Interactive storytelling in games

The most ambitious promise of the new narrative medium is its potential for telling stories about whole systems. The format that most fully exploits the properties of digital environments is not the hyper-text or the fighting game but the simulation: the virtual world full of interrelated entities, a world we can enter, manipulate, and observe in process. We might therefore expect the virtuosos of cyberdrama to create simulated environments that capture behavioral patterns and patterns of interrelationships with a new clarity.

Hamlet on the Holodeck: The Future of Narrative in Cyberspace, 1997, Janet Murray

Not only is the computer the most capacious medium ever invented, but it also allows us to move around the narrative world, shifting from one perspective to another at our own initiative. Perhaps this ability to shift perspectives will lead to the technical innovation that will rival the Shakespearean soliloquy. Cyberdramatists of the future could present us with a complex world of many characters (like a global Victorian novel) and allow us to change positions at any moment in order to see the same event from the viewpoint of another character. Or they could let us enter a particular town over and over again in the guise of many different individuals, enabling us to see how differently the same people present themselves to us. We might be given a compelling role within the environment that confers upon us the ability to fluidly switch between viewing the world through our own character’s eyes and viewing our character through the eyes of others. Or perhaps a cyberdramatist of the future will find a way to show us not just the large battlefield and the single soldier (as Tolstoy does in War and Peace) but also the processes by which large historic events emerge as the sum of many much smaller causes (as Tolstoy strove to convey in his interpolated essays but could not dramatically capture). All of these story patterns would be ways of enacting the contemporary human struggle to both affirm and transcend our own limited point of view.

Hamlet on the Holodeck: The Future of Narrative in Cyberspace, 1997, Janet Murray

When thinking about storytelling in games, I started to look at Janet Murray’s ideas in Hamlet on the Holodeck (1997). She talks about how digital media, especially games, are not just another way to tell stories, but a completely different kind of narrative system. Instead of following a fixed story, players can move inside a world, interact with it, and experience different perspectives.

What I find interesting is her idea that games are more like “systems” rather than traditional narratives. In films, the story is already decided (FIXED), and the audience follows it from beginning to end. But in games, the story is not always fixed. It depends on the player’s actions, decisions, and movement in the world. So in a way, the story is always changing, even if the structure is designed by developers.

Murray also talks about the ability to shift perspectives, and I think this is something that really defines interactive storytelling. In games, you are not just watching a character, you are inside the experience. Sometimes you act as the character, sometimes you observe, and sometimes you are switching between different roles without even noticing. This creates a different kind of immersion compared to film.

Thinking about my own experience, especially during my internship at Virtuos, I started to see how this works in practice. Sound in games is not just there to support the atmosphere, but also to respond to the player. For example, different actions trigger different sounds, and these sounds help the player understand what is happening in the system. It becomes part of the interaction, not just the background.

At the same time, I don’t think games completely replace traditional storytelling. Instead, they open up another way of experiencing it. What Murray describes as “cyberdrama” still feels very relevant today, especially with open-world games where players can explore, repeat, and experience the same world differently each time.

For me, this idea of interactive storytelling is important for how I think about multimedia practice. I’m starting to realise that working in games is not just about making sound or visuals, but about designing experiences that people can move through and react to. It’s still something I’m trying to understand, but I feel this way of thinking is shaping how I see my future work.