Image purloined from the official site.

Saints Row IV is clearly comedic, but its narrative also succeeds in ways rarely seen in modern big-budget games. It builds its emotional stakes, Player engagement, and yes, quite a few jokes on a fundamentally joyful core.

Let’s talk about why it works.

But first, a quick summary for those unfamiliar with the game. (And of course we’ll be vivisecting the patient, so if you haven’t played it expect many delightful surprises ruined.) Brett Molina’s review in USA Today describes the Saints Row franchise thusly:

The transformation of Saints Row has been fascinating to watch. When it first launched in 2006, Saints Row seemed like a Grand Theft Auto knockoff, featuring the exploits of the Third Street Saints gang in the fictional city of Steelport.

Then things got weird. Instead of taking a dramatic turn, Saints Row II and Saints Row The Third ramped up the craziness. They focused on what made open world action games fun: exploring freely and wreaking havoc. Oh, and you can choose to do a lot of this while wearing cat suits.

In Saints Row IV, leading the Saints is not enough. Instead, players serve as the president of the United States from “The White Crib.” An upcoming speech is disrupted by an alien ambush that leaves the White House cabinet missing and Earth in ruins. Eventually, the president is captured and placed in a simulation of Earth.

Trapped (mostly) in the simulation (a la The Matrix), the gangster-turned-POTUS proceeds to gain simulated superpowers (improved via lightweight RPG-style mechanics), rescue his or her fellow gang members, and take the fight to the aliens in an open world environment. Story missions are linear and scripted and unlock as the game progresses, while various activities and minigames are available at any time.

Joyful Noises

Although the protagonist’s personality and dialogue are predetermined, his or her physical appearance, clothing, gender, and voice can all be heavily customized by the Player along with a steadily growing array of superpowers and special abilities. These aesthetic and mechanical options are old tricks, traditional means of giving the Player a strong sense of ownership and attachment to the Player Character. They’re deployed well and they’re deployed appropriately, but they’re not what makes Saints Row IV’s treatment of the protagonist special.

Instead, consider this quality that sets the Saints Row IV “Boss” apart from so many narrative-driven video game protagonists:

The Boss loves his or her life.

Saints Row IV is as full of delights for the Player Character as it is for the Player. The Boss cheers enthusiastically when he or she collects a power-up item. The Boss sings along to the radio. The Boss appears to genuinely enjoy spending time and hanging out with his or her colleagues. The Boss gets a kick out of fighting.

Raising the roof in the middle of traffic. How much more joyful can you get?

That doesn’t mean the the Boss can’t view dangerous or unpleasant situations as dangerous or unpleasant (although Saints Row IV never takes itself too seriously), but it does mean there’s an ubiquitous effervescence to the narrative. The Player Character always has something to be excited about, whether a new weapon or a chance to reunite with a friend.

That’s an incredibly appealing quality in a human being. We like spending time with people who are enjoying themselves. “Funny” is great, but enthusiasm is infectious, and my desire to spend time with the Boss was a major part of what kept me engaged with the game.

Not every story needs a protagonist with this particular joie de vivre, but it strikes me as a particularly effective creative choice for this medium. So many games are built on giving the Player a chance to have fun, yet utilize dour or grim (if occasionally snarky and sarcastic) protagonists. But synchronizing the Player’s experience with that of the Player Character nearly always provides superior engagement and immersion, so why not let a game’s protagonist enjoy him- or herself alongside the Player?

And while it may be easier to fit such a character into a comedy, there’s no reason joy can’t fit into more dramatic stories, too. An outwardly angsty, tormented protagonist isn’t the only way to give a story weight. (I say this, of course, as someone who loves and writes angst-ridden stories… but remember how incredibly effective other methods can be!)

Emotional Stakes

In the world of Saints Row IV, blowing up Earth (an event that occurs relatively early on) is a joke. Sure, characters occasionally seem a little mad or a little down about it–but mostly, it’s an over-the-top gesture in an over-the-top game. It’s insane and funny and just a bit horrifying if you think much about it.

But when one of the Boss’s friends is hurting? That’s when the music changes and all the characters gets scowly. And even though I haven’t played a Saints Row game before and the intricacies of the relationships are largely lost on me… when the Boss gets upset that his or her friends are being hurt? I care, too.

