Living Stories: Interactivity and Storytelling in Video Games
A longer piece, delving deeper into the concept of storytelling in games, and the nature of ‘collective imagination’ in shaping our realities.
Image: Unsplash
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People like stories. People have always liked stories. Stories are the backbones of our strange and incredible species, the pillars of our complex systems, and the soil for our rich cultures.
Okay. Now that I’ve hopefully demonstrated my ability write somewhat philosophically, let’s get on with the actual topic: Video Games. More specifically, I want to talk about stories and video games – that is, how video games use ‘storytelling’ to level up the experience, and create something uniquely special for the player.
We’ll primarily explore how games tell stories through interactivity and intersectionality, and why this relatively new channel could be the richest creative platform we’ve ever had. At the end, I ponder on the concept of ‘collective imagination’ and games on a meta-level, raising questions about what stories we consider to be ‘reality’.
Alright. Let us begin.
PART ONE – STORIES ALIVE:
The Storyteller and the Listener
Rather than going on about the entire concept of ‘storytelling in games’, I will explore what I feel is the core of the video game experience – that video games are essentially living stories. Video games tell stories in a way that most traditional mediums, even most digital media, cannot hope to rival nor emulate; no other storytelling medium can compete with video games on the continuum of ‘interactivity’ and ‘intersectionality’.
Let’s first look at Interactivity and storytelling. The heart of almost every video game is the element of ‘play’, that there is some degree of interaction with the game world – whether that’s a peaceful farm, or a post-apocalyptic New Vegas – forming some goal or player experience. Essentially, players can ‘do’ something in the game world, and the environment or characters can ‘react’ in some way. Even games that seemingly lack ‘storytelling elements’ – such as barebones arena-shooters, or even Atari’s original Pong – tell a ‘story’ through their interactive elements; each action has some kind of outcome, potentially progressing (or setting back) the player and their objectives. This interactivity is the foundation for storytelling in many games, enabling game writers and developers to convey deeply impactful ideas and create incredible player journeys.
This brings us to my central idea that video games are ‘living stories’. In a game, you are almost never a ‘passive bystander’ to the ‘Narrative’. The interactive nature of games means that the story often requires player action to progress, creating the basis for a uniquely ‘active’ and engaging storytelling experience. In other words, the player simultaneously enacts and experiences the tale, a ‘participant’ within the story that they are witnessing and creating at the same time. This means that in no game are you limited to the singular role of ‘Listener’ or ‘Storyteller’ – you are almost always both. The story cannot progress without your input, and the progression of the Narrative gives you fresh input to consider and act upon; it is ‘listening’ and ‘telling’ in cyclical unison. We share in this crazy story that is being told, as we interpret and further create our own narrative experience with every action.
The Cycle of Listening and Telling. Image by Me.
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Certain games truly understand this hybrid ‘telling-listening’ capability of their medium, harnessing the unique relationship between player and game to enhance the final experience. The Middle-Earth game, Shadow of War (2017), takes this principle to unprecedented lengths, constructing the ‘Nemesis System’ for truly interactive storytelling in their fantasy RPG.
Game Maker’s Toolkit (2021) - Analysing how the ‘Nemesis System’ creates unique stories for the player in Middle-Earth: Shadow of War (2017)
The system randomly generates Orcs from sets of attributes and names, then pits them against the player in various scenarios. Probability dictates whether certain enemies ‘cheat death’ and hunt the player to seek revenge, or perhaps humiliate the player if the orcs emerge victorious.
From above video (2021): Graph visualising potential player-enemy interactions with each encounter, leading to organic variation in story and consequences.
While most elements of the game were nothing new, this ground-breaking system both technically and cognitively enabled massively increased depth in the ‘active’ storytelling experience. On the ‘technical’ aspect, the game itself constantly runs statistical analyses to optimise ‘re-encounter’ probabilities for these ever-evolving enemies, making them feel like recurring characters and rivals – creating a ‘nemesis’ for the player. These encounters are formed by the player’s actions; deciding whether to taunt, kill, or recruit their foes changes their next interaction, thus organically changing how the story plays out.
