While I engaged with the narrative, I found that a lot of the stories told in Guild Wars 2 were a bit predictable. I found myself more drawn to the fighting based tasks because while it didn’t have a ton of variation, I was more attentive to what was happening. It was difficult for me to become emotionally invested in most of the characters and stories. I am fairly familiar with a few games, and I felt that a lot of the narrative was repeated across games. While usually that doesn’t make much of a difference for me, there was another aspect to why this game in particular didn’t hold my imaginative processes. I believe it was the fact that it was a multiplayer online game that I had a hard time becoming invested in it. I thought a bit about why I felt the experience was cheapened by playing online with others and I came to realize that one of my favorite parts of games is the individualistic quality gained from being “the chosen one”. When you see a bunch of other people you don’t know going through the game also thinking they are the only savior of this fictional world it doesn’t give you the same sense of being special. I looked at a few of the other games I enjoy playing, and determined that it might not be this game in particular that lacks that feeling for me, but perhaps MMORPG’s in general. I tried a few of them, and none really captured my attention the same way a lot of single first person narrative games have. I particularly enjoy those which have an open world aspect as well.
Skyrim V, Fallout 4, and Portal have been my favorite games so far, and each of them tell the story of the chosen one (The Dragonborn, The Sole Survivor, and the last test participant). In each there is a different backstory and a different reason as to why they are the only one to save the day. I believe this need I have to feel like not just an individual, but a special individual stems from the capitalist romanticization of the individual. This significantly affects my drive to play through these storylines because I am not able to be invested if I don’t feel special. As a medium for narrative, games can be extremely effective, but other societal and individual factors must be considered and it wouldn’t be easy to make a generalization. I need a narrative that appears to be tailored for even if that is not actually the case.