Possible Worlds in Video Games: From Classic Narrative to Meaningful Actions

Antonio José Planells de la Maza's book argues that video games, despite outperforming film and music in revenue, have been systematically neglected by academic study, and it proposes a theoretical framework for remedying this gap. Drawing on Possible World Theory and the Theory of Fiction, the work conceptualizes video games as "ludofictional worlds" and distinguishes among game design, gameplay, and play. Its analysis is organized around three dimensions: a macrostructural static dimension describing the game as a closed formal system of linked possible worlds, a microstructural dynamic dimension tracking how characters' identities and relationships evolve, and a metaleptic dimension capturing the connection between fictional worlds and the player. The book's central conclusion is that video game worlds are structured around what can happen rather than what is, making the "possible" foundational to game design.

The theoretical groundwork traces possibilist philosophy from Leibniz's rationalism through David Lewis's modal realism, and examines how fiction, with its entities such as Gandalf and Sherlock Holmes, resists the literal transfer of possible-worlds semantics. The book argues that fiction is best understood as ludic, shared pretense operating within a semantic-pragmatic framework, and it distinguishes fiction from narration: fiction is an open-ended, potentially unbounded space, while narration is a stated act producing chronologically ordered stories. Fictional worlds, in this account, are composable yet may be impossible or incomplete, and they are accessed through semiotic channels rather than literal transfer.

Applying these concepts, the book offers a modal taxonomy of primary, secondary, narrative, and extraludofictional possible worlds, illustrated through analyses of titles including Civilization V, Dragon Age: Origins, Alan Wake, Skyrim, Diablo III, and The Movies. Its key contribution is a redefinition of agency and immersion through metalepsis, which it characterizes as limited, anticipated, and multi-layered player intervention. Because the analysis is conceptual rather than empirical, it offers no industry data, but it covers a broad body of games spanning roughly 1980 to 2013.