Environments - Video Game: Storytelling - page 180

In-game cities are, for many level designers as well as the players them-
selves, virtual playgrounds for grown-ups.
However, populated urban environments can create a development
scope explosion of additional game logic, AI design, animation, and audio,
as the team labors to bring to life a city full of inhabitants who react be-
lievably to player actions and other unfolding events. This is especially true
when there is a desire to include residents who are not immediately hostile
to the player. When every NPC is an enemy, their reactions to the player
can be boiled down to a manageable possibility set. But in an initially neut-
ral or friendly environment, the expected range of behaviors—with poten-
tially implied AI, animations, VO lines, etc.—can skyrocket.
While it is not unheard of for a developer to incorporate a fully popu-
lated virtual city as a traversal and gameplay backdrop—à la the Grand
Theft Auto series—developers often choose to narrow their focus and de-
populate gameplay areas of most if not all NPCs that aren't enemies.
It's simpler to avoid the issue of dealing with so many living NPCs than
to have them present but not reacting to players' actions the way we'd ex-
pect them to. So, players often find themselves moving through some
place that used to be a populated and recognizable area, but is now
largely abandoned and often also severely damaged—sometimes due to
whatever ongoing conflict now dominates the location.
And the question that often hangs in the air, waiting for the player to
slowly unravel as he explores the area, is: What happened here?
Environment as Warning
An abandoned environment is one thing—but combining it with a calamity
of the past can help add a sense of foreboding and dread to a single mis-
sion's environment or even that of the entire game.
When Design wishes to de-populate an area, leaving no one (or only
hostiles) behind, a narrative conceit is usually developed to explain the
small number or complete lack of inhabitants. Here are a couple of the
most common ones seen to date.
▪ A disaster has occurred, killing nearly everyone and leaving behind
only twisted, hostile creatures.
▪ Seen in: System Shock, BioShock, Dead Space, Half-Life, Left 4
Dead, Fallout 3, Portal, Singularity, Prototype, Dead Island, The
Walking Dead: Season One