With games shifting into the territories of cinematic and consistent narrative on a level that mimics Hollywood productions, it’s not uncommon to have a moment where all of that immersion is broken by a sudden drop in consistency. A single shot may take out an ally in a cinematic for Gears of War, but after your body has been riddled with them you can simply hide in a corner and then walk it all off. Or, as cited in the article from Michael Abbott of The Brainy Gamer, having one item out of your inventory in Fallout 3 suddenly bring you from a walk to a run.

The suspension of disbelief that comes with games seems to be a fairly important element. Certain pieces of video games lend themselves to bend from the normal rules of the world in order to allow the player into the fantasy. Healing through eating a cheeseburger can certainly break an otherwise realistic experience, and the more work that goes into creating a consistent or realistic universe for you to play in can often lead to more obvious breaks in that reality when those elements of dissonance appear. Abbott’s argument is based on that little issue, and that more games should be interested in increase of dissonance instead of trying to pull into a very frail fragment of reality.

The question presented in his write-up is whether or not the possibility of avoiding dissonance in gaming altogether is a reachable goal. And it seems to be the next logical step, or at least the last unexplored territory for the triple-A title. While gaming graphics and technology continues to take leaps forward, the introduction of strong narrative and consistent worlds are certainly making larger leaps with major studios. The laundry list of massive titles this fall that try to create consistent universes certainly shows that the focus is there, and that progress has been made to draw players into the world. Dead Space is a big success for a strong ludo-narrative unity, as far as my experience went, and is actually one of the most consistent experiences you can have a game currently. Perhaps the technology doesn’t match up to what is realistically attainable, but narrative unity depends more on having the universe work within itself, which it does in this case.

It’s not to say this is the ultimate destiny for gaming in general, and it may not even be the most ideal solution, either. While there certainly is room for improvement in games that are moving in that direction, games that use your ability to suspend disbelief in order to draw you into whatever world is put in front of you is what continues to expand the fantasy of the whole experience. When the games mechanics are on show, the parts that allow us to interact with the gaming world, then we should be able to allow the gameplay to distract from any inconsistencies or moments of dissonance.

There’s a lot of room to discuss this type of issue in games, even in reviews. While it may seem like a petty thing to pick on a game for, having a moment that simply borrows from any other type of game put in a different universe, such as Fallout 3‘s over-encumbered mechanic that magically disappears after you drop a certain number of items, can often turn heads when reality is such a stressed item. Stiff animations from characters delivering potent or powerful lines can simply draw you out and lessen the impact that the developer intended to deliver. Dissonance can certainly be a detriment to a game that wants to draw real emotional experiences.

Like the concept of the “uncanny valley”, there is a point in which the glaring differences between reality and obvious elements of the game can make the player take notice is a very negative way. However, going the opposite way is just as possible. Consistency in a world is what lets the players know their boundaries, what they are capable of, and what to expect from a game. Perhaps it is important to start approaching dissonance as a good thing for certain universes, but we’re starting to see that the ludo-narrative unity is not an impossible dream. It’s happening faster as designers and developers are starting to understand the worlds they are building more and more.