Thoughts on modernizing Metroid: The storytelling aspect

I wanted to bounce not actual implementations off you guys, but rather your opinions on updating some of the core philosophies (not mechanics!) of the game series and how they can be updated.

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Storytelling

One of the amazing things Metroid did in earlier titles was subtle storytelling. No exposition at all beyond an introduction, no plot points that are hit in any order, pretty much all the stories are told by the environment and gameplay itself.

Metroid Prime took a step forward by adding expository text gained through scanning and gameplay, telling more complex stories, some of which are purely for world building and interest, and some of which are for foreshadowing.

Metroid Prime 3: Corruption, Metroid Fusion and Metroid: Other M, however, took a much more traditional approach to storytelling, making it hit a specific set of plot points that are reached in order. Corruption's story seemed fairly average, but Fusion hit it out of the park -- not nearly as much with the story itself, but with the storytelling elements that are blended between the narrative and the gameplay itself (i.e. environmental cues foreshadowing what's coming next), along with the constant surprises. Other M, on the other hand, completely flopped on its face with regards to storytelling, with very few good storytelling elements, no interesting characters, characters that you just hate (not "love to hate," like the best villains in great stories, I mean actually hate), and worst of all, an emphasis on story over gameplay.

So on the "tell a progressing story," we have a hit, a miss and a meh on titles that tried it.

Metroid fans love that most of the Metroid games can be made nonlinear with some out-of-the-box thinking and sweet moves. Most gamers, on the other hand, love games that tell stories and will strongly dislike games that don't have decent stories. Is there a decent way to reconcile the two? Here are my thoughts on the subject.

• The Disconnected Past method. This was Breath of the Wild's approach to telling a linear story in a nonlinear method. The story doesn't take place concurrently with the game. It doesn't drive the game forward. In Breath of the Wild's implementation, it's a mechanic to motivate you to explore the world, as piecing together story components together is a reward for exploring.

The advantage of that is that it makes it possible to have everything be completely nonlinear. There is no requirement to do anything in a particular order in this method. The downside to it is that often the story is what motivates the player's actions -- the player feels a sense of urgency to complete the next task, to move the story forward by playing.

Could this work for Metroid? Yes -- and it sort of already has, in the form of Chozo, Luminoth and other fallen civilizations' lore. But it suffers from exactly the same problem that BotW's storytelling suffered -- that the story is disconnected from what's happening right now, and nothing that happens to you really depends on that story.

• The Choke Point method. This method tells a linear story, with plot points coming in linear order. Between those plot points, though, the player has freedom to choose a sequence of a certain number of events -- i.e. complete these three dungeons in any order you want, kill these 6 bosses in any order, collect these MacGuffins in any order, and when you do all of those things then you can move on to the next plot point, after which you'll have another set of things to do in whatever order.

The advantage is that the player maintains freedom of choice while the story still drives the player forward. Another Zelda comparison, but that's essentially how A Link to the Past works (although some linearity is semi-enforced by the need to get certain items in order, though you don't need to complete the dungeon to get the item to get through a different dungeon). The disadvantage is that you're trading off between story complexity, player agency and game length. You can have a complex story and a lot of player freedom, but it's going to get really long. You can have a lot of freedom and a perfect-length game, but the story is limited to two, maybe three phases. Trading off.

Metroid Prime kind of showed something like that -- it had a choke point that depended on a MacGuffin hunt to move past.

• The Parallel Stories method. Rather than tell a single story, have each different path you take move you along in a different storyline. This is how a lot of open-world games approach it -- there's a story in each region, and the different stories don't depend on each other.

The advantage of it is having a story in the present to motivate the player to move forward. The disadvantage is that it can feel disconnected, like it should really be separate games.

Could this be done in a Metroid game? One of the major themes of Metroid is isolation, but the parallel storylines method depends on having multiple characters to tell stories through.

• The Investigator's Jigsaw Puzzle method. This is by far the hardest method, mostly because it's hard to separate a key story into independent points that don't depend on each other, but fit together in a way to tell a larger story. But I think it could be / would be the most awesome method. I have an example of such a story for Metroid but it's beyond the scope and purpose of the post, which is to prompt discussion about what story structures could be appropriate.

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What kind of stories have you thought about for Metroid, and how might any of these structures be used to tell them?