8 Video Game Cliches that Need to Die
Audio Logs
In recent years, audio diary entries have become a video game mainstay when it comes to storytelling. Nearly every game uses them, letting you listen to monologues from important characters who decided to conveniently leave their recordings out for you to hear.
Similar to silent protagonists, one of the central problems in this cliche is that it isn’t believable. What normal person records their thoughts on intimate matters in voice recordings? And if they do, why do they record them on 9 different devices all left around in various places? Many aspects of video games require the player to accept some nonsense, but this seems like unnecessary nonsense.
The other big problem is that audio logs often end up feeling cheap. More often than not, the information gathered from these recordings feel like pieces of story the writers didn’t know what to do with and couldn’t find a way to tell naturally.
Some games do a better job than others of cementing their audio logs in the reality of the world, but even when they are believable they still feel cheap and overused. There’s not a clear alternative, but this is becoming a rampant story crutch across the gaming industry and we would welcome a developer who finds a better answer.
