Reaching for the Holy Grail:
Combining Open Game Design and Classical Narrative
ByLucas Versantvoort
Thesis Supervisor: dr. J.A.A. Simons
Second Reader: dr. M.C. Wilkinson
Student Number: 6058493 Media Studies: Film Studies Faculty of Humanities University of Amsterdam 26-06-2014
Abstract
This thesis is an attempt to answer a longstanding question in game studies: whether or not it is possible to satisfactorily combine an open video game with classical narrative. These two often conflict when combined in a video game. Open video game design emphasize the role of the player and gameplay mechanics whereas linear, or 'closed' games often emphasize plot over gameplay. The rules of proper storytelling and classical narrative thus conflict with the elements of open game design. These tensions between plot and gameplay have been part of the discussions between the ludologists and the narratologists.
It is the goal of this thesis to offer several answers, compromises, to the above question. A key point is that because complete integration of classical narrative into open game design seems structurally impossible, the focus lies on integrating as many elements of classical narrative as possible into open game design without causing structural conflicts.
TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT... 2 TABLE OF CONTENTS...3 INTRODUCTION: A CONTRADICTIO IN TERMINIS?...5
Constructing the Thesis...8
The First Compromise: Emergent Narrative and Gameplay...9
The Second Compromise: Meaningful Gameplay...9
The Third Compromise: Mass Effect...10
THE THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK...11
Plot and Story...11 Classical Narrative...11 Thematic Unity...12 Unity-in-Variety...14 Closed and linear Video Game Design...15Openness and Nonlinearity in Video Games...15 Emergent Narrative and Gameplay...16 Meaningful Gameplay...18 Ludonarrative Dissonance...19
The Ludologists and Narratologists...20
THE FIRST COMPROMISE: EMERGENT NARRATIVE AND GAMEPLAY...23
Journey...23
Dwarf Fortress...25
Brogue...25
Conclusion...28
THE SECOND COMPROMISE: MEANINGFUL GAMEPLAY...29
Far Cry 3...29
Meaningful Gameplay in Far Cry 3...32
THE THIRD COMPROMISE: MASS FFECT...34
The Mass Effect series...34
Unity of Themes and Unity-in-Variety in Mass Effect...35
Conclusion...38
CONCLUSION...40
Introduction: a Contradictio in Terminis?
In the world of game studies, one of the questions that has oft plagued these particular fields of study is the following: is it possible for a nonlinear, open video game to incorporate a classical, linear narrative without structural issues? One might be inclined to immediately say yes, but such a combination would be extremely difficult to achieve, if not impossible, because the question
implies a contradictio in terminis: how can a video game be both open and closed at the same time? A closed game is closed/linear precisely because it wants to focus on the narrative and not on the interactivity of the player, whereas an open game does the opposite, namely focus on gameplay and the interactive role of the player which usually comes at the expense of logical, coherent
storytelling.
Answering this question is highly relevant, because should the answer be 'yes,' it could mean that a video game could combine two, essentially mutually exclusive, key aspects of a game: openness on the one hand which easily allows for a large amount of gameplay options and replay value and on the other hand a coherent, well-structured, linear, closed narrative which more easily grants the player the possibility of becoming emotionally invested and/or interested in the game world, the story and the characters. The player would be both satisfied in terms of gameplay and narrative without one being in conflict with the other. This would be the positive outcome for the game players were this question answered with a 'yes.' However, to provide a satisfying answer is another matter entirely.
Two groups that have struggled with (and are still struggling) with this question, among many things, are the ludologists and the narratologists. The key difference between these two groups is something their names already hint at. Both groups are familiar with the structural issues that arise when a narrative is applied to a video game. But they differ in the way games should be academically studied. Ludologists, like Espen Aarseth, think that the element of play is the key characteristic of games and what separates them from other media:
involvement is a necessary ingredient in the uses of games. The complex nature of
simulations is such that a result can’t be predicted beforehand; it can vary greatly depending on the player’s luck, skill and creativity. (Aarseth)
Ludologists like Aarseth thus place gameplay and the rules of a video games above other aspects as the main objects of study. They do not wish for video games to be studied merely with the analytic concepts of pre-existing disciplines. However, Aarseth noted the following:
Yet much of the industry and the academic commentators see the need for "narrative" structures in order to understand games and make games "better." In this issue, the debate about narratives’ and narratology’s relevance to game studies is clearly visible. This is a debate that shows the very early stage we are still in, where the struggle of controlling and shaping the theoretical paradigms has just started. (Aarseth 2001)
Aarseth makes it clear that narratology has played an important role in debates in game studies. This brings us to the narratologists.
Narratologists propose a different way of studying games. They analyze games through concepts related to the field of narratology and see games and its unique characteristics as a way for new kinds of storytelling to emerge. Key figures in these debates include Henry Jenkins, Ernest Adams, Gonzalo Frasca and Jesper Juul. I will go into more detail on their contributions later.
These debates have gone on for several decades (since the 1980s). Also, along with the recent popularity of games featuring emergent narrative and gameplay, new texts have appeared dealing with both the appeal of these games, the (very minimal) role narrative plays in them and, more broadly, questions on what role narrative should play (or not) in games (Alexander 2014; Bissell 2011; Houghton 2014; Kelly 2011; Lee 2013; Marinello n.d.; McNamara 2004; Wanenchak 2014). The article by Alexander heavily quotes video game designer Warren Spector who, despite adoring linear, story-driven games such as Heavy Rain (2010), prefers games with emergent narrative and gameplay, games that focus create endless replay value through rules and gameplay mechanics:
Create global rules versus specific, instanced behavior of objects and characters; build interlocking systems that are predictable and consistent (some objects are flammable, some guards are light-sensitive, the player has torches) but not pre-determined. Have a variety of object properties with plausible or simulated effects ("let water be water") that players can
learn and engage with. (2014)
Houghton on the other hand feels that too great an emphasis on open game design can result in a lack of structure which results in uninteresting gameplay and player experiences. Houghton emphasizes that any powerful, emotional moments the player can experience are usually the result of structured level design and not completely open game design:
While non-linear games can bring about some excellent, emergent gameplay from time to time, the most exciting and resonating moments in gaming still come from the type of calculated, structured drama that springs from predesigned parameters unfolding within specially designed environments. The random factor of non-linear design throws up great anecdotes, but truly affecting, intense, satisfyingly challenges, victories and crescendos need level design. (2014)
In short, Houghton states that if a game is to engage and move the player, then this can only be done through structured game design and not completely open world game design.
Kelly on the other hand finds that although games have tried hard to convincingly tell stories, they have failed. Rather than trying to tell stories, games should focus on 'storysensing'. This seems to be an extension of what Jenkins referred to as environmental storytelling, the importance of spatiality in games and how games “centered around enabling players to move through narratively compelling spaces” (2004). Storysensing is about world-building: the seemingly unnecessary details that give life to the game world. This includes background dialogue and details in the environments (audio logs, graffiti painted on walls, etc.). This notion of ‘storysensing’ seems related to ‘the reality effect’ as explained
by Barthes. The reality effect entails that all the details in a text that do not seem important in terms of plot (lengthy descriptions of a dining room, for
instance) actually grant the text a sense of realism (Barthes 1989). The above
‘storysensing’ details seem to serve the same function.
