In most games, players step into the boots of mighty warriors, or survivors scrapping to carry on. In some games, though, the player themselves becomes a part of the narrative; the game draws players in, to be a part of the story.
Often, these games use this direct interaction with the player to make the game eerie and real, breaking the fourth wall to get to fans. Becoming a character in the game, or having the player be the reason that a narrative happens, is engaging story-telling that many fans cannot get enough of. Below are the best games that turn players into a part of the story, ranked for how well they integrate the player as an access point for the story.
Her Storyis a strange game, in which players are given a database of police interview files featuring one woman. The gameplay asks players to listen as they search for keywords and slowly uncover more and more of the story through the words of a woman who is at first being questioned for context and quickly becomes a suspect. Each of the interview clips is short and very well-acted and fans will come to feel for the stranger as they reveal more of her life and the secrets that lead to a murder case.
However, the clips are accessed through a flickering old screen that emulates out-of-date technology perfectly and will often blink out and show the player’s silhouette watching the screen intently. While the first time this happens is often unnerving, it cements the player as a part of this world. They are the detective researching this case and trawling through the footage to piece together the crime’s events. While this is a minor example of the player becoming a part of the game, it is worthy of this first mention for weaving a detailed narrative that the player at their computer feels like a driving force in.
It can be hard at first glance to see howHotline Miamimakes the character a player, but the narrative that emerges as the game progresses forces the player into an uncomfortable role. Players run through levels bathed in sickly neon and flashy points that explode onto the screen as they hack, bash, and shoot their way through buildings full of enemies. The player will most likely die hundreds of times across a playthrough and will kill even more enemies and the pixelated gore and visceral noises make the game engaging and exciting.
However, a question that is asked numerous times is not aimed at the player character, Jacket, but instead leveled at the player: ‘Do You Like Hurting Other People?’. This frames the whole game as an exercise in cruel indulgence; for a player to be playing and playing the tricky game, they must get some kind of sick pleasure from the brutal gameplay. When Jacket dies, as the player has done so many times, and players take control of one of his enemies in the epilogue to the game, the story opens up. Players have been unquestioningly following orders from a mysterious caller and the true nature of the targets can be revealed, or ignored. Making the player accountable for some of their destruction certainly makes the whole game feel different on repeated playthroughs.
A cruel turn-based gamethat finds players leading doomed gangs of adventurers into dungeons against impossible odds,Darkest Dungeonquickly makes those attempting to best the dark creatures into calculating and cold warlords who look for the most effective option at any cost. This emergent storytelling turns players into the same kind of monster that the narrator was - sacrificing everything for victory.
On journeys into enemy territory, members of the player’s group can gain negative quirks that have lasting impacts on their performance in combat or the way that they gain and lose stress. Players will quickly decide that some characters are not worth the money that it would cost to get them to peak performance and will instead dismiss them in favor of fresh meat they can send to the slaughter. The players will find themselves spending money on town upgrades to get access to better weaponry and skills rather than helping those they are sending into battle. When characters are particularly stressed, they can ignore player orders and this will always elicit anger and frustration with the character. As the characters become more flawed and human, the player is asked to consider how callous they have been in their quest for redemption.
6Assassin’s Creed 4: Black Flag
An Employee Of The Enemy
For any gamers who playBlack Flagwithout any knowledge of the rest of theAssassin’s Creedseries, the introduction to the animus and its ability to view genetic memory is strange aside from the swashbuckling pirate gameplay. Any fans that are familiar with the series, though, will immediately sense the danger as the mute player character, played in first person to ensure the player interacts as themselves with the world around them, begins to work for Abstergo Industries, the antagonist of the series.
When players enter the game, it can be easy to forget this narrative framing. Becoming the captain of their own ship and exploring the West Indies can blind players to the bigger plot; the evil corporation is using the player to locate a powerful artifact. At certain points in the storyline, the player will be ripped back out of the animus and can find hints as to the company’s schemes and details about the memories that they are playing through, and fans of the series may be shocked to find that they are interacting, as themselves, with the memories of the deceased hero of the first games, Desmond Miles.
