原文作者：Kim Belair 译者：Megan Shieh

近期我和一位同事就代入感这一问题进行了讨论，当时谈论的是一款特定的游戏。游戏内容是这样的：主角的爱人被残忍杀害，此后他在游戏的世界中游历，意图报仇雪恨。我说这故事情节挺通用的，人们应该会产生共鸣，我的同事却摇了摇头。他说：“大多数情况下，‘为爱人复仇’并不是我们所有人都能感同身受的。但这会让我们联想到自己爱护的人受到伤害的场景，以此来利用我们的肾上腺素。”

在开始阅读这篇文章之前，你必须了解一点:我清楚地知道，并不是每款游戏都试图带我们踏上叙事之旅。例如，许多的多人和小队射击游戏允许我们在没有衔接性故事情节的情况下进行快速地战斗，我绝不是在暗示说我们需要改变这一点。

Fire watch（from gamesindustry.biz）

这篇文章所谈论的是那些有着明确的开头、中间和结尾，要求我们扮演主角来进行一场冒险之旅的‘开放世界’和‘步行模拟类’游戏。

利用肾上腺素作为驱动剂

制作3A游戏的风险很高，某些赌注甚至高达上百万美元，这些投资的合理性需要由数以百万计的玩家来证明。这意味着游戏的剧情必须得能够激励整个受众，由无数不同的背景和生活经验构成。但更重要的是在DLC时代，故事情节和微交易必须具备将玩家留在游戏中的能力。

这对于所有开发者而言都是一个巨大的挑战，对于一个叙事团队来说，这意味着创造出一款全球性、通用的、能让所有人都产生代入感的游戏。如果所爱的人受到迫害，战争使得我们生命垂危，这时你会怎么做？当被问到这种问题时，我们立马就能产生强烈的代入感。我之前提到过，游戏生产中的冒险行为通常与游戏预算成反比（预算越大，敢于承担的风险就越小，反之亦然），但在这里我们可以很清楚地看到：大型游戏需要敢于冒更大的险，建立更大的目标。

像复仇、救援、拯救世界这类的剧情，都能立马影响到全球玩家的肾上腺素。正因如此，重磅电影往往是拥有巨大布景的高成本动作片，而不是比较安静，能够引人深思的片子。但我在想，我们是否已经变得如此沉迷于灾难和不幸，以至于不知所以，不断地尝试着提高成本，却得不到任何真正的回报。玩家还没来得及了解主人公的亲人，我们就已经开启了对他们的杀戮。我们告诉玩家再过72小时就是世界末日了，却希望玩家能够在游戏里待上80多个小时。

步行模拟类游戏

与高能量、以肾上腺素为中心的3A世界截然相反的体裁是“步行模拟器”类游戏（例如《Firewatch》）。这些游戏几乎不包含战斗的场景，更多的是观察和互动，在大多数情况下，你不能杀人或被杀死。这类游戏要求玩家多花时间来了解剧情，并探索游戏中的世界。有时我希望市面上能有更多类似的游戏——让我有足够的空间去做自己想做的事；在这些游戏中，我并不是被迫采取行动，而是出于自愿和好奇。

那么，为什么这种叙事手法在主流游戏中如此罕见呢？作为玩家，如果我能够通过慢慢摸索来揭开整个故事，何必要急着作出选择？刚开始写这篇文章的时候，我采访了Ubisoft Montreal的叙事处总监Darby McDevitt，他最著名的作品是《刺客信条》——一个包含大量动作、谋杀和灾难的系列游戏。我问他是否觉得提高赌注是3A游戏的必要条件，这是我们的唯一选择吗？

他回答说，与其说是叙事失败，不如说是一种“过度依赖于游戏机制的自然产物”。绝大多数开发者认为叙事应该根据玩家对游戏机制的参与度来向前推动，所以如果游戏中的唯一互动控制是射击或干架,那么这往往会是一个通过暴力‘解决’的故事。”

当然，没有什么比暴力更能激动人心了；然而McDevitt完美地阐述了我的忧虑:“你不太可能在一个设定为开放世界的游戏中使用传统的叙事技巧，除非你把游戏剧情也做成开放性的。”

