A Functional Perspective on Narrative in Computer Games - Wolf Maul

Macro-impact is similar to micro-impact but involves the perception that the player-
character can change the state of the wider world through action (or inaction) and influence
outcomes of events. In Baldur’s Gate, when I killed the trolls at D’Arness Keep, I found upon
returning later to the area that things had been restored to working state. The inhabitants were
back in the keep, gravestones indicated that the dead had been buried, and there were issues to
deal with on the farms.
Baldur's Gate – Left image: Outdoor scene showing the hanging bodies of the
D’Arness defenders of the occupied Keep; Right image: Upon the player-character’s
return after the Keep’s liberation, a graveyard now stands outside the gates.
Baldur’s Gate provided a few such examples of macro-impact especially related to the
small quests early in the game. One limitation of all of the games, however, was their failure to
provide any real sense that the final outcomes of the main storylines could be changed. The
only way to see the games to the end was to reproduce the pre-determined events. The sense of
macro-impact therefore waned as the game progressed and the focus switched the mail plot.
When context and agency were well balanced, providing adequate granularity and range
along with a sense of the player-character’s micro- and macro-impact on the virtual world, I
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