A really fantastic and thoughtful piece. The line where you said “ your actions give the narrative life, if you do nothing, the story ceases to exist” really describes these types of game in a nutshell, which is a hard thing to do.

I found Gone Home fascinating, and I think the connections between it and Bioshock leave a lot of open ended questions about the future of these types of games. If something as action packed and AAA as Bioshock can be its closest relative then does action and combat truly hamper an exploratory experience? How far can we push the experience indeed.

Love a piece that leaves me thinking this much!