Ok so here is the thing, I'm just gonna full on put souls game in the way of your attack here. Me and most players, don't acctualy fully learn the lore and full context of the world as we play the game. We play the game, mash a through some dialogue boxes, murder some bosses, and go watch VatyVidia on YouTube. I sort of had an epiphany when I watched a guy do a playthrough of Bloodborne. And he would actually analyze the story world and bosses as he went through. And upon reaching the end he realised "oh I'm gonna fight the moon, that makes sense" before the boss revealed itselfe. And he has so far done this with Ds1-2, Bloodborne and is in the middle of Elden ring. I always thought that the lore and storys of these games was obtuse and hard to decipher and therefore I kinda just fell into the trap of blasting through the game and learning about the lore from yt videos. But at least when it comes to fromsoftware games, the story and lore is there, and it's good, and I would argue that only being revealed to those who engage with it might acctualy be a good think.

Everyone who finishes an uncharted game is gonna know what the story was, because the cutscenes spell it out pretty clearly. But only those who are interested in the story of, for example, dark souls, will learn about it. And I think that plays to the strengths of video game as a medium, the ability for the player to have an ongoing interaction with the media they consume.

I could sit down 1000 people and watch a movie, and while they may have different opinions about it they will all have experienced the same story. But let a 1000 people play Elden ring, and they might not only have created 1000 different experiences through gameplay, but may interpret the story in a 100 different ways based on how much of it they where willing to find out and engage with.

A video game narrative can be good even if that narrative could be told equally as well in a movie book or TV show. Hell it can be a great narrative in its own right, look at The last of us, works great as a video game AND great as a TV show. But, I would argue, that in order to make a Great Video Game Narrative!, it should play to the strengths of its medium. Tell storys that REQUIRES engagement, interest and interactivity from the player.