Fantastic Tales, Told in a Million Different Ways

A lot of terrific action games along the lines of Halo and Modern Warfare could do away with whatever contrived storyline they’ve got going entirely, says the short but interesting article The Relevance of Storytelling in Video Games.

There are many popular video games today that amount to sprawling epics across fantastic realms and the farthest reaches of the galaxy, narrating tales of stalwart adventurers and depraved criminals alike. The introduction of storytelling to video games has resulted in an intriguing relationship between the two, and a wonderful evolution of the definitions of both in the past few decades.

Storytelling and video games? I can't help but think back to games such as Day of the Tentacle or Monkey Island.

Those were the good old days. But keep in mind: a good game doesn't need a story, as the article says.

What about your project? Can a good feature do without a (user) story?