Two VR Narrative Mediums
By: Wyatt Roy
Tags: VR, Virtual Reality, Narrative, Storytelling, Vr Experiences

Virtual reality is not a storytelling medium. For that matter, VR isn’t a medium at all, any more than physical reality is a medium. It’s a platform.

In the “platform” of physical reality, we have mediums like books, movies, and theatre with which we craft and share narratives. In virtual reality, we’ve been searching for its unique narrative mediums. Our research suggests there are two: Simulations and Stories.

Simulations work best when they are

Creative: the user must be able to create and craft and shape the environment.

Low-fidelity: the environment does not have to look realistic; in fact, abstract environments may evoke a greater sense of playfulness.

Self-based: the user plays as themselves.

Agentic: the user has agency over what happens to them and where they ultimately end up.

Narratively emergent: The environment is designed with constraints that create tension by giving the user desires and obstacles, but the user makes up their own story by moving through the environment as they wish. There is no need (or potential) for a pre-directed narrative.

Multiplayer: these environments are made more meaningful through collaboration, when the events that take place in them are shared with people you care about.

Internally consistent: once a user learns the rules of engaging with the environment, these should not change.

Stories work best when they are

Consumptive: the user looks at, understands, and learns about the environment, instead of changing it.

High-fidelity: the environment must be impressively believable, with lighting, sound and physics that match our expectations of a consistent reality (though its aesthetic can be fantasy/scifi/other, it doesn’t need to look like our real physical reality).

Character-based: the user adopts a character that is part of the narrative.

Interactive: users may be able touch or use things, or move themselves around, but they cannot ultimately influence what happens to them or the characters.

Narratively Directed: users go into the environment to be told/shown/led through a pre-programed story. Any branching in the narrative must reintegrate and lead to a predetermined outcome, or else the user will feel fomo about choosing the wrong path.

Singleplayer: the user must be allowed to sink into the story and their character without feeling judged, perceived, or aware of the world outside the environment.

Internally Consistent: once a user learns the rules of engaging with the environment, these should not change.

The only shared attribute between these is (fittingly) “consistency.” Every other attribute is opposed. In between the two mediums is a deep chasm I’m calling Narrative Valley (in honor of Uncanny Valley.)

Most mediocre VR experiences fail because they mix attributes between these categories. They try to make Stories multiplayer, when it would be most impactful when done sole — we’ve all watched a movie while a friend talks through the whole thing. Or they make Simulations interactive instead of agentic, and the user ends up feeling constrained and bored.

Neither is better than the other. Sometimes you want to play with lego and sometimes you want to veg out in front of a TV show, and the same is true in VR. They both allow for users to take off their headsets feeling emotionally and thoughtfully moved. The question is: which medium you are most driven to create?