Illusions of Choice in Digital Narratives

This paper aims to explore how choice is implemented in videogames, or rather, how the illusion of choice is found in videogames. This will be primarily done via an examination of Spec Ops: The Line (Yager, 2012), a military shooter that is itself as much of a critique of the military shooter genre than it is of modern conflict and foreign interventionism. Spec Ops: The Line is a videogame that understands the common disconnect between narrative and gameplay, referred to as ludonarrative dissonance, and utilises the hypocrisy that results from it to critique its own genre and question why people play these games. Without a considered approach to the games writing and its interaction with the gameplay, however, Spec Ops: The Line would have been unable to provide the experience that it does nor, would it have credibly done so. This paper will conclude by addressing Ian Bogost's text Video Games Are Better Without Stories (2017) in which he argues that videogames should not focus on creating narratives when other mediums can do so better. Whilst the latter part is difficult to argue, videogames can creatively utilise narrative into the medium, due to its inherent interactivity. The implementation of narrative within the videogames medium is still an evolving aspect, and it is only through identifying flaws within examples of notable high-profile videogame such as Bioshock (Irrational Games, 2007) that the role of narrative can improve within the medium. Thereby strengthening it and distinguishing it from other mediums; as can be seen in later examples such as Nier: Automata (PlatinumGames, 2017).