there so you can bash human-shaped lumps of plastic together. Swap plastic for pixels and it's exactly that. There are some early precursors that took narrative a little more seriously, but for the most part stories were a point A to point B sort of deal.
Over the past decade or so, things have changed. As games have gotten larger, more side quests have been added, more writers have joined development teams, meaning characters and storylines could be fleshed out in more depth. There's also the fact that the money games generate tied to an increased prestige in the medium has led to developers taking story more seriously.
It's chicken and egg - as games become more respected, they put more stock in story, and once games began to put more stock in story, they became more respected. Sony has been at the forefront of this, with its biggest blockbusters pushed forward on the strength of their storytelling first and foremost. A major (if, I suspect, heavily overblown) aspect of the 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:God of War: Ragnarok reviews was 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:how much it made the reviewers cry. This is a game that began life as a hack 'n' slash were you sliced open guts and button mashed your way through off-screen orgies.
Even live-service games, which you might expect to rely less on story, use narrative hooks to keep players compelled. It's not the self-contained experience of 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:The Last of Us, but with each update the likes of 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Destiny 2 and Fortnite tell new, evolving stor🔯ies that carry characters alo🍌ng meaningful journeys. Even live-service games that don't lean on story as heavily as Destiny 2, like 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Apex Legends or 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Overwatch, put a lot of stock in the lore around individual characters in a way they would not have if we still followed '90s gaming storytelling conventions when all that mattered was good guys win and bad guys go splat.
But what does all this have to do with Nier: Automata? The idea of the 'best' story in gaming is always going to be subjective, but what Nier does in telling its story is far more imaginative than most of its competitors to that crown. Other games put forward as having good stories simply have good stories - the characters, settings, or plot are particularly effective in eliciting certain emotions. They move us. This is to be celebrated, but Nier: Automata plays with the very fabric of storytelling itself.
JRPGs have always been a little ahead of the curve. Wh𝄹en we look back at those early precursors in the ‘90s, many would point to Chrono and Final Fantasy as an example of games using narrative e🀅ffectively rather than as a blunt and necessary tool to string together levels. In some ways, Nier: Automata continues that legacy.
It's hard to sell Nier: Automata to someone who hasn't played it without getting into territory they should discover for themselves, so I'll just say this - Nier: Automata is a game with multiple endings and perspectives, some canon and some not, which all combine to change how you see the game. You might feel you've seen games like that before - The Last of Us Part 2, for example, has a famous perspective shift. But you've not seen anything like Nier. It doesn't just retell the story from a new angle, but changes what it means to tell a story, and to experience one. It's a revelation for how video games approach narrative, or at least it should have been.
Nier: Automata is gaming's Rashomon, dabbling in the ideas of storytelling as an art form. It's not like I wanted games to just copy Automata - that goes against praising it as an original entity - but it has been six years since Automata and the biggest games still tell stories in one of two ways. First, you can either complete a linear narrative with predetermined emotional beats, possibly including side quests along the way. Most of Sony's triple-A games fall into this category. Second, you have a world that lets you write your own story inside a vague outline, where the journey is yours to make but things narrow as you reach the ending. Breath of the Wild and Elden Ring are the two most successful within this formula.
Both of those approaches are fine and I wouldn't change how the narrative is delivered in Ghost of Tsushima or Zelda. But it's a shame nobody has looked at how Nier: Automata inverted the art of storytelling and attempted to explore further. There are indie titles that play around with narrative (Paranormasight, though not to the extent of Nier: Automata, is a great example), and we are guilty of overlooking the most exciting games in favour of the shiniest ones, but Nier proved this could be done at the highest level and still bring audiences along for the ride. It's a shame everyone since has been too scared to follow suit.