However, to some degree, players themselves are the ones who give meaning and make connections in the encounters that they have with the orcs. Dialogue from these ‘nemeses’ are often deliberately left vague, letting players forge their own internal story of what each clash meant. This is the ‘cognitive’, user-generated element; the game gives you the chance to encounter certain recurring enemies, yet the player is the one who truly gives substance and significance to these relationships and narratives.
Figure 1: From GDC talk – Mata Haggis (2017) on YouTube. Click image for link.
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Other games play into the concept of ‘choice’, giving a deeper and more reflexive take on storytelling. The Bioshock instalments have taken the science-driven ‘many worlds’ approach, leaving massive narrative ambiguity throughout its structure. The games offer paradoxical lens at various points in the story; some pieces of Bioshock empower the player’s agency, while others ominously highlight the illusion and futility of ‘choice’ in games. Significant elements of the main storyline are intentionally left to the player’s own interpretation, as the series thrives on the active discourse of its player-base. The potential for interpretation is essentially a game mechanic. The player is invited to actively think and partake in the completion of the Narrative; the ‘Bioshock experience’ is therefore incomplete if players lacked the opportunity to theorise about its enigmatic plotlines and meanings.
Furthermore, Bioshock tells its tales through intricate level designs, painting each interaction in different tones and changing how players react to the stimuli. Most obvious of the examples is the environmental disparity between Rapture (Bioshock 2007) and New Columbia (Bioshock: Infinite 2012). The dimly-lit, desecrated absurdity of a once-vibrant underwater utopia provides an easy backdrop for slaughtering grotesque mutant ‘Splicers’; the player feels little hesitation when tearing through waves of crazed enemies in this tattered environment. Yet the pristine streets of a magnificent flying city evokes appreciation and restraint – almost a desire to ‘keep the peace’, lest we spoil the blissful serenity of the gorgeous place. Through its level design, the games influence how we act and how we view our actions, changing how we understand and participate in the story.
Gamemaker’s Toolkit (2020) - Exploration of storytelling through environment and level design. (Skip to 15:22 for Bioshock environment comparison)
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Games like Portal (2007) and The Stanley Parable (2011) take interactivity and decision-making to a whole new level, with eerie, in-game narrators actively breaking the Fourth Wall to directly question the actions of the player. These games become increasingly spooky – and terrifically effective – as they gradually play into your internal self-doubt. Such narratives almost begin to feel like second order ‘Chaotic Systems’, becoming ‘infinitely unpredictable’ (basically ‘super confusing’) as the player responds to the predictions and taunting of the narrators. They create an unparalleled storytelling experience where players must decide whose voice to listen to, and how they will complete their own story.
The crazy maze of frustrating choices and branching stories in Stanley Parable - Leadhead (2019)
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The Challenge:
Let’s now look at the concept of Challenge. Games enable a degree of engagement and ‘interactive challenge’ that other narrative forms simply cannot replicate. They are built around obstacles and enemies, difficulties and ‘beating levels’. Video games introduce literal tension and hurdles for the player to face; once again, you cannot be a ‘passive viewer’ to the story – you must somehow earn it. No other storytelling medium has ‘feedback’, ‘punishments’, and ‘rewards’ like games do. In this way, it is a multimedia, multisensory storytelling experience, where we inevitably feeland experience the difficulties faced by the characters – since we play as them, not just watch them. Our internal motivations and skills, struggles and triumphs, can all be demonstrated a single gaming session. In my eyes, this dimension of ‘Challenge’ immeasurably elevates narrative impact for this medium.
Challenge can be used to bring us into the narrative, and stimulate peak engagement in players. Philosophical, artistic titles like Journey (2012) and Gris (2018) use abstract visual-auditory environments to let players see themselves within the character and their stories. Their dialogue-free nature elevates the narrative, using problem-solving (intricate puzzles and frustrating mysteries) as a central storytelling mechanic to engage the player and encourage growth. Essentially, the progression of the player’s own skill and confidence mirrors the path of growth for the in-game protagonist.
