How to build great narrative content in games is a topic that’s always at the forefront of my mind. Crafting game narratives has been one focus of my career, and I’ve been around long enough to see several trends in narrative design come and go.
The industry has undoubtedly improved at delivering stories over the years. In particular, we have a much better collective understanding of how interactive games are fundamentally different from movies or novels. Big teams now have dedicated narrative designers, a position that’s evolved separately from game writing – a more technical role, focused on the interplay between mechanics and narrative.
The core principles I’ve written about before still hold true. Different game genres require different approaches and tools, but whenever a story reinforces the mechanics of the game, and vice versa, the entire package will be a stronger experience for the player.
And whether you’re a narrative designer or a game writer, you’ve got to play a lot of games in a wide variety of genres. Because sometimes, a master class in strong narrative technique turns up in the most unlikely place.
This week, I stumbled across one of the best game stories I’ve seen in a quirky double-A 4X game. What’s most surprising was how the game achieves greatness while leveraging a surprisingly generic-sounding setting, drawing from a random kitchen sink of influences – from Terminator to Mad Max to H.P. Lovecraft’s work.
line in a post-apocalyptic wasteland.
America in 2025? Nope, it’s Zephon!
4X, Emphasis on Exterminate
Proxy Studios, a small independent developer, is best known for Warhammer 40K: Gladius – Relics of War. Gladius is one of many games set in the venerable and often-licensed Games Workshop Warhammer universe and was a military-focused 4X (after all, in the dark future of Warhammer 40K, there is only war!) Economy, diplomacy, and the possibility of peaceful victory conditions are entirely sidelined for a laser-sharp focus on military production and robust tactical and strategic options.
It’d be easy to dismiss Zephon, the latest game from Proxy, as a cheap Gladius reskin. It clearly uses the same engine and many of the same core mechanics – the units, production systems, UI, and terrain generation all seem to be lifted wholesale from the earlier game.
Like Gladius, Zephon is laser-focused on short, sharp games where war is at the forefront. A player looking for a ten-hour epic Civilization game, with long stretches of infrastructure building while your nation slowly develops, is in for a shock. Your opponents in Zephon won’t let up – you’ll be training military units from the first few turns right until the shockingly epic final battle.
Terrain, morale, and special abilities all play a significant role in Zephon’s robust tactics-focused combat. You can’t just produce one unit type and hope to be successful; a diverse army with a strong mix of support units is the key to victory.
At times, the game feels like a turn-based version of the best real-time strategy games. Building-centric production queues, rally points, and a simple tech tree with the most powerful units gated until the game’s final stages all contribute to this feeling. Each and every turn’s actions are laser-focused on conflict – where are your units, what are they up against, and should you push forward or retreat?
Unlike Gladius, Zephon does include a nod to diplomacy. In fact, the game can’t be played well without some player attention spent on making friends in its harsh world. Though diplomatic options are limited, the AI players respect treaties and are solid allies once on your side. They make sensible, context-sensitive decisions and are far more reliable than the usual random backstabbing buddies so common in many 4X games.
Zephon’s Narrative: Making Hay from Tropes
An invasion of strange eldritch aliens threatens Earth. In response, humans create Zephon – basically, SkyNet from the Terminator series. In the ensuing conflict between the aliens and Zephon, the world is destroyed. Humans cower in bunkers, before several factions finally emerge in a shattered world – to find the war still raging on.
The human factions, eight in all, are minor variations on the survivor theme. Some embrace cyberware and naturally side with Zephon; others have formed cults around alien whispers; still others try to defend what’s left of their humanity. Thrown into the mix is a third AI faction, human survivors who remained on the surface and carved out a hardscrabble Mad Max-style existence in the rubble of the world’s cities and deserts.
This is the setting for Zephon, and yes, it’s full of tropes. The basic conflict between the two AI factions is Terminator robots versus eldritch abominations, and the units of the factions reflect their theme in expected ways.
Zephon’s top-notch writing elevates the content. Every unit, hero, ability, and tech in the game has a detailed description, dropping another puzzle piece of a much deeper backstory and fleshing out the details of the conflict. The more you play, the more layers are revealed; one game isn’t nearly enough to uncover all of Zephon’s narrative secrets.
and evocative. Narrative events add
context and depth to the game’s story.
Narrative events also contribute to the story. Pop-up events are nothing new in strategy games; while the Crusader Kings series is the most well-known example, events also play a role in modern 4X games like Millennia and Old World.
Zephon leverages its events in innovative ways. Short story chains, some faction-specific and some not, force the player to make tough choices without always understanding the outcomes. In the dramatic endgame, if the player completes a story chain, there’s a payoff – perhaps several super-units, or a powerful upgrade.
Meanwhile, the highly tactical moment-to-moment gameplay reinforces the narrative with a hundred smaller moments of drama. Soldiers with shoulder-fired missiles dig in along a desert cliff, trying to hold the line against an overwhelming force of robotic walkers. Another desperate band of survivors fights a war of attrition, falling back from a jungle peninsula while pursued by ravenous hordes of zombie-like aliens.
And that endgame! Zephon and the aliens are going to throw down – that much is certain. Who will your ragtag faction seek an alliance with before the inevitable conflict? Will you side with the robots, the aliens, or try to reclaim the planet for humanity?
In that final battle, your previous decisions all come to fruition, perfectly marrying your game choices with the narrative. Maybe you were slow to get through the tech tree; maybe you didn’t carefully build up a veteran fighting force. Or perhaps you made the right choices, and now your coalition triumphs in an easy win.
And then, a twist ending! I don’t want to say too much about how Zephon handles the end of a game, but it made me immediately want to play again with a different faction and get the next piece of the narrative puzzle.
The Perfect Resolution
The end of a game of Zephon is a shiny bow on the colorful overall package. It’s clever, ties gameplay and story together, and is thematically consistent. The end of my first game made me fall in love with the game’s world – a setting that constantly suggests a fascinating depth hidden beneath the more obvious elements despite relying on traditional post-apocalyptic tropes.
allied to the alien menace, battle
on a narrow strip of land.
As smart as Zephon’s narrative is, it wouldn’t work as well without excellent execution. The written content is perfectly crafted. Coming off Dragon Age: The Veilguard’s dialogue, with its heavy-handed and clunky exposition, the high quality of the descriptive prose in Zephon was notable.
The game’s mechanics are polished, clever, and an iterative step forward from Gladius. The new diplomacy system is basic but delivers consistent and logical results. The factions, too, are simplified but offer distinct choices and promote unique playstyles.
And, as in many of my favorite games, Zephon’s narrative reinforces the game mechanics (and vice-versa). In a 4X game emphasizing the military aspect, the developers delivered a smart story about a desperate struggle for the survival of the human race and who will control the future.
In a tight four or five hours per match, a game of Zephon delivers a story for the ages – and a masterful lesson in smart, focused 4X development from the clever folks at Proxy Games.
Zephon is available on Steam. The Scree Games blog appears weekly on Tuesdays, with a repost on Medium every Wednesday.