The closure of Irrational Games has undeniably sent ripples throughout the industry, both in the press and the development side. Many are surprised that a studio that saw so much critical success last year could fall like so many other developers have. Rhianna Pratchett (Tomb Raider, Mirror’s Edge, Heavenly Sword) does not think that narrative-driven AAA games like BioShock Infinite will be going anywhere. Their identity and the landscape may indeed change, however.
During the Game Developers Session (GDS) conference in Prague, we had the privilege of speaking with Rhianna Pratchett, an award-winning writer and narrative designer. Pratchett, who has penned some of the most memorable female protagonists like Nariko from Heavenly Sword, Faith from Mirror’s Edge, and Lara Croft from the 2013 Tomb Raider reboot, delves into the challenges and freedoms of writing for different media, AAA and indie games.
Complex? She literally made Lara Croft whine and have father issues for an entire trilogy
Groundbreaking...
"have father issues"
To be fair, that IS a complex... Just not the right kind, lol!
The dad stuff wasn’t entirely her fault.. She was given outlines she had to flesh out and not full freedom. from the article…:
“ And there were things that we kind of butted heads more on, particularly with Rise [of the Tomb Raider] because I wasn't a fan of the dad plot. I didn't really like her motivation being her father because it felt like that's often the motivation given to female characters and it's also motivation that's very prominent in the previous movies as well. And I would have rather it been about her own experiences in the first game and how that had changed during the second game. But sometimes you just have to do your job, you just have to find peace with it. And I kind of played around with my relationship with my father and kind of put some aspects of that and then that just made me feel better about it. And sometimes this is what you have to do.”
She never seemed that whiny to me given the circumstances.
If you’re a good writer you’d have been able to do that a little better but she didn’t
She was restricted sure but with what she had with an outline she didn’t do a good job
She’s not her father, she got work and into the industry a lot easier because her father was a great writer.
It’s nepotism basically
Female Commander Shepard is a way better female character then Lara Croft has been.
Meanwhile it seems that female characters across entertainment media are being dumb down. What they've done to the female characters in the Avatar adaptation is insulting.
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From Eurogamer: "Tomb Raider writer Rhianna Pratchett wants Lara Croft to have fewer father issues in the forthcoming next game.
Speaking to Eurogamer at last night’s BAFTAs, Pratchett confirmed she's not working on the newly announced title, but is "very excited to see what they do with Lara next".
"We had a really fun time evolving her character, so I would like to see probably less father issues," she said. "And that's coming from me!""
But...it was her shitty writing of Lara as a character that focused on the father/family issues in the first place
Rhianna wrote Lara to be a whiny, non assertive and just completely different to what people loved about her as a character in the originals and Legends.
I'd like to see a version where she has MORE daddy issues.
Maybe they could write a gentleman's club or two into the story and the plot could explore Lara's journey from exotic dancer to adventurous explorer. I mean right...right?! ;)
Makes sense. That explains the big boobs from the original games. You're on to something there
Writing is about homing your identity and threading it through the story. It means that the ready is ready to move on and make Lara behave different.
It’s not bad news, it’s good news.
It is projection. It’s fine to criticise yourself as a writer. You have to.
If she’s ready to move on and make the character different then that’s ok isn’t it.
Not every story needs to have a message, but there’s a growing trend of game creators making it very clear that their games have nothing to say about the subject matters they’re visibly encroaching on. But in avoiding the themes they’re dealing with, are these creators stunting their own medium?
Keep politics out of games, we don't need games start preaching to their player base and alienating fans. You can be both apolitical and still make a point, and I would say this even if the politics of the games were in my favor I still don't want it and people who actually play games, you know gamers don't want this bullshit in their games. So keep your orange man bad, your asking for pronouns, and your "diversity" out of my video games cause I just want to shoot demons in the face and drive a burning semi in a crowd of Los Santos pedestrians
Yes. You can have political themes without preaching. You can have politics in a game and have a commentary without taking a stance.
Developers seem to be ignoring that.
Bioshock was extremely political without venturing into the "woke social justice" nonsense that is infecting today's society. Just make it count for the story you want to tell.
Whatever the developer's intentions are really. Not every game should be for everyone and cater to as broad an audience as possible, I'd rather games be more decisive and interesting than just being safe and comfortable like a lot of modern games are. I don't think something like Mario or an arcadey game should get political, but something narrative based like an RPG or even a military shooter - go for it. Lead to a discussion
As long as its historical politics yes but identity politics along with other silly SJW nonsense just leads to product that no one wants to buy.
Agreed. I like what Rihanna said, that narrative driven games aren't going anywhere, but their scale may change". That's exactly what's happening now with games like The Division, Destiny, and Evolve. Being able to update your world without spending 100 million on a brand new sequel seems too compelling for a lot of Devs.
whether or not this move turns out successful, is yet to be seen...