Even modern-day video game directors have commented on the issues of integrating plot into games, like the director of Final Fantasy XIII (2009), Motomu Toriyama, who said that “when
you look at most Western RPGs, they just dump you in a big open world, and let you do whatever you like... [It] becomes very difficult to tell a compelling story when you're given that much freedom" (Ingham 2010). Japanese game developer Hideo Kojima has also commented on the tensions between telling a story through gameplay and through cinematic devices (like cutscenes). Kojima has the desire to tell stories through gameplay, to more fully integrate plot into gameplay. He would like to achieve something similar to interactive narrative design, merging plot with gameplay (fig. 1). He fears however that this interactivity will result in a lessened emotional impact with the player (Doree 2008). According to Simons, the narratology-ludology debate has quieted since 2003, but has not been resolved (2007). The recent texts and comments by game developers attempting to deal with these issues attest to that. The issue of the relationship between narrative and gameplay is thus still a pressing one.
The goal of this thesis then is to provide and discuss three possible answers, none of them ideal, to the research question. None of them suggest that a perfect combination exists, that open, nonlinear video games can showcase entirely linear, coherent, thematically cohesive narratives in the strictest sense (in that they fully adhere to the rules of classical narratives). Rather, the three answers I will give represent alternatives, answers that suggest a middle ground, a way of looking at how a video game can be both open/nonlinear and still incorporate important elements of classical narratives to a satisfactory degree. So, the (now revised) question I aim to answer is: is it possible for an open video game to be combined with a classical, linear narrative in the strictest sense and if not, what possible combinations exist where open games are able to be satisfactorily combined with
elements of classical narrative? The main idea behind this thesis is to use the ludology-narratology
debate (along with various concepts) to explain why applying narrative to games has been and still is structurally problematic. The point is thus not to critique the ludologists and narratologists, but to use those debates as a backdrop for explaining the problems when applying narrative to games and to make suggestions on how game design can be altered to best suit the needs of a structurally sound combination of open game design and elements of classical narrative.
Constructing the Thesis
The structure of the thesis shall be as follows: The first part will be dedicated to thoroughly analyzing and elucidating certain key terms. These terms are 'plot' (as opposed to 'story'), 'unity of themes,' 'unity-in-variety,' 'openness' and 'nonlinearity,' 'closed video games' and 'linearity,'
'ludonarrative dissonance,' 'emergent narrative and gameplay' and 'meaningful gameplay.' Together, these terms form the theoretical basis for this thesis as the research question rests on the structural
tensions between these narrative-and-gameplay related terms. Here I will also go into greater detail regarding the ludology-narratology debate. It is also by going through these terms one by one that it will become clear why satisfactorily combining classical narrative and open game design is such a difficult proposition.
The First Compromise: Emergent Narrative and Gameplay
The second part is where I will introduce and explain the first of the three alternative answers regarding the research question. Here I will focus on video games featuring 'emergent narrative and gameplay' and show how these types of video games represent one possible combination of
openness and linearity in that they utilize their open nature and lack of story to allow the player to create their own narratives. These games often focus on a specifically designed game world and game mechanics which the player must master and can also present chaotic situations. It is these small types of situations that are seen as narratives and where the term 'emergent narrative' comes from but, though one possible answer to the research question, it is precisely these types of chaotic situations that make them incapable of satisfying enough criteria of classical narratives for them to be seen as an acceptable answer to the research question.
In terms of case studies, I will reference the video games analyzed by video game developer and composer Terence Lee (2013): Journey (2012), Dwarf Fortress (2006) and Brogue (2009), because not only are these games strong examples of emergent narrative and gameplay, they also arguably represent the ways these types of games have been incapable of representing a satisfying combination of open video game design and classical narrative.
The Second Compromise: Meaningful Gameplay
In the third section of this thesis, I will present my second alternative and possible answer to the research question. In contrast to the previous answer which focused on emergent narrative and gameplay, here I focus on what I will refer to as 'meaningful gameplay.' Indeed, this term has been used on several occasions with various meanings attached to it (Kim 2012). The notion of
'meaningful gameplay' I will be using focuses on 'gameplay that is thematically linked to the
narrative themes of the story.' Thus, the possible combination of openness/nonlinearity and classical narrative here focuses on narrative themes. It can be said that if gameplay is thematically consistent in relation to the story's themes, then a certain unity of gameplay and story has been achieved which in itself can be seen as a way in which the game shows characteristics of classical narrative which
itself requires a unity of themes and thematic consistency.
When gameplay is of such as a nature that it stands in the way of the story's themes
however, this is usually called ludonarrative dissonance. This has been an issue for some time in the field of game studies, because rarely is it the case that narrative and gameplay walk hand in hand without one having the upper hand over the other. A video game that deals with a character gradually getting used to violence would be considered to suffer from ludonarrative dissonance if the gameplay only consisted of endless shooting. Meaningful gameplay is when a thematic link exists between gameplay and the story's themes. This thesis will in terms of meaningful gameplay use case studies that deal with choice systems and morality, since that is, I believe, when gameplay can be at its most 'meaningful' in terms of its aforementioned relation to a story's themes. There will be two main case studies: Tomb Raider (2013) and Far Cry 3 (2012). Tomb Raider is used to elucidate meaningful gameplay precisely by explaining how Tomb Raider does not have meaningful gameplay and instead suffers from ludonarrative dissonance due to structural imbalances between narrative and gameplay. Far Cry 3 is the key example in this chapter. Although the game, like
Tomb Raider, suffers from ludonarrative dissonance, it presents a coming together of open game
design and classical narrative due to its use of themes, an important part of classical narrative. It shows how a video game can be open and display thematic consistency in terms of gameplay at the same time. The themes of the game are 'mastering the jungle' and 'the ways of the warrior' and the open gameplay, combined with the story progression, can be seen to illustrate these themes throughout the game.
The Third Compromise: Mass Effect
My third and last alternative answer to the research question, and the one which I believe is the most acceptable compromise, focuses on a set of nonlinear video games that focus on telling a story and, importantly, still display a certain unity of themes in their various (side-)missions. My main case study here is the Mass Effect trilogy of games: Mass Effect (2007), Mass Effect 2 (2010) and
Mass Effect 3 (2012). After touching upon the concepts of nonlinearity and themes (unity of themes
and unity-in-variety) again, I will explain how the Mass Effect series is at once capable of being nonlinear while not sacrificing thematic unity and unity-in-variety in the process.
If it is indeed impossible to completely integrate classical narratives within open, nonlinear video games, then it seems a compromise must be found where as many elements of classical narrative are capable of being integrated into open, nonlinear games. The Mass Effect series hints at an acceptable compromise of that kind. While not a completely open game, it is not difficult to
imagine an open video game like Far Cry 3 exhibiting the same kind of thematic unity and unity-in-variety if its side-missions were designed better. I will come back to this in my conclusion.