Gris (2018) - Character starts as broken and fragile in a colourless world. (Credit: Nomada Studio)
We begin the game as a clueless, fragile character, devoid of powerful skills and knowledge, gradually developing into a confident and capable being as the story progresses - much like how the player feels as they traverse the alien environments and overcome increasingly complex obstacles. Furthermore, both games (like many others) use principles of ‘Flow’; level difficulty is designed to match the approximate skill of the player as they get more experienced, sustaining a state of ‘peak-arousal’ for incredible engagement.
Revised representation of the ‘Flow’ Model (originally developed by Csikszentmihalyi, c. 1975). Image by me.
Altogether, this means that the ‘player experience’ matches that of the ‘in-world story’ – the one experienced by the character – creating unprecedented immersion in stories that are otherwise abstract and esoteric. Here, ‘Challenge’ became the way to truly connect players to the game, and finish the story they wanted to tell.
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The Three Worlds:
Ultimately, no other storytelling medium is capable of integrated and mutual interactivity to such an extent. In this way, video games are a unique intersection of three worlds –they are a transitional centre for physical, cognitive, and digital spheres. Each gaming experience is a combination of physical responses, cognitive experiences, and digital platforms. Each game connects the mind-body entity to the digital-narrative world, where we can live and act through avatars in each ‘self-contained reality’. Games are the ultimate narrative format, as its intersectionality can bring all three worlds along for the journey, requiring the active engagement of each one to complete the story.
The intersection of Three Worlds. Image by me.
PART TWO – STORIES AND LIES:
‘We make up Stories, and Stories make up our World.’
This final section tackles storytelling and gaming in a much more meta and sociological manner, and brings me to the last big question I want us to consider: At what point does a ‘story’ become ‘reality’?
The things I discussed earlier all amount to storytelling within games, but what of the story we tell about games? Video games are often considered ‘not real’, just little stories that we sneakily played on Xbox on the weekends, or when messing around with friends to destress after work.
To a large degree, video games and their stories are indeed just ‘made up’. But what isn’t? Which social system, legal term, and cultural artefact isn’t ‘made up’ by other people? Most of what constitutes mainstream ‘reality’ is simply a massive collection of group stories, ones that entire populations believe and propagate.
Within social sciences, this concept has sometimes been termed ‘intersubjectivity’ (though the name itself is ironically disputed), an idea that seems increasingly relevant to storytelling and gaming culture. It is the notion that things can exist in a ‘shared mental space’ between individuals, where something is given ‘reality’ if it influences our thoughts and actions, even if it does not have objective independence. Things can exist in our collective imagination, and are therefore just as real as anything else, so long as people continue believing. Words are the greatest example of this collective story; a word becomes ‘real’ as long as people acknowledge its usage and it impacts their actions. Money, institutions, independent corporate entities – all such items are products of this ‘intersubjective fabric’, woven by the faithful participants of a given society.
By this logic, who is to say that game stories are any less real than the stories about words and systems? Again, at what point does the story become reality?
Just as money and institutions are products of our collective imagination, so too are video games and the stories they tell. To acknowledge that games ‘mean something’ to us, impacting the way we think and act, is therefore to give it a claim of intersubjective reality. By the nature of my discussion – about active participants, about challenge and engagement – games are undoubtedly ‘real’ within the collective imagination. Anyone who has played any games before surely understands the collective eyeroll when some non-gamer says “relax, it’s just a game”. We all partake in this glorious ‘lie’, this shared narrative of game worlds and goals, interactive tales and gripping challenges. To me, video games and storytelling are inseparable, and are just as ‘real’ as any other social story.
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Games are an entire wormhole of expressive and storytelling potential; they are a tunnel to greater realms, realms which need to be analysed and explored with more sincerity and appreciation than ever before. Perhaps it is time for more people to broaden their horizons, and allow themselves to experience the beauty that lies beyond the boundaries of what is conventionally ‘real’.
Believe in the Story, and see where it leads. I promise you won’t be disappointed.
-JG.
