Leo (left) and Vincent have to rely on each other in A Way Out.
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Josef Fares: How to build story into gameplay in video games

  • Posted byby Dean Takahashi
  • Updated
  • 8 min

Joseph Fares, founder of the Hazelight game studio in Sweden, believes that video games are a unique medium where you can take advantage of interactivity and gameplay to convey key parts of a story, rather than passive cinematics that are more like films.

Fares, who is famous for saying “fuck the Oscars” on The Game Awards, said he works first on gameplay and game concept rather than the story or script behind a game first. That’s because he wants to get away from the purely passive watching of film and take advantage of the unique interactivity of video games.

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Written by

Dean Takahashi

Dean Takahashi is editorial director for GamesBeat. He has been a tech journalist since 1988, and he has covered games as a beat since 1996. He was lead writer for GamesBeat at VentureBeat from 2008 to April 2025. Prior to that, he wrote for the San Jose Mercury News, the Red Herring, the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, and the Dallas Times-Herald. He is the author of two books, "Opening the Xbox" and "The Xbox 360 Uncloaked." He organizes the annual GamesBeat Next, GamesBeat Summit and GamesBeat Insider Series: Hollywood and Games conferences and is a frequent speaker at gaming and tech events. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.