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Can a 4X title hold insights into how games could handle storytelling?

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  • Can a 4X title hold insights into how games could handle storytelling?

    The best - or at least the most famous - stories in video games are rarely the best video game stories. Yes, you can argue that the morally grimy ending of The Last of Us is up there with darker blockbuster movies, that the BioShock series' philoso-scientific musings are at least at the Christopher Nolan level. But none of these games utilise the storytelling tools specific to the medium. Their narratives are simply well-presented, well-written slices of steady exposition interposed between segments of competent, if often generic, mechanics.
    The best video game stories, on the other hand, take advantage of those gamey idiosyncrasies you won't find in other media - mechanics, player agency, non-linearity - to play as big a part in the narrative as the writing. Plenty has been said about how walking simulators and the Souls series achieve this, but much less documented is the peculiar delights of storytelling in strategy games. And there's one strategy series in particular that stands out.
    Amplitude Studios' Endless saga! If you ask me, Endless Legend and Endless Space 1 and 2 (as well as oddball tower defence title, Dungeons of the Endless) represent an interconnected masterclass in video game storytelling, working within the strict rulesets of 4X strategy to intertwine narrative and mechanics until they both hum with potential.
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