So some guy claimed Metroid Prime was the Citizen Kane of video games. Now the entire Internet has to explode, claiming he is wrong and that other games have done a better job. Or that the game doesn’t exist yet, but these titles get close. I can only sigh and shake my head, wondering if anyone will see through all the argument and debate that no such title could ever exist for video games. We will never have a Citizen Kane, a title that steps in and takes advantage of all aspects of the medium.

Video games are simply too large and broad, whereas film is linear and precise. Technically Citizen Kane didn’t even innovate that much in film, either. People look at it as a landmark title, but in truth it used a lot of proven elements combined to deliver a tale through sight as much as sound. Mise-en-scène is a French phrase meaning “putting on stage”, used in film to define everything that you see. If it weren’t for such concepts innovated from French film makers then directors such as Spielberg or Cameron would be relatively unknown. Yet in terms of video games there is a lot more for the player to see. Some things may go unnoticed, some may not. There is no control over what the player views so instead a different approach must be taken.

When Orson Welles filmed Citizen Kane he manipulated everything the viewer could see. The reporters were always cast in shadow to let you know they weren’t the lead characters, just a vehicle to push the story forward. Reflections and perspective were meant to convey meaning that was not being said, or even to invoke a sense of irony. Even the twist of Rosebud being a sled answers a different question than what everyone is asking. In truth, the question it answers is “where did things go wrong?”. After all, the story is about a man who, in the end, died alone and unloved.

When people look for an equivalent in games, they try and seek a game that allows players absolute freedom to define their own experience, or tells the story through the gameplay or many other various elements of gameplay. However, this is under the assumption that each game manages to provide the same type of experience. When you see a movie, you are witnessing a story. Some may have a deep purpose, some may seek to make you laugh and others may simply try to thrill you. However, they can only do this through telling a story visually and verbally.

Video games have no such limitation, nor do all have that same purpose. Tetris is certainly a video game, but it has more in common with the board game Jenga than it does with Citizen Kane. Yet that doesn’t make it any less of a video game. Half-Life had sought to immerse players into the game, eliminating cut-scenes and never pulling the player out of Gordon Freeman’s shoes. You weren’t play as Gordon Freeman, you were Gordon Freeman. Simultaneously a game such as Spore or SimCity focuses on the player building their own experience instead of following a linear pathway.

It is possible for video games to have comparisons to Citizen Kane in terms of genres. Half-Life had a major impact on how stories in games are told, as did System Shock before it. However, where these games innovated for first-person shooters they provided no benefit to platform titles or puzzle games.

The only limit to what video games are capable of are technology and imagination. Even now we have yet to exhaust the possibilities of what a game can be, and plenty of developers are still trying. From small studios focusing on a user-made experience, such as Scribblenauts, to large studios hitting us emotionally like a sledge hammer as in Call of Duty 4‘s nuclear plot twist.

As such, to have one single title come out and show what the entire medium is capable of is impossible. Some games will yearn to provide one sort of experience, possibly deep and emotional, while others will provide another, potentially light and simple fun. Yet this is not a weakness. To say that video games will never have their own Citizen Kane is actually a good thing, because it shows just how much more the medium is capable of than film.

Comment on this article