开放世界的难题

对肾上腺素的依赖在开放世界里可能是最无用的，而且还带有一个缺点: ludonarrative dissonance（注：ludonarrative是由原LucasArts创意总监Clint Hocking提出，意指游戏故事与玩法之间的冲突）。我们似乎在很大程度上无法将主故事的紧迫性和严重性与动作、危险、逆境结合起来，开放世界游戏将自由放在优先考虑的范围内，并让玩家根据自己的的速度前进。我们在克服线性流程的过程中，在地图上曲折绵延。

在开放世界游戏中， 玩家往往会扮演一个具有背景故事的主角。例如：孩子的家长。孩子被绑架对于家长来说是最可怕的事情，而这类事件需要主角投入全部的注意力。游戏让我们相信这个被绑架的孩子是主角的全世界，利用这点来贯穿整个游戏，将它作为玩家玩游戏的理由。这是驱动玩家前进的动力，也是为解决问题而奋斗的动力。

然后呢，到了开放世界以后，我们就会遇到一个素未相识的人，而且他的车还不出所料地坏了。他会要求我们帮助他找到X多的木头来换取X多的钱。你可能会想说：“WTF？我的孩子生死未卜，你叫我帮你修车？？？？”。然而我们的选项通常就只有YES，然后浪费掉一天（游戏时间）来帮这个陌生人解决它的傻X问题。

在这种情况下，如果我们要想方设法地放慢玩家的脚步，那么最初又何必把玩家的搞得心急火燎呢？如果我们的意图是让他们花费30+小时的时间去慢慢探索其他的选择，那为什么还要去创造一个依赖于紧急情况的前述叙事呢？

这涉及到我们时常思考的一个问题，“如何才能让玩家按照我们的意愿采取行动？”答案是：我们必须保证某些事情会发生。这让我不禁思考，我们大家是不是都卡在这里了？还是我们都只原意选择现成的解决方案——带有故事情节的暴力游戏。无论如何，我经常遇到这种情况：投入28小时在一个游戏里，然后抬头一想“我本来是要干嘛来着？”。啊，对啦！给我的家人报仇…这个时候我报仇的热情早就被修车之类的事情给浇灭了。

撰写这些情节的情况差不多是这样的：

问：“怎么才能让玩家走进厨房？””

答：“他们要是好几天没吃饭，快饿死了，而厨房里正摆着一份的美味热狗，那肯定就会走进厨房。”

问：“完美！但怎么做才能让他们一直呆在厨房里不出来呢？厨房里还有啥？”

答：“各种各样的美食。”

有的人从头到尾都不会去吃那个热狗，而我们会对此感到疑惑。上述问题的解决方案其实很简单：让玩家知道自己饿了，因此去查看厨房，从而找出解决方案。但对肾上腺素的执着告诉我们，‘不行，玩家一定得饿得半死’。我们声称角色需要X，但我们却以毫无意义的方式来满足这一需求。结果角色的背景故事就变得和角色本身扯不上什么关系，玩家就会意识到所谓的挣扎并不是真实的。因此，我们需要取得更好的平衡。

取得更好的平衡

Sean Vanaman是步行模拟类游戏《Firewatch》的作者之一。故事前提是这样的：面对患有阿兹海默症的妻子，主角亨利(Henry)接受了一份火情观察员的工作，隐退到了森林里，以这种方式来逃避现实。这种前提很独特，把玩家塑造成一个需要花时间思考并探索身边世界的人，而不是糊里糊涂地就开始作出选择。当故事背后的秘密开始浮现，节奏加快时，这是一个明显而重要的转变。我问Vanaman，他的团队是如何在允许探索和自由的同时，指挥玩家前进的。

“游戏中的第二天，当你在森林里徘徊，寻找可能纵火的叛逆青少年时，我们通过关卡设计、步行/跑步速度和角色的谈话速度来步量完整‘一天’的节奏。期间会有很多事情发生，有大事件也有一些小事情。我们从引擎内部改变了周围的环境画面，从心理层面对玩家产生影响。不需要惊心动魄的动作序列，一件极小的事情就能对玩家的能量产生巨大的影响，这就是我们想做的游戏。”

那么，我们该怎么做呢？答案很简单，但很难实现，因为它需要许多开发人员无法轻易负担的东西——相信自己作为故事作者的能力。我们可以轻易选择激动人心的动作类故事，但这并不是唯一的选择。我们可以设计和制作故事，以其他的方式激励玩家:人类的好奇心，对探索的渴望，以及前进和实现目标的欲望，甚至是战斗和杀戮的欲望，都可以比我们认定的那些桥段更具驱动力。

