Games need to end

 The unspoken rule.

World's worth exploring

I'd rather go and journey...

The other day I found myself exploring around the parts of my neighbourhood that I had previously never witnessed. It was an attempt to shake some focus back into my mind, ( I've had a hard time thinking straight of late) but I found myself engrossed in the act of exploring. Seeing new places and accidentally getting lost on a hilltop cul de sac (That place really needed better signage) was quiet the fun adventure to go on, and it really got me thinking about the times when games managed to illicit similar feelings as you explore their worlds, as well as the factors that make those worlds worth exploring.

Just to be clear, I'm not talking about what it is that makes open worlds worthwhile, (I've already covered that before, anyway.) but the elements of any game world, be it open or otherwise, that tickle your spirit of adventure. For me, this means a game which makes you want to look in every house and dive into every cave, not just for the promise of treasure but simply just to see what's there. Or even worlds that have you delve voraciously into it's lore to explore that world in a manner more favourable to folk like Otto Von Bismark. (God, even by my standards that's a dumb reference.) Of course, that means that this blog will likely be highly subjective and my views may differ from your own, but as long as I get you thinking about the topic I'll consider this a success.

For me there are a few factors that go into making an interesting gameworld. One of which would be creating a world that rings with authenticity. Now, that doesn't necessarily mean that world must be accurate, (Most games suffer in their attempts to be accurate) but it must feel like a world/society that obeys to it's own rules. This can come down to doing something as extensive as writing lore for that world, to something as simple as providing little continuity snippets that explain the mundane things in the world. Neglect these can make your world feel very surface level or too 'game-y' to make you want to dive in. I know it sounds silly, but part of the reason I couldn't enjoy the beautifully crafted gameworld of Assassin Creed 2 without an objective was due to these little annoyances. 'Why did guards put your wanted sign up ontop of buildings?' Questions like that kept nagging me and breaking my immersion before it had a chance to form.

On the otherhand, when games do put in that extra effort to ensure that the world is beholden to some rules, even if those rules are weird, it can really resonate with the players. 'Beyond Good and Evil' is a mostly average adventure game with a fairly interesting story that gets less intriguing the further you pursue. The game is a huge cult classic, however, such to the point that Ubisoft are hard at work making an incredibly ambitious looking sequel. (Which they then intend to ruin by turning it into a live service.) For my money, the wide spread fame of the game came down to the incredibly vivid and unique world that you find yourself inhabiting. Huge sentient Rastafarian shark mechanics stick in the mind of the player much more than an enthusiastic but unremarkable fighting system. (To clarify, I refer to sharks that happen to work on mechanical objects, rather than indepth coding for a race of Rastafarian sharks. Although I would be curious to see how that idea would play out for the long awaited 'Jaws 3: The game'. Wow, my reference game is whack today.)

Another aspect of game design that really elevates the product, in my opinion, would be the scope of that world. I'm not talking about how big the playable game world is, rather than how big the ingame world is. Oftentimes it's the parts of the world that we don't experience and only hear about that really bring the story to life. Just hearing tales about the lawlessness of the 'Terminus systems' in Mass Effect 1 was enough to spark the player's imagination. You didn't even see a Batarian in the entire game (at least not in vanilla) so all we had were stories about an entire race of bandit aliens who famously slaughtered and enslaved an entire colony. Mass Effect was full of universe building snippets like this that made the wider world feel alive and existing beyond the direct actions of the player. (Which is where, I believe, 'Mass Effect: Andromeda' went wrong.)

Of course, as I mentioned in my lore blog, all of this can only serve as a addendum to what you have built up in the main game. All these extra world details are useless if the world that the player gets to explore is empty and uninteresting. Just look at Bungie's Destiny. That game built itself around the themes of legendary heroes and mysterious unknowable acts of heroism. Unfortunately, that ended up meaning that the entire main game was full of meaningless self-important dialogue and nothing substantial for the player to get themselves involved in. The famous tagline for the game was 'Become Legend', but in truth all you spent your time doing was hearing about other people who became legends whilst doing boring back and forth fetch quests. Just as with all things, lore must always be implemented with a sense of balance.

