Videogame Narrative Theory:
Narrative Through Gameplay in
Naughty Dog’s The Last of Us
Author: David R Kestler (10864121) Supervisor: Dr Joyce Goggin
Study Program: Literary Studies: Literature and Culture Submission Date: 30th June 2015
This thesis is submitted to the Faculty of Humanities in fulfilment of the
requirements in the degree of Master of Literature and Culture at the University of Amsterdam.
Contents
Introduction: Research Proposal …pg 3
Chapter One: Avatar and Player …pg 12
Chapter Two: Plot and Narrative …pg 26 Conclusion …pg 45 Bibliography …pg 51
‘Where gameplay is all about interactivity, narrative is about predestination. There is a pervasive feeling in the game design community that narrative and
interactivity are antithetical.’
Mateas and Stern, Interaction and Narrative
Introduction: Research Proposal
Videogames1 have come a long way since their consumer-‐based inception, with
the release of Pong as a standalone, in-‐home gaming system in the mid-‐1970s. In the decades that followed, the rapid advancement of technology furthered the development of more complex games: through graphics, audio and content, so that games today are no longer bound by the limitations of production and a near-‐realistic level of visual and audio representation is achievable. Videogames are no longer restricted to the graphics of Pac-‐Man eating his way through four repeating maze patterns. Today the videogame industry and the total figure in a rising cost of development eclipse that in all other forms of consumer-‐used media. Games are intricate, multifaceted objects, many of which rival Hollywood film in the manner in which they engage audiences and recount narratives.
Narrative and Games
There has been an exponential increase in consumer demand for more narrative-‐ driven videogames. Therefore, when looking to analyse videogames theoretically, the debate between ludologists and narratologists as to the means and methodologies we are to use when reading videogames, is an on-‐going one. Are videogames simply studied on the strength and weakness of their play; play, which is favoured above a circumstantial background of plot, character, environment, etc.? Or, rather, do videogames tell stories through these same narrative elements, and specifically, what influence does play have on these
1 Barry Atkins states, in his book More Than A Game, that, ‘[the term] ‘videogame’ overstresses
sight with no reference to cognitive understanding, and the term […] ‘computer game’ speaks of the technology rather than the text’ (Atkins, 20). Although both terms have their advantages and deficiencies, this thesis will use the term ‘videogame’ with regard to Atkins’ assertion that ‘computer game’ relates too readily of the technology rather than the function of the technology.
narrative components and therefore the delivery of the narrative? Further, is narrative created by players’ interaction with the game world alongside the linear boundaries of the leading narrative applied by the developer?
A key figure in this discussion, Espen Aarseth, states that, ‘to claim that there is no difference between games and narratives is to ignore essential qualities of both categories.’2 Aaresth distinguishes between the ludic and
narratological elements found in the vast majority of videogames; those that the player is both part of and subject to. Alternatively, American media scholar Henry Jenkins refers to videogames as part of a trans-‐medial narrative, cataloguing them amongst all forms of storytelling, including film, television, literature, and so on, suggesting that narrative operates equally across all media. Yet, Aarseth’s argument suggests that such a form of singular or unified analysis would lead to the treating of elements outside of the rules of the game as incidental or secondary, suggesting that this approach seems inherently at odds with the medium of videogames, as the rules of games function both around and within the aesthetic qualities of the game.
Variations and modifications of these two underlining premises have been extended by the likes of Marie-‐Laure Ryan, who in her book Narrative as Virtual Reality, claims to demonstrate that a form of virtual reality, generated within the imagination of the reader through the information contained in codex text, has existed for a greater length of time than the virtual reality presented in the modern, digital age; and as Ryan seems to suggest, these codex generated virtual worlds, in the mind of the reader, are superior to anything that can be reproduced or represented artificially. Interestingly, and more pertinent to this thesis, I attended a conference on videogame narrative, hosted by Dr Joyce Goggin, which included sessions on the pertinence of, and necessary distinctions between, terms such as fictional and virtual, and why there are such indeterminacies both in and between these categories, clearly indicating that the discussion is one, which, although progressed, maintains itself within both the videogames industry and academic debate.
