The 1990s marked a tactical turning point in the world of video gaming. It was during this decade that industry professionals began to fathom the true potential behind video games as a capable storytelling medium. Prior to the 1990s, video games were primarily interested in mechanics above all else. They possessed fast and loose stories that were little more than an excuse for the action that dominated the forefront. But as technology improved and video games grew aesthetically more impressive, developers had the ability to introduce more sophisticated narratives into their work. The result was that as games moved into the 1990s, what had been a simple narrative device to entice players into the game became a core component of the product itself, sometimes rivaling the works of moviemakers or writers.
I still remember clearly when I played Final Fantasy VII for the first time in 1997. It was a rainy Saturday afternoon: the perfect reason to stay indoors and dig into this long-awaited game. From its opening scenes—a sweeping cinematic cutscene of Midgar followed by Cloud Strife’s sudden and dramatic entrance—Final Fantasy VII signaled that I was about to go on an epic adventure. It was a watershed moment in video game storytelling. Its narrative depth and emotional complexity were unlike anything I’d seen in a game before. As I played, forming bonds with the characters and caring deeply about their struggles, I realized that games had the potential to tell stories as impactful as my favorite books or movies.
There were several factors that catalyzed the shift toward more complex storytelling in games. Improved graphics and sound, made possible by hardware advances, allowed developers to construct more immersive worlds. The advent of CD-ROMs paved the way for longer, more narratively complex games with multiple branches, while the rise of the graphic adventure genre and rise of RPGs and their dense, richly detailed stories demonstrated an eager market. Developers turned to Pushing the envelope was yet another part of it, too. They swapped out a straight-ahead genre of game with interesting narration.
Games like Ocarina of Time, released in 1998, became the epitome of this new model. Ocarina of Time was a breakthrough title that paired an expansive world with a profoundly moving story. As Link, I voyaged through time itself, from the lush fields of Hyrule to a grim future ruled by Ganondorf. Story unfolded during play. Each new dungeon and quest shed light on the lands and its people. When Link, aged seven years in the time heist, wrenched the Master Sword from its pedestal and peers into the doomed Hyrule he was about to inherit, it was a jawdropping homage to the power of interactive storytelling.
In 90s games, storytelling was incredibly strong, partially due to character development. These were not just thin avatars for your character’s journey through the game’s plot, but complex people with real feelings, ideas, and motivations. We laughed, cried, and loved through these men and women, sharing in their ups and downs. Their journey through a world we were helping create mattered to us because their goals were ours.
As an example, consider the cast of Final Fantasy VI, released in 1994. This game boasted an expansive roster of characters, each with their own fleshed-out personal narrative. From strong but unsteady Terra, the half-monster cipher searching for her identity, to Celes, an ex-Imperial general struggling with her guilt for war crimes committed, the characters of Final Fantasy VI each underwent unique journeys that made them feel lifelike and vulnerable. Through their eyes the game told its story, and thus every character contributed his or her own perspective and heartbreak to the game’s sweeping, operatic plot. When Celes contemplates suicide after the apocalypse, the game’s centerpiece 16-bit opera in which she’s the lead actress, it’s one of the most the most effective, harrowing scenes in the history of games.
A further element that made Chrono Trigger special was the beautifully crafted and unforgettable characters of the game. In addition to providing the highest quality graphics available on the console, the time-traveling plot of the game allowed a depth and richness of character which marked Chrono Trigger in comparison to its contemporaries. Chrono Terror, released in 1995 on the Super Nintendo, had players journey through the histories and futures of the main characters of the game, revealing their accomplishments, mistakes, and growth throughout the game. Frog, a Knight cursed into the shape of a frog, bore the burden of his comrade death, and endlessly sought redemption and justice. Robo, a robot from the future, faced questions of identity and determinism. Each main character’s story was wrapped up within the framework of the overarching narrative, forming an intricate tapestry within the world of the game, bringing the world of Chrono Trigger to life as a living organic whole.
Character development was critical to storytelling in games with less overtly complex narratives as well. In 1996’s Resident Evil, Jill Valentine and Chris Redfield, members of the elite S.T.A.R.S. team, had to survive the nightmarish Spencer Mansion. The game’s survival horror mechanics and its use of cinematic techniques to convey atmosphere contributed to the experience, but the characters’ interactions and their personal stakes sold it. The tension between them, the camaraderie among them, the fact that they all had their very personal reasons for wanting to make it out alive, added depth to the horror, and made their potential deaths seem all the more imminent and intimate.
