What is narrative and how is it set within a video game?

Narrative

A narrative within a video game is the ‘story line’ of the game, it is the role the main character has to play in the video game. The reason as to why video game designers use this idea is because it helps immerse the player into the game, it allows more leeway for the designers because the player will understand the ‘narrative’ of the game. The advantages of using narrative inside of games is that it lets the player know and understand the storyline of the game it is what helps develop the foundations of the game inside the players mind in order to help the player and guide them through the game. The two main types a narrative is set within a game is by using cut scenes or full motion video. An example of a narrative for a video game would be in the game Assassins creed, the narrative in this video game is to stop the Templars from doing what they’re doing.

FMV

FMV stands for full motion video it is a separation from the actual game itself. A full motion video’s purpose is to set the story line for the player, it shows the player what kind of task is going to be set for them next. FMV is used in most video games with a given narrative, one game that uses FMV is Halo 3. Halo 3 uses narrative every time a mission has been completed and also as an opening to another task. . A downside to full motion video is that it takes away from the gameplay and doesn’t allow the player to have any control of what’s going on whatsoever. full motion video costs alot of money and takes alot of time away from the designers when they are trying to develop the game. this means that the game itself wont be as appealing to others because of the fact that they spent most of their time designing a 2 minute cut scene. 

Cut scene

A cut scene is an in game interaction that happens sometimes with no player interaction or sometimes having the player doing tasks during the cut scene to make it not take away from the gameplay itself. Cut scenes are used to set a narrative for small events within the video game it allows the user to understand what is happening within the video game without taking away much of the gameplay.  This is an example of cut scenes within a video game , this game is called the Last of us and focuses on the use of cut scenes in order to convey their narrative towards the players. because cut scenes happen within the game because it doesn't take away from the gameplay, it flows with the game play so to speak. cut scenes have become more and more popular in video games as the graphics in video games have become better the quality of the cut scene doesn't take away from the game play.