[fidgetPing]

Video-games fundamentally don't work like that. Stories are told through gameplay, which is an interactive medium expressed through engine, assets and direction. The best video-game storytellers are the tech guys. Most of the franchises you've listed have fairly rudimentary writing by the standards of any other medium, but it's elevated because it is so fun to play. Even something as story-centric as Baldur's Gate, Disco Elysium or Pathologic rests on a ton of technical innovation.

[bigstrat2003]

That is one perspective, but not the only one, and it certainly isn't true that video games fundamentally work in the way you claim. Many people are perfectly happy to enjoy a story in a video game which isn't driven by the technical, interactive bits. The entire JRPG genre is like this, for example, as are visual novels. By your logic those genres shouldn't exist, and yet they not only exist but are very popular.

[sotix]

> Many people are perfectly happy to enjoy a story in a video game which isn't driven by the technical, interactive bits. The entire JRPG genre is like this, for example, as are visual novels.

This wasn’t always the case for JRPGs[0]. There was quite a long period where JRPGs were pushing technical limits. Especially around the time of Final Fantasy VII.

[0]: https://youtu.be/EhQamvbfDxc?si=rWRJmHeo_69OI99e&t=5145

[astrange]

There was a JRPG "tech winter" in the PS3-PS4 era because Japanese developers seemed to have a lot of difficulty developing for HD consoles, but I think there was a lot of innovation in handheld games that hasn't been acknowledged. (Though, uh, I can't think of an example.)

Even on consoles there was NieR, which has all the kinds of gameplay you could want.

Square-Enix is trying to bring this back, each Final Fantasy game has had a different combat system and largely been an action game for some time now. I think they largely failed at this, except for FFXIV and FF7 Remake/Rebirth which are great, but they definitely try.

[fidgetPing]

Visual novels are the genre where the writers reign supreme, yes, but that's very explicitly not the games that GP was listing. Skyrim, Fallout, Witcher and Elden Ring are very much not writing-driven experiences.

[astrange]

A lot of game criticism gets confused about visual novels, like how people call them "dating sims" when an actual dating sim (Tokimeki Memorial) is a difficult game with tons of gameplay.

I think everything would be clearer if we all agreed a visual novel is a kind of ebook and not a video game.

[bigstrat2003]

I didn't say that every video game was a writing driven experience. GP, on the other hand, did say that video games are inherently driven by tech/gameplay which is provably not true (because VNs and JRPGs are counterexamples).

[Wowfunhappy]

Circling back to the original topic, I would say that if the only way to finish HL2 was to release episode 3 as a visual novel, do it. Just finish the story!!!

[Gigachad]

The point is that there doesn't need to be more, or novel tech to tell a good story. If you copy paste the mechanics of baldurs gate but with a new location/story/characters, it would do great.

[adamc]

This. I mean, Skyrim wasn't perfect. But another 2 or 3 games with those mechanics but interesting new content would have done quite well.

Bethesda's weakness has always been writing and content, though. Lots of it, but the main plots are consistently terrible.

[supermatt]

> Bethesda's weakness has always been writing and content,

And any decent form of in-game inventory management! Why is it sooooooo bad in bethesda games :(

[astrange]

As far as I can tell their weakness is QA because their games have so many bugs it replaces the actual game design, but at the same time it seems to be their strength because people think it's funny, which must make it hard to change.

[bongodongobob]

Idk, I didn't play the HL games until years after they came out. What was the new tech? I just remember it being a pretty meh shooter on rails type game. The gravity gun was cool I guess.

[tekla]

The HL physics demo was mind blowing to the entire gaming community when it was first shown and caused some insane hype.

There was absolutely nothing like it before it. It's like claiming no one cared when Halo 2 and 3 was released.

[bongodongobob]

I'm not saying no one cared, I just didn't play it when it was new so I don't have a frame of reference.

[fidgetPing]

Source engine, physics puzzles, NPC facial animations, companion AI, overall sound design, lots of UI primitives. Modern video games owe a lot to HL.

[astrange]

I took a game design course in college and the professor was very stuck on HL2, to the point he told us it was perfect because it was so interactive, and that any game with a cutscene in it was a failure because those aren't interactive.

Since then, it doesn't seem to me that the industry has taken this advice.

[Wowfunhappy]

I kind of agree with the professor though.

I wouldn't go quite as far as he did—I think there are many different ways for video games to tell stories. But the way that Half Life and especially Portal does it is extremely effective—and I haven't seen any other games pull it off or even really attempt it!

I would argue even Half Life: Alyx doesn't really follow the Half Life storytelling formula, because the main character isn't mute. When the character can speak of his/her own accord, they aren't really you, they're a different person.