Keeping up with the Story and Multimedia Connections

[Crummylion]

I may be the only one that feels this, but I love a good story, especially in video games. In some cases, the gameplay can ingeniously designed around the story (think Shadow of the Collussus,) others case too much emphasis in story takes away gameplay. I believe games are capable to telling a good and captivating story. However, having a whole franchise, even multimedia, is a generally bad idea due to needing to keep up with the whole story arc. Especially when the platform or medium is inconsistent. Go to example would easily be Kingdom Hearts. Before the HD collection, each non-numbered entry was on a completely different system. Chain of Memories? GBA. Birth by Sleep? PSP. 358 1/3 Days? DS. Coded? A Japanese mobile phone, with a remake on DS. All of these games are vital to knowing the plot, but how would you even know that? They're spin offs, not to mention not everyone will pick up a game on a console they don't own. Releasing the HD collection as well as a story synopsis in the newest game was the right call, but even forcing players to buy new consoles is insane. Worst part is the mobile game might be canon too... Now you may be saying "dude, they're video games. Just shut up and play them for the game." And I would say fair point, but what if this applied to movies as well. Now, enter the Matrix. (Major spoilers for one of the video games)

I'll admit I never seen The Matrix, but what was made known was that everything is canon. The movies, the anime, the games and EVEN the mmo! Saw on Twitter the other day of people making memes about one of the character's, Morpheus, death and I was confused by this. Turns out he actually died from a bullet containing a virus and couldn't be revived and this was only seen in the MMO. You know, the game with actual plot elements and lore that nobody can access anymore due to servers and whatnot. So now, players who want to catch up with the story are left in the dust. There was an official site archiving the story after the servers shut down, but not even the Internet Archives could save that... Apparently the Ultimate collection contains scenes from the first two games, making owning those two moot but playing the MMO potentially vital (correct me if I'm wrong about the latter.) Seems like the new movie will retcon some plot elements from the mmo, but with a new actor handling Morpheus and the Wachowskis insisting everything was canon, who knows? Trying different mediums is fine, but forcing people to get their hands on every different thing on every platform they don't own is insane.