Why the Hero Should Influence the Story World

0:00 the story world of any narrative should be more

0:02 than simply a backdrop for the events of the plot

0:06 it should connect to and amplify the protagonist's journey

0:10 as john truby writes in his book on screenwriting the anatomy

0:13 of story creating a unique world for the story

0:16 and organically connecting it to the characters is as essential

0:19 to great storytelling as character plot theme and dialogue

0:24 when john gonzalez the narrative director for horizon zero dawn

0:27 came on board the project the basic story world already

0:31 existed it's a thousand years in the future the world

0:34 is rewilded it's lost it's vibrant it's beautiful humans

0:38 don't understand technology and live in tribes and then there

0:42 are all of these magnificent terrifying machines that make

0:46 up the wildlife of this world other than that it

0:49 was just a huge possibility space to explore looking

0:53 for the best possible story john's challenge then was to explain

0:58 the mystery of how the story world came

1:00 to be in a way that would have emotional meaning

1:03 for the player i thought that it was especially important

1:08 to make the story world to make the past to make

1:11 the mystery as personal as possible because otherwise i

1:15 thought we were risking that the player would reveal

1:18 this huge mystery but it would just be an entirely

1:21 cerebral satisfaction of curiosity i think that the most powerful

1:26 mysteries are ones where the detective really has skin

1:30 in the game so how do you design a protagonist

1:33 who has skin in the game and in the case

1:35 of horizon zero dawn one who has a deep personal

1:39 connection with a story world that is essentially robot

1:42 dinosaurs to answer this question we're going to look

1:45 at the narrative advantages of an authored versus non-authored player

1:49 character the benefits of designing

1:51 a motivated protagonist who will relentlessly

1:54 pursue their desire and how the players investment

1:56 in the game is maximized by making eloy's personal journey

2:00 and the mystery of the story world one and the same

2:04 welcome to story mode horizon zero dawn when it comes

2:13 to protagonists and video games there exists a spectrum

2:16 on one end there are games like fallout or skyrim

2:19 where you design a character from scratch and are given

2:22 few details about your backstory on the other end are

2:25 games like the last of us where the player character

2:28 is authored joel has a specific backstory and a character

2:32 arc which you can't affect so when designing the protagonist

2:36 for horizon zero dawn one of the first big

2:39 decisions was which approach to take because as jon

2:42 describes these approaches have different psychological effects on the player

