A Study on the Freedom of Interactive Storytelling in Open World Games

This study, through literature review and empirical research, explores the impact of player needs on the degree of interactivity in open-world game narratives. The purpose of this research is to identify and analyze factors influencing the freedom of interactive storytelling in open-world games from the perspective of player needs, and to evaluate the relationship between these factors and interactive storytelling through surveys and data analysis. This research integrates insights from multiple disciplines, involving interdisciplinary and cross-disciplinary approaches to better understand the complex dynamics at play.<br/> The research results and content are as follows. First, the study identified five main factors influencing the freedom of interactive storytelling: autonomy and exploration freedom, narrative impact and personal engagement, narrative freedom and constraints, expectations of narrative freedom, and narrative engagement and immersive experience. These factors influence the player’s gaming experience and satisfaction to varying degrees. Second, through surveys and data analysis, the specific relationships between these factors and player experience were evaluated, revealing that players have particularly strong needs for autonomy and exploration freedom, as well as for narrative engagement and immersion.<br/> Based on these research results, we look forward to future studies that further explore how to better balance the freedom of interactive storytelling in open-world games through multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary research activities, providing more specific design guidance for game developers to continuously optimize the player experience.