Ludonarrative dissonance is the conflict between a video game's narrative told through the non-interactive elements and the narrative told through the gameplay. [1] [2] [3] Ludonarrative, a compound portmanteau of ludology and narrative, refers to the intersection in a video game of ludic elements (gameplay) and narrative elements. [1] The term was coined by game designer Clint Hocking in 2007 in a blog post.
Clint Hocking, a former creative director at LucasArts (then at Ubisoft), coined the term on his blog in October 2007, in response to the game BioShock . [2] [4] As explained by Hocking, BioShock is themed around the principles of Objectivism and the nature of free will, taking place in a dystopia within the underwater city of Rapture. During the game, the player-character encounters Little Sisters, young girls that have been conditioned to extract a rare resource from corpses, which is used as a means to increase the player-character's abilities. The player has the option of following what Hocking describes as the Objectivist approach by killing the Little Sister and gaining a larger amount of the resource, or following a compassionate approach, freeing the girl from the conditioning and only receiving a modest amount of the resource in return; this choice upholds the nature of free will that the gameplay presents, according to Hocking. Hocking then points out that as the story progresses, the player-character is forced into accepting one specific path, to help the person behind the revolution within Rapture, and given no option to challenge that role. This seemingly strips away the notion of free will that the gameplay had offered. [2] Hocking claimed that because of this, BioShock promotes the theme of self-interest through its gameplay while promoting the opposing theme of selflessness through its narrative, creating a violation of aesthetic distance that often pulls the player out of the game. [4] Jonathan Blow also used BioShock as an example in his 2008 talk. [5] Writer Tom Bissell, in his book Extra Lives: Why Video Games Matter (2010), notes the example of Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare , where a player can all but kill their digital partner during gameplay without upsetting the built-in narrative of the game. [3] Brett Makedonski of Destructoid used the Mass Effect series as another example, in which the player-character Commander Shepard can perform actions that are seen as ethically good (Paragon) or bad (Renegade), but throughout the game, Shepard is still regarded as a hero regardless of how much of a Renegade status they may have obtained. [4]
Jeffrey Matulef of Eurogamer used the term when referencing the Uncharted series, saying that "Uncharted has often been mocked for being about a supposedly likable rogue who just so happens to recklessly slaughter hundreds of people". [6] Uncharted 4: A Thief's End acknowledged the criticism with a trophy called "Ludonarrative Dissonance" that is awarded to the player for killing 1,000 enemies. The game's co-director Neil Druckmann said that in Uncharted 4 the studio was "conscious to have fewer fights, but it came more from a desire to have a different kind of pacing than to answer the 'ludonarrative dissonance' argument. Because we don't buy into it". [7]
In 2016, Frédéric Seraphine, semiotician and researcher specialized in game design at the University of Tokyo wrote a literature review about the notion of ludonarrative dissonance. In this article, developing on debates sparked by Hocking's blog post, Seraphine identifies the reason of ludonarrative dissonance as an opposition between "incentives" and "directives" within the "ludic structure (the gameplay)" and the "narrative structure (the story)". [8]
Chris Plante of Polygon wrote there had been an increasing number of games being designed around violence that meant the story shifted to accommodate gameplay, rather than vice versa. He considered the game The Last of Us Part II , also directed by Druckmann, to be the culmination of this ludonarrative dissonance due to its revenge-driven plot. Plante argued that due to the appeal and constant supply of violent games it was unnecessary for them to justify why their player characters exhibited violence, and expressed his desire for more games to tell stories that didn't hinge around violence. [9]
Some scholars, game writers and journalists have challenged the supposedly negative nature of ludonarrative dissonance. Nick Ballantyne, managing editor at GameCloud Australia, in an article from 2015, argues: [10]
What if it could be used to a dev's advantage? Video games can force players into uncomfortable situations, and ludonarrative dissonance can help foster that uncomfortableness. Faux glitches have been used as (ludo)narrative tools before in games such as Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem and Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty , so why is ludonarrative dissonance avoided so much? If your intent is to unsettle or confuse a player, then ludonarrative dissonance seems perfect, but it heavily relies on the player.
While acknowledging the potential of ludonarrative dissonance to create what he calls "emersion", defined in opposition to "immersion" as the "sensation of being pulled out of the play experience", Seraphine agrees with Ballantyne that it is possible to purposefully use ludonarrative dissonance as a storytelling device. Seraphine concludes his article with: "It seems that more games in the near future might use ludonarrative dissonance as a way to tell more compelling stories. In essence, stories are about characters and the most interesting stories are often told with dissonant characters; as it is the surprise, the disturbance, the accident, the sacrosanct disruptive element, that justifies the very act of telling a story". [8]
In a 2013 Game Developers Conference talk, Spec Ops: The Line writer Walt Williams argued that embracing ludonarrative dissonance allows the developer to portray the character as a hypocrite and force the character to rationalize their actions. [11]
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The Dead Space series is noted for its ludonarrative consistency. Brett Makedonski of Destructoid states that the gameplay aptly conveys the sense of sheer terror and loneliness that the narrative expertly strives to establish. [4]
Gonzalo Frasca is a game designer and academic researcher focusing on serious and political videogames. His blog, Ludology.org, was cited by NBC News as a popular designation for academic researchers studying video games. For many years, Frasca also co-published Watercoolergames with Ian Bogost, a blog about serious games.
