In defence of: linearity

Down the only road I've ever been down.

Every now and then there develops a trend in the world of gaming. Usually it spawns from something good and imaginative, just like any cliche, only to become repetitive and overused in no-time flat. In the early 2010's this was the fabled 'Multiple ending'. For a good few years it was genuinely considered lazy not to shoehorn some sort of branching ending into your game, even when such was completely superfluous to the main story. If you don't believe me on that, do you remember how Call of Duty Black Ops 2 had multiple endings? That's right even the big boy in the playground, Mr "Too big to fail", succumbed to the trend of passionless multiple endings for fear of looking silly amongst his peers.

It was all pretty ridiculous when you think about it, as imbuing a story with multiple endings doesn't automatically give that story depth. (Just look at Black Ops 2.) Usually, all this amounted to was the player having a slight choice thrown towards them near the end that'll slightly changed the ending cinematic. (Ohhh, how branching!) It never should have caught on in the first place, but there were so many big games successfully pulling it off that creatively bankrupt publishers felt it their civic duty to conscript developers into manning low effort rip offs. Games like GTA V, 'Deus Ex: Human Revolutions' and Dishonored, all featured multi-choice endings and all enjoyed some sort of critical and/or commercial success. However, in my opinion the one which really sold the concept to the world was Mass Effect 3. Say what you will about that ending, the main game was nothing short of a gaming cultural phenomenon. Everybody knew that Mass Effect was wrapping up in a grand way and people were just buzzing about the 'every choice matters' promise that many convinced themselves had been made. Replicating that would take effort, most publishers realized, but multiple endings could achieve the same effect simply and with gusto.

During this whirlwind of a fad, there was one obvious casualty amidst the gaming archetypes of the age. Namely, those games that choose to go for a single ending. This was the age in which such a direction in design was considered a crime towards creativity, and all those that were guilty of such would be labelled with that most damning of brands; 'Linear!' I'm being serious, look back on games of the early 2010's and check reviews from all the trusted critics. Almost all of them would bring up the phrase 'Linear' and use it as a pejorative to throw at the game. Afterall, games are all about empowering the player, so if you don't account for that one time they punched a jellyfish in the face and bring it up in the ending, you're stifling the player's freedoms! (Or at least, that's what I assume the logic was.)

The thing which always got to me was the fact that there is nothing inherently wrong with being 'Linear' with your story. In fact, usually that isn't a sign that you lack the creativity to expand out your story, but more that you posses the focus to fully realize your intended story. Many great games from around this time were all out attacked for their linearity despite handling it incredibly deftly. Sure, there's some overly noir moments in 'Max Payne 3', but the linear story was a blast. (I still maintain that game was the closet we ever came to a good Die Hard game). Assassin's Creed Brotherhood met with some grumblings in this regard despite being arguably the best written (and in-arguably the best paced) entry in the series. And even 'Bioshock: Infinite' only managed to get people to say that the story was 'good, for a linear title'.

Everytime I saw a review like that I would just grimace and bear it, confused by this mass hysteria that I fundamentally didn't understand. Even back then I could see how multiple endings for video games rarely lived up to the promise they made, if not now then in the future. Who remembers the GTA V ending? (Spoilers) That ended with Franklin being given the choice to off Trevor or Micheal in order to save himself. (And, of course, there was the option to rally against the man handing this ultimatum and risk everyone. Guess which ending everyone choose.) Whilst this initially looked interesting, in hindsight it was really rather shallow as the only ending which makes any remote sense is the one in which they kill off Trevor. You know, the guy who's insane antics got them in this position to begin with. The other two endings felt nigh-on nonsensical (Like the one in which Micheal opts to kill himself rather than be saved by Franklin.) or a bit too cleanly wrapped for a tale about 3 murderous bankrobbers. (It's a setup.)

That isn't even the worst of it. Just look at those games that were praised for offering those genuinely distinct endings which inexplicably granted real power behind the player's decision; Like 'Deus Ex: Human Revolution'. That was a game which placed itself in a precarious situation by being a prequel, in that it came from a franchise renowned for it's branching endings and yet would have to adhere to the state of the world in the original Deus Ex. To solve this, the writers ended up focusing on a supremely important but underexplored portion of the original game's lore, The Illuminati, and focused that final decision around them. This allowed for a final choice that gave the player the power to change the world in significant ways without retconning anything. (Supremely clever!) So what was the problem? Well, 'Human Revolution' was a huge success and warranted a sequel. So what did Square Enix do? Simple, they invalidated their own endings and choose one for the player in order to facilitate a franchise. (One which they then bundled with the narratively underwhelming 'Mankind Divided') So that shows you how much those 'multiple choice endings' are worth when it comes up against making money.

At the height of all this nonsense, there was one legendary linear narrative driven game that proved how one could follow a single storyline and still be caught up in the moment. (Something that shouldn't have needed to be proven, but here we are.) This of course being the story of Neil Druckmann's The Last of Us and way it used the setting of a post apocalypse to tell... well, the kind of story that the post apocalyptic genre was created to tell. (It's actually surprising how many zombie stories mistakenly make it about the zombies.) This absolutely shot through the gaming award shows of the age and won award after award for storytelling, all without giving us a red, green, blue scenario at the end. In fact, the game even has the guts to have the protagonist enact a highly controversial action at the end of the story that players have no recourse to prevent. Allowing for a powerful moment to remain powerful instead of doing what Rockstar did with GTA V. (That finale would have actually been somewhat poignant without the choices.

Obviously I disagree with the labelling of 'Linear' as a pejorative and feel that more modern games shouldn't be afraid to tell one story that they know how to tell. Nowadays the problem isn't quite as widespread as it used to be, it's almost a novelty to get multiple endings in a triple A game today; but Horror games are still very much beholden to it. (Even 'Fnaf: Help Wanted' had multiple endings. That was just a VR game, for god's sake!) I'll always maintain that it is stupid and contrived to artificial force any storytelling element into a narrative that doesn't require it, and the sooner that lesson takes hold in the industry the sooner we can start improving the net quality of video game storytelling.