When I was younger, I used to play many different video games. However, something that they all had in common was the compelling narrative. For me, the most important part of a video game is the narrative. I did not find the GW2 narrative compelling, but it did make it more interesting to play. I found the GW2 narrative to be generic compared to other video games I have played in the past. The visual media was not stimulating, and neither were the words. I believe they could have put more effort in it. As I have discussed in my past blog posts the game is a recycled version of real life colonialism. The Charr could be based on Indigenous people, and the rest of the players could be based on European settlers. There are some amazing video games out there incorporating social justice, and I think this games falls short in that aspect. One of the video games I used to play was Assassin’s Creed, and it was recently made into a movie. This was done because the narrative of the video game is one the main components that gets the player hooked. I have previously played video games based on T.V. shows as well such as Naruto. For this reason I would not watch any other media form of GW2.
Something that I thought was interesting was that although GW2 offers a range of skin tones for your character to chose from, all of the NPCs I encountered were caucasian. Although at first glance GW2 may seem inclusionary, upon looking closer you will find that, that is not the case. However, it does seem to be inclusionary to men and women. The NPCs that I encountered were both men and women, and the roles the women were in were not stereotypical ones you would find in most video games such as the love interest or damsel in distress.
Another aspect I want to point out was there is the assumption that my character is heterosexual, and that I am a female. In one of my narratives my friend, Lord Faren flirts with my character. It made me wonder what my narrative would have been like if I had picked a male character, or if I had been a male who picked a female character.
I believe video games can have different layers, and it can be interesting to study them to see what we can find. Both the visual media and words are important to study as they supplement each other. Additionally, I believe it is important to study the narrative of video games as impressionable children play them. Video games are very popular and played by various people all over the world. There has to be something about them that makes them so popular, and it is possible what makes them so popular are the narratives.