How to write in video game script format
"What does a video game script even look like?", "Should I use Final Draft?", "What do you mean, there's no such thing as 'a' video game script format?', and more... (Updated 2025)
There are many tools out there for writing games. In my workshops we predominantly use Twine, Ink, and for the 101 Branching Dialogue Class, a tool of my own devising for custom narrative structures—>
But for all the time people spend finding the perfect tools, nothing beats actually just writing and making something. In the below, I’ll talk you through some varying kinds of format you can find throughout the industry, but never forget that pen and paper (or digital pen, in the case of the following image) is enough to get going »
The Simple Answer: There IS no standard form
Game scripts don't have a standard form—they can't, given the sheer diversity of what games are as a medium. We're talking about an art form that somehow contains both Tetris and The Last of Us and everything in-between. They are often vast and unwieldy, making conversion into any standardised linear script similarly unwieldy and impractical. The Witcher 3 has 450,000 lines of dialogue across 950 speaking roles, while Red Dead Redemption 2 - if printed on pages - would rise eight feet high according to Rockstar Games.
How do you represent choices and variables spanning hours of gameplay in a flowing document? Where do you even draw the line? Cutscenes, lore documents, ambient dialogue, barks, items, UI text—there are many types of writing at play. Where would you start putting that in some kind of sequence?
I've been contacted multiple times by screenwriters and random business people who have 'an idea for a game' or a 'script they want to pitch to X company' to get made. That's not how the industry works. You don't pitch to huge games companies unless you're Steven Spielberg or JJ Abrams, wielding vast resources of your own. You get a job, or you go through mysterious contract application processes until they tell you the shape of their own idea under NDA. You decide if you want to work on that idea, adding your own touches but otherwise existing in their work-for-hire sphere.
The only time you'd pitch a game 'script' to someone else is for something like a mostly text-based interactive fiction publisher, where you're co-developing and releasing your game as partners. You can't command Rockstar Games production values in such a project. But creative freedom and some nice art/UI/a distribution channel for your trouble? Potentially.
Given all this complexity and variation, there's no single way games are written. Instead, there are multiple script formats—none uniform, none one-size-fits-all — with some projects likely to use more than one at the same time.
What surprises many?
The most common format I’ve found is the spreadsheet.
The Excel File / Google Sheet
The Excel spreadsheet is arguably the least creative, least romantic way to write a story imaginable—and yet it's one of the most common tools in game writing. The brutality of the form grows on you, especially because it offers certain advantages.
For implementation, your cells can be labeled and linked directly to the game's code setup. When you update your text, the actual text in the game gets updated at the same time. For translation, vertical columns allow for variants in each language—this becomes your 'loc' or 'localisation' sheet. The spreadsheet is incredibly useful for the actual development process, sitting at the opposite end of the utility spectrum from something like Final Draft, the traditional film script tool.
More than half of the contract projects I've worked on used this format, including NO MAN'S SKY. I'd often prototype things in other tools at certain points, but games come with restrictions in what their flow allows behind the scenes. The loc sheet keeps you honest and game-appropriate in what you create as part of the writing process.
Even if you're using other tools for main paths or branching in your interactive game, spreadsheets are superior writing tools for item descriptions, barks, and anything where you want variation and categorization. The table format lets you see the spread of tone and phrasing in an easy visual manner. When you eliminate all the tools that are terrible at this kind of thing, spreadsheets win by default as the only real remaining choice.
Node formats
Node-based tools arrange game narrative in a flow-chart format across a screen. Text may be written directly in boxes on the chart, with the chart indicating choices or conditional logic ('if this happens, then that'). More commonly, the chart shows labels, and clicking on a box opens fields for entering text and various conditions for when that text appears.
Twine, a free tool, allows creators to build interactive fiction text games in this format and export them for web distribution. It's been used for prototyping even when the final project uses different tools—Charlie Brooker's Bandersnatch was prototyped in Twine.
Major studios such as Obsidian with their OEI Tools have made their own internal apps for creating branching narrative in their own way. And, as I showed above, I even have my own editor in my writing workshops, used to enforce specific narrative patterns to allow students to practice game writing in particular shapes and flows without having to over- or -under- think the scope and sprawl of their story.