The Theoretical Framework
There are a lot of terms and concepts in this thesis that require ample explanation; terms not just related to narrative, but also to video games. These are: plot and story, classical narrative, thematic unity, unity-in-variety, openness and nonlinearity in video games, closed and linear video games, emergent narrative and gameplay, meaningful gameplay and ludonarrative dissonance. This entire chapter will be devoted to elucidating these terms with some of them requiring more explanation than others. I will also devote additional time to the differences between ludologists and
narratologists.
Plot and Story. For these terms I will be paraphrasing and quoting from Bordwell's
Narration in the fiction film (1988). Although related, the key difference between the two is the fact
that story has to do with the cognitive processes of the viewer while plot is the way the narrative elements are presented in a film. One might easily be inclined to say that a term such as story means the same as plot, but Aristotle and the Russian Formalists would argue differently. According to Bordwell, these figures have contributed to defining a crucial difference between story and plot. 'Story' (also called 'fabula') is the story the viewer constructs, both “progressively and retroactively” (Bordwell 49) whereas 'plot' (also called 'syuzhet') “is the actual arrangement and presentation of the fabula in the film” (50). So, whereas fabula/story is the cause-and-effect story the viewer actively constructs in the process of watching, syuzhet/plot is the actual way the story is presented. This means that a fabula itself may remain the same, but the suyzhet can be structured in numerous ways. The chapter on emergent narrative and gameplay will have to do with 'story', since those types of games rely on gamers' own experiences and story formations, while the two chapters after that deal with 'plot', the literal structuring of narratives.
Classical narrative, closely related to plot. I already referred to Aristotle and the Russian Formalists and their role in the formation of a classical narrative. I have decided to utilize these notions of narrative in this thesis, because the successful combination of narrative and open game design becomes problematic precisely when analyzing games with classical notions of narrative. Of course, there are many other notions of narratives, as noted by Jesper Juul who asks that in order to answer the question of whether or not games tell stories, it depends on how one defines terms like 'story' (2001). Even the very ambiguity, the 'muddiness' of the term 'narrative' has been analyzed by
figures as Zimmerman (2004). But precisely because a combination of open game design and classical narrative is often structurally problematic, the classical narrative is key here.
To summarize classical, traditional narrative, one needs to look at Aristotle and Gustav Freytag, two key figures who in their respective times, formulated notions of narrative that are now associated with classical narrative. In his Poetica (335 BC), Aristotle discusses the importance of a structured Plot in relation to Tragedy. He states that it must have a beginning, middle and end. This is one of the key elements of classical narrative:
A beginning is that which does not itself follow anything by causal necessity, but after which something naturally is or comes to be. An end, on the contrary, is that which itself naturally
follows some other thing, either by necessity, or as a rule, but has nothing following it. A middle is that which follows something as some other thing follows it. A well-constructed plot, therefore, must neither begin nor end at haphazard, but conform to these principles. (Aristotle)
A unified plot must thus have a clear beginning, middle and end with a sequence of actions that follow the laws of cause and effect. All the elements of the plot must thus be logically
connected to each other, so that it may express universal themes in a powerful way (Poetica IX). Eventually, in the Nineteenth Century, Gustav Freytag wrote Die Technik des Dramas (1863) in which he adapted Aristotle's views on beginning-middle-end into a five-act dramatic structure (Madej 2008). These five acts which include two moments of crisis are: exposition, exciting force (moment),
rising action, climax, falling
action, resolution and dénouement. The introduction provides the audience with vital information regarding plot elements as time and place, earlier events and characters. Rising action means the event(s) that occur after the introduction and, classically, spur the hero of the story into action. This leads to the climax, the dramatic turning point in the story followed by falling action, the sequence of events caused by the previous climax during which the audience instinctively knows the story will soon come to an end. After the final moment of resolution during which the main conflict is resolved, the denouément arrives in which (usually) all lingering questions are answered. Aristotle's
ideas and Freytag's adaptation of those ideas have come to be known as 'Aristotle's Arc' and ‘Freytag's Pyramid' (fig. 2).
Thematic unity. This concept is closely related to notions of classical narrative. Basically, it means that, ideally, all the elements of a narrative must be connected to each other. It also has to with the concept of 'themes'. A theme is the message, the moral of the story: “The theme or message is the main point or points that the viewer draws from the way the characters respond to the
obstacles or resolve the conflict in the film” (Layne and Lewis 2009). A plot will often have
characters and actions linked by cause and effect, but a theme is what these narrative elements may symbolize. An action may be that the main character speaks little with other people. If this is a recurring element, the theme of the narrative might be loneliness, but one needs the narrative elements to deduce the theme. This is related to the notion of thematic patterning which is about the way a narrative might have recurring motifs which all deal with the same theme which subsequently grants a sense of cohesiveness to the overall plot. A narrative that achieves thematic unity is often found to be preferable to a narrative that deals with too many themes which can easily be labeled ‘messy.’ Also, a narrative dealing with two or more separate storylines that never connect, both literally and thematically, would be labeled something along the lines of ‘disjointed,’ because these narrative elements had nothing to do with each other. A narrative possessing a great deal of
thematic unity ensures a sense of cohesiveness. As the late John Hospers puts it:
The work of art must hold in suspension (as it were) a great diversity of elements and unify them—the greater the complexity that is integrated into a unity, the greater the achievement. This fact is so universally recognized that the two criteria are often stated as one, unity-in-diversity, or variety-in-unity. (Hospers)
Hospers links this to the term 'organic unity' which originates in Plato and Aristotle who “identified beauty with simplicity, harmony, and proportion” and “were so impressed with aesthetic unity that they compared it with the other most highly unified type of thing they knew, the organism; and ever afterwards it has been called “organic unity”” (Parker).
An interesting example of inadequate thematic unity can arguably be found in Save the
Tiger (1973). Summarizing the film is very difficult, because the film has countless events and
themes. It shows a day in the life of Harry Stoner, who works as a partner in a dress-manufacturing firm. His is a busy life: he is about to introduce a new line in his firm, he argues with a young, arrogant worker, philosophizes with an old co-worker, arranges prostitutes for clients (one of whom almost dies of a heart attack), plans to have one of his factories burned down so he can collect
insurance money, etc. There are countless scenes that refer to a lot of different themes. This is partially the result of the film feeling like a 'slice of life.' It tries to portray the downfall of modern society in a generalized way. This has led critics like Roger Ebert to say the following:
“Save the Tiger” has been attacked in some quarters for covering too much ground. I suppose it does. There's hardly a contemporary issue that isn't at least mentioned, sometimes two or three times. Maybe the movie's writer, Steve Shagan, tried too hard to find a place in his script for everything on his mind. "Save the Tiger" isn't just a statement; it's a summary of Shagan's intellectual inventory over the last five years. (Ebert)
One could argue that the film lacks thematic focus because it ‘tries to say too much.’ By referring to too many issues it can be argued that the film covers too much ground thematically, that the film has not built thematic unity through its many scenes. Since thematic unity is an important aspect of narratology (Hilldrup), Save the Tiger could – from the perspective of narratology – be seen as a problematic film. However, this lack of thematic focus is relieved of its perceived status as a narrative failing when viewed through the concept of unity-in-variety.
