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Ludonarrative dissonance is the conflict between a
video game
Video games, also known as computer games, are electronic games that involves interaction with a user interface or input device such as a joystick, controller, keyboard, or motion sensing device to generate visual feedback. This fee ...
's narrative told through the story and the narrative told through the gameplay.
Ludonarrative, a
compound
Compound may refer to:
Architecture and built environments
* Compound (enclosure), a cluster of buildings having a shared purpose, usually inside a fence or wall
** Compound (fortification), a version of the above fortified with defensive struct ...
of
ludology
Game studies, also known as ludology (from ''ludus'', "game", and ''-logia'', "study", "research"), is the study of games, the act of playing them, and the players and cultures surrounding them. It is a field of cultural studies that deals with a ...
and
narrative
A narrative, story, or tale is any account of a series of related events or experiences, whether nonfictional (memoir, biography, news report, documentary, travel literature, travelogue, etc.) or fictional (fairy tale, fable, legend, thriller (ge ...
, refers to the intersection in a video game of ludic elements (
gameplay
Gameplay is the specific way in which players interact with a game, and in particular with video games. Gameplay is the pattern defined through the game rules, connection between player and the game, challenges and overcoming them, plot and pla ...
) and narrative elements.
The term was coined by game designer
Clint Hocking
Clint Hocking (born 18 September 1972) 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 Studi ...
in 2007 in a blog post.
History
Clint Hocking
Clint Hocking (born 18 September 1972) 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 Studi ...
, a former creative director at
LucasArts
Lucasfilm Games (known as LucasArts between 1990 and 2021) is an American video game brand licensing, licensor that is part of Lucasfilm. It was founded in May 1982 by George Lucas as a video game development group alongside his film company; as ...
(then at
Ubisoft
Ubisoft Entertainment SA (; ; formerly Ubi Soft Entertainment SA) is a French video game publisher headquartered in Saint-Mandé with development studios across the world. Its video game franchises include '' Assassin's Creed'', ''Far Cry'', '' ...
), coined the term on his blog in October 2007, in response to the game ''
BioShock
''BioShock'' is a 2007 first-person shooter game developed by 2K Boston (later Irrational Games) and 2K Australia, and published by 2K Games. The first game in the ''BioShock'' series, it was released for Microsoft Windows and Xbox 360 pla ...
''.
As explained by Hocking, ''BioShock'' is themed around the principles of
Objectivism
Objectivism is a philosophical system developed by Russian Americans, Russian-American writer and philosopher Ayn Rand. She described it as "the concept of man as a heroic being, with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life, with prod ...
and the nature of free will, taking place in a dystopia within the underwater city of
Rapture
The rapture is an Christian eschatology, eschatological position held by some Christians, particularly those of American evangelicalism, consisting of an Eschatology, end-time event when all Christian believers who are alive, along with resurre ...
. During the game, the player-character encounters
Little Sisters
The Little Sisters is an informal name for a group of some of the smaller islands of the British Virgin Islands, south of Tortola and southwest of Virgin Gorda. These islands are also called the ''Southern Islands''.
* Norman Island
* Pelican ...
, 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 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
Free will is the capacity of agents to choose between different possible courses of action unimpeded.
Free will is closely linked to the concepts of moral responsibility, praise, culpability, sin, and other judgements which apply only to actio ...
that the gameplay presents, according to Hocking. Hocking then points out that as the story progresses, the
player-character
A player character (also known as a playable character or PC) is a fictional character in a video game or tabletop role-playing game whose actions are controlled by a player rather than the rules of the game. The characters that are not control ...
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.
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 Aesthetic distance refers to the gap between a viewer's conscious reality and the fictional reality presented in a work of art. When a reader becomes fully engrossed in the illusory narrative world of a book, the author has achieved a close aesthet ...
that often pulls the player out of the game.
Jonathan Blow
Jonathan Blow (born 1971) is an American video game designer and programmer. He is best known for his work on the independent video games ''Braid'' (2008) and '' The Witness'' (2016).
Born in California, Blow developed a passion for game progra ...
also used ''BioShock'' as an example in his 2008 talk. Writer
Tom Bissell
Tom Bissell (born January 9, 1974) is an American journalist, critic, and fiction writer. In 2021, he co-developed the television series ''The Mosquito Coast (TV series), The Mosquito Coast'' based on the novel of the same name. He is also known ...
, 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.
Brett Makedonski of ''
Destructoid
''Destructoid'' is a website that was founded as a video game-focused blog in March 2006 by Yanier Gonzalez, a Cuban-American cartoonist and author. Enthusiast Gaming acquired the website in 2017, and sold it to Gamurs Group in 2022.
History
' ...
'' used the ''
Mass Effect
''Mass Effect'' is a military science fiction media franchise created by Casey Hudson, Drew Karpyshyn and Preston Watamaniuk. The franchise depicts a distant future where humanity and several alien civilizations have colonized the known univers ...
'' series as another example, in which the player-character
Commander Shepard
Lieutenant Commander Shepard, better known as Commander Shepard, is the player character in the ''Mass Effect'' video game series by BioWare (''Mass Effect'', ''Mass Effect 2'', and ''Mass Effect 3'').
A veteran soldier of the Systems Alliance ...
