GDC 2025 - How Narrative Design Aligns Level Design and Art Around Themes & Tone
Talk Summary
In this session, Lauryn Ash (Narrative Director) explores the role of narrative design in game development, emphasizing its importance in bridging the gap between level design, narrative, and art. She will delve into defining the key concepts of Theme and Tone and reframe them as essential game design tools that align the team throughout the development process. We’ll explore the challenges of team dynamics, when disciplines say the same word but mean completely different things, walk through specific games (Far Cry 5, Star Child, and Fallout 4) to understand what and how theme and tone can help us all create engaging and cohesive level design.
Lauryn's Post-Mortem
One of my favorite aspects of storytelling in games is the insane collaboration of multiple departments that must come together to tell an effective story. When giving this hour long talk, many people described it as “tip of the iceberg” in how to effectively communicate narrative direction alongside empowering level designers and art to tell their own stories in their work.
The more I make games, the more I realize the best time invested is the time invested in the people around you.
I hope listening to this talk, which does heavily focus on post-apocolyptic narratives, inspires those in all game genres to take ideas from all sides.