Millennial writing in video games

[Dr.Kisaragi]

I'm curious if there are many video games written in a millennial style—I haven’t seen any before. People criticize writers for this, so how do you spot millennial-style writing, and what is the stigma around it.

 

[newtype711]

The Saint's Row Reboot is a prime example. While taste is always relative the best description of the "millennial style" is anytime the story or dialouge apes a Disney marvel movie or anything written by Josh Wedon (Buffy the Vampire Slayer).
Put in a more formal way it is a style that tries to challenge the tropes of entertainment to the excess of being trite or cilche.

 

[Doomsday519]

I think one of the bigger examples is Borderlands. The quirky characters & writing, sarcasm and the like. Criticism has always been that millennial writing is cringe or corny. Take a serious scene then insert unnecessary jokes, sarcasm, quips, "well, that just happened...", etc. For me I think a lot of the influence comes from one man and he didn't even write a video game. The man is Joss Whedon. I feel like he popularized that style and millennials in general just ran with it and kinda made it worse.

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The Saint's Row Reboot is a prime example. While taste is always relative the best description of the "millennial style" is anytime the story or dialouge apes a Disney marvel movie or anything written by Josh Wedon (Buffy the Vampire Slayer).
Put in a more formal way it is a style that tries to challenge the tropes of entertainment to the excess of being trite or cilche.

Like minds mentioning "Joss Whedon" lol

 

[starseeker300]

this is because of metroid prime 4 isnt it.

 

[ThatOneLum ThatOneLum]

I think I can second most people's suggestion that Borderlands 3/4 both suffer from what we call "millennial writing", tough honestly it feels more like it's "currently trending hacky writing" than specific to any given generation.

I've not played it, but from what I understand, Forspoken had this issue as well. Overly quippy, grounded dialogue spouted by people in fantastical scenarios as much as it would be in an everyday scenario.

Personally, I'm not a fan, but there are so many projects outside of the mainstream system that don't suffer from it. I dunno how prevalent it has become in games outside of a few games that generally just failed.

 

[Neb Lleb]

I think one of the bigger examples is Borderlands. The quirky characters & writing, sarcasm and the like. Criticism has always been that millennial writing is cringe or corny. Take a serious scene then insert unnecessary jokes, sarcasm, quips, "well, that just happened...", etc. For me I think a lot of the influence comes from one man and he didn't even write a video game. The man is Joss Whedon. I feel like he popularized that style and millennials in general just ran with it and kinda made it worse.

Yeah. Millennial Writing and the creatives who use it are very influenced by Joss Whedon, and TBH? they don't know WHY his writing for shows like Buffy the Vampire Slayer worked in the first place. Buffy was a sincere show even with the lampshades and in-jokes (I.E. "Nightmares", the highlight of that show's first season and one that is 100% sincere in its plot and the torment Buffy and the scoobies go through), and most millennial-penned works of fiction are anything but, mainly due to these people having insane egos the size of Arrakis (to quote one of my two threads on one of the worst offenders, Netflix May Cry).

Thing is, it's okay to tell a joke to alleviate tension. But you need to be genuine as you do so, and millennial writers lack this quality.

 

[DanCalibur]

 

[Sumea]

Yeah. Millennial Writing and the creatives who use it are very influenced by Joss Whedon, and TBH? they don't know WHY his writing for shows like Buffy the Vampire Slayer worked in the first place. Buffy was a sincere show even with the lampshades and in-jokes

Yeah. To me, this is difference of writing in GTA3 to 4, versus how writing and scenes are in GTA5. GTA up to 4 is very sincere especially in their characters even if the world has heavily satirical elements. Whereas 5 makes even the characters part of the satirical world, and also goes just quite overboard with the "quirky" nature of everything. To me, something like diving equipment company being named "Prolaps" is just that slight push over. Yet, I would not call GTA5 a case of "Millenial Writing" but more of example of new writers not getting the balance and golden ratio of old.

Even when I could use "Millenial Writing" as handwavy thing against some games easily, it is bit of a blanketed statement. I am still not sure if it it "Written by millenials" or "Written for millenials" - it is bit of both, I think, and I am sure there is at least two good thing written by and for millenials. To me examples from the "Flood" of "Millenial writing" are Forspoken by square, with a main character that is written to suck brain cells dry and bringing it's concept and world down. The type people tend to hate is where writers intend to make "Strong individual" but end up making them self centered jerks that are hard to root for unless you identify with the character and is a yike for that, or are so forceful with their "subversion" of tropes for the game style, world or concept so hard it comes off as petty hatred for the concept itself. Trying too hard to make a mundane concept grandiose and falling flat, uninteresting, boring and unenjoyable. Generally just writing misfires like that. Generally, if I had to give it one more TL;DR, writing that just is so hard "How do you do, fellow millenials?" with poor quality and not much other merit to wrap the bones with.

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I found this channel also a while back and it is absolutely fun to listen to her analysis videos. I am not even an hobbyist writer but it helped a little in identifying what can just feel wrong in a story or it's outline, without being able to really put a word or sentence down for it.

 

[Retro Doomer]

I'm curious if there are many video games written in a millennial style—I haven’t seen any before. People criticize writers for this, so how do you spot millennial-style writing, and what is the stigma around it.

I heard Reddit humor is a good indicator that its written by a Millennial but I am not sure about this.
So I assume it has a lot of cringe worthy humor in it so things that just make you roll your eyes and not laugh at it.

 

[Neb Lleb]

Yeah. To me, this is difference of writing in GTA3 to 4, versus how writing and scenes are in GTA5. GTA up to 4 is very sincere especially in their characters even if the world has heavily satirical elements. Whereas 5 makes even the characters part of the satirical world, and also goes just quite overboard with the "quirky" nature of everything. To me, something like diving equipment company being named "Prolaps" is just that slight push over. Yet, I would not call GTA5 a case of "Millenial Writing" but more of example of new writers not getting the balance and golden ratio of old.

Reading this, I'm reminded of the Star Trek: Strange New Worlds story "Subspace Rhapsody". Up until this episode, I thought that Strange New Worlds was doing a fine job of modernising classic Trek tropes, but "Subspace Rhapsody" ditched this for trying to ape Buffy, specifically "Once More With Feeling", without realising why Buffy did this so well. For one, Buffy had five seasons before it, so it had earnt the right to do a musical outing, and it was also a sincere attempt at a musical with some genuinely great songwriting. "Subspace Rhapsody" rushed in during the second season, had characters that lacked the depth needed to pull something like this off, and felt like a blatant ratings grab.

But again, I wouldn't consider it "Millennial Writing", but rather another case of people not getting why things worked in the past leading to their effort suffering as a result.
EDIT: If you needed more proof as to the intent of "Subspace Rhapsody", they even have the character La'An mention bunnies. Why? You know why...

 

[RanmyakuIchi's icon RanmyakuIchi RanmyakuIchi]

For what it's worth, most us millennial's hate millennial writing too. Joss Whedon really did irreparable harm to a whole generation.