True Crime did it well. You could play it and never come across the supernatural stuff. Plus, it was a great sequel to Big Trouble In Little China.
Why Do Branching Storylines Never Deliver on Their Promises?
- Thread starter Yahtzee Croshaw
- Start date
Morrowind was is the epitome of this problem. You have to choose between one of three houses to progress. Which one should you choose? Wrong question because the story line ends up the same so it's irrelevant. I find it funny that Yahtzee says that Witcher 3 had branching choices. There was only about 5 choice in the whole game and two affected the ending. The other three gave a slideshow of the consequences at the end of that storyline. They didn't matter much to the story or ending. Witcher 2 had real consequences to divergent paths
Dues Ex (the first one) was nice that your actions within the mission affected the debriefing at least and I think it did it best in terms of choices affecting the future.
That it allowed me to complete quests in a variety (3?) of ways. Kill, steal or assist to get to the next quest. When there was a room full of NPCs and I killed them all and the game didn't Game Over me but instead I got yelled at by my boss and later I was given stun darts instead of ammo. (I still managed to kill people despite the useless darts. Jokes on him.)
Choices with consequences in this situation are nice because the major affects are immediate and the lasting effects are minor. Which is probably how it should be. And only IF you choose a single style of play through an entire game regardless of the consequences or difficulty should reward a specific unique ending.
Kill everyone every time, innocent and guilty, prisoners and allies? "Everyone is dead" isn't the happy ending where everyone celebrates. Nobody died? Never detected pure stealth? That sort of thing should be recognized.
What you said to a variety of important-in-the-moment NPCs shouldn't really.
That it allowed me to complete quests in a variety (3?) of ways. Kill, steal or assist to get to the next quest. When there was a room full of NPCs and I killed them all and the game didn't Game Over me but instead I got yelled at by my boss and later I was given stun darts instead of ammo. (I still managed to kill people despite the useless darts. Jokes on him.)
Choices with consequences in this situation are nice because the major affects are immediate and the lasting effects are minor. Which is probably how it should be. And only IF you choose a single style of play through an entire game regardless of the consequences or difficulty should reward a specific unique ending.
Kill everyone every time, innocent and guilty, prisoners and allies? "Everyone is dead" isn't the happy ending where everyone celebrates. Nobody died? Never detected pure stealth? That sort of thing should be recognized.
What you said to a variety of important-in-the-moment NPCs shouldn't really.
Vanguard Bandits, from way back on the Playstation 1, did pretty well as far as branching paths go. It was a turn-based tactical strategy where everybody was piloting mech suits. Somewhat similar to the Front Mission series (I remember 3 having a very big branch), or a mix of Fire Emblem and Super Robot Wars Original Generation.
Anyway, there's some generic 'Kingdom versus Empire' conflict going on, and you end up on one side or the other. The split happens right after mission 3 of 20, so almost the whole game changes from one side to the other. There is also a third branch available later in the game, and a grand total of 5 endings. There are some minor choices sprinkled throughout, some determining if you're going to Mission Kingdom9A or Kingdom9B next (for example) or if potential allies will join your team or not. Personally, I played through the game twice (once K and once E) then looked up what the other options had been online.
I'd also echo Alpha Protocol, as has been said before. I was a green recruit who tried to stealth the first half of every mission, failed horribly, and ended up going loud and getting shot at many times in the process. Still fun though.
Anyway, there's some generic 'Kingdom versus Empire' conflict going on, and you end up on one side or the other. The split happens right after mission 3 of 20, so almost the whole game changes from one side to the other. There is also a third branch available later in the game, and a grand total of 5 endings. There are some minor choices sprinkled throughout, some determining if you're going to Mission Kingdom9A or Kingdom9B next (for example) or if potential allies will join your team or not. Personally, I played through the game twice (once K and once E) then looked up what the other options had been online.
I'd also echo Alpha Protocol, as has been said before. I was a green recruit who tried to stealth the first half of every mission, failed horribly, and ended up going loud and getting shot at many times in the process. Still fun though.
I'm inclined to agree. For me, Deus Ex Human Revolution did choice well but did little narrative choice. The choice was in upgrades, which greatly affected gameplay. Upgrades gave you new options, not just made you better at something, such as piling up heavy bins to climb over walls, hacking robots to fight for you, or briefly made you invisible to bypass security systems. Non-sandbox games designers aiming for freedom should concentrate on gameplay.
Deus Ex and D.E Invisible War had pretty good branching paths. Human Revolution not so much. I don't think. The end sequence monologues philosophical meandering made the last Matrix movie seem like the ABCs.
Witcher 2 did it best I think. Depending on your early choices, you experienced entirely different maps later on. For me, that's what makes a branching game truly branching.