BioShock 2 is a first-person shooter video game developed by 2K Marin and published by 2K Games. It was released worldwide for PlayStation 3, Windows, and Xbox 360 on February 9, 2010; Feral Interactive released an OS X version on March 30, 2012. The game takes place in the dystopian underwater city of Rapture, eight years after the events of BioShock. In the single-player campaign, players control the armored protagonist Subject Delta as he fights through Splicers—the psychotic human population of the city—using weapons and an array of genetic modifications. The game includes a story-driven multiplayer mode that takes place before the events of BioShock, during Rapture's civil war.
Nathan Drake is a fictional character and the protagonist of the Uncharted franchise, most notably in the video game series, developed by Naughty Dog. He appears in all mainline games: Uncharted: Drake's Fortune, Uncharted 2: Among Thieves, Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception, and Uncharted 4: A Thief's End, the spin-offs Uncharted: Golden Abyss and Uncharted: Fight for Fortune, the motion comic prequel series Uncharted: Eye of Indra by DC Comics, and other related media. A charismatic and good-natured yet rebellious treasure hunter, the player controls Drake as he journeys across the world to uncover various historical mysteries. He is played through voice and motion capture by Nolan North, who influenced Drake's personality by ad-libbing segments of the character's dialogue.
Clint Hocking is a Canadian video game designer and director. He has primarily worked at the Canadian divisions of Ubisoft, where he developed three titles, and briefly worked at LucasArts, Valve, and Amazon Game Studios.
Uncharted: Golden Abyss is a 2011 action-adventure game developed by Bend Studio and published by Sony Computer Entertainment as a launch title for the PlayStation Vita. A spin-off of the Uncharted series, the game was released in Japan in 2011, and in other regions in 2012. Golden Abyss is a prequel to the series, taking place before the events of Uncharted: Drake's Fortune. The story revolves around adventurer-treasure hunter Nathan Drake as he becomes involved in a search for the lost city of Quivira and is aided by fellow treasure hunter Marisa Chase. Gameplay combines action-adventure with platforming elements, with players solving puzzles and fighting enemies using cover-based third-person shooting.
The Last of Us is a 2013 action-adventure game developed by Naughty Dog and published by Sony Computer Entertainment. Players control Joel, a smuggler tasked with escorting a teenage girl, Ellie, across a post-apocalyptic United States. The Last of Us is played from a third-person perspective. Players use firearms and improvised weapons and can use stealth to defend against hostile humans and cannibalistic creatures infected by a mutated fungus. In the online multiplayer mode, up to eight players engage in cooperative and competitive gameplay.
Uncharted 4: A Thief's End is a 2016 action-adventure game developed by Naughty Dog and published by Sony Computer Entertainment. It is the fourth main entry in the Uncharted series. Set several years after the events of Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception, players control Nathan Drake, a former treasure hunter coaxed out of retirement by his presumed-dead brother Samuel. With Nathan's longtime partner, Victor Sullivan, they search for clues to the location of Henry Avery's long-lost treasure. A Thief's End is played from a third-person perspective, and incorporates platformer elements. Players solve puzzles and use firearms, melee combat, and stealth to combat enemies. In the online multiplayer mode, up to ten players engage in co-operative and competitive modes.
Gone Home is a first-person exploration video game developed and published by The Fullbright Company. Gone Home was first released for Microsoft Windows, OS X, and Linux computers in August 2013, followed by console releases for the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One in January 2016, the Nintendo Switch in September 2018, and iOS in December 2018.
Neil Druckmann is an Israeli-American writer, creative director, designer, and programmer. He has been co-president of the video game developer Naughty Dog since 2020 and head of creative since 2023, and is best known for his work on the game franchises Uncharted and The Last of Us, having co-created the latter.
The development of The Last of Us, an action-adventure game, began after Uncharted 2: Among Thieves' release in October 2009. Sony Computer Entertainment published The Last of Us for PlayStation 3 on June 14, 2013. The three-year development, led by studio Naughty Dog, was kept secret for the majority of development. In the game, players assume control of Joel, a middle-aged smuggler tasked with escorting a 14-year-old girl named Ellie across a post-apocalyptic United States in an attempt to create a potential cure against the world-ending infection to which Ellie is immune. Creative director Neil Druckmann was inspired to include the Infected as a main enemy in the game after discovering the Cordyceps fungi. Set 20 years after the outbreak has destroyed much of civilization, the game explores the possibility of the fungi infecting humans.
