Wyatt Paulk from Gamer Professionals writes, "Gaming currently struggles to tell fresh and compelling stories. We’ve raged, triumphed, and even cried with the stories being told in these games. Players have grown accustomed to expect a certain roller coaster of emotions when playing a game. Now, creative leads must expand past basic tropes if they wish to impress the common gamer. A few recent games met this goal (Undertale, Firewatch, and The Last of Us). However, many high-profile games tried and failed (Destiny, Call of Duty, and Assassin’s Creed) to deliver a lasting narrative. These games tried to deliver a story they were incapable of doing and ended up creating an incomprehensible plot of stringed ideas, barely held by a thread. Many people believe that the backgrounds or the way these games play doesn’t allow for good storytelling, but in reality, the fault lies in the fact that developers don’t want to risk making a poor story."
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Everyone cares about money to some extent. Without money you're literally starving on the street.
You think he doesn’t realize that? You think literally anyone doesn’t realize that?
Wukong's recent rework caused a spike in both popularity and win rate which resulted in many players being very unsatisfied with his current state in the game, claiming that he's almost impossible to counter.
I believe that these bland story arcs need change and it could be done simply if developers took more risks in storytelling.
Some very interesting points there. I think stories don't need to be unique but different would be good. Some of the games you mentioned simply have a bad story, they don't need to be ground breaking and unique but if they simply put effort into them it would have turned out better. There are some small games which have fantastic stories because their simply interesting.
It's not all bad - Wild Hunt, Life is Strange and Quantum Break all told great stories in unique ways (curiously all three feature time travel/manipulation), so it's not as though AAA storytelling is dead... Uncharted 4 and Final Fantasy XV are on their way, as well as the Witcher's 'Blood and Wine' expansion, then there's Horizon: Zero Dawn and Mass Effect Andromeda in 2017 and Cyberpunk in 2077 (probably)!
That said, the indie scene has produced the likes of Brothers, Undertale, Her Story, Gone Home and everybody's favourite tear-jerker, Goat Simulator (RIP)... it's probably easier to tell a 'risky' story without EA looking over your shoulder (probably explains the huge number of ex-Bioware devs forming their own indie studios) - although EA did just publish 'Unravel' and Mirror's Edge looks like it could be decent, story-wise.
A good story's a good story, however it's told... excluding interpretive dance and mime, of course.
Lets be honest, most games have generic stories, the focus is on the gameplay. Once in a while comes a gem like The Last of Us, Silent Hill 2, and Final Fantasy(not recently though) who are better than movies. These become more than just games.
Developers also aren't writers, so forcing some of those guys to "create a story" is kind of like asking for a sandwich without anything but bread.