05. Ludonarrative Resonance/Dissonance

Ludonarrative resonance (or cohesion) is where the story told by the game is conveyed not just through the cutscenes or cinematics, but is also inherent in the game’s mechanics. Which is present in most real-time strategy (RTS) games. Take the Command & Conquer series for example, you have a mission to destroy the enemy’s base or enemy units and that is conveyed through not just the gameplay but also the cinematics before the mission starts. This formula works well in this example, but some games that consist of Ludonarrative resonance, just end up having empty worlds, the story just sucks, or maybe the game is just boring (just look at one of the hundreds of simulator games that are available).

Ludonarrative dissonance on the other hand, refers to conflicts between a video game’s narrative and its gameplay. An example would be in the game Watch_Dogs. The player takes control of Aiden Pearce, a hacker and vigilante. Spoilers ahead! – After a hacking job gone wrong, a hit is sent out on Pearce. While intending to kill him, hitmen accidently kill his niece, and Aiden seeks to bring his own kind of justice to the people responsible, all while protecting his sister Nicole and nephew Jackson. Cool story, but after reading all that you come to the conclusion that Aiden is a fairly good guy in that world (like a John Wick type of good guy), trying to do right avenging his niece’s death and protecting his family. But as soon as the gameplay starts, you can instantly kill innocent civilians, hack their phones and steal all their money, get the police after you, kill a ton of them while destroying the city, and then walk into the mission marker and all that is gone. You return to becoming the guy who just wants to protect his sister and her family.

There’s more discussion on ludonarrative dissonance in the world because it’s a more interesting topic to discuss. You might be thinking that Ludonarrative dissonance is a bad thing - but take this into consideration – while the story doesn’t match the overall gameplay mechanics, without the mechanics that are present say in Watch_Dogs, there wouldn’t be much to do in the open world of Chicago in the game. Ubisoft wanted to tell a story and wanted you to do whatever you wanted to do in the game – they wanted it to be up to the player. Without that freedom, it wouldn’t be a good game – some say Watch_Dogs wasn’t a good game anyway (I enjoyed it), but it also isn’t the point in this discussion. You can spend all the time you want on story, but if you don’t have a game that’s fun to play or have a hook to keep playing it, or the world feels empty - why make a game - just write a book. 

References
Ubisoft, 2014, Watch Dogs Open World Game – Features & Plot, Watch_Dogs, viewed 17 March 2017, <https://watchdogs.ubisoft.com/watchdogs/en-us/game-info/index.aspx>.

Cowen N, 2014, Watch Dogs – freedom and morality in open-world games, theguardian, viewed 17 March 2017, <https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/mar/06/watch-dogs-freedom-and-morality-in-open-world-games>.