The ascendancy of character-driven storytelling was also apparent in the boom of point- and- click adventure games. Games, such as the 1990 release Monkey Island and its sequel, 1998’s Grim Fandango, were revered for their sharp writing, twisting, charismatic plots, and iconic character designs. And these games taught that when they’re top-notch, they could elevate and evolve a game’s story- telling into hours worthy of watching and listening to, not just playing.
During the 1990s, there was actually, in terms of game storytelling, something pretty close to a creative explosion. Restlessly experimental developers started pushing, through visions often derived from the very games they created, new ways of delivering narratives. They started to glue story beats closer to interactivity, and adapt the unique strengths of the medium to create compelling experiences.
An example of one of the most profoundly impactful innovations is environmental storytelling. Rather than relying on explicit dialogue or cutscenes to tell a story, environmental storytelling conveys its narrative through a game’s world and environmental context. Take, for example, Half-Life, released in 1998. Instead of serving up traditional cutscenes, Half-Life spun its tale through scripted events and environmental minutiae. As I pierced the halls of the Black Mesa Research Facility, the story slipped into place around me in real time, with scientists and security guards responding to the disaster as it unfolded. The first-person perspective made it personal and immediate; it collapsed the space between player and protagonist.
Another aspect of this that I found really interesting and innovative was the use of multiple endings and branching narratives. Games like Silent Hill and Chrono Trigger would offer entirely different outcomes based on your choices and how you played the game. First of all this made the game much more repayable, but it also offered a level of agency and influence over narrative that I hadn’t experienced before. For example, in Chrono Trigger, you can actually make decisions throughout the game that will result in entirely-different possible endings, each with its own perspective on the characters’ fates in your world’s future. This kind of branching story made the choices feel like they were actually making some kind of difference and added a final, beautiful layer of complexity and depth to the storytelling.
During this time, the idea of non-linear storytelling also became prevalent. Games like Daggerfall, part of The Elder Scrolls II, released in 1996, were able to provide players with the freedom to roam vast open worlds, and instead of forcing the narrative in a linear way, give mission objectives, tidbits of information, and overall suggestions to the player on where to go instead of just having them hold your hand, in what order to do them. Being dropped into these beautiful sandbox castles of sprites and polygons was amazing. I spent countless hours wandering the streets. You could rob a palace you know. Climb through an open window, make your way to the King’s bed chambers and leave his corpse stabbed with a poisoned dagger, smoking into the Eternal Night. Cork the bottle and drown the City-State of Daggerfall in unimaginable darkness.
Storytelling in games became more cinematic as well, as developers relied more heavily on advanced graphics and sound capabilities to tell their stories in more-film like ways. Hideo Kojima’s Metal Gear Solid released for the PlayStation in 1998 was a landmark title for it’s advancement of video game storytelling. Combined a deeply involving espionage narrative and stealth action gameplay, Metal Gear Solid was noteworthy for its use of voice acting, elaborate cutscenes, and an involving ensemble of characters who, in their deaths scene and monologues, deepened the game’s sense of tragedy and violence. The deep, lavish story of the game, which drew on pulp war fiction, philosophy, and films like La jetée (1962), delivered a brainy think piece about war and identity that somehow wrestled with the fate of the human race. Using 3D graphics technology, Metal Gear Solid’s boss battles and scenes pushed gamers to new experiences and forwarded the notion that games could deliver memorable moments in narrative. Erased was the line between cinema and game.
There’s no denying it: the fact that 90s games really leaned in to storytelling had an outsize effect on where we are now, with narratively-driven experiences dominating the space. Because these are the games that were the first to show that, with an added dab of creativity, video games could be just as effective at spinning a tale, if not even more so than much older mediums. Capital-N Necessary more immersive than a movie, more goofy than a book, able to remain more stationary than a theater, they kept us stuck in the world they’d created after we finished playing, thinking long after the story ended… if it even had at that point.
When I reflect on my interaction with 90s video games, I see how they strongly influenced my enjoyment of storylines in video games. They were not only something to pass the time, but bridges to other places full of real people and incredible storylines that stay with you forever. They taught me to consider games as a kind of art, with a capacity to spark strong feelings and contain plot lines on par with books, movies or television shows.
There is one experience that I will take to the grave with me; playing The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past. First released in 1991, the game’s story was about Link, the young hero, embarking on a quest to rescue Princess Zelda, and stop the ultimate evil sorcerer Ganon. Simple, but captivating. Hyrule, the world of which the game is set in, was beautifully designed with so many secrets, dungeons, and memorable characters. The moment where Link pulls the Master Sword from the pedestal, leaving the light world. Marking the transition to the dark world, is a powerful point in the story, and emotional. It encapsulates the feeling of adventure and discovery that The Legend of Zelda was about.