While scrolling through the huge library of games on Steam it can often be overwhelming to trawl throughthe huge number of visual novels. Players make decisions on behalf of the main character and have to choose how they will speak to the other characters in the game.Doki Doki Literature Clubis infamous for the plot twists and fourth wall breaking that slowly reveals itself as the game progresses and has set itself apart from other games in the visual novel genre.
Players take control of a player character who is vying for the affections of other students in a reading club at school. However, the game comes into its own when it starts to dive into themes of depression and self-harm and then quickly accelerates into insanity as characters are deleted from the game and the player character is ignored so that one of the love interests can communicate directly with the player in an obsessive and haunting way. Using the divide between the player character and the player as a springboard for horror is an inspired technique that makesDoki Dokia must-play even for gamers who have never tried a visual novel.
Becoming the ‘Controller’ for a new character inan established seriesis a peculiar introduction toMetal Gear Solid 2: Sons Of Liberty: Raiden is a new recruit who players are told was trained through virtual reality and is now embarking on a real mission. He clearly struggles with his identity and his own style throughout the game, but he acts as a player character who ventures through the story regardless. Dog tags around his neck feature the name that the player enters at the beginning of the game.
However, Raiden’s superiors are revealed to have ulterior motives - they are trialling a control program and their total dominance over Raiden is a final test to see if they can completely influence a population on a larger scale. When Raiden realizes this he starts to find his own identity, separate from the player, and take on a new style in combat. The game ends, after the final boss, with Raiden tearing off the dog tags and casting off the player’s control. This throws into question the whole morality of the game, as the player realizes that they were to some degree a part of the evil controlling powers that subjugated Raiden.
In one of the most humorous examples of the player becoming a part of the story,The Stanley Parablepokes fun at itself, at the character of Stanley, at the player, and even at video games themselves. Players control ‘Stanley’ after everyone in his office mysteriously vanishes and is spurred on by the narrator. It is made obvious from the outset that Stanley loves to follow orders but the player is first given some agency when the narrator says that Stanley went through the left door at a branching path.
The player can follow the story as it is set out by the faceless narrator, or they can disobey and branch off to make their own story. There are countless options in the story that bring Stanley to all sorts of conclusions but every ending only ends up plonking Stanley right back where he started in his office to see more of what the game has to offer. Some of the endings mock Stanley for his compliance, or have the narrator getting frustrated by the pointless actions the player acts out as they explore. Fans are even given a chance to look at who is really in control: Stanley, the player, the narrator, or perhaps no one at all. For existentialism, the fourth wall breaks, and being dragged into part of a vague and nonsensical story, nothing is better thanThe Stanley Parable.
OpeningInscryptionfor the first time can feel like entering a story halfway through, but that is exactly the intent ofDaniel Mullens- an indie developer who has a knack for making eerie games that reveal their hand slowly and deliberately. A voice indicates that the player is investigating what is on an old data disk of some kind before throwing the player into a cabin, trapped with a quirky lunatic who kills fans every time they lose at his strange card game. The cabin can be explored and the cards change, but the man, Leshy, is always there as an ominous presence keeping players locked up. As players start to gain more ground against the shadowy foe they will see more of the cabin and eventually, perhaps, even escape.
The game then opens into something bigger; the player is actually a part of the narrative and is exploring a game that was buried for reasons that slowly become clearer. Spanning multiple visual styles and changing in the genre while still keeping to a creepy card game,Inscryptionmasterfully has characters break the fourth wall and directly speak to the player, begging and pleading for different decisions. Revealing all of the secrets that the game holds would be criminal, but the player is as wrapped up in the plot as Leshy is and when it all falls into placethe story is at once magical and melancholy.
