Visual Narrative and Video Games: A Qualitative Study on the Role of Visual Narrative in Video Games on Gamers’ Storytelling Ability

Abstract

This study explores how visual narrative in video games influences gamers’ storytelling abilities, focusing on two dimensions: identifying the criteria for effective visual narrative elements and understanding gamers' responses and interpretations. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews with three participants and analyzed thematically using reception theory. The results identified six main criteria, namely implied narrative, narrative freedom (player agency), moral dilemmas, character design and animation, environmental storytelling, and story dynamics/elements of surprise, that synergistically encourage gamers’ exploration, inferential reasoning, emotional engagement, and narrative reconstruction. Practical implications include design recommendations for developers to pay more attention to elements such as implied narrative, meaningful consequences of choices, and strategic twists. The main limitations of this study are the small sample size and reliance on self-reported data; future research should expand the informant pool, incorporate direct gameplay observation, and analyze community discourse to enable methodological triangulation. The key findings of this study confirm that gamers play an active role as narrative collaborators, shaping meaning through a cycle of perception-inference-testing-reconstruction and participating in discussions of meaning in online communities.