Author: Lauren Brady

Distilling the history of storytelling in video games into one or even multiple articles is an enormous task. Video games have evolved as a valid art form that stands alongside film and TV in their cultural influence on the 21st century. This, in part, is down to the strength of storytelling that games are now capable of conveying.

They’ve evolved from simple interactive experiences to ones that heavily rely on nuanced narrative to weave their magical worlds. In this first part of a two-part series, we’ll be talking about the evolution of storytelling in video games and the necessity to convey this in making your first impression.

A marriage made in heaven

Long before the advances in graphics and cinematic storytelling, story took the form of text adventure games. 1976’s Colossal Cave Adventure was amongst the first of its kind. Games like this offered a completely different experience to their precursors, such as Pong or Asteroids. There, the gaming experience was limited to the novelty of being able to control a few pixels around a TV screen, with only the slightest of back-story. In the absence of any visuals, more was left to the player’s imagination. It laid the groundwork for interactive entertainment in which previously unexplored fantasy worlds could be woven with complex narratives.

Inevitably, advances in graphical capabilities led to more visual games that attempted to build on these narrative-driven experiences. These included the point-and-click genre, which would go on to host many LucasArts classics, such as ‘The Secret of Monkey Island’ in 1990, or Sierra Entertainment’s more risque Leisure Suit Larry series.

The arrival of the SNES, and its 16-bit graphics, meant that storytelling could slowly ramp up. 1991’s Final Fantasy IV was the most narrative-driven entry yet, with set characters that had their own names, character arcs, and conclusions. All of these successfully melded gameplay and storytelling.

Into the mainstream

Today, storytelling within gameplay has reached the masses. Games have the ability to stir emotion and draw the player into their multi-threaded narrative. Much like the Hollywood ‘tentpole’ blockbuster movie, a strong narrative is just as important as the visuals.

For a while in Hollywood, strong storylines often played second fiddle to the advances in CG, resulting in movies that, while visually compelling, lacked emotional engagement. Games, on the other hand, have always had to work much harder with their storylines in order to make up for the comparatively poor visual experience. However, things have changed and come a long way since the advent of Pong and subsequent text-based adventures. Games perfectly marry compelling storylines with state-of-the-art visuals.

Which is why game developers should always be contemplating the ways in which a game can successfully be distilled into a trailer without giving too much away.

A successful ‘announcement’ or ‘launch’ trailer is one that can convey the complexity and depth of a game’s storyline without spoiling anything. The trailer is a perfect means to tease the viewer – particularly effective if your game is the latest in an ongoing series in which players are already invested in.

What you should end up with is a succinct, pre-rendered trailer that encapsulates the essence of the game. Having a successful trailer – one that encapsulates the storyline with compelling visuals – is a craft in itself and not one that should be left to chance.

But the storytelling doesn’t end there. In the next part, we’ll be talking more about storytelling in video games and the advances in in-engine cinematics.

At REALTIME, we know how important story is, not just to the game, but to its trailers. When we work on a new project, we believe the story is what people will remember. If you would like to discuss working on your next project, please contact me at [email protected].

The games industry has always strived to be on an equal footing with Hollywood. Over the decades, the battlegrounds have always been fought on the playing fields of graphics and visual effects as games fought to be taken seriously as a valid medium in their own right. With games having now financially eclipsed the movie industry, the journey has been a long road to achieve the lifelike cinematic experiences we enjoy today.   

A critical step in reaching this level was delivering life-like digital replicas of actors – the opportunity to add ‘star power’ to a game was once the holy grail in competing with Hollywood and one that the games industry would not give up on lightly. However, it was a rough journey – just ask Pierce Brosnan’s digital double from the N64’s GoldenEye or Max Payne from the eponymous series, a man who looked like he had been hit in the face with a shovel. But as technology developed so did our ability to generate more detailed likenesses which, in turn, has allowed us to create emotive characters, leading to the opportunity for more emotionally engaging narratives.

