Why are so few games about something?

I've recently been making my way through Bioshock: The Collection in a similar manner to how a slug moves through a wedding cake.  However, my slow progress isn’t down to lack of enjoyment.  If anything, it’s the opposite.  My feelings on Bioshock so far have been that the game contains such strong writing and so many interconnected themes in each area that I’m reluctant to rush through it all at once.  Effectively, the wedding cake has so many layers that I want to stop and sample each at my own pace.

(Image property of 2K and Irrational Games)

This, however, has caused me to ask myself why more games don’t feel like this.  After all, Bioshock released in 2007, you’d think more games would have been able to mimic its success if it was simply on a technical level.  However, for me, what sets Bioshock apart isn’t technical.  Instead, it is about the quality of writing and the way that the game presents themes and ideas in such an intelligent and clear way.  In short, the game feels like it is about something.

As such, I want to discuss today why so few games seem to give me this feeling and why, while many games have plenty of themes, very few have any interest in following through and delivering any kind of conclusion on them.

MAJOR SPOILERS for The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom and Bioshock.  Make sure you have played them first, they are both very worth your time.

The Problem of Scale

Since 2007, there has been an explosion in the popularity of one genre in particular that could go some way towards explaining why many games struggle to deliver on a thematic level.  Since 2007 with Assassins’ Creed and 2012 with Far Cry 3, the open world has become the genre de jour for Triple-A studios.  This makes sense.  Historical locations and tropical vistas provide a perfect opportunity to wow people's eyeballs with modern graphics tech as a way of convincing them that your game is a worthy investment.

(Image property of Ubisoft)

However, the open world is not focused on thematic storytelling.  Open worlds are great for letting you crawl around in a bush, gathering twigs and massacring wildlife like an American dentist on a safari.  What they are not good at is creating a competently paced story.  Even examples of the best open worlds like The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom struggle with pacing because, at any point during the story, the player could disappear for 40 hours to shoot lightning arrows at bears.  This effectively means that open world games cannot be about anything by design.  You can't deliver a story that draws the player through to the end before delivering on an overarching message when, at any moment, the player could deliberately stray from that path.

Before the angry mob comes to knock down my door, I should clarify that games like Tears of the Kingdom and Assassins' Creed do have some themes.  Hope triumphing over evil, the balance of freedom versus security and the idea of fighting for a cause larger than yourself are all raised within these games.  However, having set up or mentioned these themes at different points, open world games never tie them into a hard-and-fast conclusion by the end.  At best, these themes are left hanging for the player to contemplate and at worst they are quietly dropped from the plot like sitcom characters when the actor playing them goes on a racist Twitter rant.

In case you aren't convinced, take two contrasting examples.  In Tears of the Kingdom, you find out that Zelda has sacrificed herself by transforming into a dragon in the past to keep the Master Sword safe until Link needs it in the present.  It sounds really bizarre out of context.  This is the emotional high-point of the game and helps the player to get invested in their fight against Ganondorf.  It's a good moment, but that's all.  It's a moment.  After it ends, players can go back to solving cute dungeon puzzles about knocking boulders into holes with giant hammers.  The game's open world design encourages players to deviate from the story to discover wildly different areas and characters but this makes it impossible to stay immersed in the themes and message of the overarching story.

(Image property of Nintendo)

By contrast, Bioshock's themes of free will and utopia's incompatibility with freedom are weaved into every facet of the game.  Every character in the plot refers to these ideas, implicitly or explicitly.  Even the city of Rapture that you explore is centred around free will and its consequences.  This then culminates in the "Would you kindly?" twist where the game makes you question all of your actions throughout the game that you thought you were carrying out freely.  The themes tie into the story and environments as well as the gameplay to deliver a game with a message that makes you feel like you are slowly lowering yourself into icy water.

(Image property of 2K and Irrational Games)

Thus, as Triple-A games have moved away from linear gameplay towards the open world model, it has been harder for games to be about a given theme.  Games like Zelda and Assassins' Creed do have themes and, like in the Zelda example, can use them effectively for individual moments.  The problem is that the open world format has to be so broad and open-ended and include a number of different gameplay styles, that it's impossible for themes to be present throughout the entirety of a player's experience.

That being said, this is not exclusively an open world problem.  Plenty of linear games struggle with theming and presenting a message as well.  For this, I have an alternative explanation in mind.

Selling ideas

The other trend in the games industry that I think has upset games being about things isn't so much a trend as it is a hateful, puss-filled parasite.  Marketability is a concept that, love it or hate it, all games have to engage with.  You can't make a game that nobody will want to buy.  However, what it has led to is a pathological obsession with broad appeal that has held games back from actually delivering meaningful messages.

The classic case which I have harped on before and that I will harp on again like an angry monkey with an enthusiasm for string instruments is Call of Duty.  CoD is one of the most well-known gaming franchises, predominantly thanks to its extensive advertising campaigns and the popularity of its multiplayer.  It also (sometimes) has a single-player campaign which is treated like the the red-headed stepchild that is locked in the basement, fed gruel in a metal dish and occasionally goes into cardiac arrest from neglect.