It is a debate that began in game studies in the early 2000s and has since involved many further theorists on both sides of the discussion. However, it
seems apparent to me that both points of view are necessary components of the same argument and, while this may seem a somewhat hasty solution, both perspectives are dependent on one another. This is to say that, game-‐fiction is effected and communicated through both the ludologists’ and narratologists’ positions, given that both games and narratives are structured by a system of rules that temper each other. Jesper Juul asserts that the question we should be asking, and thereby simplifying the debate, is, ‘do games tell stories’ (Juul, 124)?
Simplified or not, Juul raises a pertinent question, yet he neglects to ask a more specific question, namely, if videogames tell stories, how do they tell them?
As a means of approaching these questions, videogame analysis has often likened the medium to its more established and readily studied counterpart, namely film, whose components include: audio, visual, scripting and framing through camera positioning and editing, features that are undoubtedly comparable to those found in videogames. Alternatively, videogames are often read through the rules and procedures of literary theory, by examining the structure and construction of game narratives. Yet, this too proves restrictive. More importantly, the fault line in both of these approaches lies in the unique, interactive element of videogames. Likewise, both approaches largely ignore the players’ contribution to the experience, specifically the players’ agency within the game-‐world, which directly contributes to the development of the game-‐ fiction.
Yet, the similarities of these other participatory forms of storytelling on the part of the user should not be ignored in the debate. The tools found in narrative theory, much as those of film theory can be purposeful and used to elucidate discussions of videogame narratives. However, in addition to these, attention towards the interactive element of videogames and the role of the player must be applied. This thesis will highlight where these approaches are both useful and where they falter, looking to develop a discourse for discussing the distinctiveness of videogames on the landscape of other media and textual forms.
Ludic and Narrative: Definitions of Use in this Thesis
In their simplest definition, this thesis will use the terms ludic and narrative and their thematic variations, to distinguish between the elements of a game that are either active, ludic, or rather, the gameplay sequences (e.g. the interactive elements of the game where the player has influence on the immediacy of the game), and those with are passive, narrative, the story elements that surround the interactive sequences.
Videogames contain comparable elements that are recognisably literary, containing written or verbal “text”, both in the delivery of the game-‐fiction itself, as well as part of the items packaging – providing context, backstory, and points of connection – which independently and collectively, offer the player a milieu through which to locate their function within the game. Yet, videogames equally provide storytelling through non-‐literary practices, elements that that do not necessarily have a narrative thrust, however, nonetheless provide a communicated narrative within the context of the game-‐fictions. Narrative is an account of connected events, presented in a sequence, written, spoken, and/or pictorially delivered through the use of either static or moving imagery. Unlike traditional narrative forms, with videogames, the participant can access the narrative largely at their discretion, interact directly with the world created, and shape their progression through the story.
Player and Agency
Videogames have a well-‐established grammar, necessary in directing the player – both in terms of location and challenge – in order to progress the game and the story. Players are frequently permitted to carry out actions or are offered a multiplicity of branches, which they may choose to travel, in progressing the narrative of the game-‐fiction. This differs from the process of reading (with limited exceptions),3 and observing (such as in the mediums of film and
television), both of which are predominately passive, linear experiences when viewed in their traditional formats. Graphical choices made in the visual presentation of the game-‐world, where both environment and avatar are
3 Limited exceptions of codex narratives that require concerted reader/player interaction include
literary works such as Nabokov’s Pale Fire and, more recently, works of popular literature such Ian Livingstone’s Fighting Fantasy novels.
concerned, aid to facilitate a more concise understanding of the grammar specific to the game being played, and may effect or hinder the progress of both the game and the development of the in-‐game fiction produced as a result of gameplay. The key difference between the discussion of narrative in videogames and that of narrative found in other media is that, in videogames, a working balance between the established game-‐fiction and the narrative of gameplay must be annexed onto one another.