The earlier quote from Hospers emphasizes the close relation between thematic unity and unity-in-variety. A plot might have one major important theme that is dealt with over the course of the plot. It cannot however, be simply repeated with no variety as this would lead to an ultimately uninteresting work since it would only deal with its core theme in one way. A plot must also possess unity-in-variety. As Hospers summarizes this in the following manner:
In many works of art there is a dominant theme, or motif, which stands out and upon which the other portions are centred [sic]. This theme is then varied in different ways in other portions of the work. This is a special case of unity-in-variety. If every line in a work of music or literature were entirely novel and different from the other ones, there would be enormous diversity but no unifying connecting links, and if there were simply a repetition of the initial theme or of entire sections of the work (as sometimes happens when a composer does not know how to develop the thematic material with which he has begun), there would be unity but no variety. Both unity and variety are preserved by having central themes with other material that is related to them (unity) but not identical with them (variety). (Hospers) So, in a classical sense, a narrative would have one or more thematically unified themes that are repeated in various ways throughout the narrative. Dewitt Parker has a similar classical notion of
unity-in-variety: “The variety is of equal importance with the unity, for unity can assert itself and work only through the control of a multiplicity of elements” (Parker, “Chapter V”). In this sense, unity is achieved precisely through the unifying of various, seemingly unrelated, elements.
For an example of unity-in-variety (and for the sake of continuity), I will refer again to Save
the Tiger. I remarked that it is possible to state that the film is thematically too broad and thus lacks
focus and thematic unity. However one can also attribute all its slice of life scenes to an all-encompassing theme of 'modern life and its troubles versus the old ways'. Throughout the film, Harry talks about 'the old days' in various contexts, but he always views the past with rose-colored glasses. He struggles dealing with a modern world which seemingly has no place for him anymore, all the while reminiscing about the past. All the different events in the film can thus be seen as variations on this theme. Precisely through its apparent randomness and its various events, it paints a portrait of modern western society trapped in a downward spiral. In this sense, while claims can be made that the film has no thematic unity, cases for unity-in-variety can also be made, due to the films' countless variations on its core theme.
Closed and linear video game design. Video games that are linear or 'closed' are, as these terms suggest, very controlled experiences and straightforward. Very closed, linear games do not feature large, open game worlds the player can freely explore, but force the player down relatively small environments. There are countless examples, but one might think of a game like Call of Duty
4: Modern Warfare (2007), or any other in that series of games, as very linear. The games in this
first person shooter series consist of a set of missions, each of which is quite short and small and force the player to go from point A to B in order to fulfill an objective and advance the narrative. Attempts by the player to escape the limited environments in these missions are met with artificially designed borders – debris, (invisible) walls, buildings – solely made to block the player's path. Nevertheless, it is precisely these types of games that are most suited for the application of elements of classical narratives. One need only remind oneself of Aristotle's beginning-middle-end structure to realize that a highly closed, linear game would in terms of game design be better suited for such a narrative structure than a nonlinear, 'open' game that emphasizes free exploration.
Openness and nonlinearity. These two terms basically signify the opposite of closed and linear video game design. Open and/or nonlinear games often emphasize exploration, a large game world, replay value, the ability for the player to make his mark on the game world. Whereas closed games often exhibit authorial intent, open games often allow the player a great deal of freedom in choosing how to play the game. There are numerous examples, but a very popular one is Grand
Theft Auto III (2001) which – like its sequels – has focused on crafting extremely large,
Although it seems easy to summarize the distinctions between open and closed games, many games do not neatly fit into one of these two categories. Because of the different degrees of
openness and linearity, one must be cautious when naming a game merely open/nonlinear or closed/linear. The website TV Tropes for instance has a sliding scale of linearity vs. openness that includes six categories from very linear to very open. They take into account factors that might make a game more open or closed, such as genres (rail shooters, sandbox, etc.), secret levels, level progression, side quests, the amount of plot, the possibility of exploration, the possibility of
multiple endings and various other factors (TV Tropes). When all these factors have been taken into account, one could place a certain game on this sliding scale. The point is that a game is never completely open or closed, but specific elements of a game may make it more open than closed. A game that might at first glance be considered completely open is Minecraft (2011). In this game, the player controls an avatar, is dropped into a large, randomly generated game world and is allowed to do reshape it in any way he sees fit. The focus lies on mining (wood, ore, etc.) and use your
materials for building. There is no plot (other than the possibility of defeating a dragon in another dimension), no character development and no dialogue. The game completely revolves around creating and thus makes demands upon the player's creativity. This type of game is one that could easily be described as 'completely open'. However, there are still countless rules and limitations the player must learn and consider. The phrase 'completely open' suggests that the player could literally do everything within this game. This is not the case. The blocky textures of the game world cannot be changed (at least not without heavily 'modding' the game). The player is thus limited to very specific aesthetics. There are only three types of wood, each with different shades of brown. If the player would, for instance, want to build a house made of white wood...he cannot. Countless other examples can be named, but the point is that even a very open game like Minecraft is, in the end, in many ways a very closed game. This is something Jenkins is aware of when he discusses The Sims (2000). He notes that although the game is incredibly open and allows for many kinds of narratives to emerge, the game designers have designed the game in such a way that shows they are well aware of what they have and have not made possible within the game. By giving the sims their own personalities (allowing them to defy the player's commands), their own voices and body language, etc. the designers ensure that all choices lead to friendship, romance and conflict (Jenkins 2004). In this sense, both Minecraft and The Sims are similar in that they are both incredibly open and closed and highly structured. However, just because a game can be simultaneously open and closed, does not mean that these types of games present a structurally sound combination of open game design and classical narrative. Many games try to combine the gameplay-related pleasures of an open game world with a lengthy narrative spanning the entirety of the game and end up suffering from
ludonarrative dissonance (to be explained later).
Emergent narrative and gameplay. Games that are labeled as containing 'emergent narrative and gameplay' are games that exhibit several characteristics, but the most vital are a focus on gameplay mechanics and a lack of lengthy, traditional narratives taking up a significant portion of the game. The key word here is 'emergent'. The point of these games is that the player utilizes the gameplay mechanics to create his own experiences and narratives.
Crucially, the emphasis of these games lies on the player, or rather the human tendency to construct narratives out of multiple events. This has its roots in psychology. People tend to
reconstruct daily events into narratives, so as to make sense out of them. This has been explained by figures as Jerome Bruner who explains it as follows: “[…] we organize our experience and our memory of human happenings mainly in the form of narrative—stories, excuses, myths, reasons for doing and not doing, and so on” (4). It is precisely this mechanism of the human mind that games featuring emergent narratives rely on through vast open gameplay mechanics.
