Alex Hutchinson, creative director on Army Of Two: The 40th Day, has said that linear stories in videogames don't make the grade

Speaking exclusively to NowGamer about the Army Of Two sequel, Hutchinson, who spent six years working on titles like The Sims and Spore, told us that videogaming suits narratives generated by players. "One of the things I took from [my time at Maxis] was this idea about the player driving the story, the player driving the narrative and the player being in control of their own game, which is the thing that we do in gaming the best," he said. "Telling a linear story we’re actually crap at. The best story in a game is a terrible movie, it’s made up for by the fact it’s an awesome game. We’re terrible at telling stories, we kid ourselves that we can tell stories. They’re awful, they’re cheesy, they’re shallow, they’re weirdly paced, they have bad endings that are always blowing things up or punching people – we’re not good at that."

Hutchinson believes that players should drive certain elements of the story due to the interactive nature of gaming. "If you ask players – and we saw this at Maxis and you even see it in shooters, which is why I think it’s very applicable – ‘What was the story? What happened?’ they don’t tell you the story, they tell you what they did," he said. He also explained how Army Of Two: The 40th Day will try to buck the trend for linearity: "We try to branch it out," he said. "'Do we go left or right, do we go up or down, do we stick together or do we split up?’ – but it’s still reasonably linear. But let people make their own story."

Follow the links for the full interview with Alex Hutchinson and our huge Army Of Two: The 40th Day preview.