10 Storytelling Clichés In Video Games That Need To Die

Video games can get real lazy in their storytelling, falling back in clichés we’ve experienced a thousand times before. Clichés so well-worn and familiar, in fact, that you can probably guess what’s going to happen before it occurs. These are the absolute worst clichés in video games – you know, the ones that really need stop, like, right now.

[ERFO]

H

[ifrit_caress]

A game should tell the story well, and that involves using the cliché/tropes effectively while working with your original idea.

[Activemessiah]

Or.. you could just stop playing games and let others enjoy it. :/

[ShadowWolf712]

>Whatculture
Oh boy, this is gonna be a doozy.

Edit 1: Just started and 10 is already just plain dumb. Death in games has been going on for ages and it often serves a distinct purpose. It can be overdone, sure, and you can argue that. But... to boil it down to "kill the cutie"? That's not near as common as people think, especially these days.

Edit 2: Number 8 is just plain nitpicky and generalizing. Sometimes that's pointless, sure, other times not so much.

Edit 3: Uh... backtracking? The moment you can't go back to get something you forgot or were driven forward on a linear path people complain they're playing a "corridor" game too, so... idk man, pick your poison there.

Edit 4: They just said a Resident Evil boss mutating makes no contextual sense. I'm so done and we're not even half done yet.

[ShadowWolf712]

Edit 5: And with Number Five they basically say all open world games need to die by nature of giving you stuff to do outside the story quests.

Edit 6: And 3 makes even less sense. It's an attempt at a callback to an unrelated earlier problem too. I get sudden stupidity in your crew can be done badly, but the final mission of ME2 certainly wasn't an offender in that department. So long as you had the right people in the right positions it went fine. Put someone in the wrong position and people die. This is not badly handled, it's actually pretty realistic and an evaluation of how well you know your team.

Edit 7: You're complaining that what turns out to be multiple Xenomorphs that can move through vents and track via sound and scent can find you in a game? I get this is a legitimate complaint at times, but it's, for one, kinda key to horror, and for another, Alien: Isolation is not an offender.

Edit 8: and finally... fiction needs to stop being fiction and stop making the protagonist important. I... have no words.

[Lamboomington]

we need to go deeper

[RabbitFly]

This article is absolutely terrible.

With the exception of number 6 and number 2, none of his reasoning make any logical sense. Even if some of the other entries on the list holds water, they would be hard pressed to be considered cliche's as most of these are sparsely used things that are usually considered above par storytelling in games. Worst part is probably that the author doesn't even seem to know what storytelling means as quite a few of the entries would be bordering on gameplay-design, not storyline.

[Kubark]

He doesn't know what he's talking about in regards to Titanfall 2.

[goldwyncq]

Terrible.

This reads like a college freshman's first attempt at writing a critique, but goes way too far and ends up making a complete ass of himself.

Because someone dying in a story is a cliche now apparently.

What a pretentious twit.