Visual diversity is also something to keep in mind when designing a game world. There is nothing more soul crushing, for the viewer, than being running through the same looking environments for several hours on end. That's part of the reason why I hate sewer levels, or any themed level for that matter, they ask you to withstand the same visual palette until it makes you nauseous. (Which is something that 'Shadow Warrior' actually did for me with it's sewer level.) Now I know that this seems to be more of an issue that is related to the 'appealing' aspect of a game world, but you'll find that it's a rock to start a landslide. If the area you are experiencing is visually appealing then you'll be more inclined to stick around and want to explore it. Bioshock's Rapture is an entire city that is made up of bathysphere-like glass domes that all reside underwater, yet the area still manages to encourage curiosity due to many factors, one of which being the range of visual diversity. Apollo Square is realized as a lowlass tenancy, whilst Nature's Bounty is an old fashioned fishing port and Arcadia features a whole underwater forest. Despite boasting a consistent location and a general art-deco design convention, the place manages to be diverse in a way that inspires and encourages curiosity.

A lack of visual diversity can suck out the feeling of life in the playable world. Oftentimes most storydriven games seek to take their players on an adventure and if the beginning areas of the game look identical to the closing areas (And it's not part of a dramatic convention i.e. 'Claptrap's New Revolution') then it can be hard to reconcile that promise of adventure with the experience you just underwent. Take the base game of the original Borderlands, for example. Most of that game took place in an area know as 'The Badlands' which, much as it sounds, was Mesa-like environment with an abundance of rocks and sand. Now that's completely fine for the introductory few minutes, but by hour 15 your eyes will start to get bored of looking at faded out yellow and brown everywhere. Luckily Gearbox recognized this for DLC and future titles. (Although Gearbox Australia apparently didn't get the memo when they made 'The Pre-Sequel'. Oh look, it's more moon...)

Painting and theme-ing the world is only one part of the battle, however, things really get interesting when it comes to filling that world. Although this is primarily a struggle that open world's work to face, anygame must endeavour to fill it's dead air with clutter. There is no one way to go about this practise and it can take many different forms; sometimes you'll dabble in environmental story telling, whilst other times you'll be working on narrative cues or just simple flavour material. Bringing all of these things together help to create an immersive environment that keep players hooked long enough to wonder what is around that corner. Games like the upcoming Cyperpunk 2077 have pushed this even further by enlisting bands to fill the world with original music to fill the gameworld's airwaves. This encourages people to listen into music tracks they hear, not just because they may enjoy the song, but because it paints a picture of the wider game world. Bethesda did something similar in Fallout 4 with Lynda Carter's singer character; Magnolia, and 'Dragon's Age: Inquistion' boasted a whole bevy of bar shanties that I still find myself humming. (Sera was never an agreeable girl...)

Oftentimes it can be all too easy for the devs in charge of clutter to focus on being functional and forget about or ignore immersivenss. This is completely fine when we are talking about a game that is focused on guiding you through it's events like Battlefield and Call of Duty campaigns; but you likely won't find yourself coming back to those levels to take a look around. Walk into a room full of waist-high objects and red barrels and it can be hard to buy into the fiction of the world and want to explore. Again, it all comes down to the type of game you want to make.

The ability to explore the worlds in which we play is one of those aspects unique to the medium of gaming that makes it so transcendent, in my book. That is why I commend and celebrate any developer or genre that exemplifies these efforts and pushes their artform forward through them. Companies like CD Projekt Red, Rockstar and Bethesda create entire realities that feel as real as the one we face every day and I find that to be one the highest forms of art. Maybe you agree there or maybe you look for something entirely different in your games, either way, I'm sure we agree that those games we consider special are the ones that manage to get us to boot them back up again, after everything's said and done, just to see what we might have missed.