Furthermore, interaction in the game-‐world must seem logical, either in the context of the real world, or in the game-‐world and its rule-‐based structure. Decisions and actions taken by players, which essentially constitute their agency within the frame of the game-‐world, must have ramifications within the game-‐ fiction that are tangible and demonstrable. Even if the outcome of the story in a videogame may be, and in most instances is, predetermined and fixed, in all other media it is the creator (author, director, painter, etc.) who holds most of the agency over the object created.4 Videogame creators share their agency with
the player, albeit in a controlled, manipulated and leading way. Hence, in videogames, gameplay and narrative are interrelated, both affecting and affected by the involvement of the player. Every choice made by the player leads to a different story element, whether small and momentary, or large and pressing. Player choices therefore have the potential to cause ripples that will be felt throughout the narrative.5
The question then becomes, should story-‐based videogames continue to be analysed from traditional narratological perspectives? Are the story telling techniques found in videogames deserving of their own media specific form of discourse? This thesis will argue in the affirmative. The interplay between gameplay and narrative, the agency the player has in the story, both directly in its progression and construction, as well as frequently in its very outcome, are facets that require different methods of analysis. Therefore, in addition to the
4 Note that this premise is increasingly under question in academic debate; on-‐line and fan-‐co-‐
created literature, which has been an element of literacy production since the 19th century, all
point to the authorial role of the participant.
5 It should not be ignored that there are many technicalities that go into building a videogame,
and that, therefore, discussions of hardware and platform, both in their capabilities and limitations, is a valid one. However, this thesis will focus on videogames as an aesthetic object, their interactive elements and the game-‐world inside the videogame, rather than the means with which the player accesses these via hardware.
large volumes of literature currently dedicated to this topic, starting, for the most part, with Espen Aarseth’s work in Cybertext, I will argue for medium specificity in the study of videogames and their narrative potential.
Story and Narrative
Mieke Bal, in her introduction to Narratology: Introduction to the Theory of Narrative, states that the study of narrative is the study of, ‘texts, images, spectacles, events; cultural artefacts that “tell a story”’ (Bal, 3). Narrative can therefore be broadly defined as the manner in which something is communicated, even if, as Bal notes, ‘[it is] not always easy to decide whether a given [artefact] should be considered narrative’ (ibid). Although this may be the case, narrative remains a compelling historical, fictional, journalistic, etc., schema, through which stories are relayed; stories, which may be found in many art forms such as text, film, speech, photography, song. The story and plot elements are the account – the what or something – that is being communicated through the narrative of the object.
Naturally, not all videogames have narrative structures in the traditional sense, and therefore, not all videogames tell stories. Videogames, through the role of the player, can be helpfully, if somewhat reductively, categorised into two key varieties: videogames that are designed to guide the player through a progression towards an end goal; and, those that offer the player a world with no fixed goals, a world that is constantly evolving.6 This thesis will focus specifically
on videogames in the former category; videogames that are designed to tell a closed story, and where the progression of the story is the foremost motivation in playing the videogame; titles that contain observable and relatable stories within their narrative arrangements.
Context and Methodology
In approaching this topic, this thesis will be divided into two main chapters: ‘Character,’ and ‘Story,’ both of which are narratological elements intrinsic to all stories regardless of the arrangement they may take. As I will argue, game-‐
6 As example: roleplaying games (i.e. Final Fantasy) and strategy games (i.e. The Sims)
fiction, more than other forms of fiction, is an act of conveyance, which is to say that players shape and carry the story through their interactions with the game-‐ world. Between its fixed plot indicators – moments when a videogame assumes control, delivering, for example, pre-‐rendered cinematic sequences or unavoidable verbal exposition – players are consistently projecting their own interpretations of the story onto the frame narrative of the game. Using key signifiers of things such as backstory, environment, along with character abilities and attributes, players are motivated by their progress through the story as they shape the videogame’s interactive elements through an emergent narrative.
