Gamers love the sense of interactivity that comes with video games, whether it’s slide-canceling and dolphin-diving inCall of Dutyor leveling up stats in anRPG. However, one incredible aspect of interactivity that many gamers tend to overlook is the power of aninteractive narrative.
Ken Levine, the creator behind hit games likeBioshock, has always been at the forefront of experimental video game narratives. Not only have his previous titles stretched the narrative lengths of the medium, but his upcoming project,Judas, is attempting to go even further.
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In aninterview with gamesindustry.biz, Levine explored precisely what dynamic systems he hopes to implement in Judas. Additionally, he explained whynarrative crafting in video games is often more challenging to create yet more engaging than the narratives of any other medium.
In this new era ofChatGPT and AI, one may assume that complex narrative crafting has reached its precipice, but as Levine believes, it’s still not fully functional enough to help create the types of games he and his team hope to produce.
Of course, video games will never be exactly the same asmovies or TV shows, and that’s perfectly fine. Levine and his upcoming title attempt to demonstrate something unique to the industry: how video games can create an interactive narrative experience unlike any other form of media.
Levine’s game Judas explores how player choices can meander and interact with the overarching story.Levine explains that “once you start observing sequences of events… that’s when it gets really interesting.”
What I’m interested in is giving the player more space to explore and then supporting that, rather than just say ‘No, you’re doing our story. Fuck you.’
However, with the prospect of AI, this whole space of narrative freedom in video games becomes a lot more tangible. For instance, games and experiences have already been made in which character interactions and even entire stories are created with thetoolkit of Artificial Intelligence.
However, as Levine states,artificial intelligence “doesn’t currently understand persistence,” which is the ability to tell an overarching story with interactional events.Instead, itcreates glimpsesof individual elements that, at first glance, seem to make up a framework but usually lack any actual substance.
Open-Ended Storytelling In Gaming
Typical stories in books and movies will have an overarching narrative consisting of a beginning, middle, and end. However, video games make that structure much less concrete, and a narrative arc can be formed in various ways.
Halo, for example, is famous for the “30 seconds of fun,” where every small fight has a beginning, middle, and end. Additionally, every individual mission in Halo needs to have an overarching goal. On top of that, the entire multi-hour campaign will have a narrative that arcs like a traditional story.
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Games Levine has worked on in the past have already done a good deal of stretching what one would expect from the typical game narrative.Bioshock Infinite, for example, often leaves players with narrative gaps, things they clearly must take in and rearrange within their own heads totruly understand.
People often ask me about the end of BioShock Infinite, what was happening there? Did this happen or did that happen…I kind of feel the answer is, ‘Well, what do you think of this?’ That’s the beauty of what we do.
This is what Judas is attempting to achieve, as they’re “trying to find a more literal storytelling thing that is incredibly open-ended,” yet that means you “have to have the story make sense in a very organic fashion, but you also have to have it be more open-ended.”
There’s a rare quality in movies when you’ve left the cinema and start an argument with a friend about what the ending meant. Did the top fall over at the end of Inception? Are one of the characters infected at the end ofThe Thing?
This sense of narrative ambiguity would be perfect for video games, and Levine seems to agree.Allowing players to craft their unique scenarios and narratives works hand in hand with creating an ending that one must decipher given their individual experience.
But really, it comes down to whether or not the gaming public will appreciate this idea. Although many of us love games for their unique narratives and love implementing our interpretations, like in Bioshock Infinite,general audiencesmay not always click with this concept.
If you want to hear more from Levine, such as his mindset about leaving theBioshock franchise, we highly suggest thefull interview. As a fan of interactive narrative design, I’m pleased that Judas and Levine’s work appears to be headed in an impressive direction.
