Environmental storytelling

Environmental storytelling means telling a story through the space itself: props, damage, light, wear and layout that let players work out what happened without being told. The Level Design Book defines it as "building a level to convey or imply a past event" (The Level Design Book: Storytelling). Harvey Smith and Matthias Worch's GDC 2010 talk on the subject "examines the game environment as a narrative device" (GDC Vault: What Happened Here? Environmental Storytelling).

For environment artists, it means arranging props so that the arrangement implies events. A chair on its own is set dressing; a chair jammed under a door handle implies that someone tried to keep the door shut.

#Where the idea comes from

#Theme parks

In 2000, former Walt Disney Imagineering show designer Don Carson wrote one of the first game-industry articles on the idea, drawing on theme-park work such as Splash Mountain (Game Developer: Environmental Storytelling: Creating…). His main point: "the story element is infused into the physical space a guest walks or rides through", and "it is the physical space that does much of the work of conveying the story" (Game Developer: Environmental Storytelling: Creating…).

Carson's advice includes:

• Orient first. The first question a visitor asks is "Where am I?" If "your audience can not answer this question in the first 15 seconds, you are already lost" (Game Developer: Environmental Storytelling: Creating…).
• Cause and effect. Stage areas "that lead the game player to come to their own conclusions about a previous event": broken doors, a crashed vehicle, charred remains (Game Developer: Environmental Storytelling: Creating…).
• Follow the trail. He calls trail-based clues "Following Saknussemm" (Game Developer: Environmental Storytelling: Creating…).
• Keep the rules. Once a world's rules are set, "you do not break them!", or visitors "feel cheated" (Game Developer: Environmental Storytelling: Creating…).

#Immersive sims

Harvey Smith (then at Arkane Studios) and Matthias Worch (then at LucasArts) gave the best-known talk on the subject at GDC 2010 (GDC Vault: What Happened Here? Environmental Storytelling). Its description focuses on involving the player in interpreting information rather than receiving exposition, and lists the tools: props, scripted events, texturing, lighting and scene composition, plus game systems that let the environment react (GDC Vault: What Happened Here? Environmental Storytelling).

A blogger who attended summarised the aim as "inviting players to use their own minds to figure out what happened", comparing it to the gaps between comic panels where readers fill in the action (GameDev.net blogs: GDC 2010 - Day 5). One example the blogger reports from the talk: in Half-Life, players often shot smiley faces into walls with bullet holes, so a body lying under an unfinished bullet-hole smiley suggests someone shot from behind while absorbed in drawing it (GameDev.net blogs: GDC 2010 - Day 5).

#Techniques

The techniques fall into a few families:

1. Cause and effect. Show the result of an event and let the player infer the cause: a barricade, scorch marks, a broken window with glass on the inside (Game Developer: Environmental Storytelling: Creating…).
2. Trails. Marks that lead somewhere: drag marks, blood, footprints, a line of dropped belongings. The Level Design Book lists blood trails in Doom and BioShock's destruction trails as wayfinding aids that work through storytelling (The Level Design Book: Wayfinding).
3. Use and ownership. How a space is lived in says who lives there: a neat desk versus a buried one, a child's drawings on a fridge. See worldbuilding for artists.
4. State and condition. Wear, decay and repair tell time and history. The Level Design Book cites The Last of Us Part II's rule that "a building utterly consumed in ivy means it is closed" (The Level Design Book: Environment Art).
5. Systemic traces. The attendee's write-up of the Smith and Worch talk notes that in multiplayer, persistent decals, bodies and shell casings form an "overarching narrative of player actions" (GameDev.net blogs: GDC 2010 - Day 5).

#Limits of environmental storytelling

The Level Design Book draws a clear limit: environmental storytelling "cannot portray current events in the present time" (The Level Design Book: Storytelling). For that you need choreography: scripted scenes where characters move and speak, as in Half-Life's scripted sequences (The Level Design Book: Storytelling). Environmental storytelling is about the past; what happens now is scripting.

The book's practical advice is to list the story beats that are truly vital, "Be honest with yourself and keep the list as short as possible", tie them to the critical path, and make sure "the player needs to act on each of those critical beats" (The Level Design Book: Storytelling). It quotes Emily Short: "Your job is to make it as hard as possible for the player to finish your game without understanding your story" (The Level Design Book: Storytelling).

#Building a scene, step by step

1. Write the event in one sentence. "Miners sealed the tunnel, but the thing got in through the vents."
2. Pick three to five clues that each show one step of it. A few clear clues read better than a pile of debris.
3. Place them along the player's path and sightlines. Use composition, focal points and light so the key clue is seen first. See layout and flow.
4. Make the trail point somewhere. Good scenes double as wayfinding, as in the diagram above.
5. Keep the rules. If a mark means something here, it must mean the same elsewhere (Game Developer: Environmental Storytelling: Creating…). See signifier.
6. Playtest it. Ask testers afterwards what they think happened. If nobody can say, simplify. See playtesting spaces.

A one-sentence premise can also guide a whole portfolio scene. Eric Blaida's breakdown of The Last Chapel, a UE5 mountain chapel, describes the aim as an abandoned place that still felt as if someone might be using it, and says that tension guided most of the scene's decisions (ArtStation: The Last Chapel – Modular Snowy Environment |…). The premise contains a contradiction (abandoned, yet used), which gives the player something to work out.

#Further reading and watching