Tameem Antoniades: Story is more important than gameplay

Speaking to videogamer.com, Ninja Theory co-founder Tameem Antoniades feels that story is more important than gameplay. He said, “In Heavenly Sword I thought, “Actually, let’s try and do a story.” Working with Andy and everyone else, working with Weta and having people talk about story as something serious – not something throwaway like we do in games – was quite eye-opening to me.”

“I still see a prejudice, actually. I still come across a lot of people who say, it’s a game and it doesn’t need a story. You’re trying to make a particular point of storytelling, trying to refine it, and somebody says it’s just a game, it doesn’t matter. What’s more important – the gameplay or the story? If you’re doing a [story-based] game, it’s got to be the story, actually.”

“I’ll give you an example of where that’s true.  Resident Evil 4. I played it from start to finish, I didn’t want to let go of the controller and I was driven through it. I just wanted to know what happened next. As soon as I completed it, you get those mini-missions, kill x zombies in an amount of time. So there’s no story, it’s stripped out of all that and it’s just shoot however many zombies in however much time. And you realise – have I been doing this for the last 10 hours? Because it didn’t feel like it, as I’m bored within about a minute of doing that.”

“So there is something, there is an importance. There is a symbiosis where, if you get it right, both story and gameplay can be elevated. But it’s really hard to know when you get it right or not.”

Enslaved: Odyssey to the West is due in October on the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. Stay tuned with GamingBolt for more news and updates.