Why all western game developers now call their adventure games and visual novels as "narrative games"?

[Vetusomaru]

Why all western game developers now call their adventure games and visual novels as "narrative games"? Sounds pretentious and cringe as hell.

 

[Ryab]

Why all western game developers now call their adventure games and visual novels as "narrative games"? Sounds pretentious and cringe as hell.

Likely just as a method to better explain the theme it is going for. When people thing visual novels they think 99% text. When people think Adventure they mostly think gameplay.

 

[Latiodile]

When people think Adventure they mostly think gameplay.

i have an old-school view on this, when i think adventure i think "point and click game that's super cryptic so you have to click everything and combine everything with everything to progress"
personally i don't consider adventure games "gameplay" based

 

[Vetusomaru]

When people think Adventure they mostly think gameplay.

No, they don't. Adventure games always focused at story and cinematic experience.

Post automatically merged: Oct 2, 2023

i have an old-school view on this, when i think adventure i think "point and click game that's super cryptic so you have to click everything and combine everything with everything to progress"
personally i don't consider adventure games "gameplay" based

Not to mention all these cryptic "puzzles" that literally make no sense.

 

[Ryab]

i have an old-school view on this, when i think adventure i think "point and click game that's super cryptic so you have to click everything and combine everything with everything to progress"
personally i don't consider adventure games "gameplay" based

In the modern day they tend to be. The meaning behind the genre has skewed quite a lot.

 

[The Catboy]

Probably being pretentious and cringe

 

[Ryab]

Probably being pretentious and cringe

I'd say as time goes on that the definitions and expectations of a genre heavily skew over time. Generally new sub-genres form to accommodate for this.

 

[Veho]

With all the gaming genres blending and bleeding into one another, as most popular gaming mechanics get incorporated into all newer games, old naming just doesn't cut it any more so new terms and shortcuts are made to describe them.

Someone once said "Story in a game is like story in a porn movie. It's expected to be there, but it's not that important," and there is a crap ton of games, wildly successful games, that prove this true.

So "narrative game" is used to say a game's story is a major driver of game progress, and not just an optional framework to string a bunch of levels together.

And you will find games described this way in a whole bunch of genres.

If you search for the "best narrative driven games" you'll get some wild answers.

https://screenrant.com/best-story-driven-games-all-time-ranked/

(This also goes to show that half the gaming industry has no idea what they're talking about.)

Anyway, I couldn't find any game that was explicitly labelled a "narrative game" and not by their own genre. Do you have examples?

 

[Kwyjor]

There was endless debate at one time over what constituted an "adventure" game. Is Zelda II: The Adventure of Link an Adventure game? Is Adventure Island an Adventure game? Is 2600 Adventure an Adventure game? Far more elegant to call a narrative game what it is.

(And then there's the absolute disaster regarding what constitutes an "RPG".)

 

[Vetusomaru]

Is Adventure Island an Adventure game? Is 2600 Adventure an Adventure game?

Nobody have ever debated that. Lol.

 

[Luke94]

Like reinterpreting words one of former Epic Games employees for instance nowadays Cliff Bleszinski that they are more like live-action movies video games/computer games I mean?