A walk-in diorama

Perhaps the American comic series “Rick & Morty” gave the best insight into exactly what we can imagine a successful immersion in virtual reality to be. In one episode the two heroes make a stopover on a planet of games arcades, where, without warning, Rick places a VR helmet on his grandson Morty’s head, catapulting him into the game “Roy: A life well lived”. Morty doesn’t know how this has happened and experiences an entirely different life as Roy in the virtual world: school, sporting success, marriage, children, opening a carpet shop, at one point falling ill with cancer, succumbing to it and eventually Roy’s death at 55 years old. “Game over” is paraded across the screen in big letters, and what’s left is a very confused Morty, who cannot comprehend that he has merely played a game, so strong was the immersion, the delving into this virtual life.

With regard to narrative immersion in particular, the computer game landscape has changed radically over the last few years. It has been a long time since it was unusual to see new releases discussed in the arts section of major daily or weekly newspapers. Gone are the days when computer games were seen as a way to kill time for infantile individuals – or as the well-known film critic Roger Ebert once put it: “For most gamers, video games represent a loss of those precious hours we have available to make ourselves more cultured, civilized and empathetic” – instead, now we have discussions about their artistic possibilities.

Journey into the realm of the Vikings

In August of this year, for example, the British game development studio Ninja Theory released the hotly anticipated game “Hellblade – Senua’s Sacrifice”. Located in a past, mythically charged world, the gamer controls the main character Senua, loosely based on the Celtic goddess Senuna. She returns to her home village after years in exile to find only remnants of it. Vikings laid waste to it, pillaging and plundering, and all the residents were brutally killed, including her great love Dillion. Senua decides to travel to the underworld, called Helheim here, and to her beloved, just as in the saga of Orpheus and Eurydice, to free him from the clutches of Hel, the goddess of death. A typical story, you might think, but the developers have added a particular feature to the main character: She suffers from psychosis and is constantly plagued by voices in her head. Together with the unusual heroine, the player embarks on a journey deep into the realm of the Vikings, learning things about Nordic mythology, solving puzzles and, of course, fighting.

Meanwhile, the protagonist’s breathing reveals her inner states, which are not always justifiable at first glance. Time and again Senua suddenly begins hyperventilating; the physique as a harbinger of the psychological abyss into which the player is inevitably dragged. The visible surroundings adapt logically to the inner states of the heroine; we not only hear the voices in her head, but we also see the environment change. The immersion thus functions on several levels: The player dives into an impressively presented game world, then sinks ever deeper into the story of Senua, who in turn is drawn by her psychosis into an alternative reality.

Intensive collaboration with neurologists

“Hellblade – Senua’s Sacrifice” aims to achieve one thing above all, namely to make it possible to experience a highly individual state intersubjectively. Unlike movies, for example, the high degree of immersion is achieved through interactivity – the player decides how exactly Senua moves and where to. The suggested endless freedom of movement and the limitless influence on the course of action offer the recipient an additional moment of captivation in a story that otherwise ends conventionally. The game even includes its own “making-of”. In it, the developers talk about their intense collaboration with neurologists, psychiatrists and psychosis patients with the aim of creating an experience of mental illness that is as realistic as possible for the player, something that wouldn’t be the case in other media such as film or literature.

The “Life is strange” series by developer Dontnod Entertainment makes use of a similar functionality. The successful game combines elements of a coming-of-age drama and a crime story, at the same time incorporating the player’s freedom to make decisions on the level of the action. In the “Virginia” walking simulator, on the other hand, you operate in an impressively atmospheric world as a female FBI agent in a kind of Twin Peaks scenario. If the player has exhausted the options for action, they simply direct the protagonist from one dream-like scene to the next. The game is an attempt to replace classic narration with a kind of walk-in diorama and to stimulate the observer exclusively through states of emotion.

The world of video games is thus becoming ever more aware of the tools that are genuinely its own and the possibilities they offer, which differ from those of media like film or literature. One could, however, also hold firm to the fact that they are creeping towards the territory of those media and by doing so are also becoming increasingly similar to them: explaining the world and telling grand stories simply using other means.