Moral complexity in multiperspective video games

Narrative-focused video games, like novels and movies, can adopt multiperspectivity to engage players with complex ethical issues. By foregrounding uncertainty, perspective-awareness, and the coordination of character perspectives, multiperspective narratives offer a unique platform for negotiating moral complexity and challenging players’ ethical assumptions. Unlike other media, video games achieve this through the non-optional interplay of narrative and ludic elements, immersing players directly in characters’ worldviews and dilemmas. After discussing the ethical potential of multiperspective narratives and the concept of ethical gameplay, this article focuses on Tell Me Why (2020) as its primary case study – a game that foregrounds multiperspectivity in both narrative and gameplay to provoke ethical and epistemological uncertainty. Throughout the article, I also refer to The Last of Us Part II (2020) as an exemplary game that similarly integrates multiperspectivity’s ethical affordances with strategies of “ethical gameplay,” such as cognitive friction, the undermining of moral dichotomy, and the aggregation of choices. By seamlessly intertwining narrative and ludic multiperspectivity, these games challenge players’ assumptions and engage them in the negotiation of complex ethical issues, highlighting the unique ethical potential of multiperspective video games.