Witcher 2 did it best I think. Depending on your early choices, you experienced entirely different maps later on. For me, that's what makes a branching game truly branching.
Or you can do none of that, kill Vivec, forge the Wraithguard with the help of the last remaining dwarf, and sort shit out yourself. While it's true the ending is the same it's still a huge departure from the main questline. My only gripe is that there was no option to join Dagoth Ur or take his power for yourself.trunkage said:
The term "branching storyline" or "branching path" definitely seems to be a mistake in this particular form of game. As Yahtzee poitned out, when the story is kept as linear as a film would be, the alterations one can make do seem to be superficial at best. A more appropriate term for this form of game design might be a "divergent storyline/divergent path" style. When I hear the term "branch" I naturally think of a tree branch, where limbs sprout off at intervals, leading off in their own direction, perhaps having additional limbs before eventually each coming to their own end point. They don't constantly loop back in on themselves (not normally anyway).
I think the term "divergent storyline/path" would be more appropriate and less misleading here. The way the game seems to progress is like having a hallway that goes in one direction, while occasionally having a divider come up that splits it in two (perhaps more, but usually just two). Each sub-hallway is parallel to the other(s) but each one has a few different features, like maybe one has some pictures hung on it while another has carpeting, etc. But they all go in the same direction, still following the main hallway and eventually converge again at some point down the line, with additional dividers someplace further down the hallway that do the same thing. Eventually the hallway comes to an ending common area with two or more doors on the far side.
If this is how a game developer decides to structure their game, personally I think that's fine. But they shouldn't make it sound like their game fully embodies the butterfly effect when all the various paths you can take habitually reach a mutual desitnation. Like if a game had a moment where it forced you to determine which of 2-3 team mates to save before you pursue the primary antagonist to his hideout. The team mate chosen may determine whether you chase him in a helicopter or in a speedboat (because one's your pilot and one's your sailor) but you're still going to end up at the island stronghold regardless and chase down the big bad for the final showdown. Maybe in the ending scene just before you shoot the villain and send him falling into the active volcano, you might flash back to the team mate who died and will say "This is for..." and then say their respective name, but in the end Evil Mastermind still gets the sacrificial virgin treatment. The ending, in all relevant ways, is the same, the epilogue still has you visiting a grave, and all that's changed is the name the sculptor had to chisel into the headstone.
While I don't want to reopen old wounds, looking back I think this relates strongly to the backlash of outrage over the Mass Effect 3 ending. The devs made that game's "branching storyline" and its multiple endings one of its major selling points, arguably its biggest. ABut ultimately it only had three, which were all identical in appearance save for a color scheme and a few NPC cameos. I think, and this has probably been said before, in which case I agree with whoever said it first, the problem was less with the number of endings and more about the lack of effort to give the players DIFFERENT endings for going to the effort of deliberating and making hard decisions, many of them about characters they might have become pesonally invested in. I don't like the fact fans tried to demand a new/different ending; I believe in artistic integrity and whatever an artist decides to do, that's their choice to make and they shouldn't cave into peer pressure and compromise their artistic vision to appeal to the masses. That's how we get the design-by-committee, fast-food style drek that's dull as dirt.
But on the same note, I don't think whatever choice the artists' DO make should be immune to criticism. If they make a bad choice, they should get called out on it, and touting "branching storypaths" and whipping people up with the promise of multiple, vastly differing climaxes, only to fob people off with a half-hearted cop-out is a serious fuck-up. Yeah it would have been a big task to come up with three unique endings and a selection of epilogue clips that might play depending on which decision you made at this or that point. But this is Mass Effect 3 we're talking about; the ending to (and I may sound a bit like a fanboy here, but I've only played a bit of ME3 multiplayer, so that doesn't count for me, I'm just going by the series' legacy here) an epic sci-fi trilogy with a huge dedicated fanbase. The ending to a series like that deserves to be a titanic effort. It NEEDS to be a titanic effort; you don't end an intergalactic oddessy where the fate of galaxies hangs in the balance on a single firecraccker. You end it with a full 20-30 minute fireworks show with a brass band playing.
So long story short, I have to agree with Yahtzee; if you're going to tell everybody you're doing a branching storyline, actually make it BRANCH. Otherwise, just pick a plot and stick to it.
I think the term "divergent storyline/path" would be more appropriate and less misleading here. The way the game seems to progress is like having a hallway that goes in one direction, while occasionally having a divider come up that splits it in two (perhaps more, but usually just two). Each sub-hallway is parallel to the other(s) but each one has a few different features, like maybe one has some pictures hung on it while another has carpeting, etc. But they all go in the same direction, still following the main hallway and eventually converge again at some point down the line, with additional dividers someplace further down the hallway that do the same thing. Eventually the hallway comes to an ending common area with two or more doors on the far side.
