Writing a script for an opening scene or prologue of the game is a very tricky task. It’s easy to underestimate its significance and make it too short and meaningless or to bore the player with an extensive exposition. Before we dive into the analysis of games’ intros, let’s figure out what goals a good prologue strives to achieve. And, boy, there are plenty of goals!

I. Describe setting

First of all, the prologue must give the player brief information about where the action takes place. Not only about time or geographic location, but most importantly about culture, society and the general mood of this area, as well as cover key past events and personalities. It needn’t go into too many details and rehash ALL HISTORY of the world or lineage of each character. Of course, unless the author is as good at it as Tolkien.

II. Explain the protagonist’s high concept and flaws

Whether it’s Geralt of Rivia, Doomguy or Mario, the player needs to understand what role is given to him, so that he can immerse into it. To achieve it, a good intro helps to grasp at least the basic character concept - who is he, broadly speaking? A brutal and grim witcher, impatient and badass Doom Slayer or funny and tenacious plumber? Usually, such high concept is a mix of common behavior pattern and things at which the character is good  (hunting monsters, kicking demons asses or jumping on the pipes).

Story-driven games should also give the player a hint on the protagonist’s flaw. We all know that nobody can be truly perfect, so if the character has an Achilles' heel it will ultimately make him more believable and less flat, thus engage the player into his story deeper.

III. Establish global conflict of the story

Apart from the main info about setting and a protagonist, prologue also should give the player a premise for the whole story: what this game will be about? Aliens’ invasion of the peaceful town? Humanity surviving in the radioactive wasteland? Cruel gangs confronting with each other? No matter what it is, only major conflicts may attract the player’s interest. ‘Cause it’s not real life - if everything is fine in this world then why should anybody strive to change something? Meh, that’d be boring.

IV. Give the player a clear global goal

Once the main conflict is established, the player needs to know what exactly his role is in all this. Sometimes it is obvious. In Mario, the story’s global conflict - struggles to save princess while confronting Koopas, coincides with the protagonist's goal, because, well, somehow he’s the only one who cares about the princess. But in games like Mass Effect, Skyrim, Dragon Age, the main character plays only some part in the global conflict. Commander Shepard is not the only one who stands against Reapers (at least I hope so). And he is not the admiral of the whole fleet. His goal is to eventually outsmart Reapers, find their weak spot while the rest of the Galaxy is just fighting with them head to head. And since there is an illusion of living world which is also taking some actions, we as players feel even more important once we’re given a specific and unique role in the game story.

V. Create an Inciting Incident

Just like in movies, prologue must “kickstart” the story and show why it begins right here, right now, and not two weeks earlier or five years later. Usually, something happens after which there is no way back for the protagonist. Think of Mass Effect 2. It wasn’t enough to just show us that Reapers are still out there in the opening scene. No, it needed a scene where the Reaper destroys Shepard's ship and kills his team, as well as Shepard himself. Then it’s purely clear - yep, the threat is REAL, and Shephard must do something ASAP (once he is resurrected, of course).

VI. Introduce the antagonist

For games that have a personalized antagonist, it’s usually a good move to at least give a hint about him in the very beginning. The existence of a powerful and mystical adversary makes the story’s conflict sharper and the player’s motivation clearer - obviously, eventually he will have to confront exactly this mighty bad guy. Thus, the player starts to anticipate this conflict beforehand.

Phew! It's quite a few things which need to be done in the prologue, don’t you think? It’s complicated by the fact that just like in movies, all this must be done under the first 15 minutes (ideally less)! Should the prologue be longer, the player will consider it excessive and boring, as it’ll look like the game is preventing him from, em, actually playing it.

So, how do developers approach this complex task? Well, since there is so much info to convey and so little time to do it, the most common solution is a voice-over narration. It’s simple, brief and effective - the game just tells the player everything he needs to know via monologue of some Narrator (or via dialogue between two characters at best), while a cool cut-scene plays in the background. Brilliant solution! Or not? To figure it out, let’s take a look at a pretty standard example of such prologue in Borderlands 2.

Borderlands 2 prologue

Borderlands 2 opening scene consists of two parts: the voice-over narration and an action scene. You can watch it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SzZ8YtuiVD4

In the first part the narrator tells us the following:

In this part, we've learned about the setting and events of the previous game.

Here we find out the main conflict of the story - Hyperion vs. Pandora.

And now we understand that we’ll take the role of new Vault Hunter, so our ultimate goal is to open another Vault. We were also given a hint about the villain named Handsome Jack.

Next, the action-scene starts.

We see a wandering skag gets lassoed by the buggy with lots of weird psychos. A few seconds later their car crashes into the passing train. At first glance, this moment might seem needless, but in fact, it tells us a lot about the mood of the Borderlands’ world: it’s crazy, brutal and it has a dark sense of humor.