Side Quests and the Abuse of Player Agency

I'd say the main issue I have with the vast majority games released these days is that they want to have their cake and eat it too. They want to be these monumental narrative achievements, but also are loaded with a load of optional objectives that don't really add much besides something else to do.

I think this creates a dissonance you don't really see until you look at it. Then, it's glaring.

In every videogame, the player is essentially "role-playing" as the avatar on screen. It's in the name, avatar. Traditional narratives have characters do things for specific reasons emotionally. It's what's meant by "character motivation."

The obvious issue with narrative in games is that the player may not have the same motivation that the story implies for the avatar. If I don't care that there's a civil war going on between the two factions in The Elder Scrolls: Skyrim, it will be difficult to get me to care about large parts of the the various narrative elements.

On the subject of Skyrim, it's one of the best examples I can think of a game's bloat of optional objectives crippling it's narrative pursuits. Skyrim is absolutely loaded with quests. Every square mile of the map is full of a number of activities that are in no way needed to progress through the main narrative, but are advertised as being something to do.

Pursuing a few of these quests after progressing through the main narrative for a bit reveals the issue: when the fate of the world is on the line, and every minute needs to be invested in saving it, why would the player-character stop to find someone's dog in a cave or investigate some random tower for rumors of a cult?

All of this seems to suggest that a great deal of games are focused on goal of giving people as much to do as possible over a focused experience. It's as though they learned the wrong lessons from realizing that the greatest strength of the medium is the fact that the observer can interceed into the narrative.

One game that I think works as a positive example of this would be The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. While it doesn't totally escape the aforementioned negative designs, the vast majority of the activities the player can engage in fit the motivations of the avatar.

From the beginning, you are told that you CAN go straight to the final area after reaching a certain point, but you're advised against it as it would be certain death (It's doable, but it's incredibly difficult). Instead, it's suggested that you proceed to various points in the world to make this final confrontation less punishing.

While doing this, the player is also given advice on how to restore the avatar back to the physical status they were before their pre-game coma. This provides a number of optional activities, but each one is something that fits what the character would want and benefits the player. I think that kind of unity of motivations leads a player to care more about the whole of the experience.

Ultimately, I'm not against optional activities in games. I'm against those that serve no purpose but to serve as filler. All that does is weaken any narrative that already exists. Why provide the player number of things to do that don't contribute to the story? It seems less like effective use of player agency, and more like abuse of it.