Why is Every Single Video Game Character So Hungry for Treasure?

What’s my motivation?

This beautiful city is here for me to slowly walk around in, opening chests and taking random piles of wood. Assassin’s Creed Shadows PS5 screenshot captured by the author.

Just once, I’d like to hear a strapping video game adventure person say “you know, I love going into every single cave and building I can find to try and get some money or items.” That’d finally make narrative sense of the fact that, on my way to complete their personally important and possibly world-saving quest, I must also root around in thousands of nooks, shelves, and chests.

This kind of strange disconnect is the sort of thing that makes non-fans feel like all video games are badly written — and I can’t really disagree with them. As time wears on, games aspire more and more to be like movies, telling stories dripping with emotion that can impact players in ways that non-interactive stories just can’t. But they’re also still bound up in all the dopamine levers and psychological tricks that helped build the industry in the days of arcade games and old computers. They’re caught forever between the most rote and mundane “skinner box” interactions you’ve ever seen, and amazing storytelling potential.

A little narrative trickery could help fix this. Games are already silly enough. Why not have my character go on and on about how they love opening and collecting things all the time? They’re already likely on some silly quest to find a gem, or collect…