Playing horror : narrative and genre in Valve's Left 4 Dead Series

2013

The place of story and narrative in digital games has been a hotly contested topic within the field of Game Studies during the past two decades. Beyond the question of whether games can or should be used for telling stories, research interest has focused on the nature of game narratives and their distinct qualities in comparison to other expressive media, like literature and film. The aim of this thesis is to contribute to this debate by examining the elements involved in storytelling not in digital games overall, but in one particular series, namely Valve Software‘s Left 4 Dead and Left 4 Dead 2. The use of this in-depth case study allows an examination of how various different elements co…