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.
Jeffrey Matulef of ''
Eurogamer
''Eurogamer'' is a British video game journalism website launched in 1999 and owned by alongside formed company Gamer Network. Its editor-in-chief is Martin Robinson.
Since 2008, it is known for the formerly eponymous games trade fair EGX ...
'' used the term when referencing the ''
Uncharted
''Uncharted'' is an action-adventure video game franchise published by Sony Interactive Entertainment and developed by Naughty Dog. Created by Amy Hennig, the ''Uncharted'' franchise follows a group of treasure hunters who travel across the wo ...
'' 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". ''
Uncharted 4: A Thief's End'' acknowledged the criticism with a
trophy
A trophy is a tangible, durable reminder of a specific achievement, and serves as a recognition or evidence of merit. Trophies are often awarded for sporting events, from youth sports to professional level athletics. In many sports medals (or, in ...
called "Ludonarrative Dissonance" that is awarded to the player for killing 1,000 enemies. The game's co-director
Neil Druckmann
Neil Druckmann ( he, ניל דרוקמן; born December 5, 1978) is an Israeli-American writer, creative director, designer, and programmer who has been co-president (alongside Evan Wells) of the video game developer Naughty Dog since 2020. He ...
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".
In 2016, Frédéric Seraphine,
semiotician
Semiotics (also called semiotic studies) is the systematic study of sign processes (semiosis) and meaning making. Semiosis is any activity, conduct, or process that involves Sign (semiotics), signs, where a sign is defined as anything that commun ...
and researcher specialized in game design at the
University of Tokyo
, abbreviated as or UTokyo, is a public research university located in Bunkyō, Tokyo, Japan. Established in 1877, the university was the first Imperial University and is currently a Top Type university of the Top Global University Project by ...
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
Ludic may refer to:
*Ludic language, a Finnic language in the Uralic language family
* Ludic fallacy, is "the misuse of games to model real-life situations."
* Ludic interface, are types of computer interface that are inherently "playful".
*Ludolo ...
structure (the gameplay)" and the "
narrative structure
Narrative structure is a literary element generally described as the structural framework that underlies the order and manner in which a narrative is presented to a reader, listener, or viewer. The narrative text structures are the plot and the ...
(the story)".
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
''The Last of Us Part II'' is a 2020 action-adventure game developed by Naughty Dog and published by Sony Interactive Entertainment for the PlayStation 4. Set five years after ''The Last of Us'' (2013), the game focuses on two playable charac ...
'', 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.
Debates on the potential positive use of the notion
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:
"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
A glitch is a short-lived fault in a system, such as a transient fault that corrects itself, making it difficult to troubleshoot. The term is particularly common in the computing and electronics industries, in circuit bending, as well as amo ...
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
In music, consonance and dissonance are categorizations of simultaneous or successive Sound, sounds. Within the Western tradition, some listeners associate consonance with sweetness, pleasantness, and acceptability, and dissonance with harshness ...
characters; as it is the surprise, the disturbance, the accident, the
sacrosanct
Sacrosanctity was the declaration of physical inviolability of a temple, a sacred object, or a person through the ''lex sacrata'' (sacred law), which had religious connotations. Festus explained that: “Sacred laws are laws which have the sanction ...
disruptive element, that justifies the very act of telling a story".
In a 2013
Game Developers Conference
The Game Developers Conference (GDC) is an annual conference for video game developers. The event includes an expo, networking events, and awards shows like the Game Developers Choice Awards and Independent Games Festival, and a variety of tutori ...
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.
Ludonarrative consistency
The ''
Dead Space
''Dead Space'' is a science fiction/horror fiction, horror media franchise created by Glen Schofield and Michael Condrey, developed by Visceral Games, and published and owned by Electronic Arts. The franchise's chronology is not presented in a lin ...
'' series is noted for its ludonarrative consistency. Brett Makedonski of ''
Destructoid
''Destructoid'' is a website that was founded as a video game-focused blog in March 2006 by Yanier Gonzalez, a Cuban-American cartoonist and author. Enthusiast Gaming acquired the website in 2017, and sold it to Gamurs Group in 2022.
History
' ...
'' states that the gameplay aptly conveys the sense of sheer terror and loneliness that the narrative expertly strives to establish.
See also
*
Narrative of video games
References
Further reading
*
* {{citation , url = http://www.thunderboltgames.com/opinion/ludonarrative-dissonance-we-still-need-to-learn-from-hocking , title = Ludonarrative Dissonance: we still need to learn from Hocking , first = Matt , last = Sawrey , date = April 26, 2010 , work = Thunderbolt , access-date = September 22, 2015 , archive-date = October 23, 2013 , archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20131023142421/http://www.thunderboltgames.com/opinion/ludonarrative-dissonance-we-still-need-to-learn-from-hocking , url-status = dead
"The Last of Us 2 epitomizes one of gaming's longest debates"Polygon
In geometry, a polygon () is a plane figure that is described by a finite number of straight line segments connected to form a closed ''polygonal chain'' (or ''polygonal circuit''). The bounded plane region, the bounding circuit, or the two toge ...
article on the archetypes of Ludonarrative dissonance.
Video game design
Video game culture
Video game terminology
Narratology