Storytelling in Open World Games, Part 2

In my <a href="https://dreamertalin.medium.com/storytelling-in-open-world-games-e73b0bc1b1b" rel="noopener">earlier article</a> on storytelling in open world games, I focused primarily on story arcs and quests. In this segment, I want to drill down on the details of writing character dialogue. Much of the gameplay in an open world game entails interacting with other characters, particularly in conversation. A compelling dramatic experience requires that we empathize with the characters in the story, and one of the best ways of learning about those characters’ troubles is to talk to them. (A note on terminology: in my own work, I use the word spelled “dialogue” to represent a body of spoken text, whereas the word “dialog” refers to a dialog box, a pop-up user interface element.) <h2>Finding the character’s unique voice</h2> An important challenge for a writer of any prose, not just computer games, is creating characters that are interesting to listen to, ones that have a distinctive “voice”. Even for a character whose only reason for existence is to inform the player of certain important facts, the dialogue must be something more than just a dry “info dump”. For medieval fantasy games, this often involves characters speaking in archaic accents (apparently all Dwarves are Scottish now) or using antiquated phrasing. But a more subtle, and often more effective, way is to allow some of the character’s feelings to color the content of the text. I once read a book on dialogue which advised writers to never give a straight answer to a question. For example: <a href="https://dreamertalin.medium.com/storytelling-in-open-world-games-part-2-c1409fee2606">Learn More</a>