The Cutting Room Floor: An Introduction
Approximately 2% of my ideas and writing actually made it into the Vainglory lore. Sometimes, it was cut because it wouldn’t be appropriate for Vainglory’s maturity rating, or for audiences of certain cultures. Most often, it would have been too wordy (localization is expensive). On occasion, it showcased an NPC rather than the intended hero, a bad habit I’ve cultivated when a hero refuses to speak to me. VG lore also had to hit a specific tone and create characters that would be aspirational for players; I cared whether a teenager reading the story would want to be each hero. And it’s important to remember, even though I fell in love with every single hero, that I didn’t create them; they belonged to someone else, and it was my job to hit a mark. It sounds like a narrow lane, but I loved it, and I got to explore so many literary genres.
This post came about because of a thread I saw on Twitter, questioning whether game writing requires talent. This question is flawed at its base. More than talent, game writing requires work. What you as the writer want to happen can’t always happen in your game - in fact, most often. A thousand little logistics must be satisfied.
It’s an interesting exercise (and super indulgent) to revisit the stuff that didn’t make it. Like the deleted scenes in films, most (if not all) of it needed to be cut, and I don’t mourn it, but some of the Vainglory heroes still poke at me, annoyed that I didn’t write down a thing they told me about themselves.
Disclaimer: I don’t work for Super Evil anymore. The Vainglory universe and its stories do not belong to me. None of this is canon. Consider it fanfic.
