Primal premiered in October 2019 and is currently going through its second season. It is the latest work of Gennady Tartakovsky, who is known for Samurai Jack, Dexter's Laboratory, Hotel Transylvania, and Star Wars: The Clone Wars. Primal is Tartakovsky's darkest work yet, telling the story of a Neanderthal man and a dinosaur exploring a violent and merciless prehistoric world.
The show has won Annie Awards and Primetime Emmy Awards for its incredible visual storytelling that uses no dialogue. Interestingly enough, some of the best video games out there have used the same formula as Primal, such as Ico, Shadow of the Colossus, and Journey. Primal's current popularity and the history of games with similar storytelling elements is a sign that more games may want to hop onto the wagon of quiet stories with strong visuals.
How Primal's Storytelling Methods Are Perfect For Video Games
Primal follows the rule of "show, don't tell" to an extreme level. Spear, the main character, has said a word at most over the show's two seasons; instead, most character information is told through expressions and body language. With many characters being dinosaurs and prehistoric animals, this visual storytelling choice is quite important. Even when more people are met, there is a massive language barrier, and neither the protagonist (nor the audience) typically knows what is being said.
Video games have succeeded in this formula before Primal. In fact, video games are famously known for the silent protagonists, as it was used as a way for the gamer to project themselves more into the character. Primal works a little this way too with Spear, who cannot tell the audience what he thinks or feels, so it is up to them to determine based on his actions.
So many video games already do a lot of what Primal serves, but there are some elements that make Primal special. It takes a quiet story and sets it in a merciless world with a protagonist is one that is full of emotion. He is incredibly reactive, which is an element many quiet video games tend to leave out so that the player can project themselves more. In Elden Ring, for example, the silent protagonist is always emotionless for the benefit of the player's projection.
Projection is a part of the magic of video games. TV and books cannot quite emulate the same thing with a protagonist. However, projection is not in every video game. In games where projection is absent though, there is a ton of dialogue. The protagonist may talk to themselves a lot and have voice acting or written dialogue choices. Here is when the missing piece reveals itself: video games should look to Primal as a way to have a reactive emotional protagonist while still keeping a story quiet and visually oriented.
The games that have come closest to Primal would be the Team Ico games, and they are widely considered some of the greatest video games of all time. They are the titles that made the argument that video games are art as early as 2001. While they are not violent or prehistoric like Primal, they captured the same visual storytelling without sacrificing the emotion and reaction of the characters.
Unfortunately, video games can have limits, as the protagonist's face is not always seen and thus does not show their reaction and emotion. Usually, players see the back of a character that they control. This is where creating a game that emulates the raw emotions and action of Primal could be a challenge, but not impossible. Games are always finding new ways to tell a story. With many developers and publishers likely having grown up on Tartakovsky's works, the gaming industry may indeed have its eyes on Primal and what a game like Primal could look like.