The Immersive Storytelling Of Video Games

Video games have taught me a LOT in my 23 years on this earth, but theres none more important than knowing there are stories only able to be told through video games.

In a movie, tv show, or even book, you are actively experiencing the story as a passenger, but in video games, you’re sat down, buckled into the driver seat, and you choose whether or not to push the gas.

You can fill many pairs of shoes, depending on your taste. You can become any number of super soldiers, fighters, explorers, animals, spies, robots, cowboys, ninjas, gods, or even just a regular 39 year old man, running from his past, and looking for a better future in the great outdoors of Firewatch.

Spoilers for the game if you havent played it are ahead, but I feel like it’s a prime example of what I believe Immersive storytelling in video games is.

From the very beginning you’re thrust into the shoes of Henry, a 39 year old man, on his way to his first day of his new job as the fire lookout for “Two Forks Tower” The game quickly immerses you in a backstory that you’re able to choose. You’re taken on a night out with your friends, where you quickly bump into, and converse with your future wife Julia.

You as the player get to choose what Henry says to Julia, whether or not you want kids one day, the name and breed of dog you get from the local shelter,and so forth.

Your hope for a beautiful love story between a character who is ostensibly you at this point, and your new love, Julia is quickly slashed, as you become more and more aware of Julias early onset dementia.

You, as Henry, try everything you can to help Julia, but it becomes more and more apparent that this is a helpless situation, and that you have to make a real decision. Henry finds a job that essentially hits a pause button on his life, and he’s able to go away for a while.

Henry gets out of his truck, hikes the trail to get to his lookout, and finally, meets Delilah, not in person, but over a radio. She’s both your boss, and what is supposed to be your only point of contact out in the woods.

Every conversation between Henry and Delilah is dictated by you, the player, you can be friendly, mean, sarcastic, and even just not talk to her, but the beauty of these decisions are that, more than anything, they’re yours, and in this moment, not only have you taken the role of Henry, Henry has taken the role of you.

The story is designed to get Henry, the player, and Delilah, close. There’s even an action you can do to decide whether or not you want to keep wearing your wedding ring.

The story takes many twists and turns , and the characters at one point even believe they’re part of a government conspiracy, but just as in real life, imagination gets the better of them, and as the forest becomes more and more engulfed in flames, the mystery unravels. They haven't been being spied on by the government, far from it in fact.

For example Henry is attacked in the woods after finding a clip board with his conversations scribbled on it, and instead of being a psycho hockey mask-wearing murderer, it is actually just a former tower lookout. There is also a report of two local girls that went missing after you catch them lighting off fireworks;

instead of a dreary, bloody ending, turns out they are just in jail in a neighboring town, and most of the creepy, unsettling, or grandiose moments you’ve become a part of in this four hour journey, have been for not as you make your way through the cave, and come up on Brian Goodwin, the deceased son of Ned Goodwin, the former lookout, and a kid whos father was too stubborn to leave his son at home.

Brian died in a climbing accident, and you have to choose whether or not Delilah gets to know this information.

You feel like keeping it from her would be denying her closure she needs, but telling her would break her heart, knowing, or at least thinking she could have stopped his death.

As the forest burns down around you, you’re tasked with one last mission. To get out. You beg delilah over and over again to stay, so you can finally meet her in person, she agrees but she leaves anyway, and you’re left there, alone.

Henry could never really escape his loneliness, and his past life, and this experience has taught you, and him that.