Kena and the Value of Emotional Satisfaction Versus Physical Rewards in Games

I've been playing through Kena: Bridge of Spirits and can't get the cutscene preceding the first major boss battle out of my mind (runs from the 0:15 to the 1:15 mark).

There's a lot to unpack in those 60 seconds of silent storytelling. Kena enters the arena with hope, wonder, and a little sadness-- not typical expressions for a warrior about to battle a monster. The scene flips the script on us again when the tortured ghost of Taro (the boy you're trying to save) himself appears. He's then ensnared in evil energy and transformed into the monster. 

Stuff like this is a major reason why the game works so well. In terms of level design and combat, Kena isn't doing anything really new. The story is very straightforward with no major side quests. What makes it stand out is that it nails the fundamentals of storytelling so well. Instead, it packs huge emotional energy into the events of the main storyline. It is a creation that knew going into development that it was a meat-and-potatoes game and committed to making them the best damn meat and potatoes possible. 

Normally, the opening cinematic for a boss battle focuses on the sheer physical aspects, like the adversary's size, or power, or weaponry, or the peripheral dangers of their lair. Kena largely eschews that approach, and I think for good and deliberate reasons. By simplifying the physical elements of the battle, the player can remain more focused on the emotional stakes. They are not trying to slay a beast. They are trying to free a scared little boy trapped within his own grief and guilt. 

For protagonists like Kratos or the Master Chief, the impetus to keep playing is always a physical challenge. But the driving force behind the quest to defeat them all is pretty one-dimensional. Kratos is angry. Master Chief wants to save the universe. That's pretty much it. Their games present them as super powerful icons with a perma-grimace or a blank orange visor, and their stories rarely go beyond that. They are defined by whatever stands between them and their ultimate target. 

As seen above and below, Kena is much more expressive. She's going through a range of emotion. She's determined to do the right thing yet apprehensive that she'll accidentally hurt someone, enthralled by the magic around her yet fearful for her own safety. We are invested and involved, and there's always a sense of background tension about what will happen next. 

It's consequential then that Kena never starts out with an intent to purge the land of evil. She begins by meeting the spirits of two small children and deciding to help them find their brother. The quest is small, focused, and personal. 

This narrative setup recurs in each of Kena's missions toward her ultimate goal. Each time, Kena seeks to free tortured spirits from the evil keeping them bound to the mortal plane. Kena learns about their lives in brief flashbacks, develops a connection based on sympathy and loss, and then experiences a kind of mourning and sadness at the passing of the spirit she just helped, as demonstrated by the wrap-up cinematic following her battle: 

This scene is a textbook demonstration of the concept that "the player must always be allowed to succeed, but it doesn't mean the character has to." The team behind Kena did a great job employing that principle in subtle and multi-layered ways. Yes, she has won. But she is also losing friends she's made and that (at least for me) the player has come to like along the way. 

There's no loot drop, no new weapon or trophy acquired. And adding one would be a terrible distraction from the game's theme, which is the real reward. The payoff is completely in the catharsis of the mission's story. As a choice in game design, that's a bold gamble. But thanks to the way the team executed those cinematic moments, it works. By really thinking their story and characters through, the Kena team was able to enrich the reward of finishing a level by making each victory bittersweet. Each mission's completion takes time to conclude multiple plot threads. They're not always entirely happy, but they are satisfying. 

It's that insistence on emotional satisfaction that gives the game's narrative its real brilliance. The first mission defines what the game's story is, and it never flinches from pursuing that vision. It is a story about loss and letting go. Making that into a fun game is super difficult. Making one that is enlightening and uplifting is even more so. But Kena does it because it never compromises from its vision to keep pulling you forward with the story. No gimmicks. No unlockables. No upgrades. Just characters and their arcs. 

It's not that there's no substitute for a good story. But if your story is good enough you don't need one.

We Need to Talk About Side Quests

 

I'm pumped for Horizon: Forbidden West releasing. Zero Dawn did a phenomenal job in so many aspects, from character development to world-building to gameplay. But after playing through Ghost of Tsushima a while back, I've played through a few games that make me realize there's one thing I'm not looking forward to: the side quests.