The past

While digital doubles in video games are nothing new, it’s only since the advent of the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 that the technology has become powerful enough to move beyond badly pixelated representations of action stars in (usually) poorly received licensed games based on the latest blockbuster. It was during this generation of consoles that motion capture technology came to the fore, ultimately opening the doors to more nuanced ‘performance’ capture techniques that are so prevalent today.  

Master of performance capture, Andy Serkis, brought his acting talents to the PS3 exclusive Heavenly Sword, and later multi-platform title Enslaved: Odyssey to the West. Having already forged a solid reputation for his captured performances as Gollum in The Lord of The Rings, being able to attract such heavy-weight acting talent added a new level of gravitas to the medium of games. These games proved that Hollywood and movies did not have a monopoly on cinematically-driven narrative and that there was a role for not only great acting in games, but that it could compete for the best star talent. But, of course, Hollywood is driven by ego, and in order to attract the ‘star’ names, the technology would need to advance to the point where actors would not only be ‘acclaimed’ for their performance but also ‘recognisable’.

Advances in photogrammetry, as used to great effect in this War Thunder: Heroes trailer, have enabled the likenesses of real-world actors to be digitally re-created. As in this case, the actors were scanned in order to digitally transport them to another world that would have otherwise been too costly to recreate – World War II. In this instance, the technology was used to capture freeze-framed emotion but can be used effectively to deliver more performance-driven pieces that leverage the star power of known actors. Even in the absence of photogrammetry, it’s still possible to recreate the likeness of famous talent. The Game of Thrones: Winter is Coming Trailer (which RealtimeUK produced for Yoozoo Games, just sayin’) was created using assets that had been created from photo-reference by our talented team of in-house artists.

The present

The use of performance capture in video games is continuing to increase, as has the use of Hollywood actors. Ellen Page, of Juno and Inception, was the main character of Quantic Dream’s Beyond: Two Souls. 2015’s horror-hit Until Dawn recruited the likes of (now Oscar-winning) Rami Malek, Hayden Panettiere, and Peter Stormare – all of them instantly recognisable within the game.  

Perversely, the lines between games and movies and TV continues to blur, with the technology being taken to a new level in the highly anticipated new game from Hideo Kojima, Death Stranding. The game’s trailer not only features heavy-weight acting talent in Norman Reedus and Mads Mikkelsen but also features Oscar-winning director Guillermo del Toro making an appearance in the trailer – surely a Papal blessing for games as a medium.

Games are coming full circle – Whereas once games were trying to emulate movie experiences, they are now arguably leading and driving movies and TV forward – something so evidently demonstrated by Netflix and their Black Mirror ‘Bandersnatch’ episode which allowed the viewer (or ‘player’) to determine the outcome of the story.

The future

The ability to digitally recreate an individual’s likeness and have them give a convincing performance is leading to all kinds of opportunities – some exciting and some daunting. Again, as ever, it is games technology that is driving the way forward, with all (square) eyes now on UE4. Once the preserve of games, UE4 is being used to create digital doubles that are closer to real life than ever before. 2018’s demo of Andy Serkis performing a monologue from ‘Macbeth’ is shown to use both his own likeness and that of an alien – both rendered in real-time using UE4. Nothing so expertly demonstrates the flexibility and potential for captured performance.

For a long time, games were viewed as being a poor cousin to that of TV and film. However, the advances in technology, initiated and driven by the games industry, are now challenging that of TV and film. Just as games now push into the boundaries of TV and film, RealtimeUK is actively pursuing its own future in this rapidly evolving and exciting area. The recreation of lifelike digital doubles that take advantage of the technologies we have been exposed to over our many years in working with the games Industry is just one of a number of exciting opportunities that our clients can now take full advantage of.

RealtimeUK can turn the real into the unreal, with stunningly-accurate recreations of famous faces. Our expertise with the Unreal Engine and various other methods makes us the obvious choice for your next project. Get in touch with me today at [email protected] to discuss more.

