Mass Effect: A Tragedy for our Age

• Author / Creator

  Salvador Dias, Luisa.

• Videogames have a problem with narrative. It is an ironic fact that this age’s “most persuasive medium” (Bogost, 2007) would find it so difficult to tell stories, yet this is a long-standing issue that has been pointed out by critics and players alike. I came to suspect that this perceived problem with stories was not intrinsic to games, but rather the result of a combination of factors: first, a false dichotomy regarding the importance of mechanics and narrative that has been prevalent in both academia and industry, and second, the use of Joseph Campbell’s narrative theory, which despite its other merits, is unsuited to videogames. These issues led to a lack of integration between games and mechanics, which is particularly problematic for Choice-Oriented Single-Player RPGs (COSP-RPG), since they rely on rich storytelling and exciting challenges. This thesis argues that there could be a mutually beneficial association between COSP-RPGs and the Tragic literary genre, using the Mass Effect (Bioware, 2007-2012) trilogy as a case study of how such combination produces an experience that is personal, intuitive, and that exemplifies a continuous exchange between work of art and individual. It does so across four chapters, where I both build a careful exploration of the Tragic throughout the ages, reviewing its structural aspects to create a new model to understand it based on gestalt theory, and an analysis of medium-specific features of videogames that tie-in with the Tragic genre. In creating such a study, this thesis integrates a growing discourse that approximates videogames and theatre, as well as open up the possibility to explore past literary theoretical currents with a new goal in mind, building a reflection on the permanence of certain structures across time, culture, and medium.

• Subjects / Keywords

  • mass effect
  • rpg
  • game studies
  • tragic
  • narrative

• Graduation date

  Fall 2020

• Type of Item

  Thesis

• Degree

  Master of Arts

• DOI

  https://doi.org/10.7939/r3-5bra-xr48

• License

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