What is the meaning of life? Many modern stories grapple with this supremely profound prompt, and often reach a similar conclusion that the question is the answer- that life is made worthwhile by living in a way that seeks answers. This human condition manifests in creative world building techniques. When populating a fictional world with little details and connected narratives, there comes a point where the medium itself cannot contain any more. Whether it's a book with a page limit or a video game with finite memory, not every detail can be included in the final draft. If this limitation is anticipated, then the absent information can be just as curated as the details that remain. Use it smartly. If condition for curiosity is imbued into the characters, mechanics, and environments, audiences will find themselves intuitively attempting to fill in the blanks. In a modern content market, if those attempts to solve the unsaid are so intriguing, their online dialogue about it offers invaluable organic advertising. Less is lore.
A helpful metric of successfully absent information comes from comparing multiple titles from the same series, such as Fallout. Five Fallout games feature a character known as the Mysterious Stranger. Each time, the game designers have had the restraint to keep his identity a mystery. The only clues to his identity come from dialogue from an equally mysterious figure, the Lonesome Drifter, who says his father was a ‘mysterious’ man. Upon equipping the weapon the Drifter gifts the player, it notably plays the same guitar theme heard with each of the Strangers’ appearances. Given how long the Stranger has been built up, it’s smart to keep his presence limited until the payoff is proportional. Instead of cramming in a detailed questline the Stranger deserves, his mystery is efficiently expanded through only the use of a sound bite.
However, not every ‘easter egg’ is welcomed. If a hint of a bigger story suggests investigation but falls flat on delivery, the audience can be agitated. Take Lincoln’s head. In Fallout 3, part of the ‘Head of State’ quest line involves rebuilding the Lincoln Memorial by retrieving the eponymous president’s marble head. It feels like a succinct and major accomplishment. That accomplishment is tarnished when in Fallout: New Vegas, Lincoln's head is found strapped to the back of a two headed cow in a nondescript cavern. It might be tempting to justify this as a fun call back. If the player knew the head was removable, shouldn’t seeing the head in this cave motivate an investigation into how your prior restoration of the monument was seemingly squandered? It does, but the investigation is disappointing. For one, it immediately tells the player their prior effort was for naught. That might be a compelling take in that even the best laid plans can be foiled. However, given that the previous title took place only 4 years prior, most players are under the assumption that this is a different statue’s head. So by priming the player to investigate only to have that investigation lead to a shrug diminishes the impact of mysteries moving forward.
In its sister franchise, Elder Scrolls, players explore similar MMO concepts but in an ancient and magical setting. Both Fallout and Elderscrolls sprinkle the lore of HP Lovecraft. Fallout borrows from the Dunwich Horrors in a questline dealing with a cult worshiping some unknown cosmic force. That quest concludes by finding a unique and horrific obelisk fused with human bodies. Similarly, and perhaps more successfully, Elder Scrolls Oblivion pulls from Lovecraft’s The Shadow over Innsmouth in the ‘Shadow over Hackdirt’ questline. Upon activating the quest, players are thrust into the role of a detective, immediately priming them to act as mystery solvers. They begin by seeking out the missing daughter of a local shopkeeper. Her horse can be found in a derelict town, yet she’s nowhere to be seen. The townies themselves are cagey on the topic of her whereabouts. Eventually, it’s revealed they have her hostage in order to sacrifice her to their unknown deity, The Old Ones. It’s strange that they have their own god, as the world of the game is known for very specific pantheons. Instead of ever seeing The Old Ones, in the caverns beneath the town, the player can hear a low rumble in a collapsed cave. That confirms it’s not an imaginary entity. But what is it? The holy text associated with it is a daedric translation of ‘N'Gasta! Kvata! Kvakis!’ a book from the previous Elder Scrolls game, Redguard, in which it was associated with creatures called Sloads. Sloads are slug-like sentient beings gifted in necromancy. That makes Sloads a likely candidate for the true identity of The Deep Ones, and yet because they aren’t seen, they don’t have to add the Sloads models into the game for this one appearance. Furthermore, by teasing this previous enemy type, those who put the effort into investigating are motivated to check out previous Elder Scrolls installments.
An inverse of the Bethesda Game Studio titles and its breadth would be a new series, such as Elden Ring. It was written (in part) by George RR Martin. Knowing that the Game of Thrones creator is known for expertly woven narratives, the players can expect the Lands Between will be chock full of nuance. Players have taken to combing through the game’s data files to unpack those nuances. Take for example the Fia, the Deathbed Companion. Players who allow Fia to embrace them trade 5% of their max HP for an increase to the Poise stat. It’s eerie, sure, but just as tender. Fia can tell the player that her role as a Deathbed Companion is reserved for those who could collect ‘lifely vigour’, then lay beside the remains of a noble to ‘grant him another at life’. Given that the core concept of this game is a world in which death has been suspended, players knew Fia had been put in a unique, immortal position. If her quest is followed through, her Champions can be battled. They were seemingly random characters, leading to the assumption that these are soldiers who had given Fia some of their vigour. It was truer than they might have known. Players were curious that these champions always seemed to be different, and wearing gear atypical of the average NPC. Upon studying the game data, players realized that upon first embracing Fia, their own character was saved and uploaded, then used as Fia’s Champion in another player’s game. It was celebrated as Fromsoft’s “tradition of semi-obscure multiplayer mechanics.” It’s unique that this reveal was only discovered digging through the games ‘back end’, never divulged in-world. In this way, leaving out quality information left a delightful surprise for dataminers.