FOMO

You gonna miss out...

Whilst watching game reviews at 2:00 AM in the morning, as I am often wont to do, YouTube's 'impeccable' recommendation algorithm figured me out enough to feed me an advertisement of a game. Tickled, I decided this would be the first one, in a long while, that I didn't immediately skip. Plus, it was a new 'Ghost Recon: Breakpoint' trailer, so I'm always down to see what's happening in Tom Clancy's military-obsessive world. The Ghost War trailer looked interesting enough, although they seemed to tease some Battle Royale elements in there which was typically eye-rolling, but that isn't the focus of this blog. You see, tucked in there right at the end of the trailer was a little notification I hadn't noticed before, "Play 3 days early with the Ultimate Edition". Oh Ubisoft, not you too...

It instantly got me thinking about all of the ways in which the AAA market have sold consumers on their transparent 'play-first initatives'. And no, I'm talking about Early access games or those that release in pitiful pre-alpha states, that's the topic of a different blog. I am referring to those times in which game developers and publishers have sought to capitalize on the innate consumer desire to be the forebearer, by teasing such players into a deal. It seems like part of the marketing machine nowadays and it's an interesting phenomenon that I want to take a look at.

The first time I fully noticed this was years ago when I had saved up the money to get my first seventh generation console. All the way up to the store I was torn between what console I should buy, going back and forth over the benefits of each (which simply meant looking at what games each had to offer.) Once I got there, however, I saw an absolute must have for any gamer; 'Grand Theft Auto: Episodes from Liberty City' affixed with a sign that read 'Only on Xbox'. "Well my decision is made for me" Naive me, thought "Xbox will have to be the choice". Of course, the truth of the matter is that the game was merely a timed exclusive and would be branching out in time, but I didn't know that, I was just a foolish consumer who fell for the Microsoft-pushed marketing ploy.

Console timed exclusivity have been pushing this sort of 'buy my console' agenda forever. Although, I will come to their defence and say, it's a better practise than outright exclusivity which sullies potential opportunities for the consumer. (Although I imagine the respective developers get a lot more money for it.) This was an effective strategy in the fact that, most consumers who are desperate to play a game will balk at the idea of waiting a year to play how they want, a new console just seems easier for all parties to swallow. Heck, I even considered buying 'the Outer Worlds' on the abominable Epic store before reason swooped in to remind me that it was also releasing on the Microsoft store. (Thank god)

Another fun way that developers coerce players into dishing out early is through the ever exclusive 'founder pack'. You usually find these with kickstarter projects or passion lead MMOs. They are the opportunity in which you have the chance to solidify your belief in the project through the only medium that counts, cold hard cash. As a result of your money, players are rewarded with an exclusive selection of DLC to forever signify that they were on the first ones to be here. This could be a nice emblem, shiny exclusive gear or, most notably, a glittering effect forever embossed around your name for all to see whenever they play with you.

There are some other ways that AAA companies have stepped into the 'founder Pack' meta. Blizzard Entertainment's; Overwatch, boasted an 'Origin Edition' for those who counted among the game's early adopters. This doesn't just provide value to the consumer in the realm of digital content either, as there were boxes printed with the proud 'Origin Edition' title on them, which hold significant value amongst the fields of collectors. Or rather it would, if Overwatch wasn't easily one of the biggest games of it's generation. Pretty much everyone picked it up in that first year, and right now it's probably more of an anomaly to not have the Origin Edition copy of the game. Too bad for rare collectors, I guess.

A method that hits particularly close to home for me is the concept of the Beta. For those that don't know, 'Beta' is a term used to describe a certain milestone that has met in the development of software. In video game development, there is no set-in-stone requirements that a product must meet to be considered 'Beta'; but most would usually see it as the time that the game is starting to take a form resembling the final product, a period that should be immune from wild shifts in the development direction. Public Betas, on the other hand, is the idea of stress-testing the online servers of your product by inviting the audience to jump ontop of them. It should all be very clinical and analytical, afterall, the sole purpose is for ensuring the released product is up to par, right? In recent years however, Beta has taken on on entire new, marketing driven, meaning.