Terence Lee notes that for a game to tell a good story, the story is not as important as the telling of the story. For Lee this means focusing on the unique aspect of games, namely gameplay. Gameplay is what separates games from other media, so this train of thought leads us to conclude that gameplay itself becomes the key to 'good' storytelling for games. He also notes that in games there are two types of stories, the explicit story and the player story. The explicit story is the literal story that the designers put into a game. The player story is:
the player’s personal experience. As they play through the game, a lot of things happen in the player’s mind: they experience a variety of emotions, they develop perceptions and interpretations of characters and events, and they form relationships between their own actions and the on-screen results. These things all work together to create a different kind of narrative experience, one with its own pacing, characters, plot, and dialogue, separate from the explicit story. (Lee)
What Lee wants is a reversal of the usual roles. Usually, the player story is made to support the explicit story, but this is where dissonances arise between the player's experience and the narrative
Fig. 3. Lee believes the explicit story should support the player story. Terence Lee. “Designing game narrative.”
the game aims to tell. Lee wants the explicit story to support, to be indistinguishable from, the player story (fig. 3). He refers to a scene from Portal in which the player character is on a platform being slowly pulled to a huge burning oven while being told by a disembodied voice that all is well. The player however has to use his wits, realize he is in danger and escape. Lee states that here the explicit story and player story are the same, because not only did the player character use his wits and escape, the player did the same thing. Lee then compares this scene with one from Tomb
Raider in which Lara is about to be crushed beneath a boulder and the player has to quickly press a
button to escape from harm. Both this scene and the Portal example deal with the same problem: escaping from harm. But the player story and explicit story are disconnected in Tomb Raider, because the explicit story is 'Lara Croft escapes danger through quick reflexes', but the player story is “you’re watching a cutscene, and suddenly the game tells you to press a button in an obvious and annoying way, and you are forced to press it under the punishment of boring repetition” (Lee). Lee wants the explicit story to support the player story, not the other way around, and he presents games with emergent narrative and gameplay as a way to achieve this. These games are capable of
centering on the player story, precisely because they do not include an all-encompassing narrative. Explicit plots in these games are usually unimportant if not absent. These games instead provide narrative frameworks through gameplay mechanics to allow the player story to take center stage as seen in the case of Portal.
Meaningful gameplay. The notion of meaningful gameplay I will be dealing with here focuses on the connection between gameplay and a game's plot and themes. In this sense, gameplay becomes meaningful when it is not simply a part of the game, but when it has a thematic connection with a game's plot and themes. Gameplay in this sense has to be shaped in such a way that a game's narrative themes are supported and enacted through gameplay itself. This presents a possible coming together of open game design and classical narrative in which a narrative theme told through gameplay is the main focus. It can be said that if gameplay is thematically consistent in relation to the narrative themes, then a certain unity of gameplay and narrative is achieved which can be seen as a way in which the game shows characteristics of classical narrative which itself requires thematic consistency. Important here is that this does not represent a complete merging of open game design and classical narrative, but a focus on how one element of classical narrative (thematic unity) can be applied to an open video game in a manner that does not cause any structural tensions between plot and gameplay.
To further clarify this concept, I will analyze a type of game that focuses on both plot and gameplay, but where gameplay is not (narratively) meaningful: Tomb Raider (again). The gameplay mostly entails exploring tombs on an island and fighting other survivors. Story-wise, this game is
not just about Lara Croft saving her friends on the island and escaping. Thematically, the game is an origin story, showing how Lara Croft came to be the tomb raiding woman as seen in other games in the series. The game's thematic focus is thus the dehumanization of Lara Croft: how she goes from normal archaeologist to tomb raider with a penchant for killing. These plot elements are told mostly through non-interactive cutscenes which are, of course, frequently interrupted for periods of
gameplay. This is where it becomes slowly clear why gameplay here is not meaningful. The
gameplay options – as in, fighting and shooting – are accessible from the start. The game's thematic focus – Lara's dehumanization – however is a gradually progressing narrative. Logic dictates that people who have never taken a life will not be used to the emotional torment this brings with it. This is a key aspect of the character development Tomb Raider tries to explore. There are several cutscenes showing Lara struggling to cope with having taken lives (after she first kills a deer to gather food and after she first kills a man who threatens her) and it is these cutscenes that aim to emphasize that Lara's dehumanization is a gradual process. One would expect that the gameplay would also reflect this somehow (for example, by at first limiting Lara's killing capabilities), but the player spends most of the game killing hundreds of survivors in all sorts of gratuitous ways
(headshots, stealth kills, close combat kills are rewarded with special 'executions' depending on the weapon used). To have gameplay of that nature on the one hand and a plot on the other hand showing Lara trying to cope with killing, hesitating to kill, does not make sense. Lavallée recounts this experience as follows:
I’m only two hours in now, and I know Lara is supposed to become more powerful and confident, or that she will discover some inner strength that was in her all along, so maybe at that point the shooting mechanics will make sense, but for now, they sure feel inappropriate. (2013)
This has been one of the key complaints about this game and has been touched upon in many other articles and reviews (for example, Milewski 2013). The main problem is that this aspect of the game represents a structural imbalance between plot and gameplay. Thus, Tomb Raider falls short in terms of meaningful gameplay, because the gameplay does not effectively support the game's main theme, the dehumanization process of Lara Croft. Although it can be said that it is the player who is forced to undergo the process of dehumanization and that gameplay is thus still meaningful, the game’s explicit focus on plot (Lara Croft and her character development) and the immediate access to violent gameplay mechanics causes the gameplay to not adequately reflect her dehumanization process. These structural tensions between narrative and gameplay are often called…
Ludonarrative dissonance, a term coined by Clint Hocking who uses this term to describe the dissonance between gameplay and narrative in the video game Bioshock (2007), a game taking place in 1960, in the underwater city known as Rapture. This city was meant to be a utopia, but is now ruined after the discovery of a plasmid that grants superhuman powers. The player controls Jack who arrives there after a plane crashes in the ocean and is aided by a man named Atlas through a radio. They try to escape by confronting the city's creator, Ryan, although it is revealed that Atlas is the real enemy who uses Jack to eliminate Ryan so he can take over Rapture.
Basically, what the term ludonarrative dissonance means is that the nature of the gameplay conflicts with the nature of the narrative. This type of conflict goes back to the debate between the ludologists and the narratologists, but Hocking is the one who coined the above term. Hocking explains Bioshock's case of ludonarrative dissonance by stating that the game presents the player with two contracts, a ludic contract and a narrative contract. The ludic (gameplay) contract tells the player that it is best to do whatever is in his best interest, “seek power and you will progress” (Hocking). Hocking states that this fits with the game's Randian rational self-interest themes and that many single player games in a sense correspond to these values as most npc's usually impede the player's progress. In the game, the player encounters Little Sisters, little girls who are apparently beyond saving, but who the player can 'harvest' to increase his own powers. Basically, the Randian self-interest themes are expressed through gameplay, because it presents the player with a scenario in which it is beneficial to 'harvest' the Little Sisters in terms of gameplay. The narrative contract on the other hand is that you must help the character Atlas to progress.