2:47 so in a game like fallout or skyrim where you

2:51 get to design your character from scratch and the majority

2:56 of people are going to experience that character

2:58 from a first person perspective it really is like you're stepping

3:02 into a player-shaped hole and here i would say

3:05 that your your emotional connection is really one of identification

3:10 in these games there's less room for empathy toward

3:12 the player character because you are the character but in games

3:16 with an authored protagonist a distance is created between

3:20 the player and the player character and this distance allows

3:23 for a different kind of connection when you're fighting

3:27 a bunch of robot dinosaurs as eloy i think there

3:29 is a strong sense of identification in those moments

3:33 but in the cinematics in even the conversations that relationship

3:40 that connection becomes slightly more distant and that distance is

3:44 really essential because it opens up empathy at that moment

3:47 you no longer feel as though you are that person

3:50 or at least that was the intention instead you

3:53 feel like you have a relationship to that person

3:55 it's really that bond that you have there that plays

3:58 a more significant role of driving your your play

4:02 so by making ailoy an authored protagonist the writers could

4:06 give her a compelling and empathetic character arc one

4:09 of the advantages of this in an open world game

4:12 is that it incentivizes players to continue the main quest

4:16 and so i think that if you can dial up

4:19 the power of that main quest if you can make

4:23 it as as interesting and as emotionally engrossing as possible

4:28 you're more likely to be like oh yeah i

4:31 want to get back to that because it actually matters

4:33 so how then do you create a compelling

4:36 and empathetic character arc in the case of eloy much

4:40 of our ark's power comes from her determination to pursue

4:44 a desire in their book on playwriting frank hauser and russell

4:48 reich succinctly describe the importance of giving characters a strong

4:52 desire writing the strength of the character's wants equals

4:57 the strength of the play in order to demonstrate

5:00 the strength of alloy's wants the development team made some

5:04 risky choices it was because we wanted to connect

5:07 the player really deeply to this character that we decided

5:10 to begin with you playing her as a little girl

5:14 and this was something that i think scared the hell

5:17 out of us we're actually going to have you

5:19 start off with with really very little in the way

5:21 of combat it ended up being the best decision

5:23 that we could have made i think for the story um

5:26 because it does introduce you to this uh need

5:29 that she has in a really powerful way eloy grows

5:32 up as an outcast of the nora a matriarchal tribe

5:35 for whom one's lineal connection to their mother is very

5:38 important in determining status and for reasons unknown

5:42 to her aeloy is motherless they are outcasts both and she

5:49 is motherless by dedicating the first section of the game

5:52 to young ally the player gets to experience how

5:56 unfairly she is treated and how this incites her desire

6:02 so for her that's she wants to know who

6:04 her mother was she wants to know her origins

6:07 she wants to know why she became an outcast rost

6:09 the man raising her explains that there might be

6:12 a way to get answers from the matriarchs but it

6:15 would take years of training i don't care what

6:19 she learns is that if she competes in a kind

6:24 of rite of passage for this tribe called the proving

6:28 that she gets to request a boon from the elders

6:31 of this tribe whatever the winner wants so ailoy decides

6:35 to train for years and years until finally she's ready

6:39 for the proving and one of the things that's

6:42 great about this and i think you know cinematics did

6:45 an amazing job with this sort of training montage

6:48 that we had you what you realized is you realize

6:51 yeah she really is determined i mean she's not

6:54 going to stop for anything which i think is fantastic

6:59 for really hooking you into into our emotion you sense

7:02 how powerful this motivation is by the time the player

7:07 as aloy is competing in the proving i've trained

7:10 my whole life for this the stakes are high not

7:13 enough must be perfect after overcoming a number of obstacles

7:19 eloy manages to win the proven finally obtaining the things

7:22 she's worked so hard for and just like in any

7:26 dynamic story this is the moment when everything goes wrong

7:36 this is the inciting incident of the story the red

7:38 hair dies now the point of no return that will

7:41 send aloy off on her true journey survive and now

7:46 that the player is invested in her the game begins

7:48 to reveal that aloy's personal journey and the story world

7:53 are interconnected as john says the mystery of this world

7:57 is the mystery of who eli is anyone who

8:02 has played horizon zero dawn can attest to the grandeur

8:05 of the story world and the awe-inspiring machines that populate

8:09 it much of the game is spent sneaking past

8:12 fighting or overriding these machines the gameplay is fun

8:17 enough that the team might have gotten away with simply

8:19 not explaining the origin of the machines or having

8:22 it only be incidentally related to the protagonist's personal journey

8:27 but instead in spoiler warning we're about to get

8:29 into some story details horizon zero dawn is extraordinary

8:34 and that the protagonist's personal journey is directly related to the origin

8:38 story of the machines and not only that the entire

8:41 story world from the human settlements you visit

8:44 to the ruins of our fallen civilization ties back to ailoy

8:49 this information is slowly revealed at key turning points

8:52 in eloy's character arc after the attack on the proving

8:56 alloy learns she was targeted because she looks like

8:59 a mysterious unknown woman where's this from and when are

9:07 you my mother as eloy explores more of the world

9:11 she finds hints that there is some connection between

9:14 the mystery of the story world and the woman

9:16 she seeks to learn more about but it's not until

9:19 the midpoint of the story that the extent of the connection

9:22 is revealed during a quest called maker's end so

9:27 as you're approaching what might be the midpoint or so

9:30 of the main quest eloy knows that she has

9:32 some kind of connection to this mysterious woman but she's

9:36 told by one of the people she interrogates that there

9:39 was data about this woman at this place called maker's

9:42 end that's the the tribal name for it in reality

9:45 maker's end is the ruined headquarters of the 21st

9:48 century robotics and technology corporation baro automated solutions when ailoy