Pokémon, though much softer in aesthetics than Fallout or Elden Ring, has just as much lore. The company has assuredly learned that less is lore based on trends in their advertising. In the lead up to the release of Pokémon Sword and Pokémon Shield, GameFreak tried to ‘build hype’ by routinely revealing major aspects of the gameplay. That strategy fell flat in that instead of organic and fervent speculation about what’s coming, the fans focused on the comparatively low graphic quality. Die-hards were quick to point out that ‘gameplay footage not final’ and that the final product would be triaged, but the dialogue was effectively shot. This wasn’t helped by the infamous ‘no national dex’ controversy. Announcing that the upcoming game would neglect to feature every Pokémon prior was taken as a contradiction of their ‘gotta catch em all’ tagline. So perhaps teasing the game's content was an attempt to shift the dialogue, yet neither was successful. By attempting to explain that Pokémon were kept out of the game in order to focus on graphic quality instead, the graphic quality of their teasers was scrutinized even more. By the time the game came out, players knew exactly what to expect leaving little to explore. Could this have been done any differently? Yes, but it depends on when this theoretical ‘intervention’ would have applied. Even players who bemoaned the lack of every Pokémon acknowledged that based on the sheer number of them, it was inevitable that some game soon would exceed capacity. ‘No National Dex’ was a bandaid ripped off. But did it have to be presented like a ‘necessary evil’? Games before Sword / Shield lacked the option to include every Pokémon, even as recently as Let’s Go Pikachu / Eevee. Within the game lore itself, it’s because Kanto was the first generation and consequently only had the first generation’s Pokemon.
Regardless, GameFreak learned those lessons and seems to be applying that knowledge now. It’s currently only a few months prior to the release of Pokémon Scarlet / Violet, and so much is still unknown. Compared to this time before Sword / Shield- fans already knew about Dynamaxing, the Galar region, the Wild Area, and all early Pokemon available. For Scarlet / Violet, audiences have only been shown the starter Pokemon and the professors. Players don’t even know the name of the region. And yet the hype is astronomical. Fans are frothing to piece together the clues GameFreak has sprinkled along.
Aside from advertising purposes, GameFreak employed limited lore heavily throughout Legends Arceus. The title was a significant departure from the core series. Arceus took place in an era prior to the world players have known, pulling heavily from Japan’s Meiji era. This allowed for the designers to rework existing character designs into their own ancestors. When seeing these vaguely familiar faces, players were naturally prompted to speculate who their descendents were. This prompt then primes players to make similar connections throughout the gameplay. For instance, as the plot expanded to deal with time distortion fields, it couldn’t be determined if characters were from the present, past, or future. That immediately calls back into question if players were meeting an ancestor or a descendant. A perfect example is a portrait appearing in the Diamond Clan settlement. It looks like Alder, a fifth generation character, but of course it could be his ancestor. The fact that it’s a portrait means he can’t be spoken to for clarifying information. We’re only informed the portrait is of an ancient and nameless hero. Could Alder have been sent into the past too? Should fans expect to get answers in the next Legends installment?
If Legends Arceus came out before Sword / Shield, how could the lore it established have been employed? For one, playing with ‘the past’ justified limiting how many Pokémon were included. This could mean that even if a core series game is in a new region, it doesn’t require that it be set in the present day, thus circumventing the need to include all Pokémon. Or, Sword / Shield could have employed the animated segments Arceus used. By creating animated shorts, they avoided revealing the game’s graphic quality. The animation itself showed an explorer video recording a Pokémon they’d never seen before. Some of the Pokémon can be seen, but the unseen explorer is attacked before they get a good look. Who that explorer was is never said directly, but players can deduce it would likely be Ingo, the other confirmed person from the future and thus had access to video equipment. A few days after the release of the ‘footage’, a ‘restored’ version of the video was released, rewarding speculation. The lore established in these animations gave fans just enough to get excited, and obfuscated just enough to spurn organic online dialogue. Then, big picture answers were only available upon actually playing the game itself. The speculation was rewarded, incentivizing more.
So what can game design learn from limited lore? Well, it has to be in keeping with the game. Hints of something more can’t be a one-off, they’re best served when the game centers exploration thematically. Fallout’s examples tell us that callbacks to previous installments need to be consistent with what’s already been established- it’s ok to leave players asking even more questions, but if the basis of the question is a contradiction, the audience will be dissuaded from lore exploration in the future. Elden Rings is an example of lore being found within the back end of the game files. That doesn't have to be illusion-breaking if the reason for that choice is thematically cohesive. Pokémon’s examples demonstrate that lore can be used to justify missing content, but the explanation must be adequate- the curiosity created has to leave the audience asking enough questions to keep them occupied.
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