Hocking states three reasons why this creates a conflict with the ludic contract. Firstly, helping someone else is opposed to the Randian themes of self-interest. Secondly, Atlas is opposed to Ryan, but “I am philosophically aligned with Ryan by my acceptance of the mechanics. Why do I want to stop Ryan, or kill him, or listen to Atlas at all? Ryan’s philosophy is in fact the guiding principle of the mechanics that I am experiencing through play” (Hocking). Basically, the narrative puts the player against Ryan while the gameplay aligns you with Ryan. Thirdly, the player has no choice in the matter. The game's design is incredibly linear, so even if the player wanted to realize the game's Randian themes, he could not, because the game is designed in such a way that the player must help Atlas. One can only act 'Randian' when deciding whether or not to harvest the Little Sisters, because the game does give the player a choice in that matter. But if one would want to embrace these Randian themes by opposing Atlas, then the only option the player has, is stop playing the game... In short, ludonarrative dissonance is when a game's actual gameplay conflicts thematically with the game's narrative and its themes.
the enduring debates between ludologists and narratologists. As I said earlier, the ludologists emphasize gameplay as the key aspect of video games and are interested in studying the 'rules' and mechanics of games, while the narratologists are interested in studying narratives as a part of games. It is not my intention in this thesis to criticize or argue that one side is ‘right,’ but the research question presented here necessitates a discussion of what these groups have said about the problematic relation between narrative and interactivity when applied to games. These discussions started in the late 1980s and early 1990s when “hypertext theoreticians claimed that interactive, computer based media would bring “a textual medium of a new order…, the fourth great technique of writing that will take its place beside the ancient papyrus roll, the medieval codex, and the printed book” (Bolter 1991, qtd. in Simons 2007) The structural tensions between narrative and gameplay have been analyzed by key figures such as Henry Jenkins (2004), Ernest Adams (1999), Greg Costikyan (2000) and Jesper Juul (1999) with Adams saying that “interactivity is almost the opposite of narrative; narrative flows under the direction of the author, while interactivity depends on the player for motive power” (1999, qtd. in Jenkins 2004) and Costikyan stating that “there is a direct, immediate conflict between the demands of a story and the demands of a game. Divergence from a story’s path is likely to make for a less satisfying story; restricting a player’s freedom of action is likely to make for a less satisfying game” (Costikyan 2000, qtd. in Jenkins 2004). It is these types of statements that elucidate some of the structural differences that cause conflicts when attempting to successfully combine narrative and gameplay.
On the one hand, the ludologists (ludus being Latin for game) are of the opinion that games should emphasize what makes them unique, their gameplay and interactivity. On the other hand, the narratologists, as their name suggests, are interested in “studying games alongside other storytelling media” (Jenkins 2004). The ludologists then would be interested in reducing the amount of
narrative in games in favor of interesting and well-developed gameplay mechanics, because the linear story content often does not fit comfortably within the game and often becomes mere window-dressing. They thus implicitly reject the notion of analyzing games “through the concerns of pre-existing disciplines or other media” (2004) though it must be said that ludologists do not disapprove of narrative content in video games (Frasca 2003). The narratologists on the other hand have no issue with narrative content in games and consider games to be new forms of narrative and should thus be analyzed as such (Murray 1997).
It is the discussions between ludologists and narratologists that form the background for this thesis. These debates deal with (among other things) “the conflicts between interactivity and
authorial intent” (Wong 2013); in other words, gameplay and plot. Countless games today (like
from ludonarrative dissonance. In this thesis I use several case studies to explore how and in what way narrative can be applied to open video games without causing issues like ludonarrative dissonance. As I will explain in my conclusion, I see the main question of this thesis as a mathematical one. Because a complete integration of classical narrative into an open game is impossible, it becomes a matter of pushing the amount of narrative content in an open game to its logical extremes: which and how many elements of classical narrative can be applied to an open game without causing structural problems between plot and gameplay? In the following chapter I will utilize the various concepts introduced in this chapter to explore several types of combinations of plot and gameplay (emergent games, etc.) after which I will make some concluding remarks about the elements of classical narrative (thematic unity, etc.) that can be simultaneously applied to an open game without resulting in ludonarrative dissonance.
The First Compromise: Emergent Narrative and Gameplay
Now that the relevant theory has been delved into and it has been made clear why achieving a structurally sound combination of open game design and classical narrative is an important question that is highly problematic, it is time to discuss my three possible alternatives to this ‘holy grail.’ This first chapter deals with games that focus heavily on emergent narrative and gameplay.
As I have explained in the chapter on theory, these types of video games focus less on explicit plots and more on gameplay mechanics and the player story. These games limit the amount of explicit narrative, exposition and context and prefer presenting the player with an open game world and gameplay mechanics which offer endless replay value, emphasize creativity on the player's part and allow for narratives to naturally emerge through gameplay.
I will heavily reference Terence Lee's article on emergent narratives and use the three games he uses as case studies in this chapter to further delve into games with emergent narrative and gameplay. These parts of the chapter will merely be explanatory, but afterwards I will provide a critique on emergent narrative from the perspective of classical narrative and analyze why seeing these types of games as a satisfactory combination of open game design and classical narrative is problematic.
The first example Lee gives is Journey. I will copy Lee's usage of the terms ‘explicit story’ and ‘player story’ for continuity's sake. The explicit story is – as expected – very minimal. You are a robed figure lost in a desert and trying to get to a bright light shining on the top of a mountain in the distance. The game was made with online multiplayer in mind as the player character will meet other players along the way, also trying to make their way to the top of the mountain (fig. 4).
Fig. 4. Journey is about two players working together. Journey. Thatgamecompany. Sony Computer Entertainment, 2012. 26 June 2014.
These two players can then choose to work together to solve puzzles and progress. It is only
possible to communicate with them through body language and singing (by pressing a button). The narrative focus lies not on the ending of the game, but on the nonverbal relationship that can develop between two players. As the title suggests, it is about the journey. Two players might team up and/or eventually get separated after which they both have to move on their own. Or they might get separated and one ends up saving the other upon which they resume their journey together. These are some of the possible narratives that might 'emerge' naturally through gameplay. Lee
emphasizes the fact that these types of narratives are similar to films, but that they are made more impactful due to the fact that the player experiences them himself and made them happen without authorial input: “It happens not because a writer decided it should, but because of the actions you and your new friend did. You formed real relationships, felt real emotions, real despair and joy. A scripted version of the experience would only be a vicarious one; never a genuine, firsthand one like it is now.” Lee is quick to note that although the designers did not explicitly create these scenarios, they designed Journey in such as a way as to emphasize the natural appearance of the narrative themes (the journey, teamwork, friendship, loss, etc.). Rather than designing an explicit narrative around these themes, the game allows you to experience them directly through gameplay which makes the experience more personal as it makes the player feel he alone is responsible for the unfolding events.
