The Importance of Emergent Narratives in Games

Introduction          

          The topic of the importance of narrative in games is generally a controversial one. On one side, players agree that in order for a game to stand the test of time, it must have a universally recognized spectacular narrative. On the other hand, the other side would argue that the amount of fun a player has when playing the game trumps how decent the story is. Yet, there is one common factor both parties can mostly agree on, and that is the beneficial qualities emergent narratives offer to the gameplay experience. When a player has the ability to construct their own narrative with a game, it not only immerses the player even more than a linear story, but allows for countless hours of re-playability. Especially in multiplayer games with friends. Minecraft is a game that has no story whatsoever, you are simply a character spawned in on a randomly generated world with only one goal: survive. Why you are there, who you are, and what to build is all up to the player. Likewise, all types of survival games give a player the capability to create their own story as every character becomes personalized around what they want them to be. Skyrim and State of Decay are both survival games that allow players to craft a new story with every character they create and compose decisions accordingly. Even in games with a strong narrative, mainly role-playing games, there is evidence of the player forging their own story outside of the game. When me and my friend played Divinity: Original Sin 2, we chose to ignore the main story and create our own, which provided the means for The Great Adventures of Shaggy and Big Chungus. No matter how silly or serious the story is, the agency given to a player on constructing their own narrative is key in developing a game that will outlast its predecessors.

Survival Games

            Survival games have an innate ability to permit players to produce a unique and personal story. One of the most famous survival games, Minecraft, achieves this by having a lack of a narrative. Instead, the goal of Minecraft is whatever the player wants it to be. According to the article by Gerben Grave, he states that the, “experiences are unique, unplanned and the building blocks for your personal story,” (Graves 2015). The word “unplanned” plays a major role in determining if a survival game will allow for an emergent narrative. Furthermore, survival games must allow for a sense of randomness, so every world generated will provide a differing experience. If every world of Minecraft was the exact same, players would lose immersion in the game and thus lose interest. Nevertheless, a completely different story becomes composed with each world start due in part to the random generation of the environment and interactions with each biome. Not to mention the changing of goals the player has for every playthrough. Whenever I play with my friends, we always start our game with a specific building goal or roleplay a narrative we pre-plan, usually a tragedy story. In my most recent playthrough, me and a few friends pretended that we had just survived a horrid plane crash and we were the only survivors. Using what little knowledge we had about survival, we must work together in order to find a way back to civilization, or at least die trying. Due to our hardcore gamer nature, if one of us dies, then we are permanently dead and thus banned from the server. These stakes we developed add a dimension of fear to the game, as well as a connection to the character we customized for ourselves. With this in mind, it is important to realize the importance of emergent narratives to survival games. I would argue that Minecraft is still relevant to this day because of experiences similar to mine. Even if there was no multiplayer mode, this personalized experience contributes to the overall survival of Minecraft; making it stand out as one of the best survival games to date.

Role-Playing Games

            Few games with the presence of a narrative allow for the player to stray and forge their own story. Out of all of the narrative driven games I have played, Divinity: Original Sin 2 has allowed for more player freedom than any other role-playing game I have played. Within the game, the player is constantly making decisions regarding how to: prepare for a battle, the person your character to become, the success of your companions, and many more elements that I cannot even begin to list. As a result, not only can the player construct a story within the world of the game, but can construct their own experience with the world around them. In the words of Jason Schreier, Divinity, “rewards experimentation […] Divinity: Original Sin 2 is a game begging you to exploit it,” (Schreier 2018). Due to the seemingly infinite amount of combat and narrative combinations, it allows for players to set a goal following a specific playstyle. Do you aspire for your character to be an assassin that must turn their opponents to chickens in order to hurt them? This goal is completely attainable. Not to mention that these battles have consequences. Murdering a non-playable character, no matter how insignificant, feels as if it will have an important consequence nearing the conclusion of the narrative. If the death proves to be irrelevant, the player can surely create their own response and act accordingly. Recently, my friend and I have started a campaign centered around two powerful meme characters. We titled our created campaign, The Great Adventures of Shaggy and Big Chungus, and our goal is to become the utmost powerful beings in the entire world. To achieve this, we complete missions in order to gain a hefty amount of experience points, and then we kill everybody in a given level. The goal we created is simple: help the people in need, and then slay them. Within our experience, it is just as pleasing to disregard the story and go on a giant massacre as it is actually partaking in the narrative. To add, it is incredibly enjoyable playing this way since we perceive the narrative we illustrated ourselves spark a reaction in the environment. This gave us a sense of rebellion from the course of the game. By killing important non-playable characters, we are committing a taboo act of breaking away from the narrative of the base game and deliberately trying to ruin it. Despite the game having an absolutely incredible story with numerous choices and paths to take, the experience of laughing and expanding upon the narrative my friend and I set has proved to be a far more enjoyable experience. 