Ellie is a character in the video game series The Last of Us by Naughty Dog. She is portrayed by Ashley Johnson through motion capture and voice acting; in the television adaptation, she is portrayed by Bella Ramsey. In the first game, The Last of Us (2013), Joel Miller is tasked with escorting a 14-year-old Ellie across a post-apocalyptic United States in an attempt to create a cure for an infection to which Ellie is immune. While players briefly assume control of Ellie, the artificial intelligence primarily controls her actions. Ellie reappeared as the playable character in the downloadable content prequel The Last of Us: Left Behind, in which she spends time with her friend Riley. In The Last of Us Part II (2020), players control a 19-year-old Ellie as she seeks revenge on Abby.
ReCore is an action-adventure and platform video game developed by Armature Studio and Comcept and published by Microsoft Studios for Windows and Xbox One. The game was released worldwide in September 2016 and re-released in August 2017.
Fragments of Him is a video game developed and published by Sassybot and released for Microsoft Windows and Xbox One on 3 May 2016 and 1 June 2016, respectively. The PlayStation 4 version was released on 26 September 2017.
The Last of Us Part II is a 2020 action-adventure game developed by Naughty Dog and published by Sony Interactive Entertainment. Set five years after The Last of Us (2013), the game focuses on two playable characters in a post-apocalyptic United States whose lives intertwine: Ellie, who sets out in revenge for a murder, and Abby, a soldier who becomes involved in a conflict between her militia and a religious cult. The game uses a third-person perspective; the player must fight human enemies and cannibalistic zombie-like creatures with firearms, improvised weapons, and stealth.
Uncharted: The Lost Legacy is a 2017 action-adventure game developed by Naughty Dog and published by Sony Interactive Entertainment, serving as a standalone expansion to Uncharted 4: A Thief's End. Players control Chloe Frazer, who seeks the Tusk of Ganesh in the Western Ghats mountain ranges of India, with the help of ex-mercenary Nadine Ross, and prevent a ruthless warlord and his army of insurgents from igniting a civil war in the country. It is the first Uncharted game not to feature series protagonist Nathan Drake. Like other Uncharted games, The Lost Legacy is played from a third-person perspective; players use firearms and can use melee combat and stealth to defend against enemies. Players solve puzzles, incorporating several platformer elements to advance the narrative, and navigate the game world on foot or by vehicle.
Video game writing is the art and craft of writing scripts and narratives for video games. Similar to screenwriting, it is typically a freelance profession. It includes many differences from writing for film, due to the non-linear and interactive nature of most video games, and the necessity to work closely with video game designers and voice actors. There are many differing types of text in video games in comparison to stage shows or movies, including written text, foreign or made-up languages, and often situation-based information. Especially when developing Triple A games, more than one writer will be required to create the game, split into different roles.
Approximately 2,100 people developed The Last of Us Part II over more than five years, led by the 350-person team at Naughty Dog. Sony Interactive Entertainment published the action-adventure game in June 2020 for the PlayStation 4; a remastered version was released in January 2024 for the PlayStation 5. A sequel to the 2013 game The Last of Us, core development on Part II began after the 2014 release of The Last of Us Remastered. Neil Druckmann returned as creative director, co-writing the story with Halley Gross, while Anthony Newman and Kurt Margenau were selected to be co-game directors.
The Last of Us Part II, a 2020 action-adventure game developed by Naughty Dog and published by Sony Interactive Entertainment, focuses on two lead characters: Ellie, who sets out for revenge after suffering a great tragedy, and Abby Anderson, a soldier who becomes involved in a conflict between her militia and a cult. The switch between the playable characters was a major point of the game's development, based on a similar switch in the original game, 2013's The Last of Us.
The Last of Us is an action-adventure video game franchise created by Naughty Dog and Sony Interactive Entertainment. The series is set in a post-apocalyptic United States ravaged by cannibalistic creatures infected by a mutated fungus in the genus Cordyceps. It follows several survivors, including Joel, a smuggler who lost his daughter during the outbreak; Ellie, a young girl who is immune to the infection; and Abby, a soldier who becomes involved in a conflict between her militia and a religious cult. The games use a third-person perspective in which the player fights against hostile humans and cannibalistic creatures with firearms, improvised weapons, and stealth.
In video games, narrative has been of varying significance and importance since the beginning of the medium. Though early games did not feature stories as a focus, technological advances have afforded developers the freedom to make narrative a major element. Adding story was not typically feasible in the earliest video games due to technological limitations of the time, but technological advances made since then have enabled a greater focus on stories through cutscenes and voiced dialogue.