A review of interactive video game narrative: A case study of Mass Effect 2

The interest in video games is increasing day by day. Since the narrative potential of video games has been discovered, the concept of narrative has become a topic of debate in itself. The concept of narrative in contemporary video game studies has led to two views: Narratives who care about narrative in video games and evaluate video games through narrative concept and ludologists who find it right to treat video games through pure game concept and gameplay. The aim of this study, in such an enviroment, is to examine and analyze the interactive video game narrative through the example of the action role playing game Mass Effect 2. The scope of this study includes narrative theory and the historical process of narrative theory; the concept of game; early and contemporary game studies; the concept of interaction; problems arising as a result of the interactive nature of video game narrative, and solutions to these problems. Mass Effect 2, which was determined as the sample of this study, was examined by close reading method. In this way, central narrative design parameters of the video game were determined. The aim is to analyze Mass Effect 2's narrative design through these narrative design parameters. Keywords: Interactive, Game, Narrative, Mass Effect, Close Reading