The Empowered Player

            Building upon my argument of singularity emergent narratives, the player is given a sense of empowerment when they feel as if the story they built is their own. Dan Whitehead writes that, “Yet that's where gaming's strength lies, not as a storyteller but as a story generator. That's our point of difference, the one thing that Hollywood, with its celebrities, glamour and cultural cachet, can't begin to replicate,” (Dan 2013). Indeed, games are constantly being compared to all other forms of media, whether it is cinematography, visual art, a novel, or a symphony. In spite of all of those mediums, games are a combination of all forms of media that allow for the viewer to interpret and ponder them in whichever way they please. As Whitehead states, this is the game industry’s point of difference from all other forms of art. Additionally, there is a seemingly endless amount of games that rely on unique player interactions with its environment in order to have a story. For example, the game State of Decay would be nothing if you were to strip away all of its gameplay elements. It would not dissolve down to a story, a movie, or art; just nothing. To quote Whitehead, “That's where games excel - inside the player's mind - and that's why the best stories in video games are the ones that can only be told in video games, handing over narrative control to the audience,” (Dan 2013). Movies are not personal. They give you no control or say in how you perceive the interactions with the character and their environment. Likewise, works of fiction struggle with the same issue. Recalling back to the summer of 2013, I remember how intense and immersive State of Decay was. For context, in State of Decay you are tasked with leading, defending, and gathering supplies for an outpost of your own people. Because of the fact that I had to first work hard in order to secure the safety of a random survivor, I immediately grew attached to everyone I saved. Yes, this is including the survivors who were more arrogant and abrasive to my fellow companions. With every run there was a sense of dread instilled inside me at the thought that a random horde will appear and demolish my poor character who I loved so much. To this day, I have not forgotten the first time I lost a survivor, and her name was Maya Torres. Maya is a story character who comes back when a player makes a new save, but at the time when I did not have this knowledge, and it was devastating to watch her get torn apart by a feral zombie. It was a typical run to the supermarket, within walking distance to the outpost that I had set up at the time. As I cleared it out, I noticed that damned zombie horde logo appear on my mini-map, heading directly towards Maya. At that moment, I knew she was either going to escape by the skin on her teeth or die trying. Quickly, and without thinking, I forced Maya to run at the horde where my truck was parked in an attempt to escape. Yet, I did not see the absolutely overpowered feral zombie mixed in with the horde come charging right at her. Before I could even press the command to hit my opponent, I hear a loud, feminine scream followed by the sound of flesh being ripped apart. Stunned, I dropped my controller. As the game switched to my next playable character, I scrambled to grasp my controller and load my game before Maya’s death, but it was too late: the game had already autosaved. Few games have permitted me to have experiences like this one. To sum up, these unique emergent narratives players create are essential in separating games from other forms of media they get compared to so often.  

The Other Side

            Despite the benefits that stems from emergent narratives, there is an opposing side that believes these personal stories only form from the lack of an excellent story. For example, Nick Dinicola takes a stance against emergent narratives, stating that, “the key part of any good story because this is what makes it interesting to more than one person. A good story is about some universal human experience,” (Dinicola 2013). Here, Dinicola is inferring that the experience of a spectacular story needs to be shared universally with multiple people, and thus has to be recognized by the majority as a thrilling story. In other words, emergent stories are not stories to him, and breed from the overall lack of an interesting story. If every game had a ground-breaking story with interesting, preset characters and environment interactions, games would dissipate into movies or visual art. Where is the unique player experience? To add, Divinity: Original Sin 2 is globally recognized for its remarkable narrative and branching paths to take. Despite all of the possible narrative choices, players still find ways to put our own stories in games. Regardless, emergent narratives do not brew from the lack of a pleasant story, but player interactions and experience. As my friend and I navigate the world of Divinity¸ we craft our own story by the way we interact with the neutral people we find walking about, and then the hostile reactions we receive for killing everyone. Stated above, there are games that would be nothing without direct player interaction with the game’s environment. Other than State of Decay, think about Skyrim. After removing all of the gameplay elements, is it worth playing? Unquestionably not, as Skyrim would lose all of the immersive side quests and random interaction with non-playable characters that roam around the world. I cannot even begin to count the times I would be riding my horse to a town or city and run into an interesting character that told me the news or attempting to rob me. Not to mention, who would the dragonborn be? In the beginning of the game, the character creation screen allows the player to develop the hero of the fantasy; a key gameplay element in the player’s connection with the adventure and environment. All in all, games need to allow players individual experiences with the environment, otherwise games are no different than the other forms of art they are compared to.

Conclusion

            Emergent narratives are necessary in order for a game to separate itself from all other forms of media. Minecraft’s lack of a tale and randomly generated worlds enable the player to have a different experience and constructed narrative with each playthrough. This is due in part to the endless environments offered and interactions with arbitrary enemy spawns. Within the presence of a strong narrative, in the case of Divinity: Original Sin 2, there are an abundance of unscripted dialogues that leave room for the ability for an emergent narrative to be possible. Finally, games would be no different than an animated movie if there was no capability for a player to assemble their own narrative based around their experience with the environment of a game.

Work Cited