Once upon a time, the titular John Carmack, one of the founders of id and creators of Doom and Wolfenstein 3D, said that “Story in a game is like a story in a porn movie… It is expected to be there, but it is not important.” As the gaming moves further and further into a multiplayer focused climate, it actually feels like writing in games is the last thing anyone should consider bettering. Even Emil Pagliarulo, the lead writer in Bethesda, stated that ‘the player will take any stories Bethesda writes, rip the pages out and make paper airplanes, and that the most important story is the player’s story, and they are ok with that’ (the implication seems to be here that what the writers come up with does not matter as all/most of it will be ignored by the player).

I dare say that this is simply wrong. To understand why, we should understand how our brains work: They are machines that cannot operate properly without context. For example, if a player skips cutscenes in an attempt to ‘just play the game’, they are playing the game in a nearly contextless void. They may derive some satisfaction from that, but ultimately it will not be as satisfying and cathartic as experiencing it as developers intended. I’d assume this is why single player comes off as boring to some people; they are not letting their brain to make sense of what is going on in an environment at any given time. Playing without context is simply not an engaging experience.

What gives a game context then? If it is an experience that has a narrative, then its setting, characters and the events that unfold throughout the game. What if I told you that you don’t have to consciously read/listen to every piece of dialogue, every book you find or every audio log you encounter to enjoy good writing? Most of the time, our brain connects the dots for us on its own and decide if this is a believable universe or not, and this affects our enjoyment of the game. When a game’s writing is above industry standards, even the 1/10th of the dialogue that you don’t skip makes the world more believable for you. That is why even people who didn’t care about writing was so engrossed with The Witcher 3: The world, while beautifully designed, was so full of belieavable characters and the game’s setting was so fleshed out that they felt unconsciously immersed in it and, in my opinion, this is one of the reasons The Witcher 3 became a mainstream title.

Developers shouldn’t skimp on writing just because they think gamers don’t consciously care. Good writing still makes the world more believable for those who don’t care about or play games for their writing. Developers/publishers should hire actual writers who have proven themselves in their craft instead of appointing former game designers for the role of the lead writer since this will lead the way to much more engrossing narratives for all kinds of players.