Early videogames conducted all of their exposition through text; hence, these text-‐based videogames were seen as a form of reductionist literature or a form of an interactive fiction. Due to the immediacy in the similarities between the format and that of other text-‐based media, narrative theories were applied. As graphic fidelity improved – first through the use of hand-‐drawn animation, and later in three-‐dimensions – graphics became the players’ portal into the game-‐world, replacing to a great extent the need for text. With the advent of full-‐ motion video in videogames – as a function of which games have been disseminated as ‘interactive-‐movies’ – attempts to deal with games shifted from literary theory to film studies. Key examples of this would stem as far back as Don Bluth’s Dragon’s Lair (1986) and Space Ace (1989), both of which drew heavily on the creator’s initial roles in animation (with both Disney and later his own established production studio), and later, videogames which sought to replicate movie style motifs, such as Sega’s Night Trap and LucasArts’ Rebel Squadron series of games; game’s which employed cinematic techniques to elicit cinematic performances, where the reception of the on-‐screen action superseded the players’ involvement.
Following this brief overview of games scholarship one can readily see why initial studies of videogames formed themselves around the established prepositions of literature or film. The dominance of these fields and their models in academia, as suggested above, appeared to adequately fit the purpose in the study of videogames based on the notion that videogames simply repurposed these forms. Therefore, little attention was directed towards the differences with which videogames tell their stories, and as a consequence various
misconceptions arose concerning the multiplicity of ways in which videogames can and do tell their stories. Over the many years, there has been a vast catalogue of literature added to Aarseth’s initial move into game theory, and this thesis seeks to continue what I, along with these various contributors, deem a necessary continuation of a more medium-‐specific approach to the analysis of videogames.
For example, videogames do not offer narratives told along a singular, pre-‐determined track, in the same sense as most other story-‐based media. Certainly literature and film can have stories which are presented out of sequence, nevertheless, these sequences, regardless of the construction, are permanent, and if reread or watched appear in the same order. Player agency eliminates the possibility of a fixed linearity within the frame of the game’s story, and in most instances videogame stories must be approached as branching narratives. Moreover, videogames do not simply tell or show stories, they are designed to actively offer various courses of action and to anticipate player involvement as the game-‐fiction is experienced. Videogames, therefore, are different than their textual, audio and visual representation; they are a concourse on which the player builds and through which the game-‐fiction emerges.
Empirical Case Study: The Last of Us
As a case for discussion I will focus on The Last of Us, a game developed by UK-‐ based software publisher Naughty Dog, exclusively for the PlayStation3 console in 2013.7 The Last of Us is an action-‐adventure title, frequently categorised under
the ‘survival horror’ genre. The game is played from a third-‐person perspective, and players alternate between controlling Joel, a character tasked with escorting a young girl, Ellie (an occasional second playable character in the game), through the remains of a desolated American landscape. Play between the two characters alternates automatically within the videogame, and they must use weapons and stealth to defend against, and circumvent, the game’s antagonists, in the form of hostile humans and animals who have been infected with a mutated fungus. The
7 There was a later rerelease of the game for the PlayStation4 in 2014, with improved graphics,
updated high-‐definition resolution, and included addition downloadable content, however, the core game experience remained the same.
player can at any point engage the ability ‘listen mode,’ which activates a heightened sense of alertness, enabling the player to locate hostiles in the surrounding environment.
The majority of the game is played as Joel, who must solve puzzles and manipulate the environment to aid Ellie’s passage (i.e. repositioning crates, unlocking doors, abetting in Ellie’s inability to swim, and so on). Ellie, when under the players’ control, is a more diminutive presence in the game-‐world, the player required to sneak around rather than engage hostiles. Ellie however becomes a more formidable force in the later stages of the game with the ability to use long-‐range weapons.
