Narrative

Narrative

Narrative is a story that can come in the forms of fiction, or non-fiction. The story within the narrative is a chain of events that are connected to tell a full account of what happens within the story or what will later happen.

Within the game industry many games use strong narrative element that can otherwise create many new genres such as sci-fi historical adventure game Assassins Creed II: Brotherhood. The narrative within the game follows Ezio Auditore across Italy as he learns more about his assassins ancestry and how to better himself as an assassin. This within the game is the linear storyline, however during the game you can head of to various people and places to ask for missions, these missions aren’t necessarily important to the overall narrative however only exist as an optional task or bonus level within the game. This is known as a broken narrative.

The general structure of a narrative will follow a story arc; a basic story arc will consist of a beginning, middle and end. However with gaming, the story arc will be different to that of a film, Television series or novel/book. They will follow the protagonist or hero on his or her journey, however will need a more immersive experience for the player to be more involved or more glued to the screen, as a game would take a lot longer to complete than that of a film.

The hero that you follow would typically go through a change, the change could be either a loss, a change in scene for example a move of house environment, or have grown up. Taking Assassins Creed again, we can take the protagonist and hero, Ezio, who at the start of the game was a typical player who loved chasing women, but as the game progresses he is faced with many losses from loved ones and friends, so grows to become more vengeful and versatile with his aggression. However he also grows more mature over the course of the series learning that revenge is not the best answer for everything. This scenario shows that Ezio had to go through some changes to get where he was at the end of the game and that he had to become more mature and overcome his losses. Another example is Saints Row: The Third, where the protagonist, has a change of scene and has to start all over. The saints famously known for occupying Stilwater, get arrested at the beginning of the game robbing a bank, they escape but end up in a new town, with nothing but themselves. This is also a good example of loss.

The games themselves follow the arc of beginning, middle and end, however have more depth to the arc itself,  a good 8-point arc of games consist of Stasis, Trigger, The quest, surprise, critical choice,  Climax, reversal, resolution.

The game Assassins Creed II follows this arc with stasis, Ezio is getting on with his family and brothers, doing deeds for them, Trigger, Ezio’s brothers and father is captured put on public trial and killed, The Quest, Ezio finds out he’s an assassin and vows to take revenge on his family, surprise, he discovers the artefact the apple of eden, critical choice, he must choose to join the assassins order or walk away, climax, he joins and starts travelling Italy killing off his targets to which he discovers the Pope is one, reversal, the pope is the last target and vulnerable,  and resolution, Ezio decides not to kill the pope as he has grown up and decides death is not the answer.

Following this you can see that the arc is also implemented in many other storylines for games, films television series and novels alike. A game like assassins creed you can see the story arc easily when you look at it carefully and it follows a linear story, with the impression of choice, though the character cannot escape the linear story. However there are such games that are linear and there is no escape or even an impression of choice. These games are known as “on Rails.” Games such as Time Crisis is a game which is On Rails as you are taken through the game with no option to move. The game itself is a time trial where you have to kill or be killed, and get through it as quickly as possible.