I’ve missed a lot of video games over the years, which means I’ve missed a lot of video game history, too. There are many beloved franchises releasing new entries that I feel totally disconnected from because I didn’t grow up playing those games like everyone else.Never having played a Final Fantasy gamehas left me bereft of all context while my colleagues talk about what they loved and hated in recent instalments. I didn’t play Helldivers, which means having to piece togetherHelldivers 2’slore myself. I haven’t playedDragon Ageat all, thoughI’m planning to play Inquisition before Dreadwolf.
In an industry growing increasingly focused on sequels, franchises, and remakes (much to the industry’s detriment), this is becoming more of a problem. It’s hard to jump into a series when there’s already so much history to it, and not every game is a good entry point into a series:take it from me. Obviously, as a person who writes about games and the industry, I want to play as many games as possible, but my perspective is already limited by my lack of personal experience with older games, let alone by my lack of understanding of often complex lore.
Thankfully, the lore video is here to help. These have existed for a long time in various forms, but we’re specifically seeing a rise in famous actors in gaming-related videos. Brian Cox explained the long, convoluted lore of Tekken in the run up to Tekken 8,which I found surprisingly compelling. And over the last few days, Konamireleased the first partof its Metal Gear Solid Legacy Series featuring David Hayter, andIan McShane narrated the Welcome to Dragon’s Dogma 2 video for Capcom.
David Hayter, of course, voiced Solid Snake in almost all of the Metal Gear games, and so is the perfect person to explain the series.
All these games are from Japanese publishers, so I’m fairly sure this is a push to appeal to a new generation of Western audiences with familiar names, especially in the case of Tekken and Dragon’s Dogma 2 – well-known older British actors with lots of gravitas? Yes, that will do nicely. But the videos are also very clearly attempts to make these series accessible to newcomers to boost sales, which means their target audience is me, and it’s working.
In fact, I wish I’d seen the Dragon’s Dogma 2 video beforeI previewed the game at Tokyo Game Show last year. I did research, of course. It would be irresponsible for me to preview a sequel completely blind. But I was still confused about the appeal of the series. This video made it make sense, and now I actuallywantto play the sequel even though it didn’t click with me when I first tried it.
In fact, I want more. Videos contextualising the history of game franchises, especially big ones like Tekken and Metal Gear, can and should be more than just ads and promotional material. Fans have been taking on the mantle of video game historian for years – whenI talked about starting Destiny in 2023 with my colleague Eric Switzer, he told me that there are four hour fan-made videos on YouTube summarising the game’s lore.
The publishers of these franchises are in great positions to be documenting the history of these games, which in turn would make them more accessible to newcomers interested in jumping in now. If the industry is going to stick to sequels as the safer alternative to new IP, it might as well focus on mitigating what makes them difficult to get into.
