Storytelling in gaming, or a love letter to Portal 2

WARNING: This post will contain massive spoilers for Portal 2. If you’ve not played or finished the game, avoid this like the plague!

Are you sitting comfortably? Then I’ll begin.

This week I’m mostly going to be talking about Portal 2, partly because I’ve just played it (and loved it), but mostly because it’s going to help me prove a point I want to make about the way storytelling is handled in games.

The vast majority of games today seem to plonk themselves in front of the consumer with little or no story at all. Instead they get by on their gameplay mechanics and flashy graphics, and as slick as they both may be, it’s not really enough.

However, there is a small group of games that is bucking this trend and showing us just how it’s done in the game industry. The most recent of these, of course, is Portal 2.



When you break the game down, it doesn’t seem like much. Mute protagonist solves puzzles in stark testing rooms while omnipotent AI taunts her. It’s the way that Valve have fleshed out the story around this situation that makes Portal 2 and its predecessor, Portal, that really makes it special.

So, how do they do it? The problem with games is that it’s just so difficult to get plot across to the player. You don’t have the luxury of huge blocks of text, like novels do, and you can’t take control to show lengthy cut scenes in the style of a film or you’ll bore your audience senseless. There are plenty of examples of these happening (Hi, Metal Gear Solid), but Portal doesn’t. Instead, it relays the story of Aperture Science through the gameplay itself.

The important rule they have stuck to, that any writer knows and should have tattooed onto the inside of their eyelids, is ‘show, don’t tell’. One of the best examples of this is when the game explores the entire history of the facility from the 1960’s to the present day. To do this, the game literally drops you at the bottom of the salt mine the facility resides in, and you play your way through the ancient test chambers, witnessing the downfall of the company and its crazed CEO first hand. It’s powerful, fascinating and above all, interactive.



The gameplay isn’t everything though. There’s also the matter of the script. Games are notorious for their dire scripts and voice acting (Hi Resident Evil) but no one seems to have told Valve this. They have gone for quality over quantity, with only two main characters with major speaking roles, with talented actors voicing them. Ellen McClain is incredible as GLaDOS, somehow expresses the complicated rage of her character through the guise of a computer.



The final aspect of storytelling in gaming, and what makes it so unique, is the participation of the fans. Within hours of a game being released, forums are lit up with discoveries of Easter eggs and hidden gems within the story, and theories and ideas about what the gamers have just experienced. Sometimes this throws up completely bonkers theories (Caroline and Cave Johnson being Chell’s parents, anyone? Yeah, thought not), but if a game has driven the player to dig deeper and discover more layers to the plot for themselves, then we can proclaim it a success as a storytelling medium.

Yes, this is really me harping on about ‘games as art’ again, but I think we really need to highlight issues like these within the industry. Portal 2 is an example of just how it can get it so right, and we can only hope the rest follow.