The node format is primarily a visual one — it makes the flow of complex, interweaving narratives visible and tangible through actual lines and shapes, like the Matrix going from 010101 to actual graphics. However, there are potential negatives to such shaping depending on the kind of project you are working on and the stage you are at: visual representations of projects can quickly become overwhelming and noisy, negating this advantage, and unlike spreadsheets, node formats are difficult to convert to linear form. Twine does have an 'export proofing copy' feature, though the resulting file bears little relation to the actual play sequence—it's more useful as a backup or for annotating writing style issues than getting a sense of play experience.
I advise writers to work with both Twine -and- Ink at some stage, especially in their early development, so they can learn and think through how to accomplish different kinds of writing as best they can, and they can learn which tools vibe best with their mindset and practice of writing.
The Inkle Ink Script
IInkle's Ink format has become a standard across many games companies, used not only for interactive fiction but in complex 3D projects in Unity and Epic for indies and AAA alike. Sea of Thieves uses it behind the scenes.
Ink uses markup like *, +, =, and → to give special status to certain lines and phrases—Inky automatically interprets them as choices, new segments, or redirects. The format reads closest to a linear script while accommodating game-specific needs. Writers don't need to switch from typing story content to navigating menus and UI features to create new nodes—a * creates a choice, a → redirects to a new section.
Custom integrations are possible within the format. In AMERICAN ELECTION, for example, a "choice intensity" variable controls how much text choices shake on screen to replicate stress. These variables are controlled directly in the Inky flow (higher numbers = more intense), allowing easy tweaking without disrupting the writing.
The format enables fast prototyping and improvisation. Choices can be developed as part of the actual writing flow, like any other writing element—not reserved only for pre-planning and outlining. While it lacks the visual clarity of node-based systems, it maintains writing flow by keeping everything in one text-based interface.
Microsoft Word / Google Docs
Need some lore and worldbuilding? You’d think this would all be created in these kinds of word processing apps anyway — but mostly, Excel and Google Sheets once again, at least in their final format.
However, just because your work is destined for eventual embedding in a spreadsheet, does not mean you cannot provisionally draft your lore and worldbuilding content in a word processor — which makes waaay more sense for a process where you do not want every ‘enter’ and new line key to shunt you to another cell instead of creating a new paragraph.
Microsoft Word / Google Docs… Now in Table Form
This is less common, but I’ve often prototyped short sections in this format to demonstrate prototype material; I’ve encouraged others to use this if they’re having difficulty with tools and need to just focus on writing; and I’ve converted some scripts into this format for expression to those outside of the medium. You could view it as a kind of ‘Trophy Case Display’ version of all those different tools above — far easier for others to parse a visual branching flow than, say, an Ink document, but with less of the clear directionality of a node-based tool.
As you’ll have realised by now, there’s no natural way to display a lot of these formats in linear documents, so there will always need to be tradeoffs. I would generally only write a first draft in such a format if it was in aid of a prototype or if toolsets had not yet been determined; it’s great as a way of breaking writer’s block also, just switching to a different type of representation (the same goes for all these formats, no-one is going to force you to stick to one. As ever, the right answer is whatever helps you write better and more effectively).
Screenplay Format
Some studios use Final Draft, the film industry's screenplay software, for their game scripts. This works for linear cinematic cutscene narratives, as there's often little to distinguish these from film scenes. s above, God of War (2018) uses this just fine — it's a recognisable format for actors, particularly those who work in other mediums, and it's not incredibly difficult to export scripts in this style from more specialised internal tools.
The format becomes problematic when expressing conditional logic and branching, or when incorporating non-cutscene content like ambient dialogue and barks into the same file. Screenwriters from outside games insisting on using familiar cinematic formats, combined with AAA studios' cinematic ambitions, can sometimes result in expensive workarounds and proprietary conversion tools that make writing and readability harder for everyone involved.
In other mediums, one page of screenplay = one minute of on-screen time. A rule of thumb for whether a screenplay really is the best format for your game's script work? If you find that a page of your writing is drastically under a minute or over a minute — and, beyond that, if the flow is hard to read and parse as a series of events with cause and effect — you might be better off using some of the other formats in this guide for at least some of your writing.
If you’re interested in gaining access to my workshop’s branching dialogue exercise and working with us on refining your character writing in games, consider signing up at — https://gregbuchanangames.com/courses - for the next cohort.
For more on script formats, read these articles on portfolios, which delve into more specific sub-types of game writing in the process:
