Half life is very appraised for the way on how it handles its story, when playing the game for the first time, I was surprised by just how excellent the design felt, it just clicks all, and its a game from the 90's. Something a lot of people give credit for is the way it shows the story without cutscenes, and also allowing the player to move always. But, when I played half life 2, I don't think I would agree, Half life 1 has the same concept, but half life 2 tries to expand the concept much more. And I don't like it. Most of the time, players don't give a single shit about your story, in fact, when they encounter dialogue or text in the games they only understand bold concepts or rephrases, when you write a game story you want every little crevice of dialogue to be context in gold. But thats just not what people fucking care for. Half life 2 has a long sequence of just standing there, and it happens many times, early and late in the game. But in Half life 1, the longest are early on, and they are not as long as the ones in Half life. If you were to put a graph on complexity of your story vs the amount of time it requieres to explain, you would get a direct line. Although its more of a x^2 curve. The players want games, the story is decoration. So even if valve decides to let you roam free in a scenario, the story needs to ignore that mister freeman moves like an ape who exited the zoo while on heavy cocaine. And the story just goes along. No one thinks its weird. In half life 1 gordon could move the way the player wanted because the "cutscenes" were short, immaculate short Five seconds at most, and most of the time, they were interactable. In essence its the same as a coaster ride, but like the slow ones, with shapes and figures made out of cardboard popping up from time to time to remember you, oh yes, this is ride has a story. Hald life 1 was pretty simple story wise, alien breakout, its concept is simple and everything that can be said can be shown. You can hear the npc talk about a nuke in black mesa, or you can just fucking see it for yourself. But on half life 2, you have to be on a fucking elevator looking at mossman talk about their plans, and you know what, freeman can't hurt her, because he needs to listen to her, and so valve turns down your gun. In half life 1 you were, alone. most of the time, and not only that, you could essentially become a terrorist, you can shoot the scientist, you can shoot anything Freeman was... in a way, free, a free character, a free slot. The story of freeman was dictated on the player. But on half life 2, the story needs to expand, the lore, the characters, the feelings, the mocap. all of it needs to be told, and freeman needs composure that takes away the liberty of the player. Because WE know, he wouldn't kill mossman So... how do you really make a story without stupid fancy cutscenes that turn off the player. I think two games have done it well. Doom, and New vegas. Not perfect though, just well. New vegas has all the liberty the player can, its an rpg first, so it makes, sense. And although it has some cutscenes in some parts, the player can always move, except for dialogues, if the player could keep moving while talking, the issue would be fixed, the player is no more bound to the context of the story. And doom, 2016 or eternal whichever, the player, in fact. Most players, dont give a single shit about the lore, the codex, the pages, none of that. And so, they just ignore them, which fits perfectly the doom slayer, this brute of a man, that only searches violence towards demons, it makes sense that he doesn't give a shit about the story, so instead of listening to mossman yap, he just shots and moves on. Imperfect I say, for all the cutscenes in which the player can't interact, if the demon talking were done while the player can move, the feeling of just shooting a character to shut them up would be executed perfectly. Of course, there is the problem of... what if the player doesnt kill? The very few lines of personality of doom slayer contradict this. So he has to kill a character. But the player needs to force him. It's all in the desing. Either you have a story buried in lines allowing the player to mindlessly bhop around black mesa, or you have a movie that hardly gets the attention of players. I'm not saying that these games don't get their story across. But I just keep thinking on why has the industry evolved the design of half life 1. So to fix this mess, you desing should desing the core of its story around anything. a story that can only be told on interactive software. Your character must make sense to kill and to forgive, and your characters, they should only watch from afar. Is it clear? Not all the time you idiot. A little bit of flashy presentation is okay, just... not more than a minute. Because, when you write a story... you just know, people don't give a shit about it. So you need to engrain them into it.