Characters Over Chaos: Finding Joy in Games with Personal Stakes

In an industry saturated with epic quests to save the universe and vanquish unspeakable evils, there’s a unique charm in the quieter, more personal tales. I often find myself drawn to narratives that are not about saving the world but exploring the intricacies of the human experience on a smaller, more relatable scale. There is magic in the details of personal stories that resonate far beyond the pixels on the screen.

Over the last 30 years we must have saved the world countless number of times, defeated any number of evil overlords and saved multiple princesses. If I’m honest, I’m kind of bored of it. The issue I have with these massive steaks is twofold:

Where do you go from here?

Firstly, when you have the stakes of “the world is going to be destroyed” where do you go from there in the sequel? Narratively it feels like the characters haven’t learned from this and they should’ve. Games like Final Fantasy & Dark Souls get away with it because each new entry is a whole new story. If you think about the Dead Space franchise, they should have an army of Issac Clarke’s to deal with these necromorphs, especially by the third instalment.

A plot so big it suffocates

Secondly, it can be difficult to relate to and has a tendency to drown out the characters that you’re spending time with. JRPGs have straddled this line sometimes worse, sometimes better. Your characters have the chance to breathe and grow or the whole setting has a tendency to crush everything. In the Mass Effect series, the whole setting gets tossed as the massive steaks are so hard to keep front-of-mind.

Cyberpunk Bartender Action

One of my favourite games is Valhalla. This game is set in a future cyberpunk city where you are a bartender and you’re not saving the world. Hell, you are struggling to make rent! But so much of this is written about personal problems and the people who are trying to deal with them. It is such an engaging story because it is so relatable. Sure one of the characters is a robot sex worker who caterers to clientele of specific interests, but she’s also very concerned about her friends and wants to make sure they’re happy.

The game deals with a multitude of different topics such as burnout, society’s expectations, PTSD, the death of a friend and the mental problems that come with all of these. Each storyline is contained within a character and given time to breathe as the characters rotate.

It also has a killer soundtrack.

From alcohol to coffee

I came across another title called Coffee talk which seems to have taken a lot of pointers from Valhalla. Here you are a barista working in a urban fantasy setting where you’re serving elves, orcs, werewolves and again, the setting is far in the background but the characters, the people that you are serving, they have very relatable problems. One major story point is the difficulties of dating when it comes to families with very different ideological beliefs. The game had a direct sequel which continued many of the characters story arcs and both of the games are highly recommend.

Here, much like Valhalla, each storyline is portrayed by character(s) and they interact with each other, sometimes providing advice or their thoughts on matters at hand.

Love a good story

I’ve always been a sucker for a story in a video game and these smaller more personal stories are absolute gold a. Sure I enjoy the spectacle and the power metal vibes that Doom Eternal provides. But these quiet games where you see people trying to work through problems or achieve their goals through sheer grit is captivating.

Have you found any great personal narratives I should know about? please let me know as I would love to find more entries in this genre.