I have mentioned it before, but I was one of those saps that was drawn into the promise of Destiny. A brand new IP crafted by the visionaries behind Halo that promised to be the next bold leap in video game franchises. Every thing about the game seemed epic; from the advertising (Become legend) to the future plans (10-year plan) and even the incredible budget that surpassed any game before. (Although now it is clear that an inflated budget just means that a lot money is getting wasted.) Everyone was so eager to get their hands on the game that we all jumped at the chance to join in on the Beta. Bungie spared no effort in marketing this Beta, either. They didn't propose the Beta as a 'testing phase' but rather a chance to play the game early and be taken in by the world. There was only one caveat; you had to pre-order the game to play the Beta.

The response was incredible, communities were built overnight as people flooded to streams featuring those lucky enough to play the exciting new product. Several YouTube video's also made their quota by selling Beta codes to their audience. It must have been a dizzying time to be at Bungie. When the Beta finally shut down, after an extension, several thousand players, and new friends, all came together to bid each other goodbye as though it were the end of an era (Although the game would release in less than a month.) Since then, Beta's have almost exclusively served as vertical slices of the game offered up in order to hook consumers and drive home a fraction of the pre-orders that Bungie secured with their Beta. Good job Bungie, you started a slightly dishonest marketing revolution.

I was much too familiar with the machinations of greedy companies when I first saw the advent of the  'Play early' model, so I didn't fall for it. It didn't help things that the first time I witnessed it, the deal was attached to 'Mass Effect: Andromeda', a game that was announced far earlier than anyone had expected and positively reeked of EA. This was, of course, back with the EA Early access system, which required players to sign up to their paid-subscription in return for discounts and early access to new releases. They had some success when they pulled it with 'Dragon Age: Inquisition', although that time they merely offered a demo of a few early hours in the game. 'Mass Effect: Andromeda' pushed that limit to ten hours and several years later, Anthem would straight up allow players to play the full game some days before everyone else.

The particularly gross element to this scheme is that the early access is usually tied to the purchase of some vastly inflated 'ultimate editon'. In this way game developers seek to punish those that don't dish out an extra £40 by delaying the world wide release. And make no mistake, that is exactly what this practise represents: a manufactured delay. If the game company thinks that the game is complete enough to charge for early access, it's probably also clear for wide release. (Unless it would never be good enough to justify either, a la Anthem.)

I know I'm not alone in groaning every time I see another dishonest practise like this enter the spectrum of gaming. Even though, in full honesty, none of these practises are too bad, at least not compared to some of the things that could be happening. My problem stems from the fact these companies are so desperate to secure that first week funding (which is all important to the performance charts) that they subtly strain the respect between consumer and developer. Don't get me wrong, the strain is subtle, but make no mistake, it is there. When companies balk at the fact that their later games were not as big as the others despite them utilizing the same tactics, it is often because they push just a little too hard with this methods and annoy the consumers. 'Early play' incentives are mostly harmless; a small nick, rather a full-blown slash, to consumer trust. But they should never discount the inevitability of 'death by a thousand cuts'.

In Defense of: In-game lore books

Read all about it.

This subject is a weird one. It's one of those 'Blogs I'd didn't think I'd ever have to write' kind of situations. Let me explain. I like lore. A consequence of being such an ardent fan of high fantasy role playing games, I suppose. (I became use to reading hours worth of text in order to flesh out the story behind the peculiar shape of that pond over there.) Lore gives me the opportunity to immerse myself in the fictional world's I play in and come to believe in the people who live there. I've likely said this before but immersion is the make-or-break for fantasy, if I'm going to invest one iota of caring into your narrative you better be sure to immerse me first. This is achieved by establishing a solid main story and expanded through the use of expository lore books scattered about the place to answer those questions that you never thought to ask.

