Visual storytelling finds it's roots in Cinematography. The principles with which we deconstruct a scene in a game are derived from the very same principles of early cinema and film, however they do not fully translate over to the realm of video games, in which the player is offered substantially more freedom.(Lowndes. 2010) The level of interactivity in games renders them completely different from more traditional media such as books and films, and presents a challenge to game writers as they must consider relatively unheard of factors such as the marriage between story and gameplay, to create and conserve a proper pace for story progression.(Lebowiz, Klung. 2011)
Visual storytelling in games first began (arguably) with the original Donkey Kong (1981), which was the first game to visually convey story progression through a series of cutscenes.
Technology back then placed a lot of limitations on what video games could and could not achieve. Early hardware meant that there was barely enough memory to do any more than move a few dots around the screen, and displaying a short text-based backstory on the side of the arcade machine was the established storytelling convention for games. However, technology has come on in leaps and bounds and now we have extremely powerful gaming systems which are capable of displaying impressive graphics and audio, and are now being used to explore the possibilities of varying storytelling techniques. Stories for games have developed from the simplistic kidnapped-girl plot of Donkey Kong to the complicated and interwoven novel length tales associated with modern RPG's such as Final Fantasy XIII.
With such powerful hardware, memory is no longer an issue and the true potential of rich and elaborate narratives can finally be realised. The interactivity offered to the player in relation to story manipulation have resulted in many different types of stories and many differing ways of telling stories within games, which is extremely difficult if not entirely impossible to convey in any other medium.(Lebowiz 2011) In addition to the extreme advances with graphics, sound and interactivity, narrative is fast becoming a highly important factor for contemporary games. The huge successes of character-driven games such as Tomb Raider and Hit Man, in conjunction with story-driven games such as Myst and Max Payne, have resulted in the games industry making an effort to develop more games with compelling narratives, and indicates that narrative is obviously now a "killer application" in the computer games industry. (Vordere, Bryant. 2009.)
Computer games are changing the way stories are being told. New narrative-driven games such as QuanticDream's Heavy Rain and their new development Beyond:Two Souls are pushing the boundaries for game narrative, and receiving high critical acclaim for their efforts. K Santiago described games as "the birth of an entirely new artistic medium". stating that games could in fact be the "collaboration between everything we've learned to date, as humans, about telling stories through visuals, through audio and now with the added component of interactivity." (Santiago. 2009)