The story of the game revolves around the outbreak of a mutated fungus, which spreads rapidly throughout the United States, transforming infected hosts into ravaging, cannibalistic assailants. In the prologue to the main game, Joel is seen losing his twelve-‐year old daughter when she is accidentally shot by a military soldier during the initial chaos of the fungal outbreak. Twelve-‐years later, and with most of civilisation now dispersed by the outbreak, the player finds Joel working as a smuggler in one of the heavily guarded sanctuaries that now scatter the landscape. Players eventually aligned with Ellie, whom Joel discovers has been infected by the fungus, yet is displaying no symptoms. The hope is that her immunity to the fungus may lead to the discovery of a vaccine.
The game-‐fiction spans four seasons and various locations as Joel and Ellie attempt to locate a group known as the Fireflies. The group eventually picks up the pair and, as Ellie is being prepared for surgery, Joel discovers that to research the vaccine, Ellie’s infected brain it must be removed and studied. Joel fights his way to the operating room and escapes with an unconscious Ellie. When she later awakens, Joel lies to her, telling her that the Fireflies had found other infected people, immune to the fungus and, unable to find a cure, abandoned the notion.
‘Characters and avatars are vehicles onto which [players] project their own goals, skills, experiences and understanding of the game.’
Jan Simons Narrative, Games and Theory
Chapter One: Avatar and Player
In her discussion of character, Mieke Bal writes that, ‘character is intuitively the most crucial category of narrative, and also the most subject to projections’ (Bal, 115); meaning, that as a reader, character is the element of narrative onto which we project the greatest extent of identification. Bal’s claim can be attributed to all forms of narrative, including videogames. Players will assume agency within the game-‐world they inhabit, and this is traditionally administered through the use of an in-‐game object, be that a character, or rather an avatar. Although there are examples that counter this claim,8 in every instance players interact with the
game-‐world; potential in the form of an on-‐screen cursor or by directing action through delegation, thus often finding themselves acting as the avatar.
Although it could be argued that there are distinctions between the term character and avatar, and I myself feel that there could be purposefulness in appropriating the term character into games studies – my distinction being that a character is a pre-‐set, predetermined object, and an avatar is a object wholly created by the user – it is necessary to employ a medium specific term to describe the multiplicity of game objects used to control or manipulate the game-‐ world. In both instances, what is of key importance to this thesis is how the player embodies the on-‐screen object, employing both characteristics from within the game-‐fiction, and elements for within the player, and bridging these to personify the on-‐screen object and project vicariously a representation of the player (whether pre-‐set or customisable).
With videogame narrative, particular attention should be directed towards Bal’s assertion that the subject projects various emotions, traits, qualities, and so on, onto a particular avatar. In short, the player projects
8 By way of example, Sony Entertainment’s Flower, where the player controls the motion of the
qualities onto an avatar with which s/he then identifies. Players place themselves in the role of an in-‐game avatar, acting through the avatar, and embodying the fictionalisation of the avatar in the game-‐world.
In this chapter I will discuss how the study of the avatar in videogames is embedded in the later part of Bal’s statement, where she explains that a character (e.g. avatar) is that element of narrative onto which readers, spectators, and players are most likely to project their desires, and with which they will consequently identify. In this chapter, I will be specifically concerned with the players’ on-‐screen representation as the component with which the player interacts with the game-‐world. Bal’s claim speaks to the embedded avatarisation of videogame characters as fictional objects under the framework and motivation of the game-‐fiction, a framework within which the avatar exists, under the player’s participation in the fictionalised motivation. This directly affects players in terms of both the immediacy of the game and of their desire to progress the story. This established relationship, between player and game-‐ world, and the combination of avatar, game-‐fiction, motivation and interaction, inform the player’s participation and amenability to the fallacy of the game-‐ fiction.
Avatar and Player
In narratological terms, a character can be identified as an actor with distinctive human characteristics, ‘[who] has no real psyche, personality, ideology, or competence to act, but does possess characteristics which make psychological and ideological description possible’ (Bal, 80). Therefore, Bal defines a narrative, in part, in terms of the agents that participate within it, noting that the presence of character – broadly defined as fictional beings created by an author and existing within fictional texts – as an essential characteristic of narrative. The same is true of videogame narratives.