(Image property of Activision and Sledgehammer Games)

The most common running theme in CoD campaigns is that there is no theme.  They make vague noises about the cost of war being high before giving you some fancy technology and letting you blast ethnic minorities away by the hundreds for the glory of Lady Liberty.  

At times, it almost feels like Call of Duty treats theming and self-reflection with the same disdain that the rest of the industry treats it with.  At various points in various games, the USA and its allies carry out some pretty shady stuff like torture, secretly supporting foreign insurgencies that they know very little about and creating orbital missile weapons to threaten other countries with.  However, having set this up, the game then actively goes out of its way to avoid reflecting on it.  Instead it is always written off as being the cost of war and totally justified because the USA are the ones doing it before some swelling trumpets play and an eagle flies past or whatever.

Don't make any mistake though, this isn't shoddy writing at work, this is entirely by design.  Call of Duty as a franchise cannot say anything in its stories for fear of alienating some part of its enormous audience.  It hasn't got to where it is by delivering strong theming in its stories, it has gotten to this point by delivering the minimum needed to engage players and a satisfying enough gameplay loop that they want to keep going.  In other words, they can't be about anything in particular because, by doing that, they would sacrifice broad appeal and, by extension, profits.

(Image property of Activision and Infinity Ward)

This is not a criticism exclusive to Call of Duty either.  This is the same reason that live service games are never about anything either.  In their case, it is less about marketing and more about keeping people hooked.  To have a message, they would have to stop at some kind of conclusion which would risk long-time players hopping off the gravy train and playing something else.  Like a real life train, you can't get off as long as it keeps speeding straight ahead.

Therefore, to my mind, it is not just gameplay design that is holding back many games from having a message and delivering on their themes, it also comes down to their business practices.  In a world where games are costing more to develop and existing successes like Call of Duty, Destiny and Fortnite have set expectations for concurrent players and profits high, games feel the need to court a broad audience.  In this battle for revenue, conclusions and meaningful themes are not seen as valuable selling points, they are seen as dangerous as they might alienate some small percentage of players.

Exceptions that prove the rule

You may have noticed that, much like the big-money, industry insider that I am, I have focused my argument solely on Triple-A games so far.  That's no coincidence because, to my mind, they are the ones that should be delivering better stories seeing as they have the resources and the time to do so.  However, there are plenty of games out there that are about things, you just have to look at the indie scene.

(Image property of Supergiant Games)

Hades is an obvious example of a game that does the Bioshock thing where the themes of the game are tied closely to the gameplay.  Each loop of death and resurrection forces Zagreus to grow and change as a character and reinforces the idea that, physically or emotionally, he will always be tied to his father's realm. Papers, Please is another excellent example where the entirety of the gameplay, working at a border crossing for an authoritarian nation, is designed to deliver the key thematic elements of the plot. No matter how much you want to help resist the oppressive government, the demands of your family and your personal safety make it very difficult to do the right thing.

(Image property of 3909 LLC)

Indie games are able to crafy these stories with strong messages more consistently than their Triple-A counterparts because of how they are not slaves to the marketing department and don't need to follow in the latest popular trends to show off their graphics.  Many are also made by small teams, even just one person, and so are able to deliver a much clearer vision of what the game is supposed to be.  The purview of the indie game has always been smaller, more personal stories rather than trying to directly complete with the Triple-As.

That being said, some Triple-A games like Bioshock do transcend their status to deliver meaningful stories.  Spec Ops: The Line is every bit as self-reflective as Call of Duty isn't, making you question your own actions and whether you can trust what the game is telling you to do in the context of a hellish war zone where it impossible to come out unscathed.

(Image property of 2K and Yager Development)

Another good example is the Dark Souls series which manages its large, almost open, worlds while still communicating a strong message.  It does this by restricting how much of the world the player can access, allowing it to pace itself a little more than a full open world.  The other thing it does so well is that every part of the world ties back into its central themes of entropy and the inevitability of cycles repeating themselves.  This avoids the problem I mentioned with Zelda earlier because you can't just escape the themes of the game for 40 hours by wandering off because, no matter where you wander off to, you are always confronted with those themes.

(Image property of Bandai Namco and FromSoftware)

My point here is that, while I bemoan not enough games delivering meaningful messages, there are plenty of exceptions to that rule that would be more than worth your time.  In addition to that, not every game does need to deliver a hard-hitting critique of our lives.  It would be nice, sure, but plenty of games get by other ways.  Katamari Damacy is cathartic and chaotic fun but it didn't make me question my entire existence.

Thus, I'm not demanding an entire reset on the games industry.  Rather, my concluding thoughts are that, if a game is trying to tell a story, then it should aim to deliver some kind of message, rather than loosely connected themes.  In other words, where games want to deliver impactful and memorable stories, they should probably make sure that there is a message in that story that audiences will actually remember.

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