So maybe someone can explain to me why it is that people seem intent on abolishing the practise of in-game lore books altogether. Every now and then, I come across another one these baffling articles where critics tear into in-universe written works. 'It's lazy' some say 'It takes too much time to read' conclude others. For some reason there are people who seem to think the act of reading should be relegated only to the medium of books and nothing else. These are the same kinds of people who gawk at the fact that cut scenes still exist, claiming that they are the product of indolent storytellers. (I'll touch more on that subject at a later date. Can't get too worked up now.)

Let me start by making one thing abundantly clear; there is nothing wrong with the basic concept of in-game lore books. I'm not going to claim that they are all high-art or the pinnacle of story telling, but I will say that some lore books fit perfectly into their world. As for the complaint that taking the time to sit back and read some lore, 'detracts from the action', I would have to refute that maybe RPG's just aren't your game. If you are so bloodthirsty that you cannot stomach a peaceful moment of reading, perhaps DOOM might be more your cup of tea. Although 2016's DOOM does have lore entries in it as well, Egads!

I'm being a little bit unfair. I realise that some people object to being forced to sit down and read, and to be honest, I do to. I would prefer to read when I want to and stick my sword in someone's guts when I'm more in the mood for that. But the important thing to remember when it comes to lore books, (Or at least for those that are implemented properly) is that they are entirely supplementary to the core narrative. Rarely do game developers seriously expect their audience to sit down with a pen and paper and study their texts. Lore books are meant to be flavour material for the world just like world clutter and artwork. That's why these large RPG makers employ studios dedicated to managing all of this lore work, because it doesn't need to be handle by the core Dev team. So unless they've encountered a game that has literally held them hostage on the page, I find their arguments a little bit silly.

To demonstrate what I mean, let's focus on game series that is just dripping in excess lore; The Elder Scrolls. Ever since 'The Elder Scrolls 3: Morrowind', Bethesda have been dedicated to making the land of Tamriel seem as real as possible by fleshing out the world with lore books. These lore books have increased in number in every entry to the point where there is enough reading material in these games to fill a library. (That library would be full of 6 page long books but it would still be full.) Bethesda even had to form a lore department to make sense of it all and, crucially, to be capable of pronouncing the names of Dwarven ruins.

The Elder Scrolls' lore is undeniably expansive, but do you know what else it is? Entirely optional. The Elder Scrolls games are all open world RPG's that are developed with the core idea of player freedom. You are allowed to go practically anywhere and forge whatever story you so choose. Because of this, it is impossible to localise your lore writing efforts into crafting exposition that is relevant to the player and their situation, because they could be doing literally anything. As such, the lore team just try to flesh out as much as they can about the world around you through a variety of different lore books. You have history books, play scripts, nature books, written notes, journals, theology books and, my favourite, story books. This approach also allows the lore writers to focus in on the specific region in which that game is set, helping to establish cultural themes in the works. 'The people of Skyrim are considered brutish dullards so lets make some books that riff on that idea'. 'Dark Elves are considered irritable so lets try to capture that in this letter'. It's just another way the team at Bethesda make their world feel unique, diverse and lived in.

On the other end of the spectrum to that 'write about everything' approach is much more targeted and specific use of lore books in games like Deus Ex. The world of Deus Ex is a very complicated one, despite very much resembling our own. The transhumanist dystopia that we see presented in 2000's Deus Ex did not spring out of our world overnight, there is a lot of history explaining every step of the way. Not all of this history would make sense to include in the main character's dialogue. Imagine how clunky it would be if Joseph Manderly just said "Hey Denton, did I ever tell about the history of augmentations?" (Sheev would have to file a lawsuit.) Instead Eidos utilises little datapads that offer snippets of insight into the wider the world.

