Narrative Games Are ‘Disadvantaged’ Says Everquest 2’s Creative Director

Narrative-driven games don't look like they're as profitable as they seem, but we have more information from the creative director of Everquest 2.
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Image: DONTNOD Entertainment

In a recent interview with Edge magazine, EverQuest 2’s creative director Raph Koster spoke about the future of gaming, and the challenges facing narrative-driven games in today’s industry. He did not have a very good outlook on narrative games and even said they were “disadvantaged” because of today’s market and the future of gaming.

According to what Koster said to Edge Magazine, he believes that the service model of game design, which is becoming increasingly popular, is detrimental to narrative-driven games. In a service game, players are constantly bombarded with new content, which can make it difficult for them to keep up with the story. Additionally, service games are often designed to be replayable and narrative games lose a lot of the appeal after the first playthrough.

While Koster prefers playing narrative games, his research (via PC Gamer) shows that the rising cost of game development is making it more difficult for developers to take risks on new ideas. This is especially true for narrative-driven games, which can be expensive to produce due to the need for voice acting, cutscenes, and other narrative elements.

Despite these challenges, Koster remains hopeful about the future of narrative-driven games. He believes that there is still a market for these games and that developers will find ways to create them in a way that is sustainable in today’s industry.

While it’s true that narrative-driven games are at a disadvantage in today’s industry, we may see them merge with other genres to make fun games that also have great stories. There are plenty of examples of this, such as The Last of Us, Red Dead Redemption 2, and God of War.

These games aren’t completely narrative-driven like The Walking Dead by TellTale or Tell Me Why. However, it doesn’t look like completely narrative-driven games have a big future unless they find a way to make gameplay a lot more appealing.

It remains to be seen how the future of narrative-driven games will unfold. However, Koster’s comments are a reminder that the industry is changing to be more money-focused and that developers will need to adapt to these changes to create successful narrative-driven games in the future.

Jorge A. Aguilar

Jorge A. Aguilar

Jorge A. Aguilar, also known as Aggy, is the current Assigning Editor.

He started his career as an esports, influencer, and streaming writer for Sportskeeda. He then moved to GFinity Esports to cover streaming, games, guides, and news before moving to the Social team where he ended his time as the Lead of Social Content.

He also worked a writer and editor for both Pro Game Guides and Dot Esports, and as a writer for PC Invasion, Attack of the Fanboy, and Android Police. Aggy is the former Managing Editor and Operations Overseer of N4G Unlocked and a former Gaming editor for WePC.

Throughout his time in the industry, he's trained over 100 writers, written thousands of articles on multiple sites, written more reviews than he cares to count, and edited tens of thousands of articles. He has also written some games published by Tales, some books, and a comic sold to Telus International.

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