回报

近几年来，我们在这个领域里目睹了一些非常成功的3A游戏。《Grand Theft Auto》就是一个很好的例子，在游戏的主世界里，玩家可以自由地释放自私、暴力的一面，而这也与游戏中的主要体裁相匹配。还有今年的《Zelda: Breath of the Wild》，主角Link失去了记忆，玩家需要帮助他书写记忆并建立世界，然后通往最终的战斗。

尽管如此，所有的这些仍然是以打斗为基础的游戏，因此还有很多能够带来其他能量的机制正在等待开发。我想要看到更多尚未被发掘的东西，玩更多让我觉得舒适的游戏，让我感觉毫无束缚的自由，而不是因为什么都无关紧要所以觉得自由。

如果我们后退一步，减少对肾上腺素的依赖，可能就会找到其他可以驱动玩家的东西，了解他们在毫无负担的时候，移动、探索和实现的方式。这不仅能带来更好的故事；了解可以驱动玩家的不同方式，将帮助我们打开一个充满新机制的世界。

Darby McDevitt的阐述言简意赅:“通常我们将玩家的背景设置为‘前警察’，‘角斗士’或‘超级英雄’，等等。但是如果我们足够勇敢，会将他们设置为‘医生’或‘清洁工’，根据这些角色来开发有趣的机制。我可以轻而易举地想到更多基于这种格式的故事驱动游戏……问题是谁有这么大的胆子来冒这个险？”

本文由游戏邦编译，转载请注明来源，或咨询微信zhengjintiao

Adrenal fatigue

I was speaking to a colleague recently, about how we relate to the protagonists we’re asked to play. We fell onto the topic of a particular title, in which a loved one is killed and you travel the game world seeking revenge. I said this seemed fairly generic, but that I supposed that it was ultimately relatable, and he shook his head. For the most part, he said, “setting out to avenge a loved one isn’t really something any of us can relate to. It just capitalizes on those hot rushes of adrenaline we get when we imagine someone hurting a person you love.” I replied that he should please write an article about this.

He didn’t. So here’s mine.

Before I begin it’s important to make a distinction: I understand that not every game is seeking to take us on a narrative journey. Many multiplayer and team-based shooters, for example, give us the rush of fast-paced combat without a round-to-round arc, and I’m in no way suggesting that we need to change that. These are essentially sports, and the competition with other players (or bots) provides all the engagement we need. I’m not expecting Call of Duty or Overwatch or Rocket League or FIFA or Tetris to chill out and let their stories breathe.

Instead, I’m looking at games that have a defined beginning, middle and end, and ask us to embark upon an adventure as the protagonist, with a focus on open world games and “walking simulators.” This is because I am a AAA video game writer increasingly interested in innovative stories, and when my colleague said that we “capitalize on those hot rushes of adrenaline,” it struck me as a sanity check: could we be making better games if we weren’t so concerned with front-loading our stories with the highest possible stakes?

Adrenaline as Motivation

As a writer, my job isn’t simply to tell a compelling story; it’s to tell a compelling story that centers the protagonists and, yes, compels them to move forward. (Subjectivity vs Objectivity). In AAA games there are millions of dollars at stake, relying on millions of players to justify the investment, and that means that one story has to motivate an entire audience, made up of myriad different backgrounds and life experiences. But more than that, in an age of DLC, episodic content and microtransactions, it has to motivate players to stay in the game.
For developers of all kinds this is a massive challenge, and for a narrative team it means creating something that feels global, universal. Something to which we can all relate. When asked what we would do if someone hurt or killed a loved one, or if war threatened our way of life, we feel it immediately.I’ve spoken before about how risk-taking in game production is often inversely proportional to game budget, but here we see it very clearly: big games need big stakes and big goals. Avenge. Rescue. Save the world. Adrenaline is instant, universal motivation.
And that’s great! Sometimes. It’s the same reason that blockbuster films tend to be big-budget action movies with huge set pieces, rather than anything more contemplative and quiet. But I wonder if we’ve become so addicted to cataclysm and catastrophe that we’re getting ahead of ourselves, and constantly trying to up the ante without seeing any real returns. We’re killing protagonists’ loved ones without getting a chance to know them in life. We’re swearing that the world will end in 72 hours, while hoping players will stay in the game for 80+.