9:54 tries to enter the system scans her genes and then

10:00 welcomes her as dr elizabeth sobek genetic profile confirmed

10:05 entry authorized greetings dr sobak please step inside and this begins

10:16 then her exploration of this this building and she's

10:20 finding out a lot of data that a lot

10:23 of information through data logs that are evocative and certainly

10:27 give a sense of what this corporation was

10:29 and that something went very wrong the aca iii combines conventional

10:34 and information warfare capabilities in one package in horizon

10:38 zero dawn story information is often presented in the form

10:41 of data points records from what is for eloy a thousand

10:45 years in the past and for us is the near

10:47 future there are three kinds of data points text

10:51 audio and hologram text logs these were optional some

10:57 of them were there for nerds like me who would

11:00 want to get as much information as possible one example

11:05 of a text data point found in maker's end

11:07 is a recovered email sent from the vp of public

11:10 relations for the pharaoh automated solutions corporation it explains

11:14 that a fisherman captured video of one of their combat robots

11:18 harvesting a pod of endangered dolphins for fuel this text

11:22 elucidates how these robots first became a threat to humanity

11:26 while also being darkly humorous if it's an audio

11:30 recording it's not as important as the holograms and it's

11:32 optional but it's still important in in this case

11:36 i think of these as being the opportunities to really

11:38 do emotional storytelling audio data points allow for performance immersing

11:44 the player in the emotion of the moment in maker's

11:47 end the audio data points reveal that the head

11:50 of this corporation ted farrow has lost control of the company's

11:54 combat machines and they demonstrate how dire the situation

11:59 is you don't code something you can't crack all

12:03 we need is a back door you specifically forbade

12:06 us from leaving anything resembling a back door and encode

12:09 i need a way to restore control over the hearts

12:12 team or swarm i don't know what to tell you

12:15 ted you're asking the impossible finally there are hologram

12:19 data points if it's a hologram it's really important i

12:24 mean that basically that's story critical stuff when ailoy reaches

12:28 the top of the building she finds three hologram data

12:31 points in which critical details of what happened

12:33 to the old world are finally revealed it's a cool informational

12:38 payoff but it also has an emotional punch because it

12:42 is directly tied to ailoy's search for her mother elizabeth

12:46 good to uh it's been years you've screwed something

12:51 up something big or you wouldn't have eaten the crow

12:53 necessary to get me here so spit it out

12:56 the scenes confirm that the mystery woman elizabeth sobeck is

13:00 someone who lived long ago and that she had

13:03 a role in the events surrounding the collapse of our civilization

13:08 it's not bad ted it's apocalyptic you built a line

13:12 of killer robots peacekeepers that consume biomass as fuel

13:17 in emergencies and you made them capable of self-replication

13:22 so you start extrapolating what's gonna happen if that goes

13:24 unchecked and it's not good we're not talking civilization we're

13:29 talking extinction it's finally clear that eloy's personal journey is

13:34 directly connected to the mystery of the story world

13:38 as silence her enigmatic guide soon explains you've chased a personal

13:43 riddle into a crowd of larger mysteries the common

13:48 thread is your connection to elizabeth subic but the game

13:51 isn't over again this is just the midpoint project

13:56 zero dawn when i asked you to find a cure

14:00 i didn't expect it to be worse than the disease

14:03 it's not ted it may be grim but it's

14:06 our only chance i think that there are people

14:08 who are playing the game where when they got

14:10 to that they thought they were close to the end

14:11 of the game but actually there's still a lot more i

14:14 thought that was great i thought it was great

14:16 that we kept on being able to string you along

14:18 to the next big reveal what was project zero dawn

14:22 exactly the question now are you ready to go get

14:27 the answer horizon zero dawn demonstrates how an authored

14:33 protagonist can create an opportunity for players to empathize

14:36 with the player character it shows that giving the protagonist

14:40 a strong motivation to pursue a burning desire can help us

14:44 invest in them and it stands as a great example

14:47 of how fusing that character's personal journey with the story

14:51 world can create a powerful and unique gaming experience

14:58 hey guys michael here i hope you enjoyed our episode

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15:12 mode discord server the full length interview with john

15:15 gonzalez and your name and the credits of each video

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