Willem Weststeijn, in his contribution to the Amsterdam International Electronic Journal for Cultural Narratology, agrees that, ‘character, together with plot, is one of the most important elements of any story.’9 Often, with
9 Willem Weststeijn, <http://cf.hum.uva.nl/narratology/a07_weststeijn.htm#_edn1> [accessed
videogames, characterisation is formed through what the player does, rather than simply who the avatar is, building characterisation through both direct and indirect presentations of the avatar in the game-‐fiction. With regard to The Last of Us, this chapter will examine the relationship between the two protagonists, Joel and Ellie, discuss both avatars as individual agents within the game, and the relationship between the two characters that is developed over the course of the game-‐fiction.
Interplay Between Avatar and Player
The study of avatar in videogames involves the analysis of the relationship that avatars have to other characters, the situations they encounter, and the environment in which they find they find themselves; and this necessarily extends to the relationship between the player and the avatar on-‐screen. Identification, more so than in other narrative forms, establishes a mediated sense of perception on the part of the player, and the characteristics of the videogame avatar are adoptive, in the sense that the players will be empowered within the game-‐world. Videogame players are therefore more than readers or observers, they are, through the convention of the avatar, active participants, actively enabled and encouraged to intervene in the game-‐fiction. Therefore, interactivity is a significant enabler of identity formation between the player and their on-‐screen avatar.
Most videogame avatars often have fictitious backstory and characteristics ascribed to them, with which the player can assimilate alongside their own projections onto and into the on-‐screen avatar. Players fill in the gaps in the avatar’s profile, and within the histories and characteristics prescribed to the avatar, players bridge the spatial gap between player and avatar. Rather than an empathetic response, a player forms a polyadic connection with the avatar through the multiplicity of constituents acting both inside and outside the game-‐ world.
The player is the agent outside the videogame who plays. As has already been noted, in most cases, the player of a videogame will assume the role of a avatar; and in those instances where an on-‐screen avatar, one as a visible object in the game-‐world, may be absent, players generally exercises their agency in the
game-‐world through another representative object or article. Avatars will, in most instances, exist outside an absolute set of predetermined boundaries that, for example, may be found in the linearity of more traditional narrative forms. As a consequence, player agency effects the game-‐fiction, both passively (by simply progressing the narrative) and actively (in determining story elements). Narration in videogames is a shared experience between the game-‐fiction and the player’s agency therein, under an establishment of an adopted concern for the avatar on-‐screen (Wardip-‐Fruin, 74). The players’ narrative empathy for the avatar establishes this shared response, creating in the player concern and anxiety that is paralleled in the imagined emotions and sensations of the avatar on-‐screen.
Therefore, avatarisation, more than any other element in videogames narrative, demonstrates the need for a conflation between both a narratological and the ludologists’ approaches to videogame analysis. The medium has particular methods of representation, working from both inside the game as much as through the position of the player, and both are directly and integrally linked. Even in their most inhuman or indistinguishable incarnations, there exists an intersubjective connection between the player and the represented avatar on-‐screen. This intersubjectivity is established through the player’s investment in the on-‐screen avatar, and further, in the player’s investment of the avatar’s role within the narrative drive of the game-‐fiction, and ultimately, the player’s role in governing that avatar. These elements are germane to the medium of videogames in the manner with which the user interacts with the story.
Unlike characters in codex narratives, an on-‐screen avatar possess diegetic properties, acting not only as the player’s presence in the game-‐world, but also as an active narrator whose exposition is the avatar’s activity in the game-‐fiction under the control of the player. Felix Schroter and Jan-‐Noel Thon, in their essay ‘Videogame Characters,’ note that, ‘ videogames cannot and should not be reduced to either interactive simulation [e.g. gameplay] or “predetermined” narration, since, on the one hand, [videogames are] constituted precisely by the complex interplay between these two modes of
representation.’10 It is unproblematic to suggest that videogame avatars can be
evidenced as displaying both narrative qualities and ludic properties, and therefore this chapter will support the suggestion towards a discussion on the interplay of both components.