They’re good games, Brent

When it comes to games that play with different and more unusual mechanics and “smaller” stories, independent studios produce the lion’s share. Among them, the genre that stands as the polar opposite of the high-energy, adrenaline-focused AAA world is the “walking simulator.” They are largely combat-free, more about observation and interaction than pure action, and in most cases you cannot kill or be killed. But they also ask us to explore. They ask us to take our time, and to learn a little more, and to spend time in the world. Those are actions. And at times, whether in a game like Firewatch or What Remains of Edith Finch? or even the most terrifying walking simulator of all time, the now-defunct P.T., I’ve wished aloud that more games would allow me so much space to do what I want. In those titles, I am not being forced into action, but I take it of my own volition, motivated by curiosity and discovery.

Why is it so rare, then, to see this sort of storytelling in more mainstream games? Why do I need to be shoved into action when I can explore, and uncover the story myself? When I started this article I spoke to Darby McDevitt, a narrative director at Ubisoft Montreal who is perhaps best known for his work on Assassin’s Creed, a franchise that certainly doesn’t shy away from action, murder and the apocalypse. I asked him whether he felt that raising the stakes was a necessity in AAA. Is this all we can make?

He replied that it was less a narrative failing, and more an, “outgrowth of our over-reliance on a narrow battery of game mechanics. In the best and worst games, most developers assume that a large portion of the narrative should be propelled forward by the player’s active engagement with the game mechanics, so if your only interactive levers are shooting or swinging a sword, the story – more often than not – is going to be a story that can be ‘solved’ via violence.”

And of course, nothing gets the blood pumping like violence. But McDevitt goes on to raise something that perfectly elucidates my concern: “it’s [nearly] impossible to pace an open world game with traditional narrative techniques, unless you make the open-ended quality of the game part of the story.”

The open world dilemma

Open world games might be the area in which our dependence on adrenaline fails us the hardest, and brings back an old enemy: ludonarrative dissonance. We seem largely unable to marry the urgency and seriousness of a main story kicked off with action, danger and overwhelming odds, with an open world that prioritizes freedom and going at one’s own pace. In our quest to beat back linearity, we’re meandering all over the map.

In these games, we play characters who have, for example, had their child kidnapped, perhaps the most terrifying and tragic event that can befall a parent, and one that demands undivided attention. We are to believe that this child is their whole world, and the raison d’être for the entire campaign. It is the motivation for us to push ever forward, and fight our way to the resolution. But then, once we are in the open world, we meet a random man on his way to market, and wouldn’t you know it, his cart lost a wheel! He asks us to help him out by finding X pieces of wood in exchange for X currency. And instead of replying, “What? My child is missing, are you serious?”, we say yes and spend an in-game day helping a stranger with his inconsequential problem. In these cases, what was the point of trying to rile the player up, if we were only going to ask them to slow down? Why bother creating a premise dependent on urgency if we’re simultaneously hoping they spend 30+ hours exploring other options?

It seems the answer is that we mostly ask, “What would make the player do X?”, and answer right from the top shelf: we have to make sure this happens, or else. It makes me wonder whether we’re collectively stuck, or if it’s simply a matter of seeking the easiest solution to the problem of connecting high-octane, often violent gameplay with a story that justifies it. Either way, too often do I find myself 28 hours into a game thinking, ‘Wait, what was I doing again? Oh right, avenging my family’, with all the enthusiasm of a person who has just walked into their kitchen and forgotten what they intended to get.

Although, isn’t that what we’re doing to players? By writing these kinds of plots, we’re doing something like this:

Q: ”What would make the player walk into the kitchen?”

A: ”They’re starving! They haven’t eaten in days and there’s a hot dog in there.”

Q: ”Perfect. But what’s going to keep them in the kitchen? What else is there?”

A: ”Every other food.”

We wonder why some people never get around to the hot dog. The problem above could be solved by simply stating that the player is hungry and ought to check the kitchen and figure out a solution, but our need to use adrenaline as motivation insists, ‘No, they must be starving’. We claim the character needs X, but we don’t back that need up in any meaningful way. The lesson becomes that the character’s story has no bearing on the character’s world, that the stakes aren’t real. We need to strike a better balance.

