Rhianna Pratchett, the lead writer on the recent Tomb Raider games gave a presentation at the DICE Summit about the importance of story and called for a greater role for writers to play in the development of games.
“Writers are often brought in too late. They are asked to wrap a narrative around a game that has already been designed,” Pratchett said. “It’s a really frustrating way of working. We are like narrative paramedics… Writers need to be engaged with the whole team and not left on the outside. When writers are on the outside, so is your story. Story is not just words. It flows through everything in the game.”
Besides Tomb Raider, Pratchett has contributed to the story for a variety of games including BioShock Infinite, Mirror’s Edge and Heavenly Sword. She and her writing team just won a Writers Guild Award for work on Rise of the Tomb Raider.
Pratchett has been writing for a long time and it’s not surprising that she chose this field. She’s the daughter of renowned fantasy author Terry Pratchett.
