World Building Through Environmental Storytelling

Abstract

This thesis focuses on aspects of environmental storytelling within the medium of video games. Environmental storytelling is described as telling the story of a world through locations and objects presented to a viewer. It is a powerful tool to immerse an audience within a world setting. I focused on video games with apocalyptic themes and settings as exemplified by the franchises of Dark Souls, Fallout, and Bioshock. Following that I discuss a personal project taking and using the techniques mentioned within these games. Rather than focus on game mechanics my own project is entirely based around environmental storytelling with the aim that the audience creates their own conclusion based around what information is presented.