Looking to the future of interactive storytelling in games

As a storytelling medium games are incredibly powerful. Their narrative structures lend themselves to players immersing themselves in different worlds and creating strong character connections, while their interactivity keeps audiences engaged.

But how do we harness this power and what does this mean for the future of games? BAFTA brought together League of Legends’ Kim MacAskill, Until Dawn‘s Will Byles and Fable‘s Andrew Walsh for a BAFTA panel at Glasgow’s Tech Week to find out…

Storytelling in games has always been an evolving art. Discussing the changing approach to storytelling in games over the years Byles, an actor, writer, animator and director in games, film, TV and theatre reflects that it has become a “much more sophisticated medium”. He says: “20 years ago, story was kind of seen as a bit of a filler in between gameplay, whereas now it’s seen as the structure around where the gameplay sits.”

Meanwhile, MacAskill a Scottish narrative director and screenwriter who has been a part of the sector’s current evolution says when she started working in games it was when they were really starting to expand. She explains: “They wanted comedy writers, they wanted film writers, they wanted TV writers, because we were suddenly getting BAFTA award-winning stories in games’

Storytelling through games in a way that embraces interactivity is a craft. Walsh, an award-winning writer/director with credits across film, television, theatre, radio, animation and videogames says problem-solving is an essential part of this. He says: “All stories are about taking them apart and fitting them back together in a way that works. And with games, you’ve got to take them apart and see how they fit around the interactivity, which is one of the biggest drawbacks of games, but also the thing that’s the most fun.”

MacAskill agrees that in essence “half of what you’re doing is problem solving”. She says: “No matter what you do; if you’re an animator, if you’re a coder, you’re not going to be able to predict how the next several years is going to go in making a game. Things that you never saw coming are going to happen and naturally that’s going to impact the story hugely. So whatever story that you have at the start, it will not be that story at the end. That’s why I call it chaos.”

As with anything, being aware of the specific audience you are creating for is vital. When it comes to developing an interactive experience specifically, Byles explains that this is often a case of determining if a story is actually right for a game. He says: ‘If you try and put the wrong story into games, then it is not immersive because the story and the gameplay start fighting, or you’re watching things that you should be playing.”

The director suggests asking yourself: “Is it right for this medium? Is it right for this moment? Am I giving the gameplay verbs the emotional depth that they need? You have to be empowering those verbs with emotion for it to be an interactive experience.”

Similarly, Walsh encourages anyone working on interactive games storytelling to be aware of the complexity of the differences in genre and structure that exist in games. Walsh comments: “With Film, you’ve got to understand the structure of a rom-com versus an action film, but then there’s an even wider breadth with games. Really what you’re trying to do is put the player into an emotional state. So, it’s how you create that emotional state through a narrative and then maintain that for the period that the person is in there.”

Glasgow Tech Week, which began in 2024, brings together over 3,000 innovators, industry leaders, founders, investors, researchers and more from across the UK and beyond – providing the latest insights, innovations, and strategic discussions that are shaping the future of our critical industries. Delivered by Glasgow City Innovation District, in collaboration with over 80 innovation ecosystem partners, the 2025 programme explored the latest in HealthTech, FinTech, Creative Industries, Gaming, Sustainability, AI, and more.