Writer Alex Garland An ‘Eye-Opener’ While Working on Enslaved


Writer Alex Garland has written numerous best-sellers such as The Beach and The Coma. In addition, he has worked with director Danny Boyle frequently, writing the screenplays for 28 Days Later and Sunlight. In addition, Garland wrote the original script for the film adaptation of Halo in 2005. He is an accomplished author and screenwriter, but his latest challenge has been working on Enslaved, the latest game from Ninja Theory, which is due later this year.

The game is set 150 years in the future, when a global war has decimated the Earth, leaving the planet a ruin of cities that have become overgrown by plants and populated by animals. The world is still populated by Robots whose original task during the global war was to kill humans. The main character, Monkey, is captured by these robots and taken to an airship, which he eventually escapes with a woman named Trip. They work together to return her to her home village and survive the harsh world of the future.

The story was written by Garland, who was brought on specifically to make a strong, compelling experience. But, along the way, it seems, Garland expanded his role and became as much a level designer as a writer.

According to a report on Develop Online, Ninja Theory says Garland has brought an “eye-opening” perspective to the project.

Garland reportedly is a self-confessed gaming addict and, according to Ninja Theory’s Creative Director Tameem Antoniades, he was much more than a writer. “In the first instance we brought Garland on for writing, but what he ended up delivering was way more than that.


“What I didn’t realise was how much story telling was non-verbal and wasn’t done via cut scenes.

“[Garland] worked with our designers, first to lay out the first draft of the script so we could shoot it, and then he worked with us in-house once a week, all day long, to help set out the level design, because you can’t separate level design from the story – it has to be as one.

“Effectively he became a level designer.

“Later on [in the design process], when we had all the elements in the game, [Garland] would look at it as if it was a first cut of the movie. He wouldn’t just give feedback on where the video lines should be placed, but also on the staging of the events, and how to add tension and drama through camera angles and music and so forth.

“He has impressed me deeply and every member of the team thinks he is the don. We have learnt so much off of him, it has been [an] eye-opener.”

Garland’s involvement not only in the story, but in the actual creation of the levels, is another indicator of the maturing nature of video games. Recent series and releases such as Mass Effect, Red Dead Redemption, and Heavy Rain indicate that gaming is no longer just about action-based entertainment. Gaming is maturing. It’s offering shorelines with characters that we care about, that we can be emotionally attached too, and who can become our own through unique shorelines that change based on your decisions.


Garland was brought on to make Enslaved a more mature game. All too often game stories are convoluted, silly, or just plain non-existent. But no more. Games are pushing the envelope and becoming more cinematic in nature and as a result, they have more value.

Garland is just the first of what should turn out to be many accomplished writers working on the development of games. Expect writing to become the next hot job in gaming as more and more studios seek those with experience writing narratives and screenplays.

Enslaved is set to arrive later this year on the PlayStation and Xbox 360.