Why? Because as we established already, I care about the Boss. I like the Boss. I don’t need to care about his or her friends so long as it’s clear how and why they’re important to the character.

The evil alien Zinyak, the prime enemy of Saints Row IV, is an absurd character wonderfully portrayed by voice actor J. B. Blanc. I liked having Zinyak show up–which isn’t something that particularly motivates me as a Player to stop him. But the Boss really, really doesn’t like Zinyak, and again… I care about the Boss. So I’m okay fighting the enemy.

High five!

Saints Row IV consistently values relationships above events–a fairly standard dramatic approach–to an almost satirical degree. And it’s only “almost” satirical because it still works. The events can be unimaginably important, and yet I still care more about helping my pals come to terms with their pasts.

Yet none of this would matter if the game weren’t so effective at creating a likable central protagonist. We’ve all played a dozen games which motivate the Player Character–and attempt to motivate the Player–through a threat to a loved one, and which fail utterly because I don’t really care about the Player Character in the first place. Sometimes it doesn’t matter if you handle one aspect of your narrative well; sometimes the weakest link in the chain is all that matters.

Embracing Gameplay

Another unusually successful element of the Saints Row IV narrative is its treatment of “standard” (that is, non-narrative-focused) gameplay: e.g., open world combat and exploration.

Most big-budget titles that set the Player loose in an environment built to react to havoc ultimately ignore the fact that much of what the Player does jars with the central narrative. Mowing down civilians–accidentally or not–or engaging in a high-speed chase over the sidewalk “ought” to have permanent legal and psychological consequences if the characters are to remain relatable and the setting is intended to be remotely realistic.

But generally speaking, games that let you cause absolute havoc are designed to encourage that havoc. Which means in many games of this sort, either the protagonist comes across as a psychopathic lunatic or the narrative suffers from a fundamental disconnect. (Alternatively, the Player may actually try to play the game “in character” and avoid wreaking havoc… and thereby experience an internally consistent narrative that simply isn’t much fun.)

Note the in-game pixelation of the character on the right: a reminder that no, this isn’t even real in the game’s own universe.

Saints Row IV handles all of this with one easy excuse: The world is a computer simulation. It’s okay when it doesn’t make sense. It’s okay to use random cars as explosive weapons or shoot friendly civilians to regain health. The protagonist is acting out the same impulses as the Player, but he or she isn’t hurting anyone within the framework of the story. Even bad AI and bugs are justified by the narrative.

As with ensuring that the narrative’s major emotional beats are character based, this aspect can be boiled down to a trite and traditional piece of advice: establish the rules and themes of your setting upfront and abide by them in gameplay and narrative. But once again, since so many games fail to acknowledge that my gameplay takes place in the same universe as the narrative, it’s useful to look at an example that takes this to an extreme–and entirely succeeds.

If anything, bridging any gameplay-narrative divide is far more important to a dramatic narrative than a comedic one. By making everything “real”–that is, by creating a much tighter narrative in which everything I do, “gameplay” or not, fits with everything else–moments of actual emotion and importance hit much harder. My mind doesn’t need to spend effort justifying how killing enemies in combat doesn’t matter, but killing a character in a cutscene does, because the story’s already done it. I can absorb everything the game offers me without artificial distractions.

Sex Positive

The last success we’re going to look at is the game’s treatment of sex. Saints Row IV is the rare video game that handles sexual content:

a) in a largely positive manner. That is, sex is depicted as something that people desire and seek out and participate in consensually. Characters have sexual agency. They aren’t punished or stigmatized for it. Even kinks (such as one prominent character’s BDSM hobby) are treated as harmless quirks–fodder for infrequent jokes among friends, but not a source of shame or a defining characteristic. The “romances” the Boss can carry out with the crew are delightful in this respect:

One of my favorite “romances.” Not my video.

b) in a way that almost never conflates sex with genuine violence. There are a few rare exceptions (to my mind, some of the content in the Enter the Dominatrix downloadable content was a failure on this front; and I found some of the comedy weapons such as the dildo bat to be in poor taste, albeit essentially harmless), but next to the cavalcade of rape threats and misogynistic foes found in many games, Saints Row IV is practically utopian.

c) without favoring any particular gender, orientation, or gender-orientation combination. Or it tries to, at least. Sure, non-player characters wander the city in fetish gear, but women and men so dressed come in roughly equal numbers and are equally absurdly exposed. The Boss can romance other characters regardless of his or her gender. (In fact, the Boss’s own gender is fluid–the Player can change the protagonist’s gender essentially at any time, as well as mix and match male voices with female bodies or vice-versa.) It is worth noting that plots focused on past romantic partners or sexual dangers invariably center on women, but these are relatively few and far between.

