2. How do you feel about the present state of storytelling in video games, both in terms of narrative maturity as well as how effectively writers and developers use the mediums’ unique properties?


I’m increasingly happy with it. I feel that narrative design is a respected element in games today, and the voice cast and scripts coming out of games is beginning to rival those coming out of major Hollywood studios. It’s been a fascinating thing to watch over the past 10 years, and I believe KOTOR1 lead the charge by having one of the first fully voice-acted role-playing games, so kudos to BioWare for making that happen.
 
Also, this is something that we strive for at Obsidian, but part of our narrative pre-production process is outlining the game’s themes in advance and examining how those themes matter to the player. As an example, when we approached the Fallout: New Vegas DLCs (notably, Dead Money), one of our themes was clearly player greed and what it takes to combat human nature to achieve cooperation, even if it’s against your will (the bomb collars). The main antagonist’s frustrations in Dead Money are against human nature and what he needed to do to subvert human nature to reach his goals… it’s fair to say that when he’s venting at the player during the DLC, he’s speaking with my perspective.
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