Environmental Storytelling

gives context and supports a narrative

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Most stories are told through dialogue or seeing the characters do something. Environmental storytelling is when you piece together what happened through clues in the environment itself rather then being told. Bioshock is good at this, I think there's one corpse you find holding a cash register which tells you why he died without seeing it.

That's not what environmental storytelling is. That's atmosphere.

>Bioshock is good at this
Not really, it's a pale imitation of better games. Even SS1 handles it better.

A really good early example is in Thief: the Dark Project. It's a level called 'Stealing the Sword' aka Constantine's mansion. It starts with a cutscene explaining that Garrett (you) has been contacted by a woman named Victoria to steal a sword from an old man named Constantine. The guy's new to town and his mansion's only been built recently: the only information you have is that there's some kind of maze inside.

Then you start the mission: you can break in via the front (not recommended due to the guards) or via a window in the back. The entire rest of the level is uninterrupted gameplay - there's no cutscenes or any moment where the player doesn't have full control.

Anyway as you explore the mansion shit starts getting weird the deeper you go into it. Doors lead to nowhere, rooms tilt and shift - some are upside down or warped, there's entire forests growing indoors, there's weird noises (laughter maybe) echoing through the halls, some rooms even lead out seemingly into space and there's an entire sequence (incredibly well hidden too) wherein shit goes full Gulliver's Travels and you find yourself incredibly tiny (think mouse size) wandering around a massive study. You are also hopelessly lost and it's a terrifying experience.

Anyway when you get the sword and break back out the level ends and you get a cutscene. There Victoria introduces you to the man who hired her and it's Constantine himself, who had hired Garrett to steal the sword in order to test him. Due to your own experience playing the level and via the game's environmental design you've actually learnt a shit-ton about the Constantine already: he's powerful, absurdly resourceful, has some grasp of the supernatural and overall isn't someone you should fuck with.

That's the power of doing environmental design right.

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When you replace NPCs with audio logs and text to read so you don't have to make animations, models or conversations.

dog in front of a grave

The best example of this is the ladder from Iosefka's clinic to the forest in Bloodborne.

You come across an old battlefield. You see the body of a knight in battered silver armor alone on a hill surrounded by bodies. He's got arrows sticking out of his back.
Without a word being spoken you can come to the conclusion that this guy was an amazing fighter who fought off lots of people on his own only to be taken out from afar. He died valiantly for whatever the battle was about.

This is a bit of an on the nose example but that's basically what environmental storytelling is.

Another example. You find a skeleton holding a revolver with 5 bullets, and a shattered skull.

Do people say the Souls game do it well because they will put things like your examples in unexpected places? From most of the descriptions here it sounds like environmental storytelling would be an outcome of non-garbage setting or level design.

>What games are good examples?
NTRPG 1 and 2, not even trolling or trying to start a shitstorm. I

People will cite souls shit as an example of literally anything they like in video games. Just ignore them.

I dunno I've never played Dark Souls. It was just a simple example I thought off the top of my head.

woah...really makes you think...

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IOSEFKA'S CLINIC LADDER

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Does this have meaning in the game or is it just some cool detail that you can add your own invented lore to?

It's a chozo facility that has been overrun and destroyed by their creation. While the destroyed statue isn't related to any specific event, it's a foreboding sign that the place you're entering is where many people (who designed the tech your character is using) were killed.

I don't know if it counts as what the OP is asking but the random shit (souls actually does do this well) like an out of place corpse with a decent weapon on it actually is a cool addition to most games. Like you find a body on the rafters in a cathedral and it has some unique rapier on it and you think "damn....who was this...."

>What games are good examples?
Any Harvey Smith's game.

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Environmental storytelling is set dressing that tells you something about the environment you're in or the people who were there before you. It has nothing to do with finding some gameplay related reward, that CAN be part of it if the devs want to encourage you to seek out environmental detail and pay attention to it, but it doesn't HAVE to be. The destroyed chozo statue absolutely informs the player about the location they're in just using environmental detail.

Wasn't disagreeing or even saying that was an example of ES, just that I enjoy whatever that shit is called.

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One part is that you don't need a cut scene or be stopped in being told that you are in an abandoned library, you can tell by going around and exploring the area and infer that for yourself.

Hell no, there is 0 storytelling. Just ambient.

More like souls games.

It's something I usually don't get.

Dont the souls games more use item descriptions more then the environment itself? Not saying it doesnt happen in souls games I just think there are better examples.

more? yes. it still has some good environmental storytelling, even if it gets jerked around more than it deserves. the director used to read books in languages he didn't fully know so he used to fill in the gaps of the story himself and used that kind of premise for the souls games' stories.

The Forbidden Lands have a history which tells a story.

All of which ties into Christian and Babylonian mythology. Dormin, the entity Wander talks to, is "Nimrod" in reverse. Nimrod was a king who spurned God and had a hand in constructing the tower of babel, a structure of which was designed to safeguard them from heavenly judgement. Shem, the son of Noah, killed him and cut him into pieces, which were later scattered across a variety of kingdoms.

His wife, Semiramis, attempted to resurrect him by bringing his pieces together. Nimrod reincarnated himself in her womb, much like how Wander and Dormin became the horned child, which extends into Ico.

The Forbidden Lands are forbidden because they were the epicenter of unholy rites, ranging from ritual sacrifice to sacrilege, but was evidently host to a great society that could control beings of light and resurrect the dead. This is why it was sealed, and now only ruins remain.

I feel like the Metroid Prime trilogy or hell, just the Metroid series in general, is a very good example of environmental storytelling.

what game

Looks like Desperados

It's like in Dark Souls where you find an item with a vague description and some retard on Youtube does a 4 hour lore video on it