Joel
Joel is the main protagonist in The Last of Us, and the avatar that the player controls for the majority of the game. In the opening prologue, Joel is shown as a single parent raising his daughter Sarah. It is clear from the interactions between the two characters that, with the responsibility of supporting and raising Sarah, Joel is simply making ends meet. A conversation over the phone with his brother Tommy reveals that there is a pressing concern that Joel may lose his job. Later that evening Sarah surprises Joel with a watch for his birthday. The watch becomes a precious memento in the later stages of the game. Over the television the pair learn that citizens across various parts of the country have started attacking people in an unexplainable frenzy. A noise outside the house draws Joel, with Sarah at his side, to investigate. Outside, a crazed assailant attacks them. They manage to overpower the attacker and make their escape. The prologue ends when, after having made various attempts to leave town, Sarah is shot by a panicked solider at a military checkpoint. Before the solider can kill Joel as well, Joel’s brother Tommy arrives to intervene. After dispatching the solider, Joel and Tommy unsuccessfully try to stop Sarah’s bleeding, and Joel, crying, hunches over his dying daughter as the screen cuts to black and the game’s title screen is displayed.
The prologue establishes many of Joel’s characteristics that the player will take into the game, forming both the players’ understanding and construction of the avatar, as well as scrutinising his behaviours. For example, Joel is shown to be strong and able-‐bodied, quick thinking, resourceful, and determined. At the same time, a deep affection runs through Joel, shown in his protective, loving relationship with his daughter.
10 Felix Schroter and Jan-‐Noel Thon, <https://www.diegesis.uni-‐
The foundation of game-‐fiction is an important component of characterization. Players not only occupy a space on-‐screen, there is a submission to the fictionalization, the make-‐believe, that the player is part of the game-‐world. Players exact their agency not only according to the structure (e.g. the ‘rules’) of the game; they participate in playing out the game-‐fiction. As Evan Skolnick notes, in videogame Storytelling, ‘the mode of narration is primarily used to represent avatars as fictional beings to whom the players can ascribe a specific corporeality, mentality, and sociality […] [and] let[s] the avatar function as a representation of the players in the social space of the game’ (Skolnick, 58, italics in original). Here, Skolnick is writing specifically about Massive Multi-‐ Player Online Role Playing Games (MMORPG), however, the manner in which a player ascribes characteristics to an avatar through which s/he enters the game-‐ fiction is equally true of single-‐player games, and games that do not function as persistent on-‐line worlds such as in The Last of Us share similar modes of narration. Yet rather than ascribing these elements to an avatar created by the player, in The Last of Us, players are directed at and through an on-‐screen avatar/character specific to the game-‐fiction. The prologue works to establish the players’ presence in the social space of the game-‐fiction, and therefore, establishes the role that they will be asked to take on.
Following the prologue, the player assumes control of Joel approximately twelve-‐years later, when, with the majority of mankind wiped-‐out, Joel acts as a merciless and callous smuggler trafficking weapons and medical supplies through an established quarantine zone. Following a botched exchange, Joel becomes indebted to Marlene, the head of a group known as the Fireflies, and is tasked with transporting ‘cargo’ to the group’s main headquarters. That cargo is Ellie who, during an unexpected attack early in their journey is bitten by one of the infected. Before Joel can kill her, for fear that she will turn on him once the infection takes hold, it is revealed that Ellie has already been infected for over three weeks, yet is showing no symptomatic signs of change. The pair’s continued journey to the Fireflies base therefore becomes a critical one in the development of both Joel and Ellie as characters, and in the narrative of the game-‐fiction for the player; Joel, seeking redemption for failing to save his own daughter by protecting Ellie, and, by association, potentially saving humanity;
and for Ellie, safely making it into the hands of the Fireflies in the hope of expediting the discovery of a cure or vaccine, thereby facilitating a return to a more civilised order in the world.
