In each section of this analysis, we will define each form of storytelling and cite examples from Ending E. By doing so, Ending E demonstrates how interactivity improves the thematic impact of a story by making the player apply a theme to their own actions, allowing them to better understand its value. In order to accomplish this task, it incorporates its various verbal, visual, and auditory forms of storytelling into its gameplay. To rectify this disconnect, Ending E proposes a solution where games make each of their related components interactive, thus crafting one interactive narrative and mending the gameplay-story divide. Considering the inherently interactive nature of games, this divide constrains their ability to create uniquely interactive narratives, thus suppressing the storytelling potential embedded in the medium. Ultimately, Ending E answers a question pondered by video game analysts for years: How can games bridge the gameplay-story divide? Currently, games tend to separate interactive components, like gameplay, from non-interactive ones, like cutscenes, and as a result, the perception that story and gameplay must exist independently of each other has ingrained itself into the gaming industry.
In this analysis, I intend to fill that gap and explore how and why Ending E sets a new standard for storytelling in video games. Beyond the primary thematic impact it had on players, Ending E may leave a broader secondary impact on the realm of video-game literature-an effect prior analyses have yet to acknowledge. Despite the abundance of discussion surrounding NieR: Automata and its memorable conclusion, most analyses of Ending E have focused on its thematic meaning without endeavoring to understand what fundamentally makes it so thematically resonant in the first place. Upon its release, NieR: Automata garnered the attention of various video game analysts and sparked a plethora of conversations about its storytelling, many noting the profound effect Ending E had on players. Some shouted triumphantly as others reeled in frustration, but no matter the emotions felt, for those of us who finished NieR: Automata, Ending E remains a uniquely impactful moment. We all remember it: the onslaught of the credits, the weight of the world on our shoulders, and the choice to sacrifice our save data. NieR: Automata’s Ending E is an exemplary finale. (Spoilers ahead for NieR: Automata, Celeste, Getting Over It with Bennett Foddy, Dark Souls, and Dark Souls III.) If it fails, it fragments the game into mere minigames and short stories, but if it succeeds, it pulls the game together for an ultimate conclusion that leaves a lasting impact on its players. A Comprehensive Theory of Majora’s Maskįor a video game, the finale is especially vital: it determines whether the game is one or multiple things.
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