Environmental storytelling is an art that not all studios use at the same level. Although it is not a first-class matter, the richness increases greatly when players can learn stories just by looking at the setting. They are like crime scenes with their evidence listed and it is very pleasant to put the pieces together to build the narrative.
Soulslikes have a reputation for having great environmental narratives, but they’re not the only ones that do a good job. Bend Studios’ Days Gone has some very haunting locations, and one of them is the protagonist of this story.
This is about the Chemult Community Collegeone of the hot spots in the game because it is an intersection: a mandatory story step, a NERO point and it houses a huge horde on its rugby field. One of its buildings has a room in which we find about thirty dead people, piled up, next to a board with a message and their signatures:
We, the undersigned teachers and students, have chosen to die with dignity.
Well, all of these signatures belong to Days Gone developers, from programmers to all kinds of artists. The scene was much talked about by many fans who were shocked by the scene: “I saw this room and I knew I would have been one of them. (…) They had no weapons and they were dead if they left (…) Those students and teachers in the room were probably the last ones alive at the time they did what they did.” A couple of collectibles can be found that make evident a story that tells itself.
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