Cyberpunk 2077: A case study of ludonarrative harmonies

This article proposes ludonarrative harmonies as an empirical approach for game analysis, using Cyberpunk 2077 as a case study. This approach scrutinizes the dynamic relationship between story and play elements in a game, as the relationship changes dynamically during gameplay between consonance and dissonance. In this article, consonance is defined as the degree of cohesion between ludic and narrative elements in a game, whereas dissonance would describe a counterpoint, be it conflictive, complementary or otherwise furthering the aesthetic experience. Incoherence between story and play is described here as ludonarrative cacophony. Although inspired by Hocking’s posit of ludonarrative dissonance, this approach uses dissonance to describe a dynamic between elements, rather than qualifying the gameplay experience as antagonistic to the critic’s sensibilities. The intention is to provide a tool to identify general patterns in the relationship between a game’s ludic and narrative components.