Louise Chase Celebrates The Books That Make Our Games Feel Alive | Winter Spectacular 2023
I worked in Waterstones for a few months this year, a dream job for a nerd like me; but what surprised me during my time was how much my conversations about books intersected with chats about video games with customers.
The number of times I recommended a book on Greek Mythology because we spoke about Hades or Stray Gods surprised and delighted me, and I got excited when I noticed someone picked up the last copy of Sword of the White Horse at the same time they recognised the Assassin’s Creed necklace I was wearing.
We have video essays on YouTube by creators who admit they hardly read the extra content in video games in titles from Skyrim to Control; hell, when you search ‘reading in video games’ you get those essays side by side with people lecturing how they ‘put down video games and picked up books instead!’
But why do they have to be separate entities?
I, a gamer and self-confessed bookworm, enjoy doing both.
When I picked up The Forgotten City earlier this year, I took the time to read through all of the graffiti throughout the Roman settlement - there’s even an achievement for it. But that’s not why I elected to run around ducking into every corner to find the note to find out it was Rufus threatening Vergil.
These additional writings on scraps of paper and books around the map helped to truly sell the setting. If the Temple to Proserpina or the gladiator doing pushups in the villa’s courtyard aren’t enough to convince you that you might have fallen through time, then the Latin graffiti just might do.
It’s an additional layer of storytelling, setting the scene for a player’s immersion in the next 40 or so hours of quest-solving. Think about how different Moria in Fellowship of the Ring might feel if we didn’t have Ori’s post-apocalyptic record of the settlement’s downfall.
Taking the time to slow down and read my way through enough notes to fill entire archives, I’ve resurfaced with a new appreciation for the written samples gifted to us to discover. As the player, we’re there for the moment, but these characters would have lived an entire life before your protagonist arrives.
Back when I was a wee new gamer, I was obsessed with puzzle games. More specifically, Frogwares’ Sherlock Holmes series of games. Puzzle games depend on the player taking the time to slow down a little to fully examine their surroundings, and read through the evidence to come to the correct conclusions. More than once while playing through Crime and Punishments I felt that paying attention made me connect more to the characters the game wanted me to sympathise with, and maybe more likely to pick the options to ‘absolve’ the culprits and let them fix their lives instead of just sending them to jail?
2023 release This Bed We Made utilises this as well. The 1950s-era murder mystery is full of puzzles you might only unlock if you step into Beth’s footsteps. Want to decode the secret letters, time to go snooping and read everything littered around the room! The endings might depend on whether or not you remembered where you left certain notes or incriminating evidence - potentially even putting you in jail. The drama is also juicy so I hold no qualms in being nosy….
Assassin’s Creed Mirage utilises the requirement to read notes in several of the assassinations, demanding the player use the in-game map and their own navigation skills to find an excavation site. Our only clue is that it is southwest of Baghdad, and the rest is up to us. In earlier games from the series, Shaun Hastings’ sarcastic and witty database entries helped inform players on anything from the history of Il Duomo in Florence to how Les Miserables’ setting is not really reflective of the 1789 French Revolution. And quite frankly, this snark is the reason why I find him such a beloved character in the franchise.
The example in The Last of Us which stands out most to me is Bill and Frank. The writing hints to something more between Bill and his partner, but he doesn’t speak of it. It’s only by completing the entirely optional task of having Joel pick up the crumbled note Bill threw aside to find out the truth.
And paying close attention to what customers say in Coffee Talk is the way to the golden ending; being able to reconnect people and their
Reading, it seems, teaches a bit about humanity and kindness - what our connection to one another truly is. If we work on autopilot in real life, the reality is missed in favour of what feels ‘comfortable’ to share. We need to put the effort in should we want to reap the rewards.
The Tomb Raider reboot trilogy from the 2010s also rewards Lara in-game, reading and interacting with monuments or inscriptions increases her ability to read ancient languages, and in turn earn more skill points - making the player stronger in the long run. Inkle’s Heaven’s Vault also rewards you in the same way, allowing Aliya to expand her knowledge of the fictional language found across the planets you can visit. As the player unlocks more interpretations of a word or phrase, you might even be able to completely change the meaning of a monument or settlement you find yourself excavating!
Why else would transmedia be such a popular section of video game franchises now? The Magus Conspiracy, a book set in the canon of the Assassin’s Creed universe was one of my most beloved reads of 2022, and its sequel followed suit in 2023.
Video games can also be used as a learning tool; multiple studies mention how playing video games might help improve a child’s reading ability as well as attention span and school grades. Something that is contradictory to the general stigma associated with the hobby.
As a humanities graduate student, I want to gather as many pieces of evidence as possible for my arguments, whether that is a broken statue or a written letter. The same is true for me when playing games, I search and read through documents and details of the lives of people I will never meet. I learn about the world that doesn’t exist anymore - and I can do the same in Horizon Forbidden West or Firewatch.
And more than once, it has helped me to feel more connected to the world I’m playing through, to sit better in the player character’s shoes. The little note in Mr. Oshiro’s room in Celeste adds another layer to his insistence of having Madeline try and stay in the hotel. He just wants his business to succeed, but previous hard times meant he is the only staff member left. [he’s doing amazing, <3]
The 110+ books read according to my tracker app have nothing on the amount I’ve read in games over the years. And we should celebrate the writers who do such a good job making the worlds we inhabit feel complete and alive with these small hidden snippets for our curious minds.
