Thoughts on Video Games and Character Development

Finally finished Dragon Age: Inquisition. I’d actually come close to finishing it half a year ago, but I was so in love with the world and characters that I put off the final battle until last night because I didn’t want to finish the game and wanted to savor every moment of a game. I did NOT want to finish Dragon Age at all…and come to an end with all my favorite characters. But I finally did it, and now I feel a little silly because DA released several DLC (downloadable content expansions), so I have those to look forward to. After I finish working on this draft, of course.

It’s incredible to me how much like a novel all these video games have become now. Playing through during a 50-70 hour game obviously means that the world and characters have to be riveting, and something I paid attention to throughout my time with DA was how the writers made me very attached to the characters. What made them feel so real, so human—as if they were people I’d met and actually battled with, cared about if they died?

I narrowed it down as much as I could: every character had a sense of humor, a complex backstory, and fears and hopes that came out the more you talked to them. And one key thing—as the main player, you obviously are linked to all the other characters and interact with them. But what develops their characters in DA is that they all interact with each other independently of you, so you can piece together the complex relationships between individual characters. Not everything revolves around you.

Something to think about in my own writing.