Then, there’s the very act of playing EarthBound, or Mother 2 as it’s known in Japan. In this offbeat role-playing game that came out in 1994, Ness—a seemingly average kid with a baseball bat—and his friends travel a strange, whimsical world, defeating the alien menace Giygas. Its humor, art direction, and story made it a cult classic. It’s a funny, sentimental game, filled with unforgettable, off-kilter moments, like the messed-up dream sequences, or the emotional final battle (I mean, check it out above), where Ness powerfully realizes what’s happening around him, that the story of his world was actually the story of what was happening on the other side of the TV screen, and that courage and friendship and hope could overcome even the darkest darkness. As I played EarthBound, it spoke to me very personally. It’s a game about being braver than you’ve ever thought you could be, and its themes of courage, friendship, and perseverance overwhelmed my 7th-grade psyche in a way that even today I can feel.
Even games that had far less overtly involved narratives than the kinds discussed in the previous section could tell an incredibly rich story. Super Metroid, released in 1994, has been hailed as one of the best games of all time, and one of the greatest stories in any entertainment medium. With nearly no dialogue, and no traditional exposition, Super Metroid managed to create an experience of isolation and discovery unequaled by any other game of its time, or since.
The world of Super Metroid is one of the most atmospheric in gaming history. From the moment the player lands on the planet Zebes and hears the haunting, ambient music that accompanies the game’s opening stages, it is clear that Super Metroid takes place in a world that has long been abandoned to darkness and decay. This world’s threats—whether the indigenous creatures of Zebes, or the deceptively adorable space pirates that populate the space station at its core—feel far more dangerous as a result. Fighting through these enemies is a harrowing experience. Every enemy requires the player to adopt a completely different set of skills, and as the player explores Zebes, encountering more and more powerful adversaries, it quickly becomes clear that there is going to be no Deus Ex Machina, no philosopher’s stone, no master sword to rescue our heroine. Samus is the galaxy’s only hope, and she is increasingly outnumbered and outgunned.
This is never clearer than when the player arrives to the Other Mother Brain, boss of Zebes. Moments like these, when you feel acutely that you are participating in a narrative event, have come to define what I think of as environmental storytelling— moments of total immersion (even tension), where every part of a game’s design contributes to the tale it is telling. Because Other Mother Brain doubles our size and our fire-power from the first game, the battle feels titanic in scale. This becomes almost comically obvious when the player is given the Hyper Beam, the final upgrade our protagonist receives—no explanation is given for it, but before you realize what Other Mother Brain is actually capable of, it appears almost as if a corn-hole sized version of a full, horizontal rainbow, with Samus at its apogee has suddenly spun off into her enemies. Before we were playing as an normal character, in the cut scene we’ve become a goddess.
Even games that had far less overtly involved narratives than the kinds we’ve been discussing so far could tell an incredibly rich story. Super Metroid, released in 1994, long retained its position as one of the best games ever made, and one of the greatest stories ever told within any entertainment medium. With nearly no dialogue, and no minimalistic exposition, as the types of cut-scenes above attempted to provide, Super Metroid managed to create an experience of isolation and discovery as fine as any game since.
The narrative-focused games of today take inspiration from the 90s technology of storytelling. Games like The Last of Us from 2013 were inspired by older games such as Red Dead Redemption 2 of 2018. These games push interactive storytelling to the limit by displaying narratives, characters, and experiences that are seen in cinemas.
To me, the significance of storytelling in 90s video games is that it shows how powerful video games can be as an artistic medium. These games showed that you could tell stories and design games in a way that the experiences you created were so much more than just the sum of their parts. Games of this era showed that video games had become a means of not just entertainment but also expression capable of creating immersive, emotive, memorable stories.
As I keep playing and enjoying modern video games, time and time again, I recall my experiences playing games of the 90s. These games have not only benefited my understanding on how video games can tell a story, but they have also changed how I understand the medium’s potential and what it could ultimately achieve. They have shown me a video game could be more than a toy, but a passport to a brand-new world, a world full of stories, emotions, and characters that you can connect with, and above all, a video game could be a medium, where you can reveal yourself, your understanding of what’s happening, and all of these would be deeply personal.
To sum up, the significance of storytelling in 90s games cannot be overstated. They permanently altered the way in which gameplay and storylines meshed, creating deep, poignant, unforgettable moments that stayed with players. The world’s, the storytelling, the original methods of telling stories that 90s games featured is what the narrative in today’s games was built upon. For me, and for the many folks who grew up playing those games, storytelling is one of the the core identifiers of the 90s. It’s a permanent part of our history, a history that still drives and inspires and molds the games we play today.