The second game Lee discusses is
Dwarf Fortress, a dwarven kingdom
simulator. The game features an
incredible amount of variety. The game's main mode is Fortress mode in which the player takes control of a small group of dwarves in order to create a fortress. In order to do this, the player has to consider the skills and supplies of the dwarves and environmental factors such as resources (wood, stone and ore) and the geography (cliffs, waterfalls, beaches, rivers) as these all impact the way the game is played. More importantly, they influence the emergent narratives. The game deliberately has a limited visual style (text-only Code Page 437 graphics to be
precise). This is practical in that it drastically reduces the amount of work of the developers. To create an open game as this with modern-day graphics would be too much for an independently developed game. However, it also serves a narrative purpose as Lee notes: “One great aspect of the game is that its visual simplicity allows your mind to fill in the blanks and assign meaning and motivation to the details in the game. It’s like how when you read a good book, your mind naturally creates what the characters look and sound like.” This visual simplicity and the vast openness of the
Fig. 5. Dwarf Fortress’ minimalist visuals help players to create their own narratives. Dwarf Fortress. Tarn Adams. Bay 12 Games, 2006. 26 June 2014.
game ensures a virtually endless amount of narratives that may naturally emerge through gameplay (fig. 5).
The third and last game Lee analyzes is Brogue. As with Journey and Dwarf Fortress, the explicit story is deliberately minimalist. The player character must travel through a large, randomly generated cave, work his way to the bottom, find an important artifact and bring it back up. The cave is a dangerous environment, filled with a large variety of monsters and there are countless variables to be taken into consideration. As with Dwarf Fortress, the game features deliberately 'unimpressive' visuals which Lee notes helps to kick-start the player's imagination (fig. 6).
Importantly, the key to both Dwarf Fortress' and Brogue's emphasis on emergent narrative lies in their open gameplay mechanics:
However, the game is filled to the brim with opportunities for the emergence of great player stories. There are complex interactions between items, enemies, and the
environment, and you always have a myriad of options for
dealing with the current situation. Grass catches on fire; enemies can turn into allies; dropped items can trigger switches. There are so many interactions between individual elements, yet there are no scripted sequences. (Lee)
Although the game has a general narrative goal (retrieve the artifact), everything in between is left up to the player. This combined with the minimalist graphics and open gameplay mechanics facilitates emergent narratives.
The fact that both Dwarf Fortress and Brogue utilize an extremely minimalist visual style (it does not get more abstract than ASCII) emphasize that emergent narratives exist in player's minds. The games themselves do not form explicit stories, the players do and a lack of high definition graphics will not prevent this from happening. It is precisely this mechanism of the human mind that games like the above three rely on. It is precisely why Dwarf Fortress and Brogue present an
openly designed game with countless gameplay mechanics. The high amount of possible events that can occur as an outcome of all the varying gameplay factors ensures that every experience will feel new and unique and that the player will inevitably construct a narrative out of these consecutive events.
All three of these case studies emphasize what seems to be – and what Lee believes to be – the major attraction of games featuring emergent narrative and gameplay: personal, direct
experience. In all three examples Lee keeps emphasizing words like 'exciting', 'impactful' and 'personal' which show that the importance of any game featuring emergent narrative and gameplay lies not in any explicit narrative events, but what they mean to the player. It is the major distinction between the Portal and Tomb Raider examples mentioned in the chapter on theory. Whereas Tomb
Raider employs cutscenes and quick time events to make the player experience survivalist tension, Portal makes the experience more personal and direct by not telling the player what the objective is,
but letting the player figure it out on his own. If the player instinctively manages to escape from harm, the narrative itself becomes more personal, precisely because the player feels he did it on his own. The key aspect is the emphasis on personal experience, the notion that non-scripted events are more personal and impactful than scripted ones.
But herein lies the major flaw when looking at emergent narrative and gameplay through notions of classical narrative. From a classical perspective, in what ways can these 'player
experiences' be considered narratives? Lee is of the opinion that they are indeed narratives, stating that people will often tell their experiences to others in the form of stories. He then gives an example of someone telling how he aimed to beat a friend's high score in Tetris and that he got a line piece at the last second which allowed him to beat the high score (2013). This in itself can indeed be called a personal, thrilling experience, but in a classical sense they satisfy too few criteria to be considered classical narratives.
When considering what a classical narrative is, one does not immediately think of a small linear experience as the Tetris example. These types of experiences do possess several elements of narratives. They contain a main character and a clear goal (the one playing Tetris wants to beat the high score), rising tension as the action unfolds as seen in Freytag's Pyramid (when the player thinks he will fail), an exciting turning point and a climax which again reference Freytag's structure (when, at the last second, the player gets a line piece and is able to beat the high score). But a narrative also contains other things, like themes, thematic unity, thematic complexity. In other words, many well-respected narratives are usually lengthy and 'about something'. HBO's TV series
The Wire is very expansive with countless characters and, thematically, analyzes the roles
institutions have an effect on individuals” (Honig 2012). An emergent 'narrative' like the Tetris example fails from this perspective. It is hard to imagine any game with emergent narrative to have such thematic depth without resorting to scripted events. The Tetris example might be considered a narrative, but it is unlikely to be elevated to anything higher ('art') simply because it lacks the thematic complexity to say something meaningful about a certain topic. To refer again to The Wire, that entire narrative is not simply a series of causally linked events, but also a series of highly nuanced analyses of individuals and institutions in modern society. The Tetris example is indeed a narrative, albeit a microcosmic one and one that in the end arguably says nothing beyond ‘event x happened and it was exciting'. Although Journey utilizes its open multiplayer-focused gameplay mechanics to deal with themes of friendship, teamwork, loss, etc. it does not deal with these themes in any intellectual way beyond that of making the player experience them directly without any scripted, authorial input. It cannot critically engage with these themes. It can only make them be experienced directly by the player. In short, from the perspective of classical narrative the failings of emergent narratives can be summarized as follows: yes, emergent narratives are indeed
narratives, but they only exhibit a few characteristics of classical narratives. Also, they are mostly incredibly short and are arguably incapable of being seen as 'artistic' (as they lack thematic complexity), as something more than merely personal 'experiences'. Crucially, this is a direct consequence of precisely what makes emergent narratives unique, namely the lack of an authorial figure and the chaotic randomness which allow for emergent narratives to emerge. It is precisely this randomness and the lack of an author figure that both allow emergent narratives to emerge and prohibit them from being considered 'true' narratives, i.e. narratives that can be seen as 'artistic' and 'have something meaningful to say' about a certain topic.
This realization allows us to answer the question posited in this chapter: do video games featuring emergent narratives provide an acceptable compromise to the question of whether or not open games can be satisfactorily combined with classical narratives? The answer is no, because too few elements of classical narratives are satisfyingly represented in emergent narratives. Technically it can be stated that games with emergent narratives combine open game design with classical, linear narratives through the small personal narratives the player experiences, since these
experiences definitely qualify as narratives. But the fact remains that these types of narratives lack important elements of classical narratives, such as thematic unity, unity-in-variety, thematic
complexity and depth which is another way of saying emergent narratives lack the complexity to be considered classical narratives. The critique here is not that emergent narratives are not narratives, they are, but that from a classical perspective, it can be argued that open video games featuring emergent narratives present a problematic combination of open game design and elements of
classical narratives, because they lack authorial intent, which can only be showcased through carefully planned, structured game design, thematic unity, thematic complexity, unity-in-variety, etc.
