'Let's just kill everyone on the station:' The videogame audio log was apparently invented to avoid 'awkward' RPG dialogue trees

In a recent episode of Nightdive's Deep Dive podcast, Looking Glass Studios programmer Marc LeBlanc shared his recollection of how the team came up with the audio logs in System Shock, which are now a ubiquitous game design standby.

LeBlanc came to the topic after describing why Shock 1 eschewed RPG stats, unlike Ultima Underworld before it and Shock 2 after. Basically, Looking Glass was struggling with a perennial action-RPG conundrum: how to make D&D-style stats and skills matter, but also not feel limiting or frustrating when you already have full control of a character⁠. Waving your weapon at an enemy without landing any hits in Morrowind is a classic example of this disconnect.

"The other thing we didn't like was the state of talking NPCs. We didn't want to have [players] pick from three options, navigate a conversation tree with content," said LeBlanc. "It was especially awkward to pair with what felt like a real world simulation everywhere else, to be pulled out of that and be picking things from a menu didn't seem great.

"It was [System Shock designer] Austin Grossman who came up with the idea of 'Let's just kill everyone on the station, and you're just gonna go through their diaries.'"

The results speak for themselves (literally, heh): Though sometimes overused these days, audio logs can be an atmospheric way to deliver exposition without bringing the action to a screeching halt, in contrast with cutscenes, written codex entries, or chunky dialogues⁠.

I've been running into some of that last one talking to rambling Rasputin priest Durance in my ongoing Pillars of Eternity replay. And hey, it was kind of a prescient sci-fi prediction on Looking Glass' part: Everybody on Citadel Station has a podcast.

LeBlanc is also clearly still a fan of audio logs as a storytelling tool, arguing that they offer players choice and agency in how they listen and react to them: Do you find a quiet spot to pay attention and listen, explore and half-listen, or charge into battle with somebody talking in your ear? "I think it works because, in a funny way, it's kind to the player's agency. By not offering a choice, it allows you to fully inhabit the choices that you do have," argued LeBlanc.