“The study of digital storytelling is both forward-looking, with regard to its being an iteration of the digital humanities, and increasingly visible, as recent developments in new-media studies and narratology have removed some of the stigma that was once attached to gaming within the academy, but digital games are still considered by many in the humanities as frivolous (and monstrously violent to boot)”.

Anne Burdick, Johanna Drucker, Peter Lunenfeld, Todd Presner, Jeffrey Schnapp

As someone who has never played a video game prior to Guild Wars 2, I was surprised by the level of drama that was involved in the narration of the game, as well as the intricacies that kept thickening the plot as I kept playing. I did not anticipate that there would be such an elaborate backstory, not only for the whole of the game, but for each individual task. Admittedly, I sometimes found it difficult to feel engaged in a world that felt so removed from my own, but that could also be my own lack of familiarity with this type of content. However, when the game involved me in said content, I felt much more motivated to perform the tasks and participate in the causes, seeing as I was now a part of it.

The first task I found to be interesting in several ways: as a member of the Asura race, our ‘people’ are valued for our ingenuity and intelligence, not outright battle skills, which I was informed of in the first few moments of playing the game. As such, when there was an invasion, I was half expecting to have to suit up for battle and physically fight constantly, for in my mind, that’s what video games were like. I was surprised, however, that the main task was to re-wire these robots called “golems” that had been tinkered with by the opposition.

This holistic view of such a fictional battle impressed and engaged me, because it debunked my previous assumptions about the so-called “mindless killing” in video games. Additionally, and perhaps this is because I projected too much of myself onto my avatar, but I was thinking to myself “ugh I don’t want to fight,” and while I had a few small battles, I mostly was fixing things and conducting research, which appealed to my own interests in daily life much more than fighting anyways. Not only did this aspect of the narration engage me personally, but it also has an underlying message of valuing multiple forms of strength and intelligence, which I can very much get behind.