Narratives in video games have come a long way. Text-only games like Colossal Cave Adventure and Zork, point-and-click stories such as King's Quest and Monkey Island, the grand scales of Mass Effect and Dark Souls, the moral conundrums of The Walking Dead and Life is Strange--all have evolved the concept of interactive stories by changing how we approach them, think about them, and exist within them.
As a writer, I spend absurd amounts of time scrutinizing the form of stories across all mediums. Video games are perhaps the most versatile. There are considerations to telling stories in any medium, such as crafting unique prose for every narrator in a novel, to the framing and colorization of shots in film and television. Video games can do that, and more. They can feature text as memorable as any novel, cinematics on par with Hollywood's priciest blockbusters, and symphonic scores that move you as powerfully as anything composed by Hans Zimmer, Danny Elfman, Klaus Badelt, or Lesley Barber.
The one ingredient that separates video games from every other storytelling medium is interactivity. That ingredient changes everything.
Life is Strange, an ongoing narrative-centric franchise published by Square Enix and crafted by Dontnod Entertainment and Deck Nine, deftly combines interactivity with other storytelling devices. The result so far is three of the most compelling narratives in gaming. They are entertaining, but they also challenge the staid idea that a video game must, by definition, be a game--that is, be "fun." They can also force us to get up close and personal with experiences that make us uncomfortable, and change the way we see the world, others, and ourselves.
From Chaos: The Aspirational Storytelling of Life is Strange was written with story in mind. Developers from the studios responsible weigh in on the series' success, and its ups and downs. Story unifies all three games and their episodic chapters. Here, you'll learn how every aspect of design was made in service to introducing you to Max, Chloe, Rachel, Sean, Daniel, Frank, and other beloved characters so that you could not only learn their stories, but, through them, learn more about your own.
