How to integrate your narrative team into a game’s design and avoid story being sidelined

Narrative shouldn’t be relegated to a “story wrapper” and should be better integrated into the development process, says game writer and narrative designer Kelsey Beachum.

Speaking during the opening talk at Devcom, Beachum, whose credits include The Outer Wilds, The Outer Worlds and Dying Light 2, amongst others, discussed the issues with sidelining the narrative department and story in game development. 

By treating narrative as just a ‘story wrapper’ – which she joked sounded like something you throw in the trash – ways of integrating story are less interesting than they could otherwise be.

One of the main ways developers integrate story is through dialogue in a unique screen or mode and through flashy cutscenes. Triple-A games often utilise these, with specific game examples including Resident Evil 4, Uncharted and Kingdom Hearts.

Beachum said narrative is a vital part of connecting the game and its core fantasy, and a powerful tool for helping build and structure a game.

Best narrative practices

Beachum had some key tips for how developers can avoid the story wrapper problem, better implement narrative in game design, and prevent unnecessary issues in production that could come up as a result sidelining it.

Some best practices for story include fewer cutscenes, as inviting engagement in narrative is vastly more interesting than forcing a cutscene on players, she said. Other tips included shorter dialogue, aligning key story beats with major gameplay moments, and ensuring story goals and gameplay goals are in agreement.

Beachum also said it’s important to make a story easy for players to understand and keep up with – but not obviously so – and that this is easier to achieve by connecting with other departments to see what they are doing as much as possible.

Meanwhile, as a writer, keep asking yourself what the best way to deliver a piece of information is, champion the player fantasy and push for its implementation across departments, don’t be too precious with story, and create good documentation.

Best team practices

As for team practices, Beachum once again said it’s important to be aligned on the vision of the game and the player fantasy. It’s an issue she said is probably narrative’s biggest blocker. By having clear design goals and having the narrative team’s input, it can create less work when matching them up later.

Other tips included ensuring that a studio gets a writer onboarded earlier. If you’re hiring one just when your game needs dialogue, it’s too late, she said, and now the writer has to play catch up or narrative surgeon. Don’t silo the narrative department, build narrative into pipelines, and try to cut story-demeaning language from the team’s vocabulary. 

For her final takeaway, Beachum said: “The less that story is kept separate from the rest of the game, the better both the story and the game will be.”