This shouldn’t be difficult and it shouldn’t be rare. But it is rare, and Saints Row IV is a worthy example to study when considering the role of sex in a “mature” game.

“Mature” might be an overstatement. Or maybe not?

Yes, even with the dildo bat.

Final Thoughts

Saints Row IV was my introduction to the franchise. Based on reviews, I expected to enjoy it and be amused. I didn’t expect it to be worthy of a full-length dissection, yet here we are

Every narrative has its flaws, and Saints Row IV has its share as well. It relies a bit too much on character knowledge from previous Saints Row games; not all of its dramatic moments land, and a few seem oddly disjointed; and the game has an occasional tendency to ignore its own rules (or forgo an explanation of why they don’t apply).

Yet it’s still a fantastic narrative piece for all the reasons discussed above. The fact that Saints Row IV tells a funny story isn’t why it works–“funny” just happens to be the sort of story the wonderfully crafted narrative sets out to tell.

Footnote: This post draws from my experiences with Saints Row IV and its downloadable content packs Enter the Dominatrix and How the Saints Save Christmas. The standalone expansion Gat out of Hell ships this week. Hopes are high.

Wizardry was for the hardcore: the players who grudgingly accepted auto-mapping but wanted the quality of the auto-generated maps to be dependent on the skills of the in-game party members, and who were still willing to keep reams of notes to keep the teleporter puzzles straight. Wizardry was for players who didn’t need fancy graphics or in-your-face storytelling getting in the way of combat. In Computer Gaming World‘s February 1991 preview of Wizardry VII: Crusaders of the Dark Savant, writer Alan Emrich goes on about the appearance of trees in a Wizardry game; understandable, since the seventh installment was the first Wizardry to have a world beyond the dungeon at all.

And while Wizardry may never have broadened its appeal, Wizardry VII was a masterpiece of its combat- and puzzle-heavy subgenre, ceaselessly challenging and immense in scope. For my tastes, it’s a bit too much–too much combat, puzzles fascinating but slightly too insane–and yet it remains a game that entrances me.

Largely because of that odd duck that Wizardry traditionally never spent much time on: the story. Let’s discuss why it worked.

The plot of Wizardry VII picks up from the (multiple) endings of Wizardry VI, a castle-crawling dungeon game taking place in a nondescript fantasy world with an occasionally philosophically brooding flavor (we’ll come back to that later). After freeing the land from the Bane King in Wizardry VI‘s finale, the party of voiceless player-created characters is swept away on a spaceship to a distant planet recently rediscovered–thanks to the chaos around the “Cosmic Forge” of the previous game–by the galactic community and purported to hold an artifact of great cosmological significance. The player is sent on a mission to explore this new world and compete against the other galactic factions (including the “herald of change,” the Dark Savant) to recover the artifact in question.

Wizardry VII is unapologetic but consistent about its introduction of science-fiction tropes into a predominantly fantasy environment–spaceships and laser guns are used freely by non-native groups while swords and magic are used by the locals, but technology is described by its effects, not by technical names (the first spaceship the characters encounter is described as a great metal flying beast). Our point of view, despite the lack of elaborate story setup, is made clear–our medieval characters are way out of their element–and a sense of alienation is immediately present.

With tile graphics largely recycled throughout the game and characters only depicted during combat and conversation (no ambient crowds here!), the primary means of story delivery in Wizardry VII is text.

A Thousand Words Can Be Worth More Than a Picture

David W. Bradley was designer, writer, and programmer on Wizardry VII, making the game the apparent vision of one man. (We’ll come back to that later.) It’s Bradley’s prose that periodically guides the players into his strange world–but keep in mind that the areas are mostly filled with combat encounters or puzzles. Text descriptions are highlights and rewards, far less common than, say, dialogue in a game such as Mass Effect.

