Related to Just Here for Godzilla and Better as a Let's Play. When the exact opposite happens, that's Enjoy The Story, Skip The Game. Often results in a different form of Developing Doomed Characters - nobody's paying attention to the story, all they care about is 'Shut up whoever you are'. Some (though not all) games fitting this trope may have an Excuse Plot that's not really meant for players to pay much attention to in the first place. Either way, the story goes unnoticed, since much of the player base finds it completely irrelevant to actually playing the game. Or it attracted a lot of players to whom the metagame is the main source of enjoyment. All too often, though, maybe the company's only 'mistake' was developing the story of a game designed around or played primarily for multiplayer, competitive, or online play. The story might be ham-handed and laughable, the cutscenes might be jerky and unconvincing. Unfortunately, most of the players didn't care. They clearly were trying for, if not greatness, at least competence. On the other side of the scale, some games are made with no plot at all or have the bare minimum of one - all the developers care about is the gameplay, and they see little-to-no need to give any narrative framework when they can instead focus entirely on Rule of Fun.īut then there's this: an especially unfortunate attempt where it is clear that the developers genuinely did spend a lot of time and effort on a game's plot. The amount of detail that goes into some games' storylines can rival a big budget movie or television series.

Some paint pictures of entirely new worlds with considerable background material and long and involved histories. Some games are sprawling epics centered about a cast of compelling characters and emotional twists and turns.

System shock 2 the many voice tvtropes