“In VR, how do you empathize with characters you can’t see (because you are them)?”

The first thing that came to my mind when reading this is the Half-Life video game series by Valve. It was one of the first successful games to truly put you strictly in a first-person perspective that never broke into a 3rd-person cutscene to progress the story. You wake up on a train, the morning PA announcements and coworkers provide context, but all decisions are made by you. You’re on rails, of course, as the story only progresses as you figure out the puzzle of the situation you’re currently in.

This gets right to your point of questioning whether VR is a useful addition to this game-based storytelling mode, with a limited scope of agency. Is a higher sense of presence accomplished with better graphics? The Black Mesa fan-edit has been going on for years updating it from 90’s era polygons to modern bump shading — not every game has had that kind of dedication. Is VR the next step?

I think the dedication to updating the graphics comes from the emotional depth of the experience, and may not be the best way to enhance it. The depth of experience comes not just from never breaking the fourth wall, but also from interactions with other characters in a shared unfamiliar setting.

In the beginning you find the other characters know you deeply as they speak to you and ask for your help, and you as the silent player step into these relationships as you respond in action. Empathy develops because of the loyalty they show towards you, though (or perhaps because) you as the player have done nothing to deserve it.

Very quickly everything gets turned upside down and nobody knows what’s going on, and any inferiority you may have felt at the beginning not knowing anything about this world is quickly erased as all the characters work together to discover a solution to a common unknown, piece by piece, in which you play an active part.

Does this type of storytelling, where you have other characters display pre-existing close relationships and mutually participate in a problem-solving activity, need VR? Is an unfolding experience just as immersive in 90’s era polygons, text adventure, or radio drama?

A sense of place is created by blocking out the place you currently inhabit and replacing it with the sensory clues of another. We cut the lights in the theatre and only illuminate the set stage, or shove our faces in a dark box with images inside. We close our eyes and use our imagination, or keep them open and play “make believe” with dialogue and action to convince ourselves and others that what we do made a difference in that space. Our reality, virtual or not, is created as we get feedback that some entity or event is real. It starts to sound like spirituality and religion — no wonder you are leaning toward shamanistic storytelling.

Good use of any medium to develop presence will come from being surrounded by highly contextual clues from this other place, and interaction between the player and other elements that depends on that place heavily. VR headsets are just the latest interactive way of blocking out what currently surrounds us so we can focus on these sensory clues.