This is different from Bethesda's approach because Eidos takes advantage of their relatively linear narrative progression. As the player gets further into Deus Ex, they might start to notice the clever way in which datapads they find will elucidate matters that are about to become very relevant in the main story. Like the introductory pamphlet on UNATCO you receive briefly before you go to speak with UNATCO's director, a.k.a your boss. Or that strange datapad that brings up the topic of 'Grey Goo' before you are tasked with deciding the technological path of humanity's future, for which it would be prudent to take the 'Grey Goo' theory into account. By hooking the expository lore into the wider narrative, Eidos provides the player with the opportunity to dive into the complex issues around them with some understanding about the matters at hand. That goes a long way to making that player care about the stakes of the story.

Those were examples of games that utilised lore to great effect. But that doesn't automatically mean that all properties know exactly how to use it, just look at Destiny. Whenever anyone has a complaint about lore entries in gaming it feel inevitable for Destiny to come up. And for good reason. Destiny is set in a science-fantasy future wherein resurrected human beings known as Guardians protect the remnants of humanity from hoards of alien pirates, space wizards, and a dark entity so abstract that the writers dropped it for the sequel. Destiny is a game with narrative problems. Huge, gaping, narrative problems. Despite being originally marketed as a high-concept Halo successor, Destiny ended up as a shallow, feature light, time waster that has consequently negatively tainted the moniker of 'Looter shooter'. And the way Bungie handled the lore is a big reason for this.

The main purpose of lore in gaming is to create the illusion of substance in your fictional world, thus aiding the act of immersion. As such, the method the player uses to acquire and read that lore is a little detail that is incredibly important for the final effect. The Elder Scrolls gives you lore in the form of books and parchment, like one would expect from a medieval fantasy world. Deus Ex uses holographic datalogs, just like I expect we'll all be using in our sci-fi transhumanist future. Destiny used an app. On your real life smartphone. That means in order to take a look at the lore that you unlocked, lore that we just established exists to immerse the player, Bungie expected players to stop playing the game and bring up their smartphone app. That is literally genius levels of misguided. I'm not even mad.

Unfortunately, that isn't even the worst of it. I know that this particular part of the blog will piss-off hardcore Destiny fans but I have to be honest, the actual content of the lore is pretty weak too. Now I've already bought up how I appreciate it when exposition is conferred onto the player in way that doesn't feel clunky or ham-fisted. I like it when we learn about the world through in-game stories, history books and datalogs. But one thing that all lore needs to be, despite the format on which it is presented, is coherent. (And ideally not pretentious.) I want to have some idea about what you're telling me without feeling the need to pull out a pen and paper and start analyzing the text. Yet that's exactly how I felt whenever I looked at the lore logs on the Destiny companion app. Aimless digressions, obscure fables and stories that seem to exist for the sole purpose of playing the pronoun game. Lore like this doesn't make me care about the world anymore. Lore like this makes me want to stop playing video games.

All of this culminates up to Destiny's biggest issue. Bungie seems adamant to smother the game in lore to avoid maintaining a story. All the cleverly placed, targeted datalogs in the world isn't going help if your world isn't interesting to start with, and Destiny's world is dull. The problem isn't that the concept itself is weak, I actually think there is huge potential in an epic science-fantasy series. Star Wars managed to turn their epic science-fantasy into a ludicrously successful franchise. But they didn't do that by bringing out the extended universe books before they established a solid story with likeable characters. Destiny has no likeable characters. And if you're about to say 'What about Cayde-6?', I'll remind you that I said 'characters' not 'sarcasm recepticles'. (We've got enough of those in Britain already.) What remains is a hollow world without a heart that no one really cares about beyond 'How can I improve my DPS.' And that does not make a solid foundation for a series. Unless your 'Borderlands', in which case it absolutely does.

Lore isn't a concept that is either butchered or mastered, by-the-by, there are some games who pull it off to a merely satisfactory degree. Just look at Bioware darlings; Mass Effect and Dragon Age. I know right, "Are you about to diss the narrative prowess of one of video gaming's premier storytellers?" Yes I am, but only when it comes to lore. The original 3 Mass Effect's and the Dragon Age series are both exemplary examples of their respective thematic genres. Both boast gripping narratives and complex characters that develop in surprising and meaningful ways. The level of comradeship and rapport that you establish with your team in both franchises is the closet some us will ever get to having actual friends. And yet both games have problems when it comes to lore.

