First, we have the text-based adventures such as The Sumerian Game (1964). This text-based strategy game saw players manage land and resource while playing out three generations of rulership over a kingdom of pre-scripted events.
However as many discount the early days of text-based gaming, many cite the first graphical narrative as the first video-game narrative. And with that, Donkey Kong (1981) is often cited. Here Shigeru Miyamoto, the lead designer on Donkey Kong, had a different idea to the literary-like narratives of text-based adventures. Instead Miyamoto “wanted to make sure the whole story, simple though it was, could be told on screen in a way that could be instantly grasped by players”. (3)
While video game narratives remained in the minority in the medium’s early days, they quickly evolved past Miyamoto’s simplicity. Games like Final Fantasy (1987), System Shock (1994) and Thief: The Dark Project (1998) foregrounded narrative and began to integrate it with gameplay elements and decision- making.
That said, these, among other narrative projects of the time, often found their narratives sitting largely outside of players’ control. Games like Crash Bandicoot (1996) did contain narratives, but the player would only go from A to B to be delivered narrative exposition, without directly influencing or playing that narrative themselves. In other words, narrative and gameplay were yet to be integrated.
But as the new millennium rolled in, so did a rapid change in the mainstream appreciation of videogame narratives. For example, Grand Theft Auto III (2001) and Max Payne (2001) managed to transpose the look and feel of cinematic narratives into game worlds. These experiences provided players with sprawling long-form narratives that incorporated a wide variety of characters, storytelling techniques and emotional affect along the way.
Before we go any further; let’s consider the main types of video game narrative which became commonplace post-2000.