Bradley’s prose is distinctive, with all the positives and negatives that suggests. Often overwrought, it’s also nonetheless evocative and possessed of a certain wan, avuncular humor alongside its philosophical brooding.

Below is one relatively simple example, preceding an encounter with a king the player has been seeking in a multi-level dungeon:

Shadows dance upon the walls of the dark and gloomy cathedral, and emptiness pervades the chamber deep within every crevice…

Faded tapestries, illuminated by the candlelight, depict scenes of warring tribes and victorious battles, and you glimmer that these represent eras of history now long passed…

Once this masterful stateroom was no doubt a bustle of activity, filled with endless politics and head-rolling decisions.

Now, only the lone figure silhouetted upon the distant throne, somber, forlorn, staring out as if pondering thoughts a million miles away, breaks through the depression which so clouds this desolate, desperate arena…

Note that the unusual paragraph format and ellipses are a product of how the game displays text, but Bradley works it effectively.

Scenes incorporating dialogue–or more often, monologues–can go on at some length. This is one of several such sequences from the player’s journey into a pseudo-dream realm (and neither the longest nor the strangest encounter there by far–see the linked video below for more):

Sitting upright upon a cushion, drawing smoke through a long supple tube, itself connected to a bulbous vase upon which rests a bowl of burning embers, a sedate munk succulently inhales his voyage into far distant reveries…

As you step near, he breaks the silence:

Life is a mystery…

A puzzle…

A riddle, a rebus, an enigma…

As you live, you discover some of its pieces…

Some you know, as if you had always known…

Others you do not recognize, and discard…

But all is a part of the puzzle…

To unlock its secrets, remember that all is but a piece, and not the puzzle complete…

Each man, each woman, all dwell in a grand collage…

That which you fear, is but a piece which looms in the shadows…

That which you believe, is but a piece that you cling to in safety…

All of this is a part of the rebus of Life…

No one shall ever solve it for you…

No one shall ever know you but you…

To behold the puzzle, is to gaze into the face of the unknown…

To solve the puzzle, is to walk the infinite journey…

Then the smoke billows profusely from his pipe, and soon the room is enclouded with a dense haze…

When the fog lifts, he is gone…

A little pouch is all that remains, tiny on the floor. Reaching to pick it up, you hear his voice whisper inside your head…

Do-dah…

In other places, text is simply used to cap an encounter in a tonally fitting manner. After killing a great sea monster the player heard about much earlier in the game (from a man who failed to slay it):

In the blood-filled waters the leviathan carcass slips back to the depths, a gruesome end to the monsterous legend…

There’ll be no trophy to adorn any marina’s walls, and perhaps this too is how it should be…

After all, real myths are hard to come by…

However one may feel about the quality of the prose (and I confess, I enjoy it despite its faults), he’s clearly providing an atmosphere and pushing at themes the game wouldn’t otherwise convey. Even a game with an unlimited budget for art, sound, and cinematics couldn’t convey Bradley’s ideas so elegantly–an attempt to remake Wizardry VII in the more cinematic style of Dragon Age or Skyrim would fail utterly. The textual element is essential–not a crutch for a game without the technological or budgetary resources to do more, but a key part of the design and vision for a thoughtful, ambitious, occasionally self-deprecating work.

Consider, too, the fact that Bradley’s prose wouldn’t work in other contexts but fits nicely here. A novel in this style might quickly wear out its welcome, but a few paragraphs every hour of gameplay? Perfectly acceptable. Nor, I think, is Bradley’s dialogue–which, again, is primarily monologue–particularly suited to voice acting, but it serves nicely on the screen. (Wizardry Gold–a voiced version of Wizardry VII, released quite some time after the original–does exist. I’m uncertain whether Bradley had any part in it, and I’ve never played it myself, but I’d be curious if my theory about the voice acting holds true.)

In an era when games that look and feel like movies are often considered the height of the art form, games that heavily integrate text tend to be seen as cheap by default. But it’s important to bear in mind that text can be an artistic choice, as well–why privilege the notion of an interactive movie above that of an interactive novel (or an interactive comic, or an interactive music concert?)

But back to Wizardry VII. Text is one way it establishes atmosphere, but not the only way.