The Second Compromise: Meaningful Gameplay
My second compromise, like the previous chapter on emergent narrative and gameplay, also focuses mostly on gameplay; the angle however is different. Whereas in the previous chapter I employed the linearity and rigid structures of classical narrative to analyze and critique video games featuring emergent narrative and gameplay, here the focus lies on the importance of themes in classical narrative. This chapter is devoted to games featuring 'meaningful gameplay.' As explained in the chapter covering the theoretical framework of this thesis, meaningful gameplay is about a thematic connection between gameplay and a game's plot and themes. Gameplay in this sense has to be shaped in such a way that a game's theme(s) are supported and enacted through gameplay itself. This kind of coming together between narrative and gameplay presents one way of combining open game design with elements of classical narrative, because gameplay and narrative achieve a specific (thematic) unity here and in classical narrative, thematic unity and consistency is an important characteristic. Importantly, as explained in the chapter on theory, if there exists a tension between narrative and gameplay, wherein the narrative and its themes are not properly represented through gameplay, then the term ludonarrative dissonance is employed to describe this tension.
This chapter on meaningful gameplay will use Far Cry 3, an open-world game, as its main case study. I will analyze why it can be seen to have meaningful gameplay, how it has thematic unity and thematic consistency in relation to the narrative themes and, finally, why the game can thus be seen as a possible answer to the 'holy grail', an acceptable combination of classical narrative and open game design.
Far Cry 3 is an open world, first person shooter video game where the player controls Jason
Brody who is captured by pirates on a tropical island after his skydiving trip with his friends has gone awry. The narrative goal of the game is for Brody to escape from the pirates, save his friends and escape the island. Although he escapes the pirate camp in the beginning of the game, his older
brother is killed in the process. He eventually finds his girlfriend and another friend in a cave nearby which becomes their hiding place as Jason tries to locate his remaining friends. He is
initiated into the local tribe, the Rakyat, led by a woman called Citra, who agree to help him find his friends in exchange for help in fighting the local pirates. He succeeds in saving some of his friends, but is told that his younger brother, Riley, has died. Fueled by anger, he becomes more eager to help the Rakyat, use violence and also refuses to escape the island with his friends. Towards the end, after the pirates and the local slave traders have disbanded, Jason finds out the Rakyat have taken his friends. Citra, seeing Jason as legendary warrior who would be invaluable to her warrior tribe, drugs him and tries to convince him to slay his friends and join her. The player has to make this decision: to either kill his friends and stay with the tribe which leads to Jason having sex with Citra who then kills him afterwards (she will birth his son, etc.) or free his friends which leads to Citra being killed in the confusion after which he escapes the island with his friends by boat.
Like Tomb Raider, as described in the chapter on theory, this game's core narrative theme is exploring the process of dehumanization and how Jason gradually becomes used to killing. Like
Tomb Raider however, this game also falls victim to ludonarrative dissonance for the exact same
reasons. Basically, the plot tries to show this process through small (sometimes interactive)
cutscenes and dialogue. The gameplay however gives you access to all kinds of violent techniques right from the start. This dissonance requires more analysis.
The dehumanization process starts at the beginning of the game. You (and your in-game older brother, Grant) try to escape the pirate-infested camp. It is here the player discovers through dialogue that the player-controlled Jason is terrified whereas his brother Grant, being an Army Reserve Soldier, is able to coolly kill pirates and calm Jason down afterwards. It is clear that Grant is the experienced one and Jason the inexperienced one, unused to violence and killing. This sets the stage for his character development. The gamer knows that Jason will have to learn how to kill soon, because the game eventually allows you to explore the island and basically kill everything that crosses your path. Grant is eventually shot by one of the pirates. You desperately try to escape, but you are ambushed by one of the pirates who tries to kill you with a knife. Jason (with the gamer’s help) deflects his attack and kills him with the knife. Jason is shocked and his hands are shaking, having for the first time in his life been forced to kill a man. This also, along with his terrified reactions to his brother killing pirates, tells the player that Jason is unused to being so close to violence and death.
He eventually escapes by falling into a river, faints and wakes up in a normal-looking village. The player finds out Jason was saved by a man named Dennis who is part of the Rakyat tribe. This tribe is in danger of being wiped out by the pirates. Jason agrees to a quid pro quo: help
the Rakyat retake their island on the condition he is aided in finding his friends. The first thing Jason does for Dennis and the Rakyat is skin certain animals. This is basically a tutorial explaining the usefulness of skinning animals in terms of gameplay, but it creates a problem in terms of character development. With our knowledge of past events and Jason’s lack of experience in skinning animals, one would suspect this process will be new, frightening and difficult for Jason. But when you attack the boar with a gun or knife, Jason confidently says “I’ve got you.” He also utters a resound “Yes” after you kill said boar. These actions do not fit the ‘civilized, white man lost in the primitiveness of the jungle’ theme of the story. One moment Jason's hands are shaking after killing a human being for the first time, now he is killing and skinning a boar as if he has been doing this his entire life. This is a clear disruption between plot and gameplay. Going into the game, the player is most likely aware it is an open world first person shooter, so he can expect to
eventually have access to various kinds of weapons, etc. The problem in terms of plot is that this early in the game, Jason is still an amateur when it comes to ‘the ways of the jungle’ and ‘listening to your instincts’. To then see him killing and skinning animals without a shred of doubt and without making any mistakes, is unrealistic.
Afterwards, Jason is told by Dennis that one of the Rakyat’s camps has been captured by pirates. They ride to a safe spot just outside the outpost with a few other members of the Rakyat. You suspect that Jason will receive help taking over the camp, but amazingly, Jason is sent alone into the camp being told that they will come to his aid if they hear gunfire. So you are expected to take out a handful of pirates who are armed to the teeth, with merely a knife and a handgun. Again, this is highly unlikely given the fact that Jason is not an experienced killer and that the members of the Rakyat have assault rifles and are said to be ‘warriors.’ You are given control over Jason again and allowed to kill the pirates however you please. The strikingly unrealistic aspect in terms of ludonarrative dissonance here is that while the player controls him here, Jason shows absolutely no remorse in killing in stark contrast to when he first killed. Not only that, he handles a knife like a professional, ramming it through enemy torsos and slitting throats without hesitation. The problem from a plot point-of-view is that the player is led to believe Jason has become a cold-blooded killer overnight.
There is also the problem of the ending. After saving all of Jason’s friends and killing your enemies, the player discover the Rakyat have captured your friends. Citra, who sees the future of the Rakyat in Jason, wants Jason to let go of his ties to others and kill his friends. The player can choose this ending or rescue your friends and leave the island with them. The problem is when you choose to save your friends. Citra is shocked that Jason would return to his ‘boring’ life,
