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1Clear out junk files and repair common Windows errors2Fix the driver behind crashes, sound loss and screen glitches3Repair Windows errors before they cause bigger problemsA great video game character arc makes change visible through both story and play. Give a character a recognizable want, put it under pressure, and show how the conflict changes the character, their circumstances, or both. The arc works when the player can follow that movement even as they make choices, repeat attempts, or explore events out of order.
What makes a character arc work?
An arc is conflict and the potential resulting change in a character or their situation. Game writer Evan Skolnick’s practical test is straightforward: a prominent character should have a beginning, middle, and end; a conflict shaped by a “want, but” situation; and some resolution, even if the outcome is negative. Skolnick explains the idea in Game Developer.
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Give the character a want and an obstacle
Start with something the character wants that an audience can recognize. Then make the easy path unavailable: a rival, personal flaw, duty, fear, or consequence stands in the way. The obstacle should force choices, not merely provide a reason to deliver backstory. If the character wants safety but must risk it to protect someone, the conflict can reveal more than a paragraph explaining that they are protective.
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Use pressure to make character visible
A character’s beliefs become legible when they have to act under pressure. What do they protect? What are they willing to sacrifice? Who do they trust? Backstory may explain the answers, but the player needs to see those answers in decisions, behavior, and relationships. GDC’s “Snap to Character” session focuses on creating realized characters and stories that give players a reason to care about a character’s fate.
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Make change and its cost understandable
Change might mean becoming more generous, more ruthless, less certain, or newly committed to someone else. It can also be circumstantial: the character’s personality stays much the same while their role, relationships, or situation changes. A satisfying arc does not have to be a moral-improvement story. What matters is that the ending connects to the conflict and makes clear what the character has gained, lost, accepted, or refused. A resolution can be bleak or deliberately leave the character unchanged.
How should gameplay carry the arc?
In a game, the player encounters character through repeated actions as well as dialogue and scenes. Check whether the actions the game asks for support the traits and changes the story claims. If a character is said to value restraint but the game repeatedly rewards indiscriminate violence, that tension needs to be intentional and meaningful; otherwise, story and play pull in different directions.
Let repeated play become story
In a roguelike, a character may die and return many times. That structure can support an arc if the story gives those repetitions meaning—for example, by letting the character retain memories or knowledge between attempts. Greg Kasavin, creative director at Supergiant Games, described considering that kind of continuity while developing Hades. Repetition then becomes part of the character’s experience rather than a reset that erases it.
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Keep difficulty from severing the emotional thread
Difficulty can interrupt a player who is invested in the story but cannot progress. Kasavin described the frustration of hitting a difficulty wall while wanting to see how the story ends, and discussed efforts to mitigate that barrier. Difficulty and pacing are therefore narrative considerations as well as gameplay ones: a challenge can deepen a character’s struggle, but a progression block may prevent some players from reaching the arc’s resolution.
How do open-world and replayable games hold an arc together?
Open gameplay complicates continuity. A player may recruit different protagonists, complete missions in a flexible order, or return to the same story across multiple runs. The solution is not to force every game into a linear transformation. Instead, decide which parts of character and story must remain stable, then give the player reliable points of connection.
Use authored anchors when the protagonist can change
Ubisoft Toronto says the play-as-anyone structure of Watch Dogs: Legion meant the game did not have one fixed protagonist. The team used authored “anchor characters” to provide continuity and give recruitable characters someone to respond to. This is useful when the player’s avatar is interchangeable: supporting characters and authored moments can carry relationships or thematic movement that no single recruit can sustain.
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Use themes and authored moments across a large world
For Far Cry 6, Ubisoft Toronto describes using themed regions and authored moments to develop the story across a large open world. Regional stories can give an expansive setting distinct emotional or thematic shape without requiring players to encounter every event in a single sequence.
Plan for scenes that may arrive in different orders
In Lost Between Worlds, levels could be explored in different orders over multiple runs. Ubisoft Toronto describes organizing the story in five acts, using cinematics as “page turns,” and creating dialogue pools that could trigger in any level. The team also used a Twine prototype to check narrative flow. When event order is flexible, scenes need to remain understandable in multiple contexts, while still contributing to an overall progression.
These examples describe developer approaches, not proof that a particular technique guarantees a stronger arc. Ubisoft Toronto’s broader practical advice is to match the narrative approach to the scale and scope of the game.
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How to assess an arc in a game
Use these questions to understand what kind of arc the game is attempting and whether its story remains clear through play. This comparison is a practical synthesis of the design approaches above, not a formal framework published by one source.
| What to examine | Questions to ask | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|
| Protagonist stability | Is there one authored protagonist, a customizable avatar, or a rotating cast? | Clarifies who can sustain a consistent personal transformation. |
| Player agency | Do choices change the character, the outcome, or mainly how the player interprets events? | Shows how much of the arc the player actually shapes. |
| Event order | Must scenes happen in sequence, or can missions and runs occur in different orders? | Tests whether development is understandable outside a linear plot. |
| Mechanical expression | Do controls, progression, repeated attempts, or difficulty communicate character change? | Connects the story’s claims to the player’s experience. |
| Resolution | Does the arc end in growth, decline, loss, changed circumstances, or deliberate stasis? | Prevents treating a happy or morally improving ending as the only valid outcome. |
How to write a character arc for a game
These steps turn the questions above into a practical design process. Adapt them to the game’s level of player agency and the amount of control the design gives over event order.
Quick Recap
- Define the want. State what the character is trying to get, protect, prove, or escape.
- Choose the obstacle. Make the character’s goal conflict with an external force, an obligation, a relationship, or a belief they hold.
- Identify the pressure point. Decide which difficult choice or repeated challenge will reveal what the character values.
- Specify the change—or the refusal to change. Describe the character’s starting position and ending position. Include circumstantial change if their personality remains stable.
- Connect story to play. Check whether the actions, progression, and consequences the player experiences reinforce or deliberately challenge the character’s stated values.
- Test the structure against the game. For a linear story, check that each turning point builds on the previous one. For open or replayable play, test whether anchor moments, recurring characters, dialogue, and flexible scene order keep the emotional progression legible.
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