Minimalist Worldbuilding and the Geography of Dreams

The setting of Wizardry VII–the planet Guardia–is an enigmatic one. While narration and conversations and set pieces occasionally hint at a long and rich history, it’s a history we’re never given. There’s no in-game codex of lore to teach the player about the origins of the rivalry between the Munk and the Dane. We’re given the sketchiest of outlines of the history of New City, but only because it directly pertains to our quest. The titular Dark Savant has a fantastic visual design, but where he came from and why he’s so driven to overthrow the cosmic status quo is a complete unknown.

There are a thousand smaller mysteries, as well–the player frees the ghost of a cursed old woman through an act of kindness, but never learns who she was or why she was cursed. And what of the mysteries implied by the strange names of random items and monsters? What’s the story behind the imprisoned (optional boss monster) “The Fiend of 9 Worlds”? Why can the “Cane of Corpus” only be used by a faerie ninja?

For the most part, I wouldn’t want those answers. A sense of mystery and wonder is integral to the atmosphere Wizardry VII aims to create. The player isn’t meant to conquer Guardia, but to arrive on a strange new planet (literally–remember, the characters have been transported across the galaxy without understanding any of it) and take part in a strange, mythical, ineffable journey.

There’s a strong trend of worldbuilding in post-Tolkien fantasy–settings with laboriously crafted histories and geographies that audiences are meant to enjoy learning as they go. This is especially true in the video game world, with its many Dungeons & Dragons-inspired universes. Implied settings are regaining a level of respectability, but are more common in action games than in full-fledged RPGs–I can’t recall the last RPG I played in which as little of the setting was ever revealed as in Wizardry VII.

Wizardry VII plays to its technical strengths in this regard, as well. The engine is incapable of rendering other characters when not in an encounter state (that is, in combat or conversation). That means cities always feel empty, and the text emphasizes that locales have been abandoned, shops shuttered, and so forth. Encounters with other characters are rare and always important. Guardia is a lonely world where individuals are more important than societies.

(There’s another point to be made in how Wizardry VII treats non-player characters: perhaps a dozen or more characters from the major factions wander the world semi-randomly, pursuing some of the same artifacts the player must acquire. Entirely offscreen, the NPCs meet, fight, trade objects, kill one another, and seize treasures before the player can–and in turn must occasionally be located by the player in order to acquire an object the player missed. While often less exciting than it sounds in theory, this aspect gives the NPCs a sense of life and richness of story that’s never explained; knowing only that Rodan Lewarx died fighting K’Borra T’Rang over the Legend map, it’s hard not to wonder and imagine what exactly happened.)

A Fantasy of Ideas

Fantasy that emphasizes worldbuilding also tends to de-emphasize another classic fantasy trait: the willingness to use fantasy stories as a means of wrestling directly with Big Ideas. One of the advantages of fantasy as a genre is that a story dealing thematically with (for example) the notion of growing old doesn’t need to drape itself in metaphors and subtlety–it can create a scenario in which the protagonists wrestle with Age Itself, embodied in flesh and wreaking havoc with a magic hourglass.

Wizardry VII wants to talk about big ideas and it’s not shy about it. Aside from the stylized monologues (which, as in the example above, often meander around questions of existence), it’s not far into the game that the player meets “the Spirit of Life, and the spirit that unites all creation and destruction”–on a sub-quest, no less. The “maps” the player must collect (text pieces which primarily serve as clues to some of the games nastier puzzles) are formulated as spiritual and philosophical treatises on life’s journey. The true nature of the game’s ultimate artifact, too, is in line with Wizardry VII‘s interests.

In a more grounded game–in a less enigmatic, dreamlike setting, or a game where voice acting and extensive cinematics rendered characters with startling realism–Wizardry VII‘s fantasy of ideas could easily come across as pompous and overblown. But with the unique support of Bradley’s prose and careful worldbuilding that prioritizes atmosphere above fact, it’s the charming core of a game that often feels more Lewis Carroll than George R. R. Martin.

I mentioned above that I’d come back to the fact that Wizardry VII is largely one man’s vision, and I suspect Bradley’s overwhelming presence is vital to making the game’s fantasy of ideas function. There’s a sincerity and a consistency to the themes Bradley explores that would likely be difficult to maintain in a game created (or written!) by a staff of hundreds. When you privilege theme above character, you must be prepared to treat thematic consistency with the same reverence many writers hold for characters–but getting a group of creators on the same page regarding a character can be much easier than doing the same with a grand philosophical notion.