I've dabbled with Sifu, Kena: Bridge of Spirits, and Knights and Bikes. This past week I even dusted off the PS4 redux of Shadow of the Colossus. In the meantime, I've been reading Grace Lin's Mulan prequel novel, Before the Sword, to my daughter. Altogether, it's been a cornucopia of epic adventure without side-questing.

It was actually Grace Lin's storytelling that made me see that what bothers me about side quests is how much more they could be. Like the flashback segments of gameplay in Ghost of Tsushima, Lin pauses the main storyline every three chapters or so to allow Mulan's magical mentor to tell a little fable connected to Chinese mythology. If you've read Lin's When the Sea Turned to Silver, then you get the sense pretty quickly that all these seemingly disjointed tales are connected in some way. It's a lot like the mystery of Zero Dawn as Aloy began picking up little bits of data. Figuring out what happened to the planet felt like a parallel quest to stopping the machines. Similarly, I like the slow burn of unraveling Jin's history throughout Ghost. 

And that's when it hit me: PARALLEL QUESTS. Tasks that take you to touchstones offering deeper insight behind the story. Missions that feel natural to your course rather than pulling you away from your character's all-consuming reason for being. Challenges that yield a clue or knowledge in addition to a different color lightsaber or +6 armor bonus. 

I'm not saying I don't want to do other stuff in a game. I just think it breaks player immersion for Geralt to go kill a giant spider while he's hot on the trail of a vampire holding Yennefer hostage. 

I think Red Dead Redemption II handled the balance very well. The setup of a group of people just trying to make a buck in the world lent itself to Arthur taking on tasks or jobs. Side quests also built into each other. You bumped into characters from previous missions later in the game, creating a sense that you were in a wide world hosting endless dramas. 

H:ZD... not so much. The side quests were really just window dressing for additional gameplay. They offered a little world building to expand your knowledge of the various tribes. I honestly felt more rewarded anytime I found a journal entry from the mysterious guy taking his farewell tour of Earth in the Faro plague. A lot of people talked about the character animations feeling wooden, but I felt it was more about their underlying motivations. When Aloy dealt with the romantic overtures of a king or defended LGBTQ rights against religious extremism, I felt a genuine investment. These were moments bound up in her character and her core motivations. 

I get the development dynamics underlying side quests. They're bolt-on elements that add gameplay without complicating the path of the main narrative. But as easy as they are to make, they're also easy to see through. Oh, it's another find-the-secret-path-to-the-totem thing. Oh, it's another go-to-three-people-to-get-the-equipment-item thing. Oh, it's another zone-of-especially-difficult-enemies-that-yield-XP thing. But when a game like Horizon comes along and puts those sorts of side-quests into relief against the exploration mechanics of finding all those unique little data points that tell an engrossing story all on their own, it just shows us how much more we can and should be doing. 

As good as RDR2 was, I would have felt like the game could have used those side mechanics to further develop Arthur. What if he'd had a series of side quests that would have led him toward an escape from the gang and an honest life? What if some snake-oil salesman hung out the offer of a cure for his tuberculosis, and he gradually assembled ingredients or money for it? What would it have meant for us as players to experience that moment with him when a secret hope got yanked out from underneath him? What would that final gunfight have felt like? 

Side quests have become to me a lot like side salads. I don't know why you're even bothering to put that on the table. I'd rather exchange it for three shrimp. It may not seem like a lot, but just the fact that they pair better with the steak makes them more appealing. If there is a piece of a map to something in a bandit camp or if clearing it will liberate a village elder who gives me advice on dealing with a village elder further up the road, then I'm all for it. I want it to add up to something that adds to the flavor. Horizon Zero Dawn did that, just not in the side quests. I'm really hoping with a paired or parallel quest in Forbidden West like the one in Zero Dawn. And I hope more games in the future get away from the side quest model and try to integrate world-building with character and main storyline.