Striking a better balance

Sean Vanaman is one of the writers behind Firewatch, a walking simulator. The premise is that the player character, Henry, is processing his beloved wife’s descent into early-onset dementia, and has retreated into the woods by way of taking a job as a national park fire lookout. It’s a unique premise in that it sets the player up as someone who needs time to think and explore the world around him, and isn’t rushed into action. When the game’s mysteries begin to emerge and the pace picks up, it’s a palpable and important shift. I asked Vanaman how his team managed to direct player progression while simultaneously allowing for exploration and freedom.

“In Day 2 of Firewatch, as you’re wandering around looking for these antagonistic teens – and also, hopefully feeling like there’s more going on than meets the eye – we paced out that entire ‘day’ through level design, walk/run speed and the character’s conversation speed. There are a bunch of things that happen, some big moments (‘I’ve discovered something intense’) and some small moments, and getting a sense of how well we dole those out with the tools we have at our disposal is basically a measure of how well we can do our jobs as video game storytellers. We literally moved the triggers and level art around inside of the engine to modulate the heart rate [of the player]. We wanted to make a game where one little thing could make a big impact in terms of energy without needing some heart-pounding action sequence.”

It’s easy to dismiss this level of commitment as a necessity of the walking simulator format, and to suggest it can’t be applied to games where we want players to experience both complete freedom and a high-stakes story. But what is the value of freedom and action if it comes at the cost of immersion, coherence and relevant emotion? People are quick to scoff that walking simulators are just story, but they still seem baffled when the latest open world, AAA revenge fantasy thrill ride is criticized for weakness in its plot.

So what can be done? The answer is simple to devise but difficult to implement, because it requires something that a great many developers cannot easily afford: belief in themselves as storytellers. Yes, it’s easy to go for the gut-punch, the low-hanging fruit of explosive action and that ‘hot rush’, but it’s not always necessary. We can design and craft stories that motivate the player in other ways: human curiosity, a yen for discovery, and the desire to move forward and accomplish, or even, yes, to fight and kill, can be driven by more than the tropes we’re dead-set on using.

The payoff

In recent years, we’ve seen some major AAA success in this area. Grand Theft Auto is a great example, where the self-interested, violent nature of the player characters justify the action in the main world, and are well matched with the main campaign. And perhaps even more successful is this year’s Zelda: Breath of the Wild, where everything accomplished in the real world serves to rebuild the amnesiac Link, establish the world and eventually lead to the final battle. Even the latest entry in the incredibly strong Uncharted franchise – often cited for ludonarrative dissonance by having its charming, good-guy protagonist kill hundreds of people – did the series’ best job yet of justifying player action and balancing it with world interaction.

Still, all of those remain based in combat, so there’s plenty of work still to do when it comes to making mechanics that serve a different kind of energy. But it makes me want to see more, and to play more games that make me feel at home in the world; free in the sense that I can am unbound and liberated, rather than free because nothing matters.

It will take getting back to the storytelling DNA shared by AAA and indie titles alike, but I believe that moving in this direction is key to bridging the gaps we’ve created. If we step back from the edge a bit, and allow the adrenaline to ebb, we might learn what else can drive players, and the ways in which they move, explore and achieve when they are unburdened. The benefit won’t simply be better stories; understanding the different ways that players can be motivated will help us to understand what else they can do, and open up a world of new mechanics.

Darby McDevitt puts it succinctly: “Typically we just say ‘you’re an ex-cop’ or ‘a gladiator’ or ‘a closeted hero’ etc. If we were brave we would say, ‘our player is a doctor’ or a ‘janitor’ and we would develop fun mechanics based on these roles. I can easily imagine more story-driven games based on this format… but who is daring enough to make them?”

Given that in the past few months alone I’ve been a 20 year-old cat returning to her post-industrial town seeking friendship and solace as she copes with dissociation (“Night in the Woods”), a harried chef travelling back in time to save the Onion Kingdom with my cooking skills (“Overcooked”), a single dad looking for love (“Dream Daddy”), and a nervous partygoer desperate to find a cute dog at the party (Will Herring’s “Pet the Pup”), it’s increasingly clear to me how thinking differently about our motivations can open up new worlds. And as both a writer and a player, I hope that some of our biggest studios and most popular games can begin to do the same. （Source: gamesindustry.biz ）