First is their presentation. Neither series makes the error of relegating lore to a companion app, (Still can't believe they did that.) but they do shuffle away lore pages into the game menus, requiring players to pause the action in order to read about the world. It is a little bit immersion shattering for the casual player. Heck, I love the games and even I sigh everytime I have to scrolls through menus and tabs to read that book I just picked up. Then comes the content. Again, not pretentious drivel like Destiny, but just bad enough. Mass Effect's lore is the better of the two, full of the technical details that lend some credibility to the technological foundations of their sci-fi world. But just read what I wrote again; The lore features 'Technical details'. This means that there are those times when you'll find yourself struggling to keep your eyes open as you read the opening sentence to the 'Biotic barrier' entry for the eighth time, somehow understanding it less with each re-read.

Then there is Dragon Age's lore logs, >Sigh<. I love Dragon Age, I really do. And there is a lot of really good, interesting lore pieces in these games. The entries about the fundamental laws of magic are essential for anyone interested in that part of the Dragon Age universe. (Even when the games themselves do proceed to break those laws. Especially the one about teleportation.) My problem isn't with these interesting entries. My problem is with the lore entries that are poetry. You read that right. Poetry. And song lyrics. Arguably the same thing, definitely as bad as each other. It is such a shame for a game that features so many exciting storytelling elements, diverse characters and believable world building, to include this kind of lore too. It's as though Tolkien came back to write a brand new epic fantasy but he insisted on inferring the worst parts of Lord of the Rings in there as well, for posterities sake.

I shouldn't have to explain why 'poetry' and 'song lyrics' make for bad addendums onto your lore, but here we are. Firstly, songs are fine for lore. Actually, songs are great, They are a fantastic way to confer the culture of the world to your audience whilst telling them a story. You learn so much from songs. How do these people sing? What kind of instruments do they use? What would these people sing about? It add a layer of mystery whilst simultaneously unfurling that enigma for you to hear. It's effect on world building is... indescribable. That is just the magic of music, I guess. Song lyrics are just words. Fancy rhyming words, but words all the same. I have no idea how the tune goes, what the rhythm is or what the tempo should be. When the player is given song lyrics they've basic just been given a confusingly parsed story, and as I've said, cohesion is important. Poems are much the same, only the morale is usually even more obscure. I'll admit I'm saying this as someone with a very muted love for poetry but I still doubt I'd like this practice even if I was a poetry aficionado. Actually, I might like it even less if I was also judging the quality of those poems. Ultimately, the lore suffers due to an inherent lack of cohesion, like I keep writing. All that said: 'Sera was never' is still a jam.

At the end of the day, there is nothing wrong with the core concept of in-game lore books. In fact, I would argue that it is one of strengths of the gaming medium that we can dive into and explore non-essential aspects of the surrounding world without derailing the plot. You couldn't go into the history surrounding the formation of S.H.I.E.L.D in the middle of 'Captain America: Winter Soilder', even if that could be helpful for understanding some of the finer details of the story. But you can take the time to read about the swordsmanship of Serkonos in Dishonored 2, because Video Games can be as long as you need them to be.

Accepting the wider fictional world of you story doesn't exactly delineate the plot, but it does go a long way to help enrich it. Immersion is a game of give and take; the audience give their trust into the world that the writers have envisioned and in return those writers give little reasons why that trust is well placed. That is all plot is, the creators side of the transaction. If lore books are a useful tool for conducting that transaction then I think that they should be championed not ridiculed. So if you're one of those people who scoff at the idea of reading in games, I would urge you to take a look at the material again and see if the narrative value those words contain outweigh the time cost of a couple minutes. You may just change your tune.