Katie Salen and Eric Zimmerman, in their work The Rules of Play, concur that, ‘players recognize the [on-‐screen avatars as] a fictive characters that [the player] can pretend to be, […] a piece of equipment, a tool which extends the player’s agency in the game activity,’ and specifically, ‘[as] a part of the player’s presentation of self’ (Salen and Zimmerman, 381). This is noteworthy in the relationship between a player and the avatar they control as it highlights both he dichotomy of the player’s presence inside and outside the game-‐world, and the necessary relationship that is established between player and avatar in the manner in which the player preforms their role within the game-‐fiction.
Players, like consumers of literature, film and television, apply conceptual characteristics to their on-‐screen avatar, and through this process invest themselves in that character; however, the investment is enhanced in videogames as the player is asked to act out as if they were the avatar, rather than simply observing a character’s actions. This alters the manner of identification a player has with their on-‐screen avatar, and therefore differs to the largely passive experience found in film or literature. The manner, in which the player embodies, or rather, plays the role of the character – in the motions necessary to progressing the game-‐fiction (i.e. overcoming obstacles, solving puzzles, dispatching antagonist, etc.) – is an identification of the players’ connection with the avatar on-‐screen, and both the player and character’s place within the fiction of the game-‐world. Players’ agency within the game-‐world is therefore significant in facilitating this identification. Characters in videogames, unlike those in novels or films, function as malleable narrative constituents. The developer of the game defines the possibilities that exist for the player; however, they offer a field in which the player is free to experiment.
By way of example, in the later stages of the game, Joel takes Ellie to a small town where he hopes to find an individual by the name of Bill, an old acquaintance who is indebted to Joel. The journey into and around the town involves traversing areas filled with infected citizens. The player, however, discovers that the area has been set up with a number of manmade and
environmental traps that assist the pair in reaching the townhouse where Joel believes Bill resides. Using these traps and the general surroundings, Joel and Ellie make it to the townhouse. There they meet Bill, yet he demands that Joel go and reset all of the traps that where activated, as these form part of Bill’s main line of defences against the infected.
At the same time, the player can acquire a number of spare parts to fix an old car. Informed that the player must acquire the car parts, players re-‐set the traps, collect all the elements to repair the vehicle, and therefore progress in the game. The area is large and open, with only partial walls remaining, alongside old vehicle wrecks and other environmental barricades, to shield the player. There is no set path or pattern to completing the area, and the manner in which the player chooses to engage – be it aggressively, through gun fights and deadly takedowns, or passively, by stealthily sneaking through the area, or indeed a combination of the two – is a direct result of the gamer’s play style, which profoundly affects the composition and portrayal of the avatar on-‐screen.
As Seymour B. Chatman notes in writing about text-‐based literary narrative, rather than videogames, ‘[a] character exists in a paradigmatic relationship with the plot, which is syntagmatic’ (Chatman, 126). This is true of text-‐based narratives, however, with videogames, each element of players’ interactions forms part of the recognition of themselves within the portrayal of the on-‐screen avatar, hence, when Chatman adds, ‘[that this is formed] through a construction of traits and recognizable characteristics’ (ibid), with videogames there is a further unifying element, in that these traits and characteristics are ascribes not only through the game-‐fiction, but uniquely to the players portrayal of the avatar. This characteristic of videogames is an element that is dependent on the players’ individual reading of Joel, and an assimilation of the traits and characteristics with which the player identifies and carries into the act of playing the avatar.
These conceptual characteristics manifest themselves in a similar fashion in other media – through a design of physical action, verbal explanation, and descriptive prose (or, in the case of videogames, one might better use the term observable game-‐world). Game players equally use these conceptual characteristics, however, alongside more game specific features, such as