GDC 2019 remains one of the Games Industry’s most important global events in which the great and the good of interactive entertainment descend en masse to the San Francisco’s Moscone Center and surrounding hotel lobbies for a frantic week of networking and learning. As well as providing an opportunity to preview the future vision of gaming from some of the biggest names in the industry, it’s also a great way of seeing some of the more obscure and esoteric creations. Whilst some of these may not go onto enjoy huge levels of commercial success, they nonetheless remain a showcase for the industry’s huge appetite for innovation and creativity.

2019 was a stellar year, kicking off with a huge fanfare from Google who have laid bare their vision to seemingly disrupt the $135bn USD (and growing!) industry. They have bet big on Streaming, presenting a vision in which the ‘middleman’ of advanced hardware is removed, and ‘AAA’ games are streamed pretty much instantaneously to any device. Billed as the ‘Netflix’ of gaming, the ‘Stadia’   presentation painted a bold picture for the future of gaming which seemed to suggest the death-knell of consoles.  Its slick presentation was technically impressive, building a solid case for what could potentially be the biggest disruption to the gaming since pong. Phil Harrison, Google’s Vice President and the man charged with leading the way with ‘Stadia’ demonstrated the platform with great aplomb, moving seamlessly from device to device, each of which was running Ubisoft’s ‘Assassin’s Creed’ at an impressive 1080p at 60 fps and with no lag. With the games being streamed from its data centre, the platform promises ubiquitous gaming experiences with the ability to switch between devices mid-game.

With no hardware acceleration needed, the only device you seemingly need is the simplistically designed controller which looked minimalistic in design, if not a little bland. Once the dust had settled, a degree of scepticism began to creep in, with concerns about the level of wi-fi connection the player would need to enjoy the full experience. Google have been quick to point out that as the service is streaming from its own data centres, it won’t be subject to the same problems of other cloud-based games streaming services that have fallen by the wayside.  To help bolster confidence, Google claim that if you can enjoy a good YouTube experience, then this will work for you. Indeed, Youtube integration will be a key selling point and benefit to the platform, with players able to click on a link following a game trailer (one of ours preferably ? ) to instantaneously experience the full game for themselves.

The platform is the holy grail of gaming, and one that builds on the continuing digitalisation of entertainment. First Music, then Video, the promise of being able to enjoy ‘AAA’ gaming experiences without the need for expensive hardware is a real game changer and one that may promise to further blur the lines of entertainment.  In the last year, REALTIME’s automotive team has made its own small contribution to the building of assets for Amazon’s ‘Grand Tour’ game in which viewers of the popular TV show can jump into a game and virtually experience the cars that have just featured in the episode they have just watched. ‘Stadia’ can potentially take this idea to the next level, leveraging the world’s most popular video streaming site to provide viewers with experiences that extend the worlds and stories beyond those they have just experienced as a TV show or film.

It’s a premise that was seen in the indie game ‘Stranger Things 3: The Game’, which was also announced at GDC 2019. Realised as a beautifully retro ‘80’s style isometric game, its style is a perfect fit for the show and one that you could imagine a non-gaming TV viewer being tempted to play (at the click of a button) at the end of each episode. In light of the 4K quality that Stadia is promising to deliver, It’s not difficult to see how the entertainment sector could further benefit from ever growing alignment between Games and TV & Film.  Assets created for TV & Film could easily be adapted for Games and vice versa. Given some of the exciting projects our own Film and TV division have been working on of late, we for one hope this will eventually become a reality.

Assuming they overcome the scepticism of connectivity that many people shared, Google’s Stadia and game streaming, has the potential to dramatically move the Industry forward. It’s a further democratisation of games and has the potential to welcome an entirely new audience who had hitherto been daunted by the need to invest in expensive hardware. With the potential to further blur the lines between ‘Video’ and ‘Games’, the ‘AAA’ gaming experience looks set to blossom further in a new age of expanded visual storytelling.