The Impact of Player Choice on Video Game Narratives

Many modern video games use player choice as an important way of making the game more immersive. By letting each player shape the course and actions of the game, the storytelling becomes much more interactive and personalized. Today, the topic of how players’ decisions and choices impact video games will be explored.

The change in video game storytelling

For the vast majority of traditional video games, the story was typically fixed. This meant that the players’ choices had little to no impact on the outcome of the game. You could play through the game multiple times and still end up with the same ending. However, today, you can find player choice in a large amount of modern gaming content.

This change can be seen in multiple forms of entertainment. It is very prevalent in open-world PC games and RPGs. Also, the fastest payout casinos have started incorporating narrative elements that depend on each player’s decisions. This new trend of adding choices to gaming has tied in nicely with the overall trend of personalizing online media to create more immersive experiences.

So, there is a big difference between traditional and modern games. There were limited effects from your choices in traditional video games. In comparison, your player choices in modern games create complex stories with multiple possible outcomes.

Branching narratives in gaming

Because your choices have direct consequences in these games, you are also able to create more emotional connections to the characters. In many popular games like The Witcher 3 or Detroit: Become Human, branching storylines are therefore a vital part of the experience.

The character development in these games also depend on your choices. This means that your choices involving moral and complex dilemmas affect the course of the plot. By adding multiple story “paths” you can go down, your choices feel much more impactful than in a traditional game.

Since the outcome of modern games with branching narratives is so varied, this also makes the experience very personal. It also makes it more fun for you to replay the game, since the ending will be entirely different. The best and most popular video games have undoubtedly taken replayability into account. Therefore, many game designers have developed several unique endings to the games.

The demand for personalization

There has been an increasing demand for personalization in gaming. This is especially true for the younger generations that have grown up with many technological advancements in the video game industry. When it comes to the game types, Gen Z gamers prefer RPGs as a whole. This is a specific type of role playing game where the narrative aspect is an important factor.

This is also why 52% of Gen Z gamers invest in in-game purchases. These are small gadgets or upgrades in the game that you can buy while playing. They buy these additional items to make the game even more personalized and fit their own unique storytelling.

Gamers are also increasingly inclined to play on their mobile phones. This is mostly because it makes it easy to play on the go. Game developers are aware of this interest and are therefore improving player choices on PC, consoles, and mobile platforms.

The illusion of choice

However, not all games have made player choice have any direct impact on the storyline. Some games give you the illusion of choices, where you are presented with actions that do not actually affect the plot. This gives you a sense of freedom as a player, but you will often end up with a similar ending as all the other players.

An example of this is in the game Telltale Games’ The Walking Dead, where the impact of your decisions does not significantly affect the story. However, since the game gives you the illusion of choice, you still feel like you had important choices to make throughout the game.

This keeps you engaged in the game, which is probably what was intended by the game developers. Sometimes the game has technical constraints or a somewhat fixed narrative. This means that the developers have to keep you on the right story path and use fewer outcomes to ensure this.

Creating your own story

When you play a game with player choice as a central feature, the creation and development of the story is completely yours. With emotional games like The Last of Us, you are met with themes of loss and sacrifice. This leaves you with a sense of responsibility and ownership, which makes you more interested in the game for longer periods.

This can be in a choice where you have to save or sacrifice a beloved character. With complex choices like this, your choices feel meaningful and even heartfelt. There are many games with similar themes, and storytelling has, as a result, become a very important part of playing a game.

So, the concept of creating your own narrative has become increasingly popular in recent games. By creating your own narrative and your own paths in the games, the stories can become even more personal and meaningful to you. This keeps you immersed in the story building, since you feel connected to the game in a more emotional way than in traditional video games.

The importance of meaningful choices

For game developers, it is important to provide meaningful choices to their players. Often, the developers start off by establishing “Game Pillars”. These pillars are used to define what the game wants to include. Each choice has to support these principles so the overall story is still ensured.

The idea of “branching” is also important to game developers. They incorporate this by mapping out all the different choices and related outcomes. Some examples of visual node editors are Unity and Unreal Engine, which are widely used.

It is crucial that the decisions do not lead to consequences that make the game too difficult or stray too far away from the overall goals of the story. That is why developers use specific design frameworks that systematically map out every potential outcome.

Feedback from players in early versions is also often used to create emotional decisions that resonate with the demographics. This makes the players able to give constructive criticism that can be used to improve the flow and sense of control of the game.

The future of choice-driven narratives

In the future, the trend of player choice will likely remain an important feature of video games. Currently, AI is a big trend within the gaming industry. By using artificial intelligence, the storylines can change immediately as you make your choices. Since it can dynamically respond to your input, the experience becomes very personalized.

However, the branching of the choices still needs to be coherent in the future. Therefore, game developers may need to focus on still assuring that the narrative makes sense to players. After all, too many obscure paths may overwhelm or confuse players instead of keeping them engaged.

All in all, the future of video games will include even more personalization and more complex story plots. The aspect of choices in games has created a much more emotional connection between players and the games they play. Storytelling in gaming is therefore definitely here to stay.