If this is how a game developer decides to structure their game, personally I think that's fine. But they shouldn't make it sound like their game fully embodies the butterfly effect when all the various paths you can take habitually reach a mutual desitnation. Like if a game had a moment where it forced you to determine which of 2-3 team mates to save before you pursue the primary antagonist to his hideout. The team mate chosen may determine whether you chase him in a helicopter or in a speedboat (because one's your pilot and one's your sailor) but you're still going to end up at the island stronghold regardless and chase down the big bad for the final showdown. Maybe in the ending scene just before you shoot the villain and send him falling into the active volcano, you might flash back to the team mate who died and will say "This is for..." and then say their respective name, but in the end Evil Mastermind still gets the sacrificial virgin treatment. The ending, in all relevant ways, is the same, the epilogue still has you visiting a grave, and all that's changed is the name the sculptor had to chisel into the headstone.
While I don't want to reopen old wounds, looking back I think this relates strongly to the backlash of outrage over the Mass Effect 3 ending. The devs made that game's "branching storyline" and its multiple endings one of its major selling points, arguably its biggest. ABut ultimately it only had three, which were all identical in appearance save for a color scheme and a few NPC cameos. I think, and this has probably been said before, in which case I agree with whoever said it first, the problem was less with the number of endings and more about the lack of effort to give the players DIFFERENT endings for going to the effort of deliberating and making hard decisions, many of them about characters they might have become pesonally invested in. I don't like the fact fans tried to demand a new/different ending; I believe in artistic integrity and whatever an artist decides to do, that's their choice to make and they shouldn't cave into peer pressure and compromise their artistic vision to appeal to the masses. That's how we get the design-by-committee, fast-food style drek that's dull as dirt.
But on the same note, I don't think whatever choice the artists' DO make should be immune to criticism. If they make a bad choice, they should get called out on it, and touting "branching storypaths" and whipping people up with the promise of multiple, vastly differing climaxes, only to fob people off with a half-hearted cop-out is a serious fuck-up. Yeah it would have been a big task to come up with three unique endings and a selection of epilogue clips that might play depending on which decision you made at this or that point. But this is Mass Effect 3 we're talking about; the ending to (and I may sound a bit like a fanboy here, but I've only played a bit of ME3 multiplayer, so that doesn't count for me, I'm just going by the series' legacy here) an epic sci-fi trilogy with a huge dedicated fanbase. The ending to a series like that deserves to be a titanic effort. It NEEDS to be a titanic effort; you don't end an intergalactic oddessy where the fate of galaxies hangs in the balance on a single firecraccker. You end it with a full 20-30 minute fireworks show with a brass band playing.
So long story short, I have to agree with Yahtzee; if you're going to tell everybody you're doing a branching storyline, actually make it BRANCH. Otherwise, just pick a plot and stick to it.
Games like The Walking Dead, Life is Strange, and Beyond: Two Souls are all games that really just boil down to choices at the end that can be made regardless of how you've been handling the story up until that point. I mean, the running joke about Tell Tale games is that the phrase 'x will remember that' seems important, but it really, really isn't. I think that's why I had so much fun with Tales From the Borderlands, since it had a self-aware sense of humor about all of that.
What I really hate is when one choice is obviously either good/noble/self-sacrificing or bad/evil/extremely selfish. It's like games don't know how to write in that in-between space that makes up most of life, and in titles like Mass Effect, there's really no benefit to riding the middle-line. Even more disgusting is when you're presented with a choice like the final, binary decision at the end of Life is Strange, where there is a choice that the developers obviously want you to make...
What I really hate is when one choice is obviously either good/noble/self-sacrificing or bad/evil/extremely selfish. It's like games don't know how to write in that in-between space that makes up most of life, and in titles like Mass Effect, there's really no benefit to riding the middle-line. Even more disgusting is when you're presented with a choice like the final, binary decision at the end of Life is Strange, where there is a choice that the developers obviously want you to make...
I've basically been saying exactly this ever since Mass Effect, and even moreso since Life is Strange. LiS heavily advertised the "consequences will matter" but in the end, you get a nightmare/vision sequence where it judges you for your choices but the entire game is ultimately down to one of two choices. And it's a very grand moral dilemma of a choice, but my choices throughout just didn't mean a damn thing.Yahtzee Croshaw said:
I've been telling my friends that in order for this kind of thing to work, these games need like NINE different endings. Maybe then it will feel like my choices will matter.
