Infected Storytelling – Left 4 Dead
I still can’t shake this game – I’m starting to suspect it may be a masterpiece. If my net connection were more stable it would still be the primary staple of my evenings at home.
What I like most about it is its fresh approach to narrative, to story and to characters – I think it’s really pushing the envelope here, and if the game is to have a legacy I think it will be in these areas of its approach. I’ve seen many criticisms levelled at the game that it doesn’t ‘have enough’ of these factors – that there is essentially no story. But I think that’s missing the point – what Left 4 Dead is very good is introducing all the elements of a good story, some visual themes and motifs, mood and style, and an absolutely brilliant milieu, all without the player really noticing all that much.
So we start the first campaign on a roof in an un-named city, and head down through the building to street level – immediately we are confronted with the machinations of the AI director, the dungeon-master system that Valve have introduced in the game that will provide random encounters and also monitor the experience according to how we play through it. Some of our team may start the game by creeping slowly and safely down the stairs, while the more daring smash straight through the skylight into a dark bedroom full of zombies. The first large room you arrive in has a wall that is occasionally smashed through by a swarm of zombies for immediate carnage. Sometimes the place is ghostly and empty, or quiet but for the confused grunts of the undisturbed infected.
Everywhere there are records of life before infection, and the carnage that followed. A simple blinking clock (reset to 12:00) reminds you perhaps of the daily routine that used to constitute normal life here. Or perhaps how the normal routines of time have just stopped. A body lies dead in a dark bedroom, as if sleeping and oblivious to the disasters. All the domestic trappings are here, but the huge gaping hole where the kitchen floor used to be hints at carnage past and the destructive nature of the potential threat. The world has gone wrong, and we are living in a nightmare.
The back-alleys and city streets we travel along are gloomy and dark – a sole brightly lit doorway becomes a safe haven for a breather. A wire fence divides the streets, like from some horrific death camp or prison, perhaps evidence of areas quarantined or simply abandoned and enclosed – an empty police car is here, probably abandoned when the infection became unstoppable. Sometimes the zombies attack, scores of them climbing up and over the fence like a deadly prison escape. There is no holding back these creatures.
I don’t know my companions - Zoe, Francis, Louis and Bill are our names, and as we move along they speak independently, often just simple instructions but with a few clues to their character thrown in. But every time we are different – some Zoes are fearless and stupid, some careful and thorough, some timid and fearful – such is the random nature of internet matchmaking. Yet somehow the characters always fit. Bill, a rugged veteran, he’s seen it all and probably has seen all he cares to. Louis was a businessman, on the way up – that’s all gone now. Francis, shaved head and camouflage gear, he probably spent his life waiting for this moment to come. Zoe, perhaps the innocent, and the only female – she’s the one I would leap back out of the helicopter to protect.
Perhaps this time Zoe will get separated from the others, perhaps we ran ahead too readily and left her to be picked off by a zombie horde. We run back and save her, pulling her up from near-death. I give her some pills and she limps along as we look for medical supplies or a safe-house. Francis, impetuous, jumps up on a bonnet and sets off the car-alarm – as the zombie hordes close in, three of us retreat into a back-office. Francis, out in the open, is pounced upon and pinned down by a roving hunter, and perishes – Louis gasps as we pass his broken body in the silence following the attack. We shuffle down a broken stairway in silence and limp into a safe room – the only real haven from the zombie hordes. This is how our stories are made.
Whatever this is, it is not a game without story and character. Yet the characters, punctuated by simple, yet often revealing, snippets of dialogue, are exactly what we make them, as they are other players. The story is set up from the moment the game launches, a helicopter swirling around the ghostly skyscrapers offering advice on where to run to – our aim is escape, the peril is clear, the journey begins, and the players act as heroes in the story they create. If only Hollywood could manage such pure drama, such efficiently-paced action, such immersion.
I’m a big fan of David Mamet, the thoughtful and often controversial screenwriter and playwright – he would approve of the purity of this game’s approach. He talks about how we only need to see a human shape to start embroidering it with character ourselves. He claims that character is not built from written histories, from anecdotal dialogue, or from the peg-leg, thick accent, or parrot on the shoulder – these are all the crutches of the bad writer. Drama comes out of the simple actions of the characters – from what they do, not what they say. The characters are a function of the story, not the other way around. Left 4 Dead is lean and spare storytelling, drama of the purest and simplest form.
And here, the replayability of the game actually gives the narrative extra power – you remember what happened last time, and the game then becomes one of anticipation, followed by the surprise when the experience confounds your expectations. There is a definite modern trend in thoughtful games that are designed from the start for the same situation to be played again – Passage and The Path are two other high-brow examples. The interest comes not from what the initial story is, but the fascination as it diverges from the path the next time. One criticism of Left 4 Dead from mainstream reviews was that there wasn’t enough content here, but that seems such a redundant criticism in light of what the game does best – provide the same experiences on paper, but make them totally different each time.
This is not just a shooter – I think this game has revolutionised what we think of as narrative within a game. It doesn’t force a pre-prepared story down our throats – it breathes the stuff of narrative with every beat, and allows us as players to express ourselves fully. All played to perfection by a game engine that seems to have been programmed with an Aristotlian understanding of drama – suspense and shock, along with perfect pacing and a gradually increasing threat. It makes us heroes in the story we made – what better wish-fulfillment is there?
[rating: 5]
I agree with the sentiment that Left 4 Dead has a very strong narrative thread that does indeed seem to be made stronger by the stereotypical and generic characterisation. It is indeed the players who create the true characters that we play with in the game and this can create genuine affection and dismay at escape or leaving someone behind in a mission.
This sparse is certainly nothing new – anyone remember the name or background of the main protagonist in GTA3? In the past I think that game developers simply left things open because they didn’t have the skills to create good characters? There’s certainly a fine-line to tread between not providing a plot or strong characters and overdoing it and alienating the player.