Interactive Narrative: Video Games and Nonlinear Stories

The Player as Co-Author

Video games are the newest narrative medium and the fastest-growing. By 2022, the video game industry exceeded $200 billion—more than film and music combined. But what interests us is not the economy, but the narrative: games have created a fundamentally new type of storytelling—the interactive narrative.

In traditional narrative (book, film), the reader/viewer is a passive recipient. The narrative unfolds independently of them. In a game, the player is a co-author: their decisions influence the course of the story. “Mass Effect,” “The Witcher,” “Detroit: Become Human”—role-playing games where choices create different narrative branches, different endings.

This radically changes the narrative structure. Instead of a linear plot—there is a “decision tree” or “rhizome” (per Deleuze): a structure without a center or hierarchy. This corresponds to the postmodernist idea of a multiplicity of narratives.

“The Last of Us,” “Disco Elysium,” “What Remains of Edith Finch”

“The Last of Us” (Naughty Dog, 2013) is a game with narrative depth comparable to quality cinema. The relationship between Joel and Ellie is explored through gameplay: you not only see their interactions—you live through them. The ending confronts the player with a moral dilemma and provides no “correct” answer. This is something that interactive narrative can achieve, but a film cannot.

“Disco Elysium” (ZA/UM, 2019) is a role-playing game that literally plays out a psychological narrative: the player controls a detective with amnesia, and his internal “voices” (psychological complexes) are characters in dialogue. This is narrative psychology embodied in game mechanics.

Question for reflection: Is it possible to use the narrative techniques of video games (branching decisions, immediate feedback, a sense of authorship) in education or corporate training? How?