There was once a plotline to join The Sixth House (I think it was called? It's been years) but was cut due to deadlines and such.SmallHatLogan said:
I've been hesitant about getting Banner Saga (just for money reasons). How long would you say it is? Was it good?Nazrel said:
I would argue that Walking Dead Season 2 actually had something significant as it has three or four very different endings. Now while it hinged more on what happened near the end of the season (Episodes 4 and 5), it still branched significantly.Sheo_Dagana said:
I just finished a replay of that game. What boss fight are you talking about? Brayko? Or mr "Imma sit here in my tower and spam grenades and sniper shots at you while flooding you with goons" near the end of the game?Quellist said:
Anyway, I DO have to concur that Alpha Protocol does a fantastic job making so many of your choices (like which missions you do in what order) all feel like they matter, whether it changes up the story a bit, or whether it just gives you a cool game-long buff that benefits you somehow.
...I also love how they really seem to have though some things through
I love how (if you've impressed the villain enough) you have the option to literally agree to work with the villain, hand over the disk with all the evidence, and then at the end go "oh yeah, actually, I don't need you after all. And that disk? It's actually a bomb" *BOOM* XD
I fully agree with the people who have mentioned Alpha Protocol. It was quite a funny moment when I had finished the game and was asking myself what that one face on the DVD-box was doing there, considering I had never met her in the game. ;-) I love that AP didn't make a fuss about that. In general, Obsidian just handled the dialogue and most of the reactivity very elegantly.
Other than that, most games that handle C&C well handle it differently. Some people will only ever mention whatever they consider big, very obvious changes in the story, but personally I have usually been more impressed with consistent reactivity. What I mean by this is regular feedback to dialogue-choices, character-buidling-choices, gameplay-choices and so on. Alpha Protocol wouldn't have been nearly as impressive, if the lower-level reactivity hadn't been there. It surely isn't just the branching that makes it feel reactive. Smaller changes in dialogue or gameplay are probably less costly to do and as a result can be done more regularly. In my opinion it's far more believable and immersive to do it that way. Even if you can pick between two different storylines, that's still just a choice between two - often starkly different - options. There's often a lack of middle-ground and if there is lack of the more immediate moment-to-moment feedback to the smaller things (race, gender, dialogue-choice, this or that skill etc.), it will still feel rather static. It's one reason why I also think that offering a good amount of dialogue choices, even if they vary only a little and have little to no impact on gameplay, is important (obvioulsy hard to do when everything is voiced). Having that one option that feels just right for you is worth quite a lot.
Other than that, most games that handle C&C well handle it differently. Some people will only ever mention whatever they consider big, very obvious changes in the story, but personally I have usually been more impressed with consistent reactivity. What I mean by this is regular feedback to dialogue-choices, character-buidling-choices, gameplay-choices and so on. Alpha Protocol wouldn't have been nearly as impressive, if the lower-level reactivity hadn't been there. It surely isn't just the branching that makes it feel reactive. Smaller changes in dialogue or gameplay are probably less costly to do and as a result can be done more regularly. In my opinion it's far more believable and immersive to do it that way. Even if you can pick between two different storylines, that's still just a choice between two - often starkly different - options. There's often a lack of middle-ground and if there is lack of the more immediate moment-to-moment feedback to the smaller things (race, gender, dialogue-choice, this or that skill etc.), it will still feel rather static. It's one reason why I also think that offering a good amount of dialogue choices, even if they vary only a little and have little to no impact on gameplay, is important (obvioulsy hard to do when everything is voiced). Having that one option that feels just right for you is worth quite a lot.
The main issue with having a game like this with any significant amount of money behind it is when you later on decide to make a sequel, and while there are very few games that do manage to actually figure out how to handle that kind of thing, most of them settle for an unsatisfying resolution/execution of resolution (deus ex 2 actually tried to combine all of deus ex's endings but screwed up), or in one particularly spectacular case, actually almost succeeded at handling all of the branches in a competent and compelling manner, and then takes a full, piping pot of metaphorical hot coffee and dumps it in the player's lap in the last moments of a very long trilogy, undermining the entire basis of everybody's (developers, artists, writers, players, publisher, and the relevant tertiary trappings) combined efforts, attention, choices, and money in the span of five minutes.
The hamhanded efforts of many a developer who tries to attempt 'artistically' ending it with "your actions never mattered" stops working after so many other past games have done the same thing with different stories, all of which were not building towards that conclusion.
The only game that DOES work towards that conclusion STILL HAS DIFFERENT ENDINGS (Stanley Parable).
The hamhanded efforts of many a developer who tries to attempt 'artistically' ending it with "your actions never mattered" stops working after so many other past games have done the same thing with different stories, all of which were not building towards that conclusion.
The only game that DOES work towards that conclusion STILL HAS DIFFERENT ENDINGS (Stanley Parable).