Taking Flight (and Closing Thoughts)

None of this is to say that Wizardry VII‘s narrative (or its gameplay, for that matter) is flawless. Bradley’s sense of humor and winks to the audience occasionally fall flat or jar, and the game’s treatment of women and minorities leaves much to be desired. The big ideas, while fun, aren’t likely to change anyone’s religion, and likely aren’t meant to. As mentioned above, one’s tolerance for Bradley’s prose may determine how much one enjoys the narrative overall.

But because of its integration of textual elements, its minimalist worldbuilding and transformation of technical limitations into thematic triumphs, and its interest in tackling subject matter rarely hit head-on in fantasy computer role-playing games, it works in a way that few other games do–and it works successfully. That makes it worthy of consideration.

For those intrigued, Wizardry VII is available in digital form (packaged along with the “upgraded” Wizardry Gold–which, as mentioned, I can’t pass judgment on–and Wizardry VI) from GOG.com and Steam. Wizardry VI is also the work of Bradley, and while clearly the creation of the same man is ultimately somewhat less ambitious and even more technically dated.

Wizardry 8 picks up the cliffhanger ending of Wizardry VII, but it isn’t the work of Bradley, who had moved on to other companies and other projects. Although it’s a fine game in many respects, the absence of his narrative touch is greatly felt. In truth, I’ve never finished Wizardry 8… I intend to at some point, but without philosophical meanderings and the promise of life’s great secrets, it hardly feels like the same world, even sharing the same characters.

Really, Wizardry VII‘s own ending resolves quite a bit, and what’s left? The promise of another journey into space, secrets of the gods still untapped–perhaps leaving that bit of mystery intact is consistent with Bradley’s vision after all.

Special thanks to Øystein Pettersen, whose intricate walkthrough helped me track down the text segments reprinted here. My official hint book–which, madly and wonderfully, replicates most of the game text–was out of reach.

At the start of his 1991 review of Wing Commander II: Vengeance of the Kilrathi, Alan Emrich wrote in Computer Gaming World #88:

For several months now, Wing Commander has reigned as the number-one game, as rated by this magazine’s readers. Clearly, there must be a lot “right” with this game. Even though Wing Commander is, at least at its most basic level, something of a glorified arcade game, there is also something that sets it apart. Perhaps it is the inclusion of a believable, evolving storyline, full of sympathetic comrade characters and vain, vile villains that bring a certain je ne sais pas.

He was absolutely right. Wing Commander was a fantastic game by any measure, but it was an attention to narrative that propelled it into its position as a multimedia franchise. The game would spawn numerous sequels, expansion packs, spinoffs, novels, an animated series, a feature film… some better than others, admittedly, but the quality of the core series started high and remained so.

In 1991, Origin Systems (shortly before the company’s acquisition by Electronic Arts) published Wing Commander II: Vengeance of the Kilrathi, which would prove to be one of the franchise’s high points. With the exception of adding then-rare voiceover content in a limited number of places and the sheer quantity of cinematic sequences, it is not an especially innovative game from a standpoint of storytelling mechanics. The dialogue, while more than acceptable for its time, reads as less-than-stellar today. But it is a game that excelled at the execution of its story, particularly in how its narrative elements supported and bolstered the game’s mechanics–and how the mechanics and mission design, in turn, supported its story.

It is, in short, worth examining as a case study. Let’s talk about why it worked.

In Wing Commander II, the player takes on the role of a space fighter pilot in a war against an aggressive alien race called the Kilrathi. Nearly all actual gameplay takes place in space, with the player dogfighting enemies while assisted by one of about a dozen AI-controlled wingmen. The missions can involve a variety of enemies and a bit of travel–there are escort missions, missions targeting capital ships or space stations, battles against enemy aces, defense missions, etc.–but the core dogfighting mechanic remains the same.

The wingmen (mostly) fade into the background during fights, but they’re relevant nonetheless. Each has a particular combat style suited to his or her personality along with numerous one-liners during flight. They can be given orders, and some will follow through better than others. There are somber professionals, brilliant fighters who will happily clip you if you pass through their cone of fire, inexperienced and awkward newbies, and so on.

