Play Don't Show—Video Game Companions

ABSTRACT:This article investigates the phenomenon of companion characters and how these figures have been employed within single-player, quest-based videogames. It does so by looking at how designers incorporate the roles and relationships between player-character and companion into the structural components of the game. The article argues that the player's ability to assert control over the companion figure through the assigned control scheme can be categorized into three different modes: direct, indirect, and linked control. In addition, it examines the haptic storytelling techniques that designers may use to convey the status and development of the relationship between the player-character and their companion(s), when the latter acts as a shared entity between the player and the game system. It concludes that by establishing the relationship between these characters on a haptic level, designers can introduce powerful emotional behaviours into a game's interactive phases.