RobotGeek

Videogame novelisations are the flipside of something like licensed movie games. At best, they’re an extra slice of something you love. At worst, they’re blatant, sloppy cash-ins. Unlike most of those movie games, however (though there are exceptions), the purpose of these novels is usually not simply to replicate the experience in a different form, but to expand, in some way, a fictional universe that has been established by a game franchise.

These books can be a direct novelisation of the events of a game, or a sequel or prequel or midquel, or even a tale that, while same-universe, is only remotely related. The point of these universe expansions, though (and not just novels, but comics, animated shorts, etc), is usually that they are canon, an official addition to the narrative—at least, that is, until they contradict or are contradicted by the games, which are generally given priority.

In other words, canon though they may be, they still have ancillary status among these game-oriented franchises. Relatedly, while they might offer in sum total more of the universe than the games ever did—like, for instance, the Halo novels probably do given that there’s a gazillion of them—they can also be dependent on the games for a complete narrative, sometimes offering quite patchy coverage of a universe, whereas the games are usually relatively self-contained. In other words, the novels are treated as ‘extra’.

It’s worth looking at what exact role they fulfil, though—why novels in particular, other than the fact that they’re probably cheaper to produce?

The first thing to note is that it’s a reversion to a more traditional mode of narrative, or a de-gamed version. This entails the obvious advantage of exploring a world free of the limitations imposed by game mechanics. To use the Halo example again, it allows the Master Chief to interact with the world beyond shooting at things. It’s not totally unlike cutscenes, which take over to move the story forward in a way the game can’t, or isn’t designed to.

Our interaction with the world of a game is mediated through gamey elements, to a greater or lesser extent. With a few exceptions (see later), novelisations are scrubbed of these aspects, representing instead a kind of ‘ideal’ version of that same reality where all the stuff we might attribute to its nature as a game is ignored.

But it’s not just about losing what we might view as limitations. There’s also the fact that, by virtue of de-gaming, the player aspect is obviously removed, and what that means. Given how much of our experience of a game depends on it being something to be played, it’s going to change the nature of the beast.

In one way or another, novels have to get down to the serious business of telling a story. Games are capable of advancing narratives in their own special way, but you’re also allowed to piss around to the extent of the freedom you’re given. While this in itself can be a valid part of a game’s ‘narrative’, in all likelihood it’d be pretty boring to read about some of the stuff we get up to, which is largely only interesting because we’re in control. It’s that element of ‘play’—in a novel, it’s not even like you’re watching someone else play, because every little moment is contrived.

If it’s a good novel, it shouldn’t feel contrived, but ultimately we know that it is, and extended pissing around would have to justify itself in terms of its relevance to the plot—and as something we’re forced through. Basically, anything you do out of choice in a game can only be put in a novel in a way that works as part of an inescapably scripted narrative, as opposed to a realtime virtuality.

For some games, take away the freedom of play and their universes don’t leave much that’s all that interesting. Games get novelisations on the basis that their fictional universes still have something to offer when you do. (Which is why the existence of Gears of War novels has got to be somebody’s idea of a joke.) But even these games, because they are so defined by the player experience, risk being reduced to a significantly less interesting experience in the transfer.

Sometimes it’s because these worlds, while fleshed out, are actually pretty derivative. James Swallow’s Icarus Effect, which overlaps with Deus Ex: Human Revolution, is one of the better videogame novels I’ve read, but it winds up about as dependent on throwaway plot and intrigue as a Dan Brown book, because everything else has been seen before.

This is partly because it barely touches on the actual interesting and original parts of the Human Revolution story, opting for the standard conspiracy thriller side of things, rather than stuff like the augmentation riots. But it’s also because the world of Deus Ex (and Human Revolution, though slightly less so) has always been a pretty derivative world, and what made it so special was how great a game it was, and how the player had an effect on said world.

That aside, though, even a fleshed-out world has to be repurposed, or handled differently than it was in the game, in order to meet certain criteria. It might not matter if, say, the Master Chief never indicates an inkling of thought or personality when we’re playing as him, except for what we choose to carry over from cutscenes. In fact, this is usually how it works best. This is not to say that the Chief is devoid of personality, but what we get is minimal, and what the Master Chief thinks is not of great importance to the experience.

But a novel kind of needs that sort of stuff, a little more mental interaction between the protagonist or some other character and his or her world. This is not an absolute necessity—it’s certainly possible to write a character purely through their actions with little or no internalisation—but again, in the case if Halo, we’d be hard pushed to read through all those waves of aliens without it (and if you’ve read The Flood, the novelisation of the first Halo game, you’ll know that it’s difficult enough to get through with it). Our sense of the stakes is constructed differently, and with ourselves out of the equation, we have to be made to care about the Chief himself, or to be interested in him, to care about all the things that are happening to him. The Chief’s character becomes our point of entry.

Our means of engagement tends to shift: if we lose the player aspect, there needs to be some way to make up for it, and most of the time this means falling back on the characters themselves.

Keep reading: 1 2