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This I can get behind, and says better what I was trying to say below about game writing being load bearing. Game writing is, or was, engineering, just like making the rest of the game was. Both on the level of "How much room do we have on the screen/in memory to fit words" and also "What is the greatest economy of language we can use to maximally support the world being built?" Many times a lot of this writing was only found in the manual.
I'm going to riff off Diablo for a minute. Grabbing my ancient manual off the shelf, it has so many casual hints of a greater world. Like King Leoric sending the warriors off in a war against a northern kingdom of Westmarch. The rogue is from a mysterious order, who's purpose is never disclosed. The sorcerer is just one of many mage clans from the far east. And then of course the bestiary and the history, written from the perspective of an in universe character, vastly flesh out the world.
And what is the actual game? 16 levels of a dungeon in a singled ravage town. Unknown "black riders" recently came through devastating it. Lazarus had just lead a party into the dungeon to be trapped and killed by the Butcher. Now go. 95% of the lore in the manual doesn't directly come into play. It just builds a world hinted at. A world, IMHO, Diablo 3 largely ruins. Never bothered with 4. 2 did alright I guess.
It actually reminds me that a lot of my favorite fantasy novels or CRPGs emerge from home brewed table top RPG settings that the creator steeped in with his friends for years before he put pen to paper for the first time. I believe that's how Malazan Book of the Fallen got it's start. I think Record of Lodoss War as well?
You are reminding me of a childhood where I toted around Blizzard game manuals in my school backpack so I could read them on the tram and show them off to friends. I also played through D1 recently after maybe 15+ years or so, and found the writing and atmosphere holds up superbly even without all the extra worldbuilding from the printed pages.
When people say D1/D2 are better written than the following sequels, there's often some pushback that wants to eagerly point out how little story and dialogue were in those first two games. To which I say "Yes, and how did Blizzard manage to fuck that up so much".
Are you me? I got yelled at so much in my middle school geometry class for reading the WarCraft II manual instead of paying attention. There were some absolute gems among manuals back then. Blizzard had some of the best, but Interplay and Westwood tried too. I got this Encyclopedia Frobozzica with Return to Zork, had me howling with laughter despite not having played any of the games before. The diary that came with Zork Nemesis that may have been from a version of your character that time travelled into the past and got killed seeded the plot well too.
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