For although most games today have stories, they are unlike other art forms, and especially unlike literature, in that formalism is our default mode of attention.

One wonders what Shklovsky would have said about video games. This kind of technical attention has come to be known as formalism. (вЂњIn art,вЂќ Shklovsky wrote, вЂњblood is not bloody it just rhymes with вЂflood.вЂ™вЂќ ) Laying bare such devices thus means using them without any story motivation whatsoever - say, ending a novel mid-sentence just because you can, rather than because the narratorвЂ™s quill has run dry or because the protagonist has just been assassinated - thereby highlighting the autonomous forms that actually determine literary composition and jolting the reader into a newfound attention to what is truly artistic about art. But what literary works are really made up of is a complex arrangement of formal вЂњdevicesвЂќ - things like repetition, point-of-view narration, or nonlinear chronology in a story - that are pure conventions of literary structure bearing no relation to reality. THE RUSSIAN LITERARY CRITIC Viktor Shklovsky held that one function of great works is to вЂњlay bare the device.вЂќ We normally think of literature, so this influential argument goes, as being determined by its content - that is, by particular characters, the settings they inhabit, and the actions they perform.

NOTE: This review contains spoilers for Deathloop, Outer Wilds, and Returnal.

Uncharted 4 gameplay