Each mission begins and ends with a cinematic sequence, usually depicting a mission briefing and debriefing (though occasionally diverging from the form if the story didn’t allow for a proper debriefing due to an emergency aboard the ship, etc.) Cinematic sequences during the missions themselves are used extremely sparingly. When not in a cinematic sequence or in space, the player is stationed in a small hub that serves as a control panel (the player can save the game, check the scoreboard, etc.) and interface to begin the next mission or access an optional in-between mission cinematic sequence.

Two points are notable about the hub: the “control panel” elements are depicted as thematically appropriate objects (quitting the game involves selecting the airlock–though note that all elements are labeled with their functions when moused-over) and the hub itself is redesigned several times as the player transfers from ship to ship throughout the game. These could be seen as gimmicks, perhaps, but they suggest that the designers were committed to maintaining a certain atmosphere throughout.

Nonetheless, despite a great deal of attention to mood and atmosphere, the story is driven by non-interactive cutscenes. It’s very easy to see how the story would go wrong: Lots of scenes discussing the overall course of the war, how important each and every mission is, talking heads giving some personal background and setting information, and so on.

But the effectiveness of Wing Commander II‘s narrative comes from the choice to tell a simple story supported by the game mechanics. The focus of the story is on three elements:

The career and reputation of the player character. Wrongly accused of betrayal or, at best, gross negligence as part of the game’s backstory, the player’s reputation is at stake from the start and plays an important role in all his interactions with colleagues and superior officers. But the story isn’t a mystery plot–the player isn’t trying to dig up secrets (and in fact, somewhat stumbles upon the final solution); it’s simply a way of giving emotional color to the story and giving the player motivation to succeed.

The relationship between the player character and the wingmen. Virtually every cinematic sequence in the game uses the same limited set of characters–the player, the wingmen, and a scattered few supporting cast members (superior officers, etc.) The number of characters in the cast is kept small, villains are kept to bit parts, and everything is about growing relationships, watching the other characters change over the course of the war, romances blooming, etc. One of the larger subplots running through the story is the element of a potential traitor–which, again, just further colors the player’s relationship with the supporting cast.

The tone of the war. Not the strategy of the war–there are strategic reasons for the action, but they’re usually background. I don’t remember anything about the details, frankly–but what I do remember is the discussions of the Kilrathi as a foe that won’t surrender, the despair of the crew, the moral question of how to define victory against a race that will fight to its death. In the end of the game, victories are won but the war isn’t over–and aside from the necessity of setting up sequels and expansions, this feels right as a tonal choice.

What this boils down to is a moody story centered on the player character and his relationships–perfect for a game looking to emotionally involve the player. Players don’t (without a lot of work) care about the fate of Earth; it’s big, it’s abstract, and it’s not particularly relatable in any real-world way. But they care about themselves and how others view them.

So these are smart elements to focus on. But more than that, they’re all elements that are mechanically supported by the gameplay. Let’s consider each again.

The career and reputation of the player character are mechanically tracked in minor ways–for example, a “kill board” listing the player’s total kills in comparison to those of the rest of the crew (who are, of course, just AIs)–and in major ways, such as the player’s gradual, growing access to better ships and weaponry. These are, of course, standard mechanics–but they become more meaningful when paired with the story, and vice-versa.

The relationship between the player character and the wingmen is, as described above, a persistent part of the dogfighting game. Giving commands and bantering with the wingmen in-flight, as well as their support and unique flying styles, are all aspects that make the cinematic sequences focused on interpersonal relationships meaningful. These characters aren’t irrelevant to the gameplay–they’re always there and who they are matters.

As a “glorified arcade game,” there’s not much in the way of complex mechanics when it comes to enemy interaction. The player shoots down enemy ships and has the option to engage in short chatter during dogfights (mostly insulting enemies to gain their attention). Still, the chatter puts a face on the foe while the unrelenting violence and inability to accept surrender nicely fits the tone of the war. Again, this is hardly a revelatory set of mechanics, but imagine a story that focused on the enemy’s honor and desire for peace instead of unrelenting ferocity. The choice of tone fits the game as designed, builds on it, and enhances the end effect.

Ultimately, Wing Commander II works on a narrative level because it keeps the story about the player, not external events; it supports its narrative with game mechanics, and vice versa; and it keeps its gameplay and story tonally consistent.

Simple things